Government For the Few

There was a brief period in European and American politics, when the governors believed, at least, that they were working for the good of all. In the US, this spanned from the Progressive era to the Great Society.

The end, and the ultimate failure, of the Great Society was the result of imperial hubris: the quagmire of Vietnam. It made the trend toward social democracy unaffordable, while enriching and empowering a few. Many of the new rich financed the counterrevolution against "welfare as we know it," and highly progressive income taxes, and, well, the whole Progressive to Liberal to social democratic tendencies in governance, i.e. government that aids the many who need help, not the few who are privileged enough already.

There were similar movements of reform and social democracy in most of Europe in this same period: some earlier, some later.

But that era is past; it was a short interlude between the thousands of years when governments naturally existed to benefit the very few at the expense, or misery, of the many. The Roman Empire was no egalitarian paradise, certainly. From start to finish, it depended on the labor of slaves, who probably made up well over half the population. Slaves had to be continually replaced. Bad ones sent to galleys and mines only lasted a few years. Even good slaves would have to be replaced after 40 years of service.

Even the vaunted Athenian Democracy, of course, depended on slaves.

Where do slaves come from? Conquest. This was even true of African slavery in the Americas. Europeans conquered Africa first by taking advantage of the absence of effective states (ones that controlled their territories), and the multiplicity of potential allies, as well as enemies. Europeans did, ultimately take over, i.e. conquer most of Africa, no longer to sell slaves, but because they had penetrated the continent in order to buy them, in the first place.

When Rome began to lose territory, instead of conquering new lands, the supply of slaves became more erratic. There were floods of them when an invading barbarian army was defeated, but many more were carried off by successful barbarian raids and wars, and then sold back to the slave-hungry Romans. Attila did that after all his successful campaigns of pillage, rape and slaughter. Slaves were the most valuable spoil of all.

What does this have to do with today? Today's Roman Senators are the billionaires who finance and inspire all the attempts to roll back or abolish all the reforms and programs benefiting the many. Even though they, the one-percent, the .001 percent, have prospered beyond even the imaginings of Hollywood sycophants, they want more, much more. Where can the predators turn now, since government has already given them so many favorable contracts, and breaks in taxes like the hedge funders' "carried interest" clause?

Let's raid Social Security and Medicare! they chorus.

They are more like Attila than they know!

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