Are we getting the government we deserve?

Giovanni Dannato writes at Forward Base B about the ruling class, and why changing our rulers does not change our society. He says the ruling class has three priorities. The first is to keep themselves in power. The second is to keep society going, so they have something to rule over. The third is to deal with competition from other rulers.

He points out that the American Revolution was started by the ruling class.

Guys like Washington and Jefferson weren’t well-paid slaves, they were aristocrats. They already had the experience, broad education, and mentality of mastery required to actually run a place.

...Fractured into 13 weak governments, surrounded by hostile Indian nations, all the European nations circling like sharks, faced with internal revolts such as the Whiskey Rebellion and Shays’ Rebellion, with no clear center of government or finance…

They faced all the classic problems that confront yuppie revolutionaries but with their wider wisdom avoided, or at least managed to mitigate the damage of making the same mistakes.
Already aristocrats of their local regions, they were within a couple decades able to figure out what needed to be done to establish a viable state.

...The USA discovered the hard way that Saddam actually governed Iraq pretty much as it ought to be governed to hold it together as one state.

If we tried to govern through softer methods when violence is more effective, someone would soon come along with no compunctions and quickly depose us.

If a population is smart, conscientious, and organized, the ruler has to drastically change his strategy to stay in power. He encourages a relatively affluent society instead of a brutal kleptocracy not out the goodness of his heart—sentimental rulers don’t stay alive very long—but because it is more beneficial to him to have a stable, wealthy society that keeps most people content.

...The problem with revolutionaries is they try to change a people by changing the government. The key to any real change is not the rulers, but the composition of a population.

Read more here.