Rise of the Right

I am not a historian. As a layman, here are my views on the worldwide rise of the right presented for comments by those who have a better perspective of history:

Humans have a need and tendency to organise themselves into larger and larger groups. These have to be hierarchical as is evident from the very fact that the word anarchy has come to mean the opposite of organisation.  Hierarchy implies graduated disparity of power which becomes immense between the top and the bottom.  Also power essentially means the capacity to do harm or good.  This is because the highest coercive powers as well as the treasury belong to the topmost level.

Thus for continued existence of the group and to alleviate suffering that such concentration of coercive powers may bring about in people at the top, a group needs checks and balances.  This may be done by a spiritual guru or a council of ministers.  These may have gradually weakened over time and ceased to be effective. Their breakdown led to revolutions that replaced monarchies with democracies in which people themselves could directly exercise a measure of control over the rulers in the top echelon.

Then came along the Indutrial Revolution. It once again disturbed the rather unstable equilibrium that had been attained.  Mass production of goods at affordable prices brought about unprecedented wealth.  But most of it was concentrated in the hands of owners of factories with only minimal amounts trickling down to the large workforce.  This unprecedented accumulated wealth in the hands of a few has given them the power to manipulate the masses and the democratic process itself.  This is done in collusion with callous politicians and / or religious heads who never before had the support of such power ever before simply because such wealth never earlier existed in the history of mankind. And it has become possible for them to abuse this power because unfortunately the collective wisdom of humans has not grown proportionately to be able to withstand the temptations and threats posed to them through this money power.

And this seems to be the reason behind the tempestuous growth of right wing politics all over the world.

The Strange Story of An Emperor

This is the story of an emperor who, as behoves an emperor, had a vast army of servants (AOS.)  The emperor was earlier subjugated by another power and this subjugation lasted a long time.  This alien power created a new AOS and gradually turned it into spies and tormentors.  This AOS helped the aliens in draining the gigantic treasury of the emperor.

This AOS persisted in its ways even after the Emperor somehow manged to wiggle out of alien's subjugation.  The struggle left the Emperor quite weak and this helped the AOS in their nefarious designs.  Some of the emperor's own people who were clever enough to conserve their energy for later took quick steps to occupy the alien's positions saying that the order and structure must be preserved.  The collusion that earlier existed between the aliens and the AOS was restored between these clever people and the AOS.  These clever people called themselves Netas and so we will call them Ns.  As the euphoria of casting off subjugation wore off, the emperor started getting restless and irritable.  To placate him, he was told that that Ns will rule in his name and he will have the right to periodically choose new Ns if he was not happy with the current set.  After all, he was a free emperor now.

The emperor had by now been pushed out of the inner sanctums of his palace.  He could often be seen loitering in the gardens with despair writ large on his face.  Ns and AOS were quietly slipping into spaces that were part of the sanctum sanctorum.

Nimble Ns, existing and aspiring, were quick to form a closed group and make it difficult for newcomers to break into their fold.  The ongoing loot of the treasury nurtured them financially and helped them in this venture.  At the same time they subdivided themselves into groups to keep the emperor from feeling that he was left without a choice.

The emperor took time but ultimately saw through this game.  With great efforts he succeeded into smuggling one of his own people into the closed group of Ns with a mandate to restore emperor's supremacy.  This chap advocated that important decisions be taken by the emperor himself instead of the vast hierarchy of his AOS.  As he opposed the organized hierarchy, Ns were quick to label him as anarchist and they made anarchist sound like Antichrist.

However, looking to the fact that this new chap, let us call him NC, was too close to the emperor, the closed group of Ns brought forward the best of them who acknowledged the damage done to the kingdom by all the other subgroups and promised to undo all of this.  The Emperor was persuaded into appointing him the head N, the servant-in-chief.  He sincerely hoped that the existing hierarchy will be reformed and made responsive to the emperor by this very different N.

The emperor started to feel frustrated as he didn't find any real change in the whole scheme of things.  The new N, a strong advocate of hierarchy, is now seen to be advocating that emperor directly question any member of AOS who may have caused him a grievance.  He says that no one above or below the grievance causing member of AOS is to be questioned.  After all each one of them, right up to new N, has been appointed in the name of the emperor only.

When everyone is responsible for himself only, this seems akin to a state of anarchy that was so ridiculed and condemned by the new N.  This confused the emperor.  The confusion notwithstanding, he asked NC to follow this advice.  However when the NC tried doing so with some of the departments in the section entrusted to him, he was told by the offenders that they were not responsible to him!

Now, dear readers, do we have anarchy or don't have it?  And if we have it who is its champion? How can the emperor salvage his position? An INR (67 to an USD) for your thoughts.