"The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living. ... The new aristocracy was made up for the most part of bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organizers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, journalists, and professional politicians. ... There are only four ways in which a ruling group can fall from power. Either it is conquered from without, or it governs so inefficiently that the masses are stirred to revolt, or it allows a strong and discontented Middle group to come into being, or it loses its own self-confidence and willingness to govern."The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism Emmanuel Goldstein
Oligarchy - Variants
Kleptocracy
There has long been a scholarly consensus that corruption and inequality are closely interrelated. The two phenomena interact in a vicious cycle: corruption leads to an unequal distribution of power in society which, in turn, translates into an unequal distribution of wealth and opportunity.
Modern writers add kleptocracy, the term used when officials steal from their own governments at the expense of their citizens. In kleptocratic settings, corruption is at the heart of the problem and not chiefly a symptom of it. In kleptocracies, risk is nationalized and rewards are privatized. Participation in the spoils of kleptocracies is organized and controlled by top political elites, who raid state resources with immunity and impunity. This term might be applied to Angola, Azerbaijan, Philippines, Russia, Ukraine and Zaire.
The scourge of corruption is typically viewed as a symptom of a larger institutional problem. All countries, to one degree or another, suffer from corruption. Systems in which independent media, civil society, courts, and political opposition are weak or marginalized are particularly vulnerable because they do not possess the needed accountability and transparency to prevent corrupt practices from taking root. In kleptocracies, however, the challenge is much more acute.
In kleptocracies, the instruments of the state are directed to shielding and enabling the corrupt activities of dominant power holders. Corruption is the lifeblood of these systems, like the one in present day Russia, and the glue for regime survival. Therefore, in kleptocratic systems where the stakes for power are all or nothing, whistleblowers who seek to expose corrupt practices themselves routinely become targets of law enforcement; investigative journalists and oppositionists become enemies of the state; and independent businesses are brought to heel in order to preserve the kleptocratic order.
Kleptocrats exploit the benefits of globalization to enrich themselves, hollow out their own countries’ institutions, and subvert the democracies. With the help of Western enablers, a foreign kleptocrat transform the ownership of a questionable fortune, earned in an unstable country where jail is often one court decision away, into a respected philanthropist who can be photographed alongside celebrated international figures and media stars.
Carl Gershman, President of the National Endowment for Democracy, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee June 30, 2016 "Well-resourced kleptocracies ... project their sophisticated corrupt practices beyond national borders with an ever- increasing impact felt in new and established democracies alike. Kleptocracy has emerged a serious global threat. Parasitic at home, abroad kleptocratic regimes by their nature seek to exploit the vulnerabilities in the institutions of individual democratic states, as well as regional and global rules-based institutions."
An influential 2014 report by Oxfam, titled Working for the Few summarises the main point: “Extreme economic inequality and political capture are too often interdependent. Left unchecked, political institutions become undermined and governments overwhelmingly serve the interests of economic elites to the detriment of ordinary people.” In other words, corruption can flourish when elites control the levers of power without any accountability.
Colonialism
Colonialism (imperialism) is a system of government control by one country over people in another country. This is done by establishing colonies or controlling the trade of the other country. By the 1900s, many European countries, including Britain, France, Germany and Holland, had imperial possessions (empires). Britain and Germany were earlier colonial governments in PNG. Later, Australia governed as a representative of Britain. Although most countries in the world are politically independent, some remain economically dependent on the developed countries.
Meritocracy
Meritocracy refers to a governmental or other administrative system wherein appointments and responsibilities are assigned to individuals based on their merits, which are determined through objective evaluations or examinations. Merit can be earned by either intellectual or manual labor, as each person has his or her own talents. Nevertheless, there is no absolute definition of merit because both intelligence and skill are relative. No system is really entirely meritocratic, though meritocracies may be fairer and more efficient than some alternatives.
Individuals can, theoretically, reach any goal in a meritocratic system. Indeed, merit should be the basis on which resources are allocated. This said, personal beliefs, bureaucratic complications, national regulations, and other human characteristics obscure the obvious superiority of this approach. Members of groups, including societies, often support and follow an individual who adheres to the group’s norms rather than one who may be more deserving of such loyalty but who does not adhere to the shared rules.
Individuals in a meritocratic system feel valued, believe their abilities are recognised, and have incentives to improve their professional performance. In such a context, individuals experience their environment as fair and feel more confident about themselves, others, and their work. Individuals working under such conditions are very likely to have higher levels of motivation, engage in more collaborative behaviour, show greater flexibility and experience enhanced well being compared with those operating in a system that is perceived as not based on merit.
High-stakes, standardised testing has become ubiquitous in advancing an ideology of meritocracy, but it can fundamentally mask structural inequalities related to race and economic class. In the United States, IQ became conceived of as hereditary and fixed, laying the groundwork to use standardised testing to justify the sorting and ranking of different people by race, ethnicity, gender, and class according to supposedly inborn, biologically innate intelligence. Standardised testing in the United States was viewed as providing a completely objective and value free measurement of human intellect.
Early creators of the SAT exam, a test often used for entrance into U.S. universities, saw this as a way to challenge entrenched class privileges that gave the rich advantages in attaining higher education. The logic being that a test that objectively measured individuals would give everyone a fair and equal chance at getting to college according to their individual hard work and merit.
The sudden appearance in tenth century China of a meritocratic culture dramatically transformed Chinese elite society and constituted the ideological foundation of China's famous civil service exams. The accompanying cultural shift — from an “aristocratic” ethos to a “meritocratic” ethos — was in large measure as a product of the rampant migration of the era.
A meritocracy is a system in which the people who are the luckiest in their health and genetic endowment; luckiest in terms of family support, encouragement, and, probably, income; luckiest in their educational and career opportunities; and luckiest in so many other ways difficult to enumerate--these are the folks who reap the largest rewards. The only way for even a putative meritocracy to hope to pass ethical muster, to be considered fair, is if those who are the luckiest in all of those respects also have the greatest responsibility to work hard, to contribute to the betterment of the world, and to share their luck with others.
As the Gospel of Luke says: "From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded" (Luke 12:48, New Revised Standard Version Bible).
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