A Political Fantasy

[yella_dawg]

Imagine a large nation with a diverse social demographic. Imagine this country has a dominant social group that feels disdain for subordinate groups. These subordinate groups might be defined by economic status, racial distinction, religious affiliation, or perhaps a mixture of these and other factors. It is not necessary that we understand the distinction, only that we understand that such distinctions do arise. But given the diversity of the national demographic, perhaps this imaginary subordinate classes might chafe at class restrictions. Remember, these class distinctions are arbitrary and based on population diversity, not centuries of social suppression that typically define social classes. More troubling, perhaps these underclasses would not meekly accept their lesser social roles. They might insist on demonstrating social and individual value. Should these incompletely subjugated lower classes persist in demonstrating capability, the dominant group might feel pressured to institute stern measures. Measures to insure that inferior classes remained in their social niche.

Imagine that our theoretical dominant class had recently experienced a failed social experiment whereby alcoholic beverages had been deemed unlawful. The more observant members of this class would have noticed a phenomenon founded in economic theory. Theory that states that markets are demand driven. These crafty individual would understand that artificially restricting the supply only increases the selling price, thus inflating profits. So imagine that these observant individuals undertook to make unlawful a recreational substance that, unlike alcohol, was primarily used only by the lower social classes. Clearly such a law would not eliminate the use of such a product, the failed attempt to eliminate alcohol would have proven that. The purpose of such a law would be to provide a useful tool to subjugate those so foolish as to attempt to rise above their station.

Because the law could only work to limit the supply of this hypothetical recreational substance, market forces would rapidly inflate profits from the sale of this substance, due to the risks involved in marketing. It would become an extremely exaggerated "seller's market". Because the law could not influence demand, only supply. It is quite likely that such a skewed market, with it's grossly inflated profits, would eventually result in a situation where the substance laws provided economic power that transcended the law's usefulness as a social tool. Perhaps some farsighted entrepreneurs might have foreseen this outcome. They may have touted the value of the laws only to gain the support of the threatened dominant class in constructing the desired social legislation. Certainly the failed attempt to legislate alcohol demonstrated the vast profits such legislation could generate. As those who benefitted from this law grew in economic might, it is easy to imagine that these aggressive capitalists would work to expand the scope and depth of this social legislation. They would profit from each new substance deemed unacceptable, thus providing a wider market. They would support increased legal penalties and enforcement activities which would further inflate profits as amateur merchants were driven out of business by the more aggressive laws. In the long term, any form of suppression would benefit those who derived profit from the production, transportation, and marketing of this strongly demanded, yet technically unavailable, class of products. Any risk to our entrepreneurs would be slight, since they would only handle the profits of proscribed transactions, and the loss of members of their sales force would not even be an inconvenience.

So our imaginary state, with it's unsettled social stratification, has developed an unlikely set of social rules that, once matured, serve to both directly subjugate some social classes through incarceration and socially accepted stigmatization, while simultaneously siphoning off significant wealth from those subjugated classes. This would provide significant economic enrichment for those with the foresight to take advantage of a failed social experiment in a time of class-based uneasiness. Such are the joys of the capitalist economic model. Such is the entrepreneurial spirit that drives our fantasy nation.

Still, one could elaborate further on this imaginary political / economic situation. Obviously, social manipulation of such a high order could not occur unless the flow of wealth from the lower classes to the dominant class were concentrated in the hands of a few. Only concentrated economic power, used in cooperation by a limited number of the (possibly new) wealthy, could produce the social control needed to perpetuate such an unbalanced economic environment. Said environment is highly unstable by accepted economic models, and would require the strongest of external pressure to maintain. Such a small group of extremely wealthy individuals, well practiced in cooperative action, might find that overwhelming economic power, with its associated political power, to be useful in other ways. Obviously those who profit purely from "ill gotten gains" would be at risk from unexpected problems in their single market sector. Just as obviously, investing their significant profits in legitimate enterprises would reduce such a risk. Besides reducing risk from unforeseen market (political) fluctuations, a carefully planned, diversified investment approach might have serendipitous advantages. The significant income from control of proscribed substances would be sufficient to acquire a foothold in other market sectors that would support the core business. Investment in financial institutions would facilitate legitimizing currency collected from black market operations. It would also provide a mechanism for transferring large quantities of currency, and so on. A smuggler might wish to have control over land, sea, and air shipping operations. In an extreme version of this fictional sequence of events, our "black marketeers" might even venture into media ownership, to better control the public perceptions required to perpetuate their unstable core business, and to minimize the risk of widespread exposure of their economic activities. But perhaps in the most serendipitous side effect of all, the massive profits from illicit substances would give our merchants the power to heavily influence the financial markets themselves. With patient manipulation, the market could be made into a tool to skim excess wealth from the working and professional classes.

But if we imagine such a concentration of power, yet more possibilities emerge. As the control of illicit profits reaches this stage of maturity, our hypothetical merchants have control over a significant portion of the imaginary nation's economy. At this stage they might no longer regard illicit substances as a core business. The obvious extension to this business empire would be to expand into illegal arms sales, slavery, and other smuggling / black marketeering business sectors. These fantasy merchants would have the needed resources to expand into these areas almost as a natural function of their original core business. If one imagines that they have significant shipping and financial operations, the expansion into other forms of illicit trade might be unavoidable. As the proposed business model matured, the social / economic power of these elite merchants would grow to the point where they could successfully lobby various small governments to provide markets for their products, such as by provoking brush wars and financing radical militia groups. These activities would consume weaponry in quantity. They would create the unstable conditions needed to facilitate slave acquisition. They would create failed economies where more generalized black marketeering could thrive. Were our merchants to acquire the necessary manufacturing operations, they would have complete control of all elements of these new markets, much as they would have had in the illicit substance trade. With their in-house media to manipulate public opinion, with their manufacturing operations to produce weaponry, medicines, etc., with their financial operations to manage the transactions, these entrepreneurs could effectively create their own markets to extract wealth from almost any target population.

Our crafty merchants have blithely captured the most profitable illicit markets, they have extended their control of legitimate markets to the extent that such control is useful or profitable, and they have taken control of both legitimate and illegitimate sectors of the weapons and similar markets. Logically, their next high-profit target would almost certainly be energy production and distribution.

At this point, our outrageous merchants are clearly seen as legitimate captains of industry. They surely control illicit trade, as they ever did, but increasingly, their wealth is derived from more legitimate sources. They may remain in shadows from habit. They surely mask their illegitimate operations from public view. But they may also appear in the halls of power with impunity and in honor. The power is theirs. But to control energy as they control their original markets, they must have influence not just in our fantasy nation, but in the larger world. Many interests are involved in a worldwide industry, particularly one as important as energy. The relatively limited efforts needed to secure the illicit markets would not be successful in the larger marketplace. Outright purchase of an energy monopoly would not yield the profit levels desired. The energy market would have to be wrested from those in control using force and guile. Such force would require the resources of a nation, or risk depleting the strength of the economic combine.

Securing absolute control of the resources of our fantasy nation would be the most ambitious undertaking of our merchants so far. Yet already there is the foundation for such a takeover in place. Our merchants have influenced the laws of the nation for decades. They own the media that has overwhelming influence on the citizenry. They have massive influence in the halls of power. It is merely a matter of carefully using those resources to slowly, quietly, take over the remaining reins of state. And our merchants are accustomed to working slowly, over decades, to accomplish their goals. So taking control of the energy market might simply be a matter of carefully placing increasing numbers of loyal agents in the bureaucracies, in the judiciary, in the legislature, and eventually in the executive offices of our imaginary government.

They might use a bit of skullduggery, and their media resources, to elect a passive and foolish President who was incapable of disrupting or even questioning their initial programs of subversion. Such a President would smile and wave for the media cameras while our merchants insinuated operatives into the judiciary and into the bureaucracy. This President would bluffly entertain the masses while the merchants used his administration as a training course for future takeover of the executive branch. Such a President would be able to charm the populace, but would be too weak and naïve to suspect his underlings of being minions of the merchants. And of course, a period of history with no hand upon the tiller would be an opportune time for the merchants to reinforce and expand their less than legitimate operations, giving such operations a form of legitimacy borne of their massive scope and reach.

The merchants might develop armies of shills to attack, demoralize, and disgrace any opposition. They could energize massive resources to defraud elections, thus placing their (possibly unwitting) agents in the legislature and other positions of authority. As their position became increasingly secure, they might even resort to the most outrageous means to finalize their conquest, counting on their power base and media control to legitimize even the most obvious tactics to subvert the legitimate government of our imaginary state. Eventually, using covert agents, intimidation, and bribery, all meaningful opposition could be silenced. The citizenry could be mislead. Citizens who cried foul could be diverted into focusing on almost laughably outrageous activities perpetrated by puppets installed in the seats of power. While the power behind the throne leads our fantasy nation to the merchants next goal. With the power of an economically and militarily strong nation, opposing governments could be threatened into silence, infiltrated by minions, or have their cooperation purchased for cash or favor. The way would be open to snatch the energy resources of the world.

Given such power, the merchants could gather, not the oil operations, those could be bought outright if deemed necessary, but they would gather the sources, the production capability, of the worlds energy. With absolute control, the merchants could then manage the world energy supply much as the law enabled them to manage the recreational substance supply in the beginning. The profit level would be set wherever the merchants believed would be most effective in extracting the remaining wealth from a world.



The moral of this story, of course, is "Just say no to drug laws."

[tom_paine]

1. Nice piece, yella_dawg

I have always said that the "War on Drugs" will be used as the prybar with which the Busheviks (perhaps during the reign of Emperor Jeb, perhaps sooner) break and enter into the homes of thousands on their Enemies List, and round them up.