patrick.net

Thanks @Al_Sharpton_for_President

Is there a link that goes with that image?

I think the world can indeed be pretty much understood as a battle between oligarchies.

Patrick says

Is there a link that goes with that image?

Couldn't find it directly. The search function in the source site not too good. https://www.thebalance.com

I found the image by enterring "oligarch countries" using the That Which Shall Be Unamed image search.

CORRECTION: I used DuckDuckGo.

Is the USA an oligarchy? A few affirmative links below. But look at evidence consistent with this view:

Ted Kennedy, Hunter Biden, Hillary Clinton, Epstein's clients - no jail for them.

The Wall Street banks - bailouts for them, but not for the unwashed masses.

Electing a president who rallies the people - he will be taken down by the MSM, social media, Congress and even via rigged elections.

Accelerating wealth disparity enabled by the Fed.

Loss of labor's share of wealth.

Etc, etc.....

Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy.
The US is dominated by a rich and powerful elite.
So concludes a recent study by Princeton University Prof Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Prof Benjamin I Page.
This is not news, you say.
Perhaps, but the two professors have conducted exhaustive research to try to present data-driven support for this conclusion. Here's how they explain it:
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746?source=patrick.net

The United States of America is now a classic oligarchy - NOT A REPUBLIC.
The clarity that it has brought to our situation by recognizing this fact is its only virtue . .
https://wethepeopleconvention.org/articles/America-Oligarchy?source=patrick.net

I prefer "Dismantleocracy". Every shred of everything they do is calculated to undermine and destroy the country.

Al_Sharpton_for_President says

Viewing countries to be run by what are essentially select crime families, the strategies used to remain in power - dividing the populace by race, unleashing pathogens and toxic "cures", controllng the media, implementation of correct think censorship, ensuring the right candidates who play ball are elected, enraging the citzenry to fight rival oligarchies, etc. - may seem to make sense.

Exactly right. And Human Rights/Intnl Law are bullshit.

Right now they are like "Putin FORCED employers to make their employees go to rally."

Oh? Wasn't CRT and Vaccines FORCED on all Government Workers and Contractors by Biden?

And "Whataboutery" claims= bullshit. It's a danger to our liberty and our Oligarchy's Hypocrisy. Whataboutery is "Lookit what happened a long time ago." This shit literally happened last year.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/15/oligarchy-lessons-ancient-greece?source=patrick.net

How the oligarchy wins: lessons from ancient Greece

... Appropriately for a scholar of the classics, Simonton focuses on these specific ancient practices in detail. But his key insight is that elites in power need solidarity if they are to stay in power. Unity might come from personal relationships, trust, voting practices, or – as is more likely in today’s meritocratic era – homogeneity in culture and values from running in the same limited circles.

The ruling class must remain united for an oligarchy to remain in power
While the ruling class must remain united for an oligarchy to remain in power, the people must also be divided so they cannot overthrow their oppressors. Oligarchs in ancient Greece thus used a combination of coercion and co-optation to keep democracy at bay. They gave rewards to informants and found pliable citizens to take positions in the government.

These collaborators legitimized the regime and gave oligarchs beachheads into the people. In addition, oligarchs controlled public spaces and livelihoods to prevent the people from organizing. They would expel people from town squares: a diffuse population in the countryside would be unable to protest and overthrow government as effectively as a concentrated group in the city.

They also tried to keep ordinary people dependent on individual oligarchs for their economic survival, similar to how mob bosses in the movies have paternalistic relationships in their neighborhoods. Reading Simonton’s account, it is hard not to think about how the fragmentation of our media platforms is a modern instantiation of dividing the public sphere, or how employees and workers are sometimes chilled from speaking out.

The most interesting discussion is how ancient oligarchs used information to preserve their regime. They combined secrecy in governance with selective messaging to targeted audiences, not unlike our modern spinmasters and communications consultants. They projected power through rituals and processions. ...

Winters argues that the key to oligarchy is that a set of elites have enough material resources to spend on securing their status and interests. He calls this “wealth defense”, and divides it into two categories. “Property defense” involves protecting existing property – in the old days, this meant building castles and walls, today it involves the rule of law. “Income defense” is about protecting earnings; these days, that means advocating for low taxes.

The challenge in seeing how oligarchy works, Winters says, is that we don’t normally think about the realms of politics and economics as fused together. At its core, oligarchy involves concentrating economic power and using it for political purposes. Democracy is vulnerable to oligarchy because democrats focus so much on guaranteeing political equality that they overlook the indirect threat that emerges from economic inequality.

Winters argues that there are four kinds of oligarchies, each of which pursues wealth defense through different institutions. These oligarchies are categorized based on whether the oligarchs rule is personal or collective, and whether the oligarchs use coercion.

Warring oligarchies, like warlords, are personal and armed. Ruling oligarchies like the mafia are collective and armed. In the category of unarmed oligarchies, sultanistic oligarchies (like Suharto’s Indonesia) are governed through personal connections. In civil oligarchies, governance is collective and enforced through laws, rather than by arms.

Democracy defeated oligarchy in ancient Greece because of 'oligarchic breakdown.'

With this typology behind him, Winters declares that America is already a civil oligarchy. To use the language of recent political campaigns, our oligarchs try to rig the system to defend their wealth. They focus on lowering taxes and on reducing regulations that protect workers and citizens from corporate wrongdoing.

They build a legal system that is skewed to work in their favor, so that their illegal behavior rarely gets punished. And they sustain all of this through a campaign finance and lobbying system that gives them undue influence over policy. In a civil oligarchy, these actions are sustained not at the barrel of the gun or by the word of one man, but through the rule of law.

If oligarchy works because its leaders institutionalize their power through law, media, and political rituals, what is to be done? How can democracy ever gain the upper hand? Winters notes that political power depends on economic power. This suggests that one solution is creating a more economically equal society.

The problem, of course, is that if the oligarchs are in charge, it isn’t clear why they would pass policies that would reduce their wealth and make society more equal. As long as they can keep the people divided, they have little to fear from the occasional pitchfork or protest.

Indeed, some commentators have suggested that the economic equality of the late 20th century was exceptional because two world wars and a Great Depression largely wiped out the holdings of the extremely wealthy. On this story, there isn’t much we can do without a major global catastrophe.

Simonton offers another solution. He argues that democracy defeated oligarchy in ancient Greece because of “oligarchic breakdown”. Oligarchic institutions are subject to rot and collapse, as are any other kind of institution. As the oligarchs’ solidarity and practices start to break down, there is an opportunity for democracy to bring government back to the people.

In that moment, the people might unite for long enough that their protests lead to power. With all the upheaval in today’s politics, it’s hard not to think that this moment is one in which the future of the political system might be more up for grabs than it has been in generations.

The question is whether democracy will emerge from oligarchic breakdown – or whether the oligarchs will just strengthen their grasp on the levers of government.

I think Trump may be an early indicator of oligarchic breakdown. He's very rich, but defected from the Democrats.

how oligarchs win? separate us all, spam us with propaganda via social and traditional channeks. look how brainwashed people on the left are? poor souls know not what they were brainwashed nwashed into

Yes, even the ancient Greek oligarchs used division and propaganda against the public.