Economic power and political and social power
have been riding together all along History. Dominant classes in each age have controlled
society. So, ancient monarchs kept power aboveboard, legitimized through divine
will. When capitalist system started to be mature, burgesses made their own
revolutions in order to take off the political power (they had already got
economical power enough) from aristocracy´s hands. Capitalist class has no
divine legitimization option, so that a complex ideology was developed: the Enlightenment.
In general, it is defined as “an elite cultural movement of
intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought
to mobilize the power of reason in order to
reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and
opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state”. But, in fact, Enlightenment principles
were used to build and legitimize the new capitalist order.
The age of reason proclaimed equality and freedom
for all the human beings. It developed citizenship concept as new way to consider
people of every social level. In this way, everyone would have the same rights
and duties. It was defined a new state based on reason power, in other words,
based on Law. To sum up, the democratic order was being built, or if you want,
the constitutional state.
It seems that this new order was going to develop
some kind of a middle class, worker class or, in the best dreams, interclass power,
but reality was far from that. As everybody knows, building theories is very different from
building things. The fact is that in 19th century, after many
comings and goings, things were already very clear: aristocracy and capitalist
class had come to an agreement. Obviously, both them had the same (or very
close) economic interests. At last, democratic order and citizenship principles
were tools to make another unequal, unfair and predatory order. Aristocracy
accepted the loss of political power as the lesser harm and they saved the
ship.
Apparently, new order was built, as John Locke
had suggested, based on separation of powers, individual rights and property
respect. Think just a second about what separation of powers really means. In theory, “the state is divided
into branches, each with separate and independent powers and areas of
responsibility so that no one branch has more power than the other branches.
The normal division of branches is into an
executive, a legislature, and a judiciary.”
In fact, legislature and executive represented
only a range of people, which was the people that control the economy. The
thing is that, at last, the new order is very close to the ancient order. Who
did control the political power? Those who controlled the economical power.
And finally, we have arrived to 20th
century. During the First World War, Russia became the USSR. The Marxist parties
and trade unions, which were working in Europe and in the USA felt his moment
was near. A new order (again) was possible. Even more, they could count with the help of
soviet friends who were eager to export their revolution. This time power should
belong to workers, following Marx advice: take the economy, and then the world will be changed (to be polite with Marx, take means of production and relations of production will be changed).
Capitalist class had to admit the participation
of reds in political game with democratic fair play in order to avoid revolutionary
temptations. Again, dominant class accepted the loss of political power as the
lesser harm and they saved the ship. We have to understand this new state of
things as a sort of reform of capitalist order which began to make considerable
changes in society and political practice: the so called welfare state. A welfare
state is a "concept of
government in which the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion
of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the
principles of equality of
opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public
responsibility for those unable to avail themselves of the minimal provisions
for a good life.” In other words, school and health services free, social security,
retirement pensions and all those nice things we enjoy for the moment. Europe
is the paradigm of this model where it seems to be really separate, at least in
a portion, economical power from political power, it does seem to be.
Nowadays, capitalism has
suffered another big change. This time, the revolution doesn´t come from social
tensions. This time, the own development of the system, plus a great technical invent,
the IT, has produced, as a result, the current global capitalism. Furthermore, meanwhile
it was being cooking, another important fact has happened. In 1989 Berlin wall
fell down and it swept the entire soviet system. Capitalism has no opponent and it become the only economy order in the whole world - There is nothing to be afraid - said Mr. Fortune.
Well, capitalism rides
around the world with no rules or legal control. Financial deals and business
play their game in the global monopoly with no restrictions. And, what is more
important, a few enterprises control the big piece of the cake of global
economy. This is the key to understand the present crisis. This unequal, unfair and predatory
order is controlled by financial architects who are interested in making money
only.
In this context, we have
to conclude that dominant class never lost political power. They only handed
over a little in order to avoid a revolutionary threat. Welfare state, could be an illusion,
after all. And the crisis is used as a big excuse to destroy it. Perhaps now
this Welfare state could be the threat, or perhaps not. In this last case, I am paranoid and this is another conspiracy
theory.
