3/ FROM THAT DUST, THIS MUD

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 19^th 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 20^th 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.