What’s the difference!

The word oligarch derives from early 17th century: from Greek oligarkhēs, from oligoi few + arkhein to rule.  It is frequently acquainted with “a very rich business leader with a great deal of political influence”.  On the eve of the inauguration of the next president of the United States of America, the prospect of an oligarchical rule is far from unimaginable.  As such there are those who delight in deriding the upcoming government much in the way portrayed in the featured image. H. L. Mencken gave little credit to democracy (a subject which lately has been a theme of current American affairs).

As a scholar, Mencken is known for The American Language, a multi-volume study of how the English language is spoken in the United States. As an admirer of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, he was an outspoken opponent of organized religion, theism, censorship, populism, and representative democracy, the last of which he viewed as a system in which inferior men dominated their superiors. Mencken was a supporter of scientific progress and was critical of osteopathy and chiropractic. He was also an open critic of economics.

Contrasting Mencken’s seemingly trite condemnation of democracy is the far more detailed scrutiny of such as Ludwig von Mises who in my opinion is decidedly Republican.

One of the most notable economists and social philosophers of the twentieth century, Ludwig von Mises, in the course of a long and highly productive life, developed an integrated, deduct­ive science of economics based on the fundamental axiom that in­dividual human beings act purposively to achieve desired goals. Even though his economic analysis itself was “value-free” — in the sense of being irrelevant to values held by economists — Mises concluded that the only viable economic policy for the human race was a policy of unrestricted laissez-faire, of free markets and the unhampered exercise of the right of private property, with government strictly limited to the defense of person and property within its territorial area.

Ludwig von Mises

Within the scope of Mencken and Mises lies an innumerable variety of opinion and postulations.  Without being completely trite, it is my perspective on the whole that there are valuable instructions to be discerned throughout the panorama of thought.  For example, addressing the matter of oligarchy, I am obliged to observe that having eminently successful business people leading the pack cannot be all bad. I do however acknowledge that they too suffer restriction to their evident purity; namely, like Henry Ford, the rich often survive upon the literal strength of an assembly line.  That is, uniformity and repetitiveness can translate to power and production. Within that context there is little attraction for deviation from the working standard; the rails are literally immutable.  This is so even when, as stated by Henry Ford, he wished to make a car affordable by the people whom he employed.

Ford astonished the world in 1914 by offering a $5 daily wage ($152 in 2023), which more than doubled the rate of most of his workers. A Cleveland, Ohio, newspaper editorialized that the announcement “shot like a blinding rocket through the dark clouds of the present industrial depression”. The move proved extremely profitable; instead of constant employee turnover, the best mechanics in Detroit flocked to Ford, bringing their human capital and expertise, raising productivity, and lowering training costs.  Ford announced his $5-per-day program on January 5, 1914, raising the minimum daily pay from $2.34 to $5 for qualifying male workers.

Ford, in spite of his vast success, was not without his frailties.  He too was at times misguided whether wittingly or not. But the point remains that having knowledgeable business people at the helm is not to be dismissed outright. The fact that those leaders are on the bridge, looking forward, guiding the passage in the best way they know how (notwithstanding the impurities which attain in any circumstances) does not limit the duty and performance of those in the background from pressing for their own objectives.  The plain truth is that no matter who is chosen to direct the government, not one of them is perfect.

As much as we are inclined to attribute to our leaders a sweeping breadth of altruism and propriety, we are nothing short of foolish to imagine that they shall follow that narrow pathway. There remain however ways in which to attract the best of human capital; among those patterns is assessment of historic credentials in the private sphere.

While it may suit the unlearned or shallow candidate to practice the art of embarrassment and deceit to obtain his or her objective, detraction from the core focus is a web of confusion for the electorate. I don’t suspect for a moment that the Roman Senators in ancient times were entirely free of prejudice from some angle. But they had the benefit of training for the cause, certainly more so than many of the so-called plebeians whom they were tasked to represent.

But the final reality is that it behooves the electorate to acknowledge the inherent constraints on everyone in the mix. Making fun of the way an elderly person walks or dances is hardly sufficient reason to adulterate their decades of learning and experience. Nor is it determinative that someone is narcissistic. Psychological barriers are not selective. I say this not to admire the disease or affliction whatever it may be; rather to accept the overall lack of difference between one or the other.  In the end all of them – and all of us – are subject to unaccountable limitations which affect our performance. To imagine we make ourselves taller by standing on another is purely preposterous.