Planet and PEOPLE

What is the ‘Establishment’? It is a general erm for the ‘ruling classes’, those who hold power in the UK.   I don’t know if the term is used elsewhere.    For centuries it hardly needed a label.  Society was hierarchical, the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate.   The king, then the aristocracy, then the merchants, then the tradesmen, then the ‘free’ peasants, the ‘yeoman farmers’, and at the bottom, the landless labourers.   People might object, even rebel, but it was just the way it was.

This hierarchy had gradually emerged from a kindred-based, ‘tribal’ society where extended families looked out for their members and fought or made alliances with others.   Within these extended kindreds particular families would be identified as having different skills.  They might be healing, or spiritual power, or military leadership.

Within these, individual siblings or other close relatives  might struggle for power – chiefs would be chosen by the group as a whole rather than eldest son following eldest son, and of course marriage and fosterage alliances would be made that tied ruling families with those with similar status in other tribes.   They could also of course fight each other.   in due course warlord kings emerged who might rule over several tribes or peoples.  Early historic kingdoms of the 5th to 10th centuries were generally multicultural.    Where one conquered another,  a social structure would likely develop where there was a ruling cultural / linguistic group and a subservient one.   It is a mistake to assume that Anglo-Saxon kingdoms contained only Anglo-Saxons.   

Feudalism was a formalised system that shifted the focus from people to the land and resources.  In Britain it was implemented by the Normans following their conquest from 1066. The idea was that the people as a whole, seeking a just and fair distribution of resources, would give up all to a king who would then redistribute it.   The king would offer justice and protection to his subjects.   In return for giving up their land, and agreeing to serve the king, people needed protection from hunger, thirst, disease, accidents, attacks by other people or animals, injustice, acts of God.   In return for receiving it the king took responsibility for delivering these things.   To do so he required the people’s help:  specifically, ‘a man to plough, a man to fight, a man to pray’.  And of course by ‘man’ it was assumed that men and women actually fulfilled these roles in partnership.   All three functions were equally important but in practice, the man to fight came out on top, followed by the man to pray, and then the ploughman.  There were also slaves, or later landless serfs and travellers who had no real part in this reciprocity and just did as they were told; but for most, it was a contract:  if the king failed to deliver these things, the subjects could overthrow him.   The king would grant land out to his followers in return for services rendered (he could take it back too).   Military leaders first – tenants in chief – would receive large amounts of land and be expected to provide trained and equipped military resources – knights, or in some cases crewed fighting ships.  These were the aristocrats’ primary subtenants, the landed gentry.  They in turn would let land to farmers – who might own slaves or engage landless labourers.   At all levels, everyone was expected within their capacity to provide help with fighting (physical protection), praying (spiritual protection) and ploughing (protection from hunger); and in turn to receive support if needed.   At each level, some land would be retained and let to farmers, and at each level, priests and churches would be maintained.   The whole society, apart from the landless serf, was therefore part of an ‘establishment’.  No-one would have understood the term at all. 

Well, that was the theory.  In reality, it became more like a protection racket.   Those with power could assert themselves through threats and violence – although medieval manor court rolls show that local farmers could generally appeal to common law and uphold their local rights to a significant extent.  

This system was therefore based on land, and its produce, as the store of value.  It was measured not by area but by what it would deliver in terms of food.  So an ‘acre’ would vary in size according to the productiveness of the land.  There was a general lack of cash, and great difficulties in transporting perishable food any distance.    Kings would therefore travel constantly around their territories asserting themselves and consuming any surpluses;  effectively plundering and conquering at home or abroad.   Cattle were a key store of movable wealth, as they could be driven long distances and they provided meat, dairy, leather, manure and other valuable products directly.  

The biggest problem with the feudal system was that there was a general resentment at both the obligations and the responsibilities.   If the king summoned you to leave your fields and family to fight for him, it was one thing if it was in response to a real and present danger to yourself, but following him on a foreign military adventure in search of plunder was really only attractive to young men without other responsibilities.  For the military commander, a rabble of unwilling peasants armed with pitchforks (who could afford a sword or other military equipment?) was an unpromising army.   And increasingly the powerful wished to demonstrate their power by displays of magnificence and creation of secure strongholds.   These were expensive projects that required specialist skills that were unlikely to be available locally.   Cattle were not a convenient way to pay: cash was needed.

In the 11th-14th centuries we see kings and lords establishing towns as trading centres, places to store and build movable wealth based on trade and craftsmanship.   The development of a cash economy, urbanisation and centralisation go together.   Towns were created as investments that would produce returns in the form of rents that could then pay for goods and services, including professional soldiers and imported food and luxuries.   As a cash economy took over from a land-based, feudal one, the merchants and tradespeople became much more powerful.  They controlled the towns and held the purse strings, and their stores of wealth could survive bad harvests.   Increasingly the landed aristocracy, including the king, became indebted to them.   They became increasingly self-reliant and exploited their hinterlands for resources, offering cash for surpluses and adding value by developing guilds and trading networks.  

Parliaments, that is places where people came to discuss and make decisions, have very deep roots in tribal gatherings.   Moots, wapentakes, hundred courts, Viking Things, manorial courts, are all examples of local parliaments that long precede the establishment of the national ones.   The early English, French, Scots etc parliaments were simply collections of disgruntled barons and bishops who objected to paying for vanity wars by kings. They were no longer attractive ways to enrich themselves.  The risks to life and limb for themselves and their tenants, servants and above all their existing revenues were no longer worth the promised rewards of booty.   If the king wants money, and cannot provide it from his existing resources (after all, he owns all the land) let him borrow it at interest.   However they themselves increasingly found themselves borrowing money from wealthy religious orders, or Jews, merchants, tradesmen, the ‘commons’.    So – apart from the king – the three ‘estates’ were identified roughly representing the man to fight (the aristocracy) the man to pray (the church) and the man to plough – and now trade – the ‘commons’.

These then were the perceived interest groups in late medieval society.  The land-holding, hereditary aristocracy, the church ( whose hierarchy was largely composed of the younger brothers of the aristocrats, but whose wealth belonged to it corporately); and the commons – the wealthy merchants and tradespeople, like the masons, who were financiers and moneylenders.   They were all in their own ways the wealthy and powerful, and the parliament as as much as anything a means to bring them together and avoid conflict between them.  The rest of the population was not represented.   

In some countries the three groups had their own houses of Parliament, but in England and Scotland the aristocracy could all stake part as of right.   The church found itself represented in the House of Lords.   The towns were represented however as towns, not individuals.   They were the first corporations, legal fictions that operated collectively as legal persons.   So they had to send representatives.  And so it continued until the 19th century.   Parliament represented the establishment, everyone knew who they were.

It was only in the 20th century with the rise of universal suffrage and the concept of equal opportunities that those with inherited power could no longer justify it by divine right or natural neoDarwinian ‘evolution’.   There was growing fear among them of the potential power of the mob, represented by anarchism and communism.    Equally those without power became increasingly interested in understanding why and by whom they continued to be excluded.   The  ‘Establishment’  is the group who are (or believe themselves to be) in control.   It used to include the richest, who pay the piper and call the tune, and also all those who are bought and sold for their gold – the politicians, the civil servants, the academics, the bankers, the accountants, the journalists, the consultants, investors, freemasons.    This is why it is so difficult to define the ‘Establishment’ because it can include anyone who sees themselves as a conservative in its traditional meaning, a supporter of the status quo.   The key quality its members have is one of ‘entitlement’, and a sense of superiority because their prosperity is its own reward. 

What has happened in the last few years is that the international, globalist super-rich, with the same philosophy, have abandoned  the traditional national Establishment.   The 1% believe that their extreme wealth entitles them to do exactly as they please: they can buy anything and anyone, and ‘own the science’.    Their scientism and technocracy persuades them that with new technology they no longer need the support of anyone else.    They can all be bought and sold; elections can be fixed, all markets and even professional jobs can be automated and controlled – including policing and the law.  The traditional ‘Establishment’ is therefore redundant.  In fact it could be seen as a competitor. Its members can go join the rest of the 99% as mere slaves who ‘Will own nothing, and be happy’.   

For the billionaires,  the human population as a whole is far too big, it competes for resources they want, and it needs feeding, housing, paying, entertaining.   The only reason to do any of these things is to make money and once thy have all the resources in their own hands, why bother?  The only jobs required in future will be for a small and diminishing number of ‘operatives’  to do whatever the robots and AI are as yet unable to. 

Meanwhile the super-rich will sail around pointlessly on their yachts, be fed robot produced burgers and lounge on beaches and then, having trashed Earth, will just take off to Mars and start again there.   Those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad. Their desperate fear of losing their wealth and power has led them to an addiction to technology, especially digital technology; and in fact some of these billionaires – trans-humanists –  believe they can rise above human existence altogether and become digital beings that will exist forever.   

This is what the new’ techno-feudalism’ looks like: they take ownership of everything.  However it is not real feudalism, because there is no reciprocity.  The billionaires do not offer us anything in return, not even protection.   The World Economic Forum exists to ‘make the world a better place’ – but exclusively for itself.  Because they are above even international law and ‘entitled’ to do as they please.   Post-capitalism the idea of accountability or responsibility to anyone died with the ‘Limited Liability company’.   Following Bernard Mandeville, anything can be ‘justified’ by the prospect of ‘jobs’. It is really a world ruled by conquest and violence alone.   We can already see this is in action in Palestine.  Trump fancies Gaza as a billionaire’s resort; BP and other companies have already bought the rights to its natural gas from the Israelis.  The Palestinians, like so many other peoples before them – the native Americans, for example – are just in the way. But as in 19th c America, ‘superior’ technology justifies anything.

Sadly the traditional establishment, the professionals and comfortably off sons and daughters of the moderately rich,  complacently continues to believe that the super wealthy are on their side.   It needs to wake up and realise it is in serious trouble.   Because in the end the people animals plants and minerals that form the planetary ecosystem actually ‘own’ the Earth and will ultimately control it.   The planet is not a computer system.  It is alive and it has agency.  

If the Establishment really wants to save itself, it would do well to listen to the Earth and its people rather than a bunch of deluded billionaire technocrats.    It is they who will soon find they own nothing, and actually I am sure they will be happier for it!