Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CCLXV–
Elite Responses to the Architecture of Collapse, Part 5:
Scapegoating and the Search for Internal Enemies
This Contemplation continues to explore the responses of the ruling elite to diminishing returns on investments in complexity that began with a review of the extraction mechanisms used to squeeze resources out of a state’s population, followed by their increased investments in ideological justification for the squeeze, and then an overview of the attempt to solve resource depletion through military expansion and conquest. Here, I will delve into another response that has recurred across both time and societies: scapegoating and the search for internal enemies. Once again, I will examine why the elite use this approach when surpluses begin to become strained, how they pursue and justify it, discuss evidence from the past, and why this response backfires like the ones previously written about.
A Note on Terminology
For a definition of what I mean by “the ruling elite”, please see the section titled “The Ruling Elite: A Definition” in Part 4 of this series. (see: Website Medium Substack)
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Scapegoating: The Search for Internal Enemies
There’s no easy solution to shrinking surpluses for the elite. The most common response is to increase taxes, but oftentimes these grow and compound to the point where they become oppressive to a population; this typically ends up leading to a legitimacy crisis for the elite. The issue is structural in that diminishing returns on continuing investments in complexity places an increasing strain upon societal surpluses; a strain that remains and grows in order to maintain complexities. To admit that this is an ongoing issue would be to admit that the very system of growth and complexity from which they garner their power, wealth, and prestige is the underlying problem.
Attempts to try and deal with diminishing returns tend to begin with policies that squeeze more from the population. Alongside this is usually ramped up narrative management to justify increased extraction mechanisms as well as increasing military responses in order to take resources from rivals–and even allies when deemed necessary. Another response that has also proved appealing is to identify internal enemies that are to blame for the situation.
This scapegoating can serve several functions at the same time. Attention is deflected away from the ruling elite. A common threat is identified that the population can unite against. It provides a rather simplistic and reductionist explanation for an extremely complex situation. The expansion of repressive social control mechanisms that help to entrench further elite power can be more easily justified. And, when facing a legitimacy crisis, scapegoating can be a very inexpensive solution to regaining legitimacy.
But similar to all the other responses discussed so far, scapegoating is subject to diminishing returns. It consumes resources and destroys human capital through its expansion of surveillance and policing. Society becomes increasingly polarised and much more difficult to move towards collective action or compromise. And, it creates resistance groups–especially amongst those targeted–that lead to new threats requiring further repression. A response that is meant to help restore ruling elite legitimacy ends up deepening the crisis.
Why Elites Turn to Scapegoating
This is another very seductive response for the ruling elite when they are attempting to deal with diminishing returns for it provides something the other responses are less able to: location of the underlying cause of issues in a group nearby, but outside of the elite themselves.
Populations tend to resist ongoing and increasing extraction, particularly once ideological justifications lose their sway and the masses believe the elite narratives less and less. And the costs become virtually impossible to hide when military expansion fails to reverse the situation. At this point the elite can either acknowledge their failure and pursue radical societal reform, or find someone else to blame. Blaming another group has been one of the go-to responses for millennia.
This response also results in a polarised population whereby meaningful coalitions to challenge elite power are far less likely to occur. It is virtually impossible for a domestic population to unite against a powerful elite who are hell-bent on extracting their surpluses when the masses are fighting against each other. This is the “divide and rule” logic that has proven effective again and again throughout the history of large, complex societies.
This response also serves the elite well in their entrenchment of power. Extraordinary repressive state apparatus is justified in the name of protecting society from an internal threat. Mass surveillance is expanded. Policing intensifies. Civil liberties are suspended. With every expansion of state power, the ruling elite become stronger and more powerful.
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How Elites Pursue Scapegoating
Although the specific target may vary by society, there are definite patterns that recur across culture and time.
Ethnic and Racial Minorities
Ethnic or racial minorities tend to be the most common target since they are visibly different. Such groups also tend to be on the margins of a society and thus more vulnerable to blame and less able to defend themselves. Christians were a favoured target within the Roman Empire, being labelled enemies of the state when a crisis erupted. Jews were blamed for economic downturns, plagues, and famines in medieval Europe. Modern societies tend to focus upon immigrants, refugees, and racial minorities, blaming them for crime, unemployment, and social decay.
The narrative is fairly straightforward: minorities present a clear and present danger to society through their undermining of cultural values, drain on resources, and plotting against majority rule. Whatever the actual cause of a crisis, the framing is typically one of blaming the presence and/or influence of a minority group. The solution? Suppress or remove the group in question.
Religious and Ideological Dissidents
Another target tends to be those who hold beliefs that deviate from any officially sanctified ones, be they religious or ideological in nature. Those who did not hold the beliefs of the Church in medieval times were hunted down and executed. Political dissidents have also been a favoured target of the elite: Germany under the Nazis; the Great Purge in the Soviet Union; the Palmer Raids, McCarthyism, and COINTELPRO in the United States being relatively recent examples.
The Spanish Inquisition via Monty Python
Dissidents are particularly problematic for the ruling elite since they represent a clear challenge to the narratives being disseminated to society about the status quo systems under which the elite maintain their power and wealth. By blaming such targets for societal ills and suggesting they are an internal enemy, the elite help to maintain the belief that their rule is the only alternative. Their ideological justifications are reinforced in this framing as well as the elimination of potential political rivals.
The “Elite” Itself–A Populist Inversion
Modern populist movements have inverted the traditional logic of targeting those outside of the ruling elite and begun to present certain members of the elite as enemies of the people. This strategy by both the left and right of the political spectrum has pointed the finger for societal problems within their own group: cultural Marxists, billionaire class, globalists, deep state. These and other elite-based groups have been singled out as a target of derision.
This is a rather complex form of scapegoating given it is often led by those within the ranks of the ruling elite itself. But the logic goes like this: the populist leader represents the interests of the masses while the “true” elite are corrupt and self-serving. This allows those within the elite ranks to create resentment against rival elites and thus maintain their own position.
The New Immigrant and the Foreign “Other”
Modernity’s most common scapegoats are immigrants and foreign “others”. Societal woes are blamed upon these newcomers with the logic being: they take jobs, commit crimes, depress wages, and refuse to assimilate.
This tends to be an effective form of scapegoating as it combines both foreign and domestic elements. The physically present but visibly different immigrant–who is in popular imagination connected to foreign powers and alien cultures–is highly vulnerable to discrimination. This is an easily recognisable symbol of the various forces seen to be eroding society from both within and without.
The Costs of Scapegoating
A cost accompanies scapegoating as it does for all elite responses to diminishing returns: consumption of resources.
Policing and Surveillance
Greatly expanded policing, security forces, surveillance, and prisons are justified in order to identify and apprehend internal enemies. Resource use grows as a result of these as well as the creation of new bureaucracies and additional layers of complexity, further draining surpluses.
Alongside this burgeoning security apparatus is the erosion of civil liberties and trust in governing institutions. A climate of fear is created that also results in a stifling of innovation and cooperation amongst society’s members. Rather than becoming more resilient, society tends to become less so with this change.
Purging and Human Capital Destruction
It’s not uncommon for purges–targeted individuals being removed from influential positions, or worse–to occur in the wake of scapegoating. Not only does this destroy human capital as talented people are imprisoned, driven into exile, or executed, but it creates an atmosphere of fear throughout society.
This removal of individuals with their knowledge and skills is a seldom-acknowledged impact of such purges. It can result in a weakening of society and its ability to adapt and respond to challenges, especially if they hold beliefs that could help to mitigate the diminishing returns that are affecting societal surpluses.
Polarisation and the Foreclosure of Collective Action
The identification of certain groups as the cause of society’s ills also generates growing polarisation, and this may be the most negative cost of this response. Such finger-pointing makes compromise and cooperation within a society next to impossible, with targeted groups resisting the labelling–sometimes violently. Societal divisions can deepen and the trust necessary for broad collective action dissipate as the majority remain silent and become complicit in the targeting.
Attempts to address underlying issues through this scapegoating leads to the creation of internal enemies which, in turn, creates even more enemies and actively deepens the crisis. Society is thus trapped in a cycle of recrimination and violence which is increasingly difficult to extricate itself from. Rather than helping to support the ruling elite’s legitimacy, scapegoating does the opposite and helps to destroy social cohesion.
The Devastating Backfires
Just like the other responses I have discussed, scapegoating activates reaction chains that end up hastening societal decline.
The Legitimacy Spiral
While it is intended to help restore or support legitimacy of the ruling elite through its rather simplistic explanation for crises, scapegoating loses its effectiveness over time since the material conditions continue to decline despite suppression of the identified group(s). Either the elite admit that their persecution has failed to address issues or they create new enemies and/or escalate their finger-pointing–typically, they double down on their scapegoating strategy.
As with their doubling down of previous responses, this results in a feedback loop whereby the more they rely on scapegoating the less credible it becomes leading to the need to rely on more forceful means to maintain order. The more they rely on force, the more resistance to it; and the more resistance, the more they insist it is these internal dissenters who are to blame and threaten society’s very fabric. Typically, this leads to a fully authoritarian state.
Resistance and Blowback
Most scapegoating targets do not accept their targeting without resistance. Such resistance can lead to new threats that the elite have to address in some fashion. If the resistance is large or well-organised, the opposing forces may continue to escalate with each other until a civil war results.
Even a small and less-organised resistance can lead to significant blowback for the elite. It is not uncommon for international condemnation, economic sanctions, and diplomatic isolation for such persecution–especially by competing rival powers who leverage the response to their advantage. External pressures of this kind can result in additional costs for a state’s elite and serve to further drain societal surpluses.
The Failure to Adapt
The impact upon elite decision-making is a significant cost caused by scapegoating. The structural problems that give rise to a crisis–the growing complexity that provides the elite’s power and wealth–are conveniently overlooked through the finger pointing at internal enemies. The institutional and psychological rigidity that develops from the use of responses that serve to deflect attention away from the root causes of diminishing returns and surplus draw down prevents even the discussion of adaptations or mitigations to the unfolding crises.
The Classic Maya
Scapegoating amongst the Maya is not well documented in the archaeological record early on in their expansion, perhaps since diminishing returns had not been experienced. There is some evidence to draw upon during the later Classic Period, however. There appears to have been elite competition as diminishing returns took hold and drew down surpluses and agricultural yield.
The late Classic holds evidence that warfare–discussed in Part 4–to capture others to serve as sacrifices to the gods and help to consolidate power by eliminating rivals, increased over time. Structures show burning, bodies were left unburied, and residences and cities were increasingly fortified. The fighting was taking place not just between rival urban centres, but within them between rival elites with the population caught in the midst.
While material conditions deteriorated due to shrinking surpluses, ruling elite status could be somewhat maintained through the scapegoating of rivals–be they enemy combatants, competing elites, or rebellious commoners. Of course, this did very little to address the underlying issues. Declining agricultural yields and ecological degradation continued, and appears to have been exacerbated through ramped up warfare and the societal divisions that scapegoating facilitated.
The Western Roman Empire
There exists clear evidence for scapegoating during the Roman Empire’s years. It was one of several responses the Roman elite turned to as they faced increasing external pressures and internal strife.
During the early years, Christians were a common focus for derision. They refused to worship the Roman gods and were thus criticised for being atheists; a misunderstanding of their Eucharist led them to be labelled cannibals; and their undermining of the social order was a clarion call for their persecution. During the third century crisis, this call for persecution was harsh and uncompromising.
A few others were also targeted: Jews, political dissidents, and foreign religious cults. All that refused to conform to the Roman order were stigmatised and blamed for any crisis. The empire’s prosperity and the gods’ favour could be restored with their suppression.
But as with all elite responses to diminishing returns, the costs of scapegoating were significant. Resources were consumed and martyrs were created that gave rise to stronger resistance. As time went on and the empire’s fortunes continued to wane, the elite chose an altered path: they adopted Christianity as the state’s religion. This change, however, merely avoided addressing the underlying material decline.
Modernity: The Scapegoating Intensification
The ruling elite continue to fall back on scapegoating today. It occurs in a variety of forms and tends to be more sophisticated but is also much more costly with its technological components of surveillance and control.
The Rise of Populist Scapegoating
Populism on both sides of the political spectrum has been on the rise with scapegoating being the preferred strategy to appeal to a base of followers. Immigrants, refugees, and minorities are the favoured targets of the political right for economic stagnation and unwanted cultural shifts. Other elites–especially the wealthy and corporations–and the system itself are those targets favoured by the left, and are typically blamed for inequality and injustice.
This scapegoating by both sides functions to provide simplistic explanations for complex issues, unite a base of the population against a common enemy, and deflect attention away from the structural and systemic causes of diminishing returns–the increasing complexity that consumes societal surpluses but provides the ruling elite with their wealth and status.
That the elite themselves lead such scapegoating is quite ironic. Leaders of populist movements tend to be part of the establishment they are claiming to oppose. But regardless of whether it is immigrants or fellow billionaires being targeted, their accusations help to channel resentment in a direction that allows their own power to remain.
The Surveillance State
One of the tools that gets greatly expanded by the scapegoating of internal enemies is the technology to surveil the state’s citizens. Be it facial recognition software, data collection, or predictive policing via artificial intelligence, governments throughout the world are investing massive amounts of state wealth in these technologies. They justify this expenditure as necessary to secure the state and its people from terrorism, extremism, and other threats.
It’s difficult to comprehend just how many resources get consumed under this banner. These are complex technologies with huge resource needs–especially of materials already under duress and experiencing significant diminishing returns. In addition, the rollout of these technologies negatively impact civil liberties and stifles dissent due to the climate of fear created. Not only does society become less resilient as a result, but the surpluses needed to maintain society get consumed much quicker.
The Culture War
Modern politics has latched upon another target for scapegoating: competing visions for society. Each side of this culture war blames the other as the root cause of societal ills. Conservative resistance to change and the perpetuation of injustice is the progressive line. Conservatives, on the other hand, hammer home the idea that progressives are undermining traditional values and thereby destroying social cohesion.
Attention and energy that could be directed towards mitigating the consequences of diminishing returns on investments instead get consumed on narratives that serve to polarise society and make compromise or collective action impossible to achieve. By dividing the population against one another, the elite prevent the creation of coalitions that might challenge status quo arrangements and their power.
The Shared Signature
Scapegoating–similar to the other responses discussed previously–can be seen to intensify just prior to societal collapse. The signature it leaves, however, tends to be slightly different from the other responses. It can be seen via the destruction it produces: exiled/exterminated populations; internal purges; expansion of security apparatuses; growth of prisons/detention facilities.
While it could be argued that, at least in the short-term, the other responses produce something (i.e., tax revenue, social cohesion, territory), scapegoating leads to destructive outcomes. And because it produces little to nothing in the way of societal benefits, it is perhaps the clearest sign that the underlying crises cannot be addressed by the ruling elite.
The targets of scapegoating are also rather unique from the other responses. Extraction focuses upon the broader population; ideology, the society’s belief systems; and military expansion foreign rivals. Scapegoating, on the other hand, specifies groups within a society and serves to turn society against itself–this destroys its own human capital and social fabric.
It also differentiates itself from the other responses in that rather than be led by the elite and imposed upon the masses, scapegoating often requires the active participation of these same masses. The population itself is mobilised against others within itself; sometimes quite enthusiastically. Not only does this serve to help legitimise elite actions, it helps to divide the population and prevent internal challenges to elite power.
Of course, like the previous responses, scapegoating is subject to diminishing returns–but in a different qualitative way. Extraction serves to deplete a resource base, ideology loses its impact, and militaries can become overextended. Scapegoating, however, leads to pockets of resistance that results in further repression; this often has the targeted group pushing back harder, with the elite responding with greater force and determination. This escalating cycle results in increased resource consumption and fracturing societal cohesion, all the while ignoring the underlying issue of diminishing returns. The more scapegoating, the more internal enemies, and the more resources diverted towards suppression; and on and on…
It is not difficult to observe this pattern and its intensification in modern societies, especially via culture wars and its targeting of immigrants, minorities, and political dissidents–along with the resource draw down that accompanies it. And, like the other responses, this is increasing societal instability and accelerating its decline. Resources are being consumed in its wake as opposed to being created and bolstering surpluses to address growing stressors. For this reason, it could well be argued that this is the most insidious of the responses–along with military expansion–with its destruction of human capital, erosion of social trust, and consumption of material resources to rout out internal enemies who have little if anything to do with the crises being experienced. It is society consuming itself.
The Strategic Trap: The Enemy Within
Every response discussed so far could be argued to create a strategic trap in which once initiated leads to a self-reinforcing situation difficult to leave. The nature of this trap differs slightly–via its psychological and political mechanisms–in that it actively constructs a cause for the crisis within its own society.
The targeting of internal members of society addresses a number of issues for the ruling elite at once. Attention for elite failure is deflected. A majority of the population can be united against a common and nearby threat. A complex issue is explained by a simplistic answer. Further entrenchment of elite power through repressive control mechanisms can be justified. Each of these, however, carry costs: more elaborate stories; more intense persecution; increasing distortion of reality; and the need for ever more resources.
The trap this leads to can be observed in the history of the Roman Empire. While its military trap resulted in an overextension of legions across three continents, the scapegoating trap led to the persecution of several groups: Christians, Jews, and other religious minorities. The elite justified this as a necessary measure to restore the empire’s prosperity through an appeasement of the gods. In the case of the Christians, their persecution ended up backfiring on the Romans since it led to martyrs who inspired others to turn to Christianity and well-bonded communities that fought back at the oppression. In fact, the Christian community was so well established and respected by the fourth century that the empire adopted its religion as the state’s, but this did nothing to address the underlying deterioration of the surpluses needed to support society’s complexities.
The scapegoating trap tends to be self-justifying and thus especially hard to escape. Scapegoated-group resistance is used as proof by the elite of their guilt in destroying society, leading them to engage in more intense persecution. But when this fails to resolve society’s crisis of diminishing returns, it is also used as proof requiring even more severe persecution. This strategy must be maintained by the elite lest they admit they were wrong. Admitting they were wrong would undermine their legitimacy, the very thing they were attempting to support via the scapegoating response–so they double down. They expand the targeting to include other groups, but end up consuming even more resources and further polarising society.
A number of nations appear to be caught in this very trap–especially the United States. Culture wars over conflicting visions of society have resulted in significant domestic polarisation. Each side of such wars blames the other for what ails their society. By fighting each other, the masses are prevented from working together to challenge status quo arrangement and the power of the ruling elite. Massive amounts of energy and attention are misdirected towards this internal fighting, rather than towards addressing the impact of diminishing returns on investments in complexity.
This trap tends to differ from those created by the other previously discussed responses in that it is much more difficult to extricate a society from. Reducing taxes, abandoning ideological narratives, or withdrawing from conquered territories are much more easily accomplished than abandoning a scapegoating approach. The targeting of internal enemies serves to create enemies that resist, organise, and fight back. And this action by the targeted groups justifies further repressive action by the ruling elite.
This response traps society in that it creates divides between the population that prevents them from acting together to pursue policies and actions that might help to mitigate the underlying cause of the crises: diminishing returns on investments in complexity. While the response was meant to forestall societal collapse, it accelerates it by its cycle of recrimination and violence.
Diminishing returns impacts every ruling elite response but with a bit of a twist when considering scapegoating. The diminishing returns of scapegoating are not measured in resources or persuasiveness but in the number of enemies it creates. The number of enemies expands directly in line with the increase in scapegoating. And the more enemies created, the more resources that must be diverted from societal surpluses to suppress them and the less available for supporting societal complexities and addressing diminishing returns. This deepens the crisis, requiring even more scapegoating. The trap is one in that the system consumes itself.
In the next Contemplation I will review the last of the main responses made by the ruling elite when crisis erupts due to declining surpluses: technological salvation and the pursuit of innovation.
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Only time will tell how this all unfolds but there’s nothing wrong with preparing for the worst by ‘collapsing now to avoid the rush’ and pursuing self-sufficiency. By this I mean removing as many dependencies on the Matrix as is possible and making do, locally. And if one can do this without negative impacts upon our fragile ecosystems or do so while creating more resilient ecosystems, all the better.
Building community (maybe even just household) resilience to as high a level as possible seems prudent given the uncertainties of an unpredictable future. There’s no guarantee it will ensure ‘recovery’ after a significant societal stressor/shock but it should increase the probability of it and that, perhaps, is all we can ‘hope’ for from its pursuit.
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