{"id":38735,"date":"2018-10-05T06:31:33","date_gmt":"2018-10-05T11:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=38735"},"modified":"2018-10-05T06:31:33","modified_gmt":"2018-10-05T11:31:33","slug":"russian-oligarchs-are-a-problem-but-lets-not-forget-american-ones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=38735","title":{"rendered":"Russian Oligarchs are a Problem, But Let\u2019s Not Forget American Ones"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russian Oligarchs are a Problem, But Let\u2019s Not Forget American Ones<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n
\"\"<\/p>\n

Photo Source Matt Brown | CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Oligarchs the world over have long been destabilizing economies and shaping governing bodies for their own benefit. For instance, if we turn to the supposed \u2018birth of democracy\u2019 in Ancient Athens, elites (called \u2018citizens\u2019) of the polis <\/em>ruled over the mass populace (the common people of the hoi polloi<\/em>). Plato had instilled in many Greeks at the time (and this is an idea seen in practice from fascist lies of white supremacy to false justifications for criminal wars) a faith in the supremacy of ruling class that the elites could justify lying <\/em>to the hoi polloi<\/em>,masking the truth the public was too \u2018stupid\u2019, too \u2018ignorant\u2019 to comprehend behind pathos and logos. The specific role of the noble lie, as presented by Plato\u2019s Socrates is to have a good effect on the polity by clearly defining social classes and position within the social hierarchy for all. Never a supporter of democracy, in the Politics<\/em>and in De Anima<\/em>, Plato\u2019s student Aristotle presents a model of an oligarchic meritocracy (or in his preferred term for the rule of the few, an aristocracy), a social organization that depends upon those with \u2018lesser\u2019 souls (or those less noble, less filled with virtue than with vice), and those of the working classes especially had to be less concerned with the metaphysical and more concerned with their material labor. Over centuries of European and Anglo-American \u2018democracies\u2019, such positions on the deliberate maintenance of popular ignorance (typically coupled with or contributing to widespread compliance or complicity) through administrative means and misinformation have been re-articulated from Machiavelli to Mandeville to McCarthy, Robespierre to Rumsfeld, Burke to Bannon, \u2018Socrates\u2019 to Stalin.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russian Oligarchs are a Problem, But Let\u2019s Not Forget American Ones Photo Source Matt Brown | CC BY 2.0 Oligarchs the world over have long been destabilizing economies and shaping governing bodies for their own benefit. For instance, if we turn to the supposed \u2018birth of democracy\u2019 in Ancient Athens, elites (called \u2018citizens\u2019) of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[22122,2299,5493,2384,11470,599,643,694,827],"class_list":["post-38735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-andrew-j-wood","tag-control","tag-counterpunch","tag-elite","tag-influence","tag-oligarchs","tag-power","tag-russia","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38736,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38735\/revisions\/38736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}