Dave Phillips and other Old Hands weigh in on Monarchs, Poverty and Traditional
Society...
From our adviser, de Tocqueville:
"Only a great genius can save a prince who undertakes to relieve his subjects after long
oppression. The evil, which was suffered patiently as inevitable, seems unendurable as soon as
the idea of escaping from it is conceived. All of the abuses then removed seem to throw into
greater relief those which remain, so their feeling is more painful. The evil, it is true, has
become less, but sensibility to it has become more acute. Feudalism at the height of its power
had not inspired Frenchmen with so much hatred as it did on the event of its disappearing."
And from Samuel Huntington:
"A determined monarch and an efficient bureaucracy can have considerable impact on a
traditional society. rarely, however, will their power be sufficient to put through significant
reforms.... In addition, even if there is an indigenous middle class, it may be a source of
opposition to the monarch.... Monarchism is simply out of style in middle class
circles. However much they may support the social and economic policies of the modernizing
monarch, they oppose the monarchy as an institution.... The more vigorously a monarch
exercises authority, the more difficult it is to transfer that authority to another institution. It is,
one may assume, virtually impossible for a modernizing monarch who has struggled to centralize
power and to force through reforms against strong traditionalist opposition to release his grasp
and voluntarily assume a dignified rather than an efficient role. It is quite natural for him to feel
that he is indispensable to the order, unity, and progress of his country, that his subjects would
indeed be lost without him. Once when asked why he did not become a constitutional monarch
the Shah of Iran is reported to have replied: 'When the Iranians learn to behave like Swedes, I
will behave like the King of Sweden.' Any similar monarchial modernizer is likely to have
equally strong paternalistic sentiments." Source: Huntington, Political Order in Changing
Societies, 1968, pp. 161-179.
These same aspects of political order apply to dictators and regardless of the form of rule, the
world is "defeudalizing" rapidly as the poor segments of the global society either participate in
"landless peasant revolts" in an effort to improve their lot or migrate in hope of developing
improvements in their lives and to find security for their families. The problem to be faced
involves the fact that massive numbers of the rural poor are migrating to what is perceived to be
"better lives" in urban areas where they become the "urban poor," and a source of political
instability that may not be studied and understood until some future conflict results.
This is the major reason for my suggestion that we take a careful look at the similarities between
Appalachia and Afghanistan, review, update, and expand some of the work by Oscar Lewis on
the "Culture of Poverty" as the world changes quickly. I've attached Mike Davis' "Planet of
Slums" and the following material caught my eye:
"Lagos, moreover, is simply the biggest node in the shanty-town corridor of 70 million
people that stretches from Abidjan to Ibadan; probably the biggest continuous footprint of urban
poverty on earth."
City slum-dwellers are clearly the majority population in many/most cities in the
"developing/undeveloping" world. For example, slum dwellers are 99.4% of the urban
population of Ethiopia and Chad; 98.5% in Afghanistan; and 92% in Nepal.
-- Slums now exist within slums.
-- In Cairo and Phnom Penh, recent arrivals squat or rent space on rooftops, essentially
slums in the air.
Urban "zones" are beginning to connect cities, Washington -- Baltimore -- Philadelphia and
onward will soon be a reality. Hong Kong and Guangzhou are connecting along the Pearl River.
Medical, sanitation, and social services are being overwhelmed by the sheer numbers now living
in the slums. It is increasingly likely that some major city will experience an outbreak of a major
communicable epidemic, such as London's Bubonic Plague, in the near future. Trash, sewage,
and poor water supplies make this highly likely.
The de-peasantization process in rural areas result in more mouths to feed in urban areas while
fewer people will be available in the rural areas to grow the food needed in the overpopulated
cities. Who will feed the urban inhabitants?
Increased access to modern communications will heighten expectations among the inmigrants. "You-name-it" Springs will become more common as dictatorial "monarchs" in these
countries try to modernize swiftly to deal with the rapidly increasing social problems, but the De
Tocqueville and Huntington axioms above set in to prevent meaningful peaceful change as poor
people who used to participate in "landless peasant revolts" may become urban insurgents
complete with slum safe havens that evolve into "no-go zones" for government security forces