To live in a meritocratic system means that you are allowed to rise to your potential without the state or anyone obstructing your rise. Should this happen, however, the law allows you to go to court and seek relief, even seek damages to compensate for what you may have lost.
But why would the state or anyone want to get in the way
of you attaining the level for which you have the talent and the drive to reach?
Well, at the individual level, every society experiences the competition that
can lead to a level of jealousy which may get out of hand, thus prompt someone
to trip a rival and damage them intentionally or inadvertently.
When it comes to the state’s governing apparatus, we must
distinguish between the goings-on that pertain to the so-called autocratic one-party
system of governance, and those pertaining to the so-called democratic multiparty
system of governance.
The philosophy guiding the autocratic system is based on
the notion that you have one country, therefore everyone must devote their
energies to serve that country rather than waste the energy competing against a
rival. The excuse of competing because you have a better idea for the country,
is replaced by the notion that you put your ideas to work for the country by
moving up the ladder within the system. You do this the way that you move to a
higher level inside an enterprise where dedication to your work is rewarded,
and open dissent could cause your dismissal.
As to the philosophy guiding the democratic system, it is
based on the notion that every organization has the tendency to build internal
rigidity with the passage of time, thus lose the benefits that may be gained by
the adoption of the autocratic principles. In fact, rigidity can even happen in
the bureaucracy that makes up the democratic system. And so, in the way that
you have the shareholders of an enterprise shake things up by choosing from and
voting for rival directors, you have the people of the nation vote for the candidates
that run to fill government positions. Composed of three branches, the elected
apparatus keeps an eye on the bureaucratic “deep state” to make sure it
performs up to the desired standard.
Everything about our evolution as a species, says that
our legacy since before the start of Civilization, has been the matriarchal or
patriarchal autocratic system of surveillance and governance. Democracy as we
like to think of it today, happened late in our evolutionary process when
several events converged as if by a fluke to make it possible. Those events
imposed the new system of governance in places that were so backward and
violent, you might think were unlikely to see the rise of a system as
benevolent as liberal democracy appears to be … or at least appears to have
been.
In fact, for thousands of years, humanity from ancient
China to ancient Egypt, had been ruled by mostly benevolent rulers who
respected the will of the people they governed, and fostered trade and commerce
among them to benefit the many. Meanwhile, it happened that during those
millenniums Europe was ruled by the sword, wielded by rulers who commanded
armies on the prowl, looking for someone vulnerable they can exploit to benefit
themselves and benefit the rulers they serve.
And then it happened that the Chinese invention of the
gun powder, and the Arab invention of the artillery made their way to Europe where
iron and coal were also discovered in shallow mines. That convergence led to
the invention and production of the field gun at a time when natural resources
were becoming necessary commodities to feed the new Industrial Revolution. And
these were the earthshaking events that changed Europe socially,
technologically and politically; also changed the world diplomatically.
Meanwhile, the changeover from the artisanal industries
to the factory-based mass production of goods made life so unbearable to the
European populations, revolt was manifesting itself everywhere. The old-style
rulers that sensed a rising danger, were forced to change the way they governed.
In time, this led to the Socialist movement that took roots in Europe. Accordingly,
the people demanded better services and more goods, which the rulers could
provide only by colonizing and exploiting the foreign nations that did not
participate in the Industrial Revolution. The gun in the hand that wielded the
sword, proved handy when the time came to implement the colonial schemes.
It was that history which led to the system of liberal
democracy, standing as ideally as it did until a few decades ago when it began
to transform into an act of moral prostitution. Because things have changed for
the worse, we see that the sins of the past are catching up to those who are
losing the narrative to newcomers on the stage of the rising superstates. Having
no better way to make their presence felt, the once mighty are forced to
weaponize democracy itself so as to stand up to the newcomers, and exploit those
who are too weak to defend themselves, accusing them of anti-democratic
practices.
This being the cause of clashes between the mighty
nations of all stripes, it resulted in the bursting on the scene of a new kind
of competition. It is one that pits (a) the old guard who claim they only wish
to preserve what is positive about the status quo, against (b) victims of the
colonial era who are rising to levels from where they challenge the old guard
whose sermons are becoming evermore irritating. Experimenting with new systems
of governance, the newcomers will have nothing to do with a democratic system
that is now decrepit and a shadow of its old self.
You can see how that struggle is playing out when you
study the article that came under the title: “The Putin and Xi New World
Order,” and the subtitle: “West continues to suffer from post-Cold War
self-doubt.” It was written by Jed Babbin, and published on March 25, 2022 in
The Washington Times. There are interesting details in the article but the most
revealing passages appear at the end of it. When condensed, those passages
sound like this:
“The West continues to suffer from
self-doubt. Neither Russia nor China has that disability. We cannot lead
any new world order while Russia makes war in Europe or China threatens Taiwan.
We could, with better strategic thinking and significant investment in modern
weapon systems, restore the credibility of our deterrent. Biden is neither
capable of that sort of thinking nor of making such investments. If he were, he
would realize that in order to lead any new world order NATO has to be
reunified and our deterrent reinforced, to deny Putin’s and Xi’s abilities to
threaten it”.