In the fall of 2021, I had the opportunity to write a Medium article every day. I thought: “Here is my chance to improve my Medium ratings.”
While things did not work out that way, I sure got a lot off my chest. There were many political perspectives that I wanted to present to the world. Writing so many articles was cathartic. Hopefully my few readers got some value from my work.
In a recent political dialogue on Medium, I brought up two of these articles to make an important point. I realized that the works of Orwell and Asimov have a connection.
Asimov, Foundation, & Democracy
To summarize, Asimov prophesied that democracies have only a shelf life of two to three centuries. They are not forever; they fall in on themselves; they are replaced by oligarchies. And these oligarchies are usually replaced by other oligarchies. It takes a long time for democracy to resurface.
The Orwell Ratio
To summarize, Orwell implied a societal ratio of 2/13/85. The two is the “Inner Party”, the people that make the decisions and get most of the goodies. The 13 is the “Outer Party,” who allows the Inner Party to govern without much opposition. In exchange, the Outer Party gets some of the goodies. But its members’ positions are dependent on the pleasure of the Inner Party. The 85 are the “proles,” who do the dirty work and remain destitute. We can see this pattern so often in many historical societies that it must be almost a natural order: the 2% know how to use the 13% to suppress the 85%.
I would even say that prior to WW2, this ratio was close to the social order in the democracies of those times. Most of us were poor.
Bringing the Two Books Together
The rise of the middle class after WW2 was an aberration of the 2/13/85 order. Methinks the stronger middle class is more of a serendipitous collision of political/social events; there was no master plan to bring western societies to something like 10/70/20. It just happened.
We seem to prefer that strong middle class. Perhaps its most important attribute is the mechanism for people to advance themselves, through education, hard work, or risk taking. There is a higher degree of social contentment when citizens have a vision and can work to implement it. For those citizens not taking advantage of this opportunity, knowing that the opportunity exists is still a social relief valve.
Since 1990, we have been slowly losing that middle class. We are going back to 2/13/85, our historical pecking order.
When 70% or more of us turn into proles, what is the chance for advancement for ourselves and our children? Why should we be interested in democracy anymore?
Would this condition not be fulfilling Asimov’s prophecy of a democracy naturally falling in on itself?
Keeping the Middle Class
Maybe western democracy can somehow address the shrinking middle class. But it seems our elected politicians are too distracted to deal with this issue in a meaningful way. More citizens are turning to other political solutions, which are usually not conducive to an advancing civilization.
What can we do?
My suggestion is to build a new democracy. It will be easier to build this democracy when the middle class is still 50% as opposed to when it is 20%. When too many citizens have little hope — and are just surviving from day-to-day, they will not be interested in any democracy.
Building A Kinder, Wiser Democracy
Working for this democracy makes more sense than hoping that today’s politicians will preserve the middle class.
Published on Medium 2023
