Napoleon’s CoronationLet us talk, today, of the basics of holding power.

In the end, power comes from the barrel of a gun

Weber called this the State’s monopoly on violence. There is no state, as moderns understand it, without this monopoly. Places like Lebanon are not states – Hezbollah controls violence in southern Lebanon, for example. To put it in older terms – the King’s writ does not extend to large parts of Lebanon.

In Iraq, when the US did not stop the rioting in the early days, when it did not challenge the militias during the first few months, it gave up its sovereignty over Iraq. As militias, religious leaders and tribal leaders became the ones who enforced such law as there was, they became, such as it is, the real government of Iraq.

The King’s Court is called a Court for a reason

There is no law without the ability to coerce. People will put up with a lot, but they will not put up with anarchy if they have any choice. Even governments like the Taliban are preferable to the random violence of anarchic states.

In Iraq today, if your car is stolen, or you are assaulted, the only person who may be able to get you justice is the local religious leader, chieftain or militia.

You Must Be Generous

It is not an accident that the most efficient operation in Saddam’s Iraq was the provision of food to the population. Everyone got their food. Period. There were few things stupider than the US’s intention to break up that system and replace it with a “market” system before gaining unquestioned control of the country.

It is likewise no accident that the local religious leaders, tribal sheiks and militias grabbed control of social services first. Food, local health clinics, schools, food distribution – within the first months they walked in with guns and took control from the civil servants who used to run them.

The reason Hamas, in Palestine, won the election was that they supply competent, professional and honest education, healthcare and welfare for people who need it. People forget that Hamas started as a charitable organization.

The reason Hezbollah controls southern Lebanon is, in part, for the same reason. The reason the Taliban had a hard core of supporters is that they were the only people who cared for and raised Pakistan’s numerous orphans.

You Must Supply Meaning

This is why people like Sadr are more powerful than the tribal chieftains. It is one reason why religious sites are so important (in addition to the fact that they make significant money). It is why the insurgency has TV shows. It is why the US army was told Iraq was behind 9/11.

People need a narrative. We seek out stories naturally, and fit disconnected facts into patterns that don’t exist. In Iraq the story the US should have told is prosperity, reconstruction and democracy for everyone. The Insurgency’s story was fighting against foreign invaders. It wasn’t necessary for the insurgency’s narrative to win, at all – people forget that in the first six months or so there was very little armed opposition. It took time to get going, as it became clear that the reconstruction, in fact, wasn’t happening.

Everyone Wants to Belong

You choose markers of group identity, whether religion, or specific belief. You choose visible symbols of membership, whether Burkas or gun ownership, or flag flying. You require specific behaviour that sets your people apart from others. You may decide to allow interaction with outsiders only in specific situations, or to encourage interaction only within the community. Outsiders are viewed as either enemies or subjects for conversion to the beliefs and norms of the community.

American Taliban

In the US the right has built institutions that supply meaning and the necessities to their followers. The Christian right supplies meaning for their people. They supply a narrative that pits their followers against the godless seculars in the rest of society. They tax their own people and redistribute that money (church tithing = taxation). The Minutemen, most of whom are nowhere near a border, watch over internal enemies and train to fight them. They are the beginning of an internal militia which could easily be turned loose against gays, Muslims, wetbacks and liberals. Organizations exist meant to purge the universities of liberals. The military itself is used as an organ of one party, something which is nominally illegal, but routinely ignored. Eliminationist talk, pushed onto TV and out through publishing houses, and indeed by Senators on a regular basis, regularly tars any opposition to the agenda of the right as treasonous. The penalty for treason, as everyone knows, is death.

And when the right fails, that failure is either because those who failed weren’t right wing enough or because they were betrayed by weak liberals. George Bush, as he spirals into irrelevance, will become for many right wingers, a liberal. For the hard core who are too invested in his personality cult to ever say such, it will be clear that Liberals stabbed him (and the military) in the back.

Prestige and The Invisible State

In the US the visible, coercive prestige parts of the state are claimed by Conservatives. The police, the courts, the military are all “conservative” parts of the State are the parts they draw their support from, and support. The softer parts, the invisible infrastructure of commercial law, of power generation, of roads and sewage, that they leave to Liberals. At one time those areas were very high prestige, because people remembered not having them. Today they are taken for granted. You flip the light switch, the light goes on. Electricity, sewage, the internet, are all disconnected from the fact that they would not exist without the state. Food is provided by the private sector (or so it seems), likewise health care (and the right does not want universal healthcare because liberals would own it and its prestige.) Indeed the only remaining high prestige areas associated with Liberals and Democrats are Medicare and Social Security. It should be no surprise that the right wants to destroy them. Nor should it be any surprise that unions, which along with black churches are the only social organization left to liberals, have been under a relentless 35 year assault.

It is not enough to do things for people. You must be seen to do things for them. You must be associated with power, with provision of services, with force and with symbols that speak of in-group identity. You must wrap yourself in the flag, and speak endlessly of the symbols of the group. From your hand must be seen to come that which is good, and you must also be seen to be the enforcer of the group’s beliefs and laws. You must be seen to defend the group from its enemies, both internal and external – first on the line against those who threaten the group’s cohesion and identity.

The King

Leadership has not changed since the earliest chieftains. Brave in battle. Just in law. Generous to your followers. A paragon of whatever virtues your people admire.

As long as humans are human, these will be the rules for those who wish to hold power.

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