This conceded the whole game without noticing. If informed statesmen are "unrestrained by mass conformity" and "of course" act selfishly once in power, that's the argument against concentrating power in them, not for it. Ignorance is fixable, corrigible even, through information and time. Selfishness with unchecked authority isn't. The masses being wrong sometimes is a solvable problem with better inputs. A small ruling class being self-interested by his own admission is a structural one with no outside correction, since they're the ones deciding who counts as sufficiently discerning.
The footnotes do more damage to this argument than any critic could. "200 to 500 years, generally" isn't a finding, it's a range wide enough to fit any outcome, and Venice gets waved off as an exception the moment it's inconvenient. But the real question is who decides who belongs in "the Few." History is full of people confident they were the discerning ones who should rule the rest. What made them right and everyone else incapable of thought? That's not rhetorical. I'd genuinely like an answer.
No, Venice is a genuine exception because power was so fragmented and distributed that effective political power was always shifting within the system that even those in power could not always locate were greater political power truly rested. The 200-to-500-year figure is a range, and it is not wide enough to fit any outcome. In civilizational analysis, that is a relatively short period of time for a governing or political system to exist.
On your last point, political discernment is relevant because experienced statesmen who were learned, serious scholars, and others with substantial knowledge of politics and statecraft had far more expertise than the average person. Objectively, that would make their opinions on political matters more valuable and more informed than those of the average person because of their competence. The same metric still applies today. There are serious scholars of politics and statecraft whose opinions are simply more valuable in politics because they are more politically discerning and competent.
The “incapable of thought” part is in reference to the conformity required of the individual to be accepted into the masses. They must collapse some of their own judgements and opinions to conform with the masses. Eventually, they are simply told what to think, and rather than questioning it, they rationalize defenses for conclusions they did not independently arrive at.
Fair pushback on Venice specifically. Where I'd still push back, expertise and discernment aren't the same thing as trustworthiness with power. Plenty of learned statesmen throughout history used exactly that credential to justify decisions that served themselves first. Competence in analyzing politics doesn't guarantee virtue in wielding it, and history's worst outcomes often came from confident experts, not confused masses. On conformity, that critique cuts both ways too. Elite consensus can calcify into groupthink just as easily as popular opinion can, sometimes with less correction available.
That is not being debated. People in power specifically are largely unrestrained by mass conformity and societal pressures, so of course they will be selfish and make decisions that benefit them. So yes, just because a statesman possesses political discernment does not disqualify them from the bounds of human nature. The point is that their opinions are more informed, so inherently, in political debate and decision-making, they are more qualified to be the ones making decisions rather than allowing the uninformed masses to decide. The masses are uninformed and disorganized by themselves; this does not make them more moral than the learned statesman, it just makes them ignorant. And yes, elite consensus, at least within the dominating faction at the time, can absolutely drive groupthink because it is in their interests.
He just conceded the whole game without noticing. If informed statesmen are "unrestrained by mass conformity" and "of course" act selfishly once in power, that's the argument against concentrating power in them, not for it. Ignorance is fixable, corrigible even, through information and time. Selfishness with unchecked authority isn't. The masses being wrong sometimes is a solvable problem with better inputs. A small ruling class being self-interested by his own admission is a structural one with no outside correction, since they're the ones deciding who counts as sufficiently discerning.
No, you are wrong. A person can be unrestrained by mass conformity, but that does not give them unlimited power, first of all. Secondly, you have an assumption baked in that better information will fix the masses. It will not. The masses throughout all of history have been an ignorant force because of the reasons in the essay. It is not solvable because the organized minority will always lead the masses, and the masses tend not to resist because they allow the minority to take advantage of their passions and emotions. A small ruling minority forms in every society; that is not fixable through a corrective mechanism, even in democracy.
We seem to have a fundamental disagreement. Democracy gives everyone an equal vote, no matter the discernment or knowledge of the voter. This creates an incentive to continue giving short-term benefits that destroy a society in the long term. The people cannot rule themselves because, even in systems that are designed to be governed by the consent of the people, they are still easily led and organized to push and vote for the interests of the ruling minority.
Are there any assumptions you are building your argument on that have not been addressed?
Fair, "unlimited power" was my overstatement, not yours. But your fix, elite rule, still runs into the same passions-and-emotions problem you're diagnosing in the masses. Organized minorities aren't immune to short-term thinking, they just have better tools to disguise it as long-term wisdom. My actual assumption, since you asked: that accountability mechanisms matter more than who's making the decision. A discerning ruler with no check and an undiscerning public with real accountability tools, I'd bet on the second lasting longer without catastrophic failure. History's worst catastrophes weren't usually decided by referendum.
This conceded the whole game without noticing. If informed statesmen are "unrestrained by mass conformity" and "of course" act selfishly once in power, that's the argument against concentrating power in them, not for it. Ignorance is fixable, corrigible even, through information and time. Selfishness with unchecked authority isn't. The masses being wrong sometimes is a solvable problem with better inputs. A small ruling class being self-interested by his own admission is a structural one with no outside correction, since they're the ones deciding who counts as sufficiently discerning.
The footnotes do more damage to this argument than any critic could. "200 to 500 years, generally" isn't a finding, it's a range wide enough to fit any outcome, and Venice gets waved off as an exception the moment it's inconvenient. But the real question is who decides who belongs in "the Few." History is full of people confident they were the discerning ones who should rule the rest. What made them right and everyone else incapable of thought? That's not rhetorical. I'd genuinely like an answer.
No, Venice is a genuine exception because power was so fragmented and distributed that effective political power was always shifting within the system that even those in power could not always locate were greater political power truly rested. The 200-to-500-year figure is a range, and it is not wide enough to fit any outcome. In civilizational analysis, that is a relatively short period of time for a governing or political system to exist.
On your last point, political discernment is relevant because experienced statesmen who were learned, serious scholars, and others with substantial knowledge of politics and statecraft had far more expertise than the average person. Objectively, that would make their opinions on political matters more valuable and more informed than those of the average person because of their competence. The same metric still applies today. There are serious scholars of politics and statecraft whose opinions are simply more valuable in politics because they are more politically discerning and competent.
The “incapable of thought” part is in reference to the conformity required of the individual to be accepted into the masses. They must collapse some of their own judgements and opinions to conform with the masses. Eventually, they are simply told what to think, and rather than questioning it, they rationalize defenses for conclusions they did not independently arrive at.
Fair pushback on Venice specifically. Where I'd still push back, expertise and discernment aren't the same thing as trustworthiness with power. Plenty of learned statesmen throughout history used exactly that credential to justify decisions that served themselves first. Competence in analyzing politics doesn't guarantee virtue in wielding it, and history's worst outcomes often came from confident experts, not confused masses. On conformity, that critique cuts both ways too. Elite consensus can calcify into groupthink just as easily as popular opinion can, sometimes with less correction available.
That is not being debated. People in power specifically are largely unrestrained by mass conformity and societal pressures, so of course they will be selfish and make decisions that benefit them. So yes, just because a statesman possesses political discernment does not disqualify them from the bounds of human nature. The point is that their opinions are more informed, so inherently, in political debate and decision-making, they are more qualified to be the ones making decisions rather than allowing the uninformed masses to decide. The masses are uninformed and disorganized by themselves; this does not make them more moral than the learned statesman, it just makes them ignorant. And yes, elite consensus, at least within the dominating faction at the time, can absolutely drive groupthink because it is in their interests.
He just conceded the whole game without noticing. If informed statesmen are "unrestrained by mass conformity" and "of course" act selfishly once in power, that's the argument against concentrating power in them, not for it. Ignorance is fixable, corrigible even, through information and time. Selfishness with unchecked authority isn't. The masses being wrong sometimes is a solvable problem with better inputs. A small ruling class being self-interested by his own admission is a structural one with no outside correction, since they're the ones deciding who counts as sufficiently discerning.
No, you are wrong. A person can be unrestrained by mass conformity, but that does not give them unlimited power, first of all. Secondly, you have an assumption baked in that better information will fix the masses. It will not. The masses throughout all of history have been an ignorant force because of the reasons in the essay. It is not solvable because the organized minority will always lead the masses, and the masses tend not to resist because they allow the minority to take advantage of their passions and emotions. A small ruling minority forms in every society; that is not fixable through a corrective mechanism, even in democracy.
We seem to have a fundamental disagreement. Democracy gives everyone an equal vote, no matter the discernment or knowledge of the voter. This creates an incentive to continue giving short-term benefits that destroy a society in the long term. The people cannot rule themselves because, even in systems that are designed to be governed by the consent of the people, they are still easily led and organized to push and vote for the interests of the ruling minority.
Are there any assumptions you are building your argument on that have not been addressed?
Fair, "unlimited power" was my overstatement, not yours. But your fix, elite rule, still runs into the same passions-and-emotions problem you're diagnosing in the masses. Organized minorities aren't immune to short-term thinking, they just have better tools to disguise it as long-term wisdom. My actual assumption, since you asked: that accountability mechanisms matter more than who's making the decision. A discerning ruler with no check and an undiscerning public with real accountability tools, I'd bet on the second lasting longer without catastrophic failure. History's worst catastrophes weren't usually decided by referendum.
interesting - I need to think about that.