Perversions of governance: A shout out to Aristotle

Aristotle had famously expressed his fear for humanity’s future with respect to its governance. Both governance of the self as well as governance of the masses. So much so that he made a chart in which he drew parallels between each form of government that we could take as a society, and the “perverted” or deviant path that each of these forms of governance could take if not for a display of strong caution and duty to pursue the greater good of the masses. The chart (below this paragraph) is a beautiful piece of political theory to look back at today, considering that we have seen so many forms of governance come and go since the time of Aristotle (3rd Century BCE). After glancing at it, a keen observer could make a few deductions regarding the various forms of government that we have seen over the last century or so, in addition to the form of government as it stands today in the so-called ‘new world order’ (Trump’s America, Modi’s India, etc.)?

Remnants of democracy and aristocracy, the predominant schools of thought for the governance of nation states over the past couple of centuries, have evolved into what Aristotle might have viewed as the “deviant” mutations of democracy and aristocracy evolving simultaneously into the world of corporate oligarchy that appears as the prevalent state of affairs in the 21st century. The winners of the first few years of free market capitalism in every democratic state of the 20th century, rose to forms of power that allowed them elitist privileges in the governance of the masses, making perfect hindsight sense. In other words, these OGs of corporations from every country that has witnessed a free market capitalist society for any amount of time in the past, very soon took their wealth as permission to buy immunity and unquestionable influence in the state’s governance. From the Adani controversy in Dharavi to Elon Musk’s eerily close ties with Donald Trump, it seems like there are all the signs that our ideals of a free market have very quickly devolved just as Aristotle had anticipated, into a diaspore of oligarchs across the world.?

Are there signs that such a deviant form of governance is actually what we are witnessing in existence today? Certainly they exist; from the frequent exchange in personnel between the world of capitalism and the world of politics, to the uncannily heavy dialogue exclusively held between leaders of large corporations and high ranking government officials. Is one to interpret these events as tell-tale signs of a society gone “bad”? Certainly not. However, if the world must be assessed from a broader scheme of things at all times, then we can’t escape these truths. They are what will keep us grounded to reality as a species, even as we seem to be constantly discovering newer ways to escape physical existence altogether for a life consumed by digital experience. Now more than ever.?

The capitalist oligarchy can only be expected to utilize this obsession of the masses with digital escapism, as with any obsession of the masses, towards mass suppression. Selling the product as well as the need, is akin to selling the disease as well as the cure. That isn’t demand generation. That’s a perversion of business development, another left over from the ideals of capitalism that while never may have been a reality, certainly existed in the minds of a few great entrepreneurs. For a while.?

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