“POWER GROUPS” – AN EXPLANATION
The expression “Power Groups” was coined by myself in 2011. I have Googled the expression, and find no earlier use.
Since I used the expression “Power Groups” repeatedly, in different articles, I feel that it is incumbent upon myself to explain its total meaning.
BASIC PRINCIPLES
The word “POWER” is defined on the Internet as:
1. ability to do or act; capability of doing or accomplishing something
2. political or national strength: the balance of power in Europe
3. great or marked ability to do or act; strength; might; force
4. the possession of control or command over others; authority; ascendancy: power over men’s minds
5. political ascendancy or control in the government of a country, state, etc.
In the term “Power Groups” I am emphasizing definitions four and five. Yet, every definition is implied.
“Groups” of course, is a number of people greater than three. I believe that Power Groups consist of groups over 100 and as many as thousands. This is an arbitrary decision. A Power Group could be any number of people, depending on the number of people they control.
POPULATION GROWTH
In my explanation, it is assumed that we all know that the population of the Earth was less than several million, perhaps one hundred thousand years ago, and that today it is doubling rapidly and has just passed seven billion people.
We are now in the phase of exponential population growth. This phase occurs before a species becomes extinct. The species becomes extinct because it totally consumes its food and energy supplies. This is seen in all living things, from bacteria, plants to every specie of animal.
The importance of population growth lies in the fact that it takes more and more people in power to control the increased population.
It is, also, understood that less than one percent of the population understand the complex forces of society. The rest believe what they have been told by others, especially, if the media and the government supports those others.
LEADERSHIP OF SOCIETIES
From the earliest recorded behavior of mankind, human groups always had a form of leadership. Social groups never behaved independently like some mammals, such as bears or tigers or reptiles. We did not forage for our food or hunt animals alone. We formed groups and chose a leader or leaders and followed their directions.
Through trial and error, (evolution) we learned that we could achieve more as a group, rather than as individuals, each seeking his own path.
Since human and animal predators were everywhere, we formed groups to fight or attack the predators. Those groups, eventually called armies, had leaders who maintained discipline and decided who and how to fight and when to attack or retreat.
This type of leadership grew out of the necessity for survival in the harsh conditions of the forest or the jungle.
LEADERS TURN INTO KINGS
As time passed, the leaders, who became leaders either because of their strength or their intelligence or both, had families and offspring. Since the male offspring resembled their fathers, both in appearance and in intelligence, the group accepted them as the new leaders.
This system of rulership, by a family, with the father passing on power to his sons, became known as Aristocracy. It was the form of government throughout the world until the end of the Nineteenth Century, less than 200 years ago. It exists to this very day in many countries, often in the form of dictatorships.
Sporadically, there were men, and even more sporadically, women, who took on leadership roles without being part of the Aristocracy.
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT
The first government where the people won the right to rule through their representatives was in the mountains of what is now known as Switzerland. This Swiss Confederation was born in 1291. It had no equal for 500 years.
However, as the 19th Century ended, more and more European states adopted the Representative form of government. The leaders turned to the Representative form of government because of the forces of population growth. Aristocracy was too clumsy ands too inefficient to handle tens of millions of people.
A larger group of leaders was needed.
It is commonly thought that the masses of people achieved representative government because of their desire to have a voice in their government.
Individuals have always wanted a voice in their leadership, but, in reality, it was the weakness of the aristocracy in not being able to control the large number of new people which led to the downfall of Aristocracy.
If the kings of the feudal kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century had the weapons of destruction available today, we would still have aristocracy. The aristocracy lost their power to control because of the immense population growth and the lack of modern military technology.
THE MASSES ARE PLEASED
The people were very pleased with this new form of government, because they finally felt that they were part of the Power group that controlled their lives. The people used endearing terms for the new form of government: “Freedom”, “Democracy”, “The Voice of the People” etc.
We shall see that the same groups that ruled the people in the aristocracies, devised methods to rule the people in the new ‘republics.’
FROM SMALL TO BIG
In the days of the aristocracies, the kingdoms were small.
A king and his family and advisors could not control a very large group of people numbering in the tens of millions. It was too complicated. The delegation of power and authority crumbled when the population large. For centuries, the countries of the world were tiny in comparison to what they are today. This period of time is known as the Feudal Age. Only in the 19th Century did the modern countries evolve.
The important fact to remember is that, the larger the population, the larger the Government, or Group of People with power.
Social studies exist which demonstrate how many people one person can control. As the number of people increases the number of controllers has to increase. Thus, we can see the establishment of modern government with its immense beauracracies.
SHORT SUMMARY
From a few families, humans moved to tribes, then to kingdoms, then to nations as the number of people constantly increased.
In tandem, the Power Structures (Governments), their leaders and controllers, grew in number, as well. This occurred for two reasons:
1. The greater the population, the greater the number of people necessary to control their activities.
2. Being part of a power group meant that more wealth was available for less work.
Instead of working hard constantly in the fields, it was much more pleasant to work for the evolving Power Structures.
TAXATION
Taxation of working citizens became the ONLY WAY of transferring wealth from the productive workers to the new governmental power groups.
Taxes became the means of parasitizing the workers. We have evidence of tax collections in the earliest writings of mankind, including the Bible where “Tax Collectors” are mentioned repeatedly.
It is important to understand that taxes are a means of supporting two types of human activities:
1. Government services which may or may not benefit the people.
2. Parasitic people, whose life styles contribute noting to the people, but, whose life styles require large amounts of money.
USING TAXES TO INCREASE POWER
Before we understand taxes, we must understand a large part of nature which we scientists call: PARASITISM.
Parasitism is the term that describes the relationship between two individuals, two groups or two species of animals or plants. Since survival is difficult, over time, people, animals, plants, bacteria and fungi–all living things, became involved in Parasitism.
Every living being or groups of beings, became aware, over time, that they would survive in greater numbers if they took some useful part of another living being.
Scientists describe this process, as the interaction of the “Taker” as the PARASITE and the “Giver” as the HOST. The Parasite takes and the Host gives.
PARASITISM IS UNIVERSAL AMONGST ALL LIVING THINGS IN GROUPS OR IN INDIVIDUALS.
EXAMPLES
The human body is covered with bacteria. They live on every surface area, in every orifice and in our intestines, nose, ears, vagina and hair follicles.
Wherever they live, they grow and get their nutrition from the cells and secretions of our body. They do us no harm. They almost always help our body, by making our food easy to digest and absorb, by keeping our skin healthy, by keeping the vagina acidic so no fungi or harmful bacteria can grow and by crowding out harmful bacteria in our intestines. They strengthen the immune system by supplying needed molecules.
If we use antibiotics and kill these helpful parasites, we immediately become invaded with harmful parasites. Our Immune System loses strength, some killing bacteria may invade our intestine and cause extreme damage, we grow fungi in our mouth and other wet parts of our body, and our skin, eyes, ears and nails become invaded with either harmful bacteria or fungi.
In the world of plants and insects, plants provide food for the insects and the insects provide the means of plant reproduction through a process of cross polarization.
If we look, with our minds, we will see “parasitism” everywhere, including amongst humans and human groups.
Since all parasitic relationships can be classified as “good” or “bad” in respect to the ‘Host” medical scientists have termed the “bad” or “harmful to the
Host” relationship as “PATHOGENIC PARASITISM” (pathos=disease; genie= causing).
The “good” or “beneficial relationship” is called “SYMBIOTIC PARASITISM” (sym=living together; bios=life). Most “Symbiotic” relationships benefit both parties. None hurt either party.
PARASITISM AMONGST HUMANS
Humans have always had parasitic relationship. The most frequent use of “Parasites” amongst humans is in the negative–where one individual or group harms the other individual or group.
However, in order to understand human relationships, we must understand that all relationships are parasitic; the majority good, and the minority bad–with some being extremely bad, and, some being extremely good.
FAMILY
This is a parasitic situation in that the children, when young, are unable to care for themselves, and the parents must nature them. In time, the children become old enough to sustain themselves, and ideally, they sustain their parents when the parents are old and cannot sustain themselves.
This is a very good parasitic situation.
GOVERNMENT
In any country where the government is benign, the government provides the means to educate the population and to protect them from harm from foreign aggressors and domestic predators. In turn, the Government takes taxes from the people, only in sufficient quantity to sustain their beneficial acts.
This is a very good parasitic situation.
However, according to history it rarely occurs. When it does occur, the country is small and very homogenous in terms of its inhabitants. Almost always, the citizens are intelligent, hard working with a very strong moral commitment.
Some examples of countries like this are: Switzerland, Norway, Singapore, and Andorra.
Across the entire planet, inhabited by over seven billion people, there are less than a dozen countries with good relations between government and public. This fact demonstrates the findings that most countries, and all large countries, are experiencing parasitic relationships that are detrimental to the host–and, ultimately, to the ruling class as well.
A parasitic relationship which harms the host kills the parasite!
BRIEF SUMMARY
We have seen that the human species requires leadership in order to survive. Initially, that leadership was few in number. But, as the number of humans grew, so did the number of leaders.
From families people moved to tribes and other small groups. Then they became small feudal states and finally nations. Their leaders were, initially, a few strong men, then kings with their families, then governments.
We see that there is always a parasitic relationship between those that govern and the general public. Almost always that relationship is harmful to the host, the public. Rarely, it is not.
When the relationship is overly harmful (pathological), the relationship breaks down. We call these breakdowns “Revolutions”, “Civil Wars” and “Insurgencies.” The terms are irrelevant. If the parasite harms the host so that the host is in constant pain and becomes economically sick, the host will attempt to rid himself of the parasite.
We are seeing this denouement across the world in 2011.
To be continued…
