Spartan society is unique and rare in slave societies through history. The majority of its society was made of slaves: 100 000 Helots, and only around 8000 Spartans. The question naturally arises: How comes the minority rule over the majority?
Humanity is facing a similar situation, power in the hands of a few thousands, yet billions of people can't free themselves. So the question remains: how comes the minority rule over the majority?
David Hume attempted to wisely answer such question:
"Nothing is more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than to see the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and to observe the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers.
When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find, that as force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is, therefore, on opinion only that government is founded."
As such, to change society masses to change opinion. It is, therefore, political education the most important task of the revolutionary.
>>2547502>talks about political education>wastes 2 paragraphs trying to say that modern society is homologous spartayou are mentally retarded and should educate yourself. use actual words and express actual ideas instead of just tracing historical "parallelisms" in confusion. at least pretend you know what historical materialism is, if you are going to pretend having read marx
>>2547506Materialism has already been debunked like a million times. Only orthodox Marxists still believe in it. It was debunked by Rudolf Rocker's "State and Nationalism", and others. Just look at history.
>>2547514> Materialism has already been debunked like a million times<The idea that reality exists outside human perception has been debunked a million times 😐
>>2547502It was crazy reading about peasant rebellions where tens of thousands of poor disorganized farmers got wrecked by a few hundred knights who were training since they were 12.
>>2547543The ratio was 10vs1. 10 men should be able to overcome a man with a sword
>>2547564Knights were walking human tanks. Bows, pitch forks, whatever farming tools or improvised weapons wouldn’t be able to pierce the armor. Not to mention knights were well fed and trained, while peasants were often malnourished. I’m sure it could be done but it would have to be very coordinated and they would have to implement traps and ambush strategies.
>>2547502To answer your question OP is the technology gap. The ruling class of every epoch cemented their rule by being the exclusive users of certain technologies, for instance during the Neolithic revolution. Humans that had farms and defensible locations were able to easily wipe and or enslave those still relying on hunting and gathering. A settlement is able to produce a steady and consistent amount of calories, allowing them to maintain a higher population, allowing them to produce weapons and tools at a much higher rate and with better quality. The modern equivalent of this is the ruling classes command over air superiority and telecommunications technology. They won’t be overturned in till the ruling class either can’t maintain this technology or the gap gets closed.
>>2547590There had to be a hierarchy before then I would think. How did those neolithic humans choose the one who would lead them to war against said hunter-gatherers?
>>2547596I’m not an anthropologist, so be free to look all this up and correct me. From what I’ve seen there was no hierarchy or at least no consistent one from tribe to tribe. Hierarchy seemed to form out of primitive religion, you can look up the cult of the skull. How they picked leaders would have varied im guessing but seemed the leaders would have a religious mandate. You can actually see the transition from warlord priest to kings in the Bible. I think it’s in judges or kings, anyways the jews are bitching to god they want a king to deal in secular matters and foreign policy. God tells them they’re stupid but can have a king and a priest throws some oil at a guy and anoints I wanna say David but I think that’s wrong. Anyways point being there’s loads of evidence early hierarchies we’re likely religious based at first and then as settlements became more complex new social structures were created to deal with the increasing complexity.
Some got into slavery by debt AFAIK. If you could make more by not getting into it, return debt by somehow else, then why go to slavery? You could just return more, a percent more. I think you just could not anyhow else make more. I reconstruct it somehow backwards, I know that at some time, slaves begin running away, to the cities. The slaves at that time were bound to land, farmer slaves. But in the cities they could find a job, they became prols, it was better.
But it is not easy to define, what is better atm. Then what political eduction is for? Politically means we can get to some common conclusion or goal and work on it.
Lets say better is consumerism, like using a cool car, big house, etc, you know. This can't be political goal.
So I think that not politics, but constructive thinking technically. An example will be: if you need a car to get to your job, then may be it can rails or a bus. May be something can be done so you can live close to your job.
You do not try to become a better consumer in the same system by looking just how everyone else is doing that, that can't be politics.
>>2547590Spiked hammers could get through plate armor but also plate was rather late in the medieval period.
Maille is pretty vulnerable to arrows and maces
>>2547590I find it interesting that you mentioned air superiority. Would you explain why? As for telecomunnications technology I would argue we are on the same level. The problem is amateur content is drowned by advertisers and monopolies
Because the masses/normies/goyim/95% are conformists who just can’t think critically.
Even if a revolution happens and, for example, there will be anarchy in which everyone will be happy, some Shlomo will suddenly appear and will start agitating about the greatness of the nation, about God, about traditions. The masses will put him on the throne, and the wheel of samsara will turn
Here's a good experiment to explain the nature of power and minority rule:
Take off your shirt and let someone whip you on your bare back with a bull whip as hard as they can. After that you will understand everything perfectly.
>>2547543It was mostly a morale issue, happened with most medieval armies including non-peasant ones. They see a few hundred guys get killed and the momentum on the enemy side and they get routed, 10 malnourished peasants with polearms can still easily drag a knight onto the ground and beat him to death, but nobody wants to be the guy who goes first and gets sliced in half by the knight, so they end up all dying.
>>2548315Of course it’s practically impossible to train a peasant mob to the required level of discipline, since if they’re training and organizing it means they’ve already revolted and the suppressing forces will already be on the way, so they don’t have enough time. This is why local revolts never succeeded, wherever the ruling class’s army went they would destroy the rebels. Only mass revolts all over the place, to the point where there weren’t enough enforcers to put them all down, could topple a kingdom or empire.
>>2548042Doesn't play after 50 seconds
Another day another evidence that anarchists are the most stupid species in the universe
its because the state is backed up by paid mercenaries of the ruling class.
>>2548238What's stopping me from turning around, taking the whip and whipping they instead?
>>2548386Yes but police and soldiers are a minority. In the US especially people have easy access to weapons
>>2549932>What's stopping me from turning around, taking the whip and whipping they instead?The five other guys with guns watching you get whipped.
>Yes but police and soldiers are a minority. In the US especially people have easy access to weaponsyes but those cops have the technological infrastructure, the military grade gear, and the support of local government to enforce their might that is right.
>>2549932>What's stopping me from turning around, taking the whip and whipping they instead?The fear of getting whipped again. I don't care how tough you are, it won't take more than a few good licks on the bare back with a bullwhip or a birch switch to drive all those silly thoughts of rebellion out of your mind and make you realize what is actually most important to you in your life, which is to not get whipped again.
1. divide and conquer
- incentivize atomized, subservient behavior cooperative to occupation
- punish or remove the strong, charismatic, intelligent and outspoken
- this creates levels of privilege and misery, with the goal of not falling further down, and maybe being able to climb up. The outcome is controlled by the ruling class, putting them in charge of the actions of any rational and self-serving individual
2. supremacy ideology
- with the material foundation of drastic differences in living condition, convince both the ruling and ruled classes of fundamental differences that must cause this division. The rulers are superior and untouchable, the ruled are weak, stupid, and selfish
- the rulers see the condition of the oppressed as natural
- the ruled believe there's no way they could ever beat the rulers
- some ruled worship or want to become the rulers, despising their own class. It creates solidarity among the rulers and dissolves solidarity among the ruled
3. manipulating people with the effects of trauma
- use terror and deprivation on the ruled to make them obedient, make them grateful to barely (but at least) survive
- makes individuals less outgoing, therefore less likely to organize
- keep them only thinking about survival, and the easiest way to survive the next day is to obey and not do anything differently than before
- trauma bond and national myth, that kind of thing. People who put up with a lot feel invested, they may paradoxically value their lifestyle more the harder to endure it is
4. self-perpetuation of monopoly on violence
- the rulers are already organized and armed
- their organization allows them to siphon wealth
- the wealth allows them to stay organized, fed, armed, trained
- they have the organization in place to punish any attempts at organizing by the ruled
This is a super important topic because this is how capitalism has ruled for it's entire history, in every country. Every "ism" is baked in, all of the things that liberalism claims are feudal vestiges are necessary to the functioning of capitalism. It needs a hierarchy of unevenly distributed misery so that the population polices itself, and so that the most exploited have the least hope, and the least exploited have the most investment in the system that both harms and rewards them. only if we can figure out how to beat the short-sighted rationality of obeying, overcome trauma responses, replace supremacy ideology with a new narrative, and organize under the nose of the state without being destroyed first, then we have a chance.
just 2 reasons really
1) Raw strength; the ruling class is obviously better equipped to militarily enforce their will land defend their interests, whereas proles literally have nothing and getting guns is hard
2) Ideology; as if the previous point weren't already enough, the majority of people nowadays absolutely love the system they live under (completely consciously and willingly) and are dumb enough to think its interests coincide with theirs. That's how you get people going around spewing constructive criticism of capitalism out of their mouths.
>>2547502organization, discipline
why do you think communists are obsessed with those? because this is the source of power
>>2553610A method to oevrcome all those forms of control has never been found and probably will never be. But it is not required as history shows. Good post though
>>2557273Raw strength has limits. It is constrained by legitimacy. As for ideology, I don't think people love the system. They just believe there's no other way
>>2557523This discipline and organization is nowhere to be seen. Long gone are the days of thousands of common people organized meaningfully
>>2564333>Raw strength has limits. It is constrained by legitimacyI'd say it isn't, it just so happens that those who hold power within the state also think highly of morals and values etc. but theoretically the state could do whatever the fuck it wants and it could get away with it
>As for ideology, I don't think people love the system. They just believe there's no other waythat might depend but it doesn't change the fact that thinking about criticism like that is still ideology and love for the system, this sort of theoretical attitude only accepts critique of anything if it has any proof of being succesful without actually considering its arguments (that's the reasoning behind the classic line "what's the alternative though?")
>>2547502>The majority of its society was made of slavesThat was common i the ancient world. Sparta just had much more and the slaves were greeks.
The Roman proletariat lived at the expense of society, while modern society lives at the expense of the proletariat.
>>2557523>organization, disciplineThe German revolution had those and it still got crushed
>>2572527Not enough numbers though
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