For a while I a have been toying around with the idea that nearly everything works as if it is a pendulum as far as social trends go. For instance if you look at environmentalism you will see that right now it is declining. In my opinion it is near the top of what it will be and it will decline for a while. My evidence for this is that looking back about 30-40 years ago you will see that there was a lot of environmentalism. and at a point it started declining only to rise again later. I think a much more important pendulum to look at however is democracy. Let me first say that this pendulum moves much much slower than the environmental one. This pendulum also is made of two smaller pendulums that of government action in the economy, and in social issues.
Look at the beginning of America, there is very little involvement of the government in the economy and we are very conservative as far social issues go, these are two parallel pendulums. Looking at the issue of government involvement in the economy this policy of no involvement worked for a while. But then later you get people like Carnegie and Rockefeller who take advantage of the system and end up causing serious problems. (Workers dying weekly, terrible working conditions, low pay, and high prices for their products.)
While they would be making tons of money the workers would be getting paid less than a dollar a week. Here you have motivation to push for governmental action, which after a time works and now in America trusts and tycoons are illegal. This pattern continues, the workers feel oppressed by something that their bosses do and eventually get government action on it. You can see it even today with all the many many many many many requirements that the government has on businesses. For instance, minimum wage is ALWAYS increasing even though the long and short term effect of this is that jobs will be cut.
Moving over now to the pendulum relating to governmental action on social issues. Once again at the start of America you see that there is very little action, people are free to do what they choose and this causes little problem. The problem comes from no governmental action in regards to the poor. Of course this relates closely back to the economic issues such as minimum wage. However the main cause of increases in programs to help the needy is the need for a politician to get elected.
In George Orwell's book 1984, he details how every single rebellion in all of history involves the middle class using the lower class to overthrow the upper class and then pushing down the lower class. In America and any democratic society we have a different situation. The upper class (usually) has to appeal to the lower class for help to gain power over all of the classes usually in the form of promising tax cuts, reforms that benefit them and more programs to help the lower class. Once this happens however the lower class still maintains the majority of power because there are always more people in the lower class than any other class otherwise society would collapse. So instead of the lower class being pushed down as they normally would they maintain control. Now the politician has to enact or at least appear to try to enact some of his policies. No politician can cancel any of the policies made by his predecessors because it will cause the lower class to become upset and they won't be elected or stay in office.
So this problem builds upon itself continually, the overall effect of the two pendulums working together in this case is that the government gains more and more control. The problem with a pendulum however is that the force that comes from its release at the top of its arc carries it straight through the point of equilibrium. So while at one point I'm sure we were at a good point as far as government action in the economy and in social issues we swung right past it and will continue to swing in that direction until the force of gravity pulls us right back down and to the other direction.
Conclusion: The pendulum of democracy, made up of government involvement in society and economy swings from totally free no involvement to inevitable socialism.
So here is the question. At what point is there too much governmental action and is it even possible for it to reverse without some type of actual revolt, as opposed to the civilized revolts we have in the form of election?'
Sorry this is so wordy, but I had to pack in a lot of information.
Look at the beginning of America, there is very little involvement of the government in the economy and we are very conservative as far social issues go, these are two parallel pendulums. Looking at the issue of government involvement in the economy this policy of no involvement worked for a while. But then later you get people like Carnegie and Rockefeller who take advantage of the system and end up causing serious problems. (Workers dying weekly, terrible working conditions, low pay, and high prices for their products.)
While they would be making tons of money the workers would be getting paid less than a dollar a week. Here you have motivation to push for governmental action, which after a time works and now in America trusts and tycoons are illegal. This pattern continues, the workers feel oppressed by something that their bosses do and eventually get government action on it. You can see it even today with all the many many many many many requirements that the government has on businesses. For instance, minimum wage is ALWAYS increasing even though the long and short term effect of this is that jobs will be cut.
Moving over now to the pendulum relating to governmental action on social issues. Once again at the start of America you see that there is very little action, people are free to do what they choose and this causes little problem. The problem comes from no governmental action in regards to the poor. Of course this relates closely back to the economic issues such as minimum wage. However the main cause of increases in programs to help the needy is the need for a politician to get elected.
In George Orwell's book 1984, he details how every single rebellion in all of history involves the middle class using the lower class to overthrow the upper class and then pushing down the lower class. In America and any democratic society we have a different situation. The upper class (usually) has to appeal to the lower class for help to gain power over all of the classes usually in the form of promising tax cuts, reforms that benefit them and more programs to help the lower class. Once this happens however the lower class still maintains the majority of power because there are always more people in the lower class than any other class otherwise society would collapse. So instead of the lower class being pushed down as they normally would they maintain control. Now the politician has to enact or at least appear to try to enact some of his policies. No politician can cancel any of the policies made by his predecessors because it will cause the lower class to become upset and they won't be elected or stay in office.
So this problem builds upon itself continually, the overall effect of the two pendulums working together in this case is that the government gains more and more control. The problem with a pendulum however is that the force that comes from its release at the top of its arc carries it straight through the point of equilibrium. So while at one point I'm sure we were at a good point as far as government action in the economy and in social issues we swung right past it and will continue to swing in that direction until the force of gravity pulls us right back down and to the other direction.
Conclusion: The pendulum of democracy, made up of government involvement in society and economy swings from totally free no involvement to inevitable socialism.
So here is the question. At what point is there too much governmental action and is it even possible for it to reverse without some type of actual revolt, as opposed to the civilized revolts we have in the form of election?'
Sorry this is so wordy, but I had to pack in a lot of information.