The road to tyranny
When editor Neil Godbout takes the time and energy to write an editorial which recommends a book, I take it to heart. Thus, I found myself this weekend reading On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder. It is a very short book and I would say an “easy read” except it is not. The writing and length make it something you can pick up and consume in one sitting. A couple of hours if you are slow reader like me.
But nothing in it is particularly easy as it does require you to think. And question. And think. And question. It is a book which looks at the rise of tyranny period but also in the context of the U.S.
One of its central theme could be Edmund Burke’s quote: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Snyder’s book is a call to action. It asks the reader to consider participating in the governance process before tyranny takes further hold.
To quote the opening lines to prologue of the book:
“History does not repeat, but it does instruct. As the Founding Fathers debated our Constitution, they took instruction from the history they knew. Concerned that the democratic republic they envisioned would collapse, they contemplated the descent of ancient democracies and republics into oligarchy and empire. As they knew, Aristotle warned that inequality brought instability, while Plato believed that demagogues exploited free speech to install themselves as tyrants. In founding a democratic republic upon law and establishing a system of checks and balances, the Founding Fathers sought to avoid the evil that they, like the ancient philosophers, called ‘tyranny.’”
Snyder speaks specifically to the United States, but his words can be taken much more broadly. Or maybe it is the words of ancient philosophers which can instruct us about the world we live in.
In either case, “Inequality brings about instability.” Consider our economic system which is displaying levels of inequality not seen in a hundred years. Indeed, the last time things were this bad, the whole system crashed and generated the Great Depression.
I turned on the radio on New Year’s Day to hear the announcer point out that by noon, the average CEO had earned as much money as the average worker in their companies.
Something is wrong. The top 100 richest people control over 50 per cent of the world’s wealth.
The top one per cent control 90 per cent.
Those numbers might even be on the low side as the richest people in the world keep their wealth away from public scrutiny (anyone seen Donald Trump’s tax returns yet?)
The point isn’t to vilify the richest few, but rather to point out the structural inequity of our global economy and its inherent instability. It is prone to fluctuations. It leaves far too many people living in unsatisfactory conditions – living in poverty.
At some point, people at the lowest end of the wage scale living under the harshest socio-economic conditions will rise up and declare “no more.” Such actions are readily apparent around the world leading to warfare and revolution.
In Canada, the response is more subtle but just as visceral. Various groups are trying to organize and ensure everyone has a living wage. The most obvious manifestation is an increase in the minimum wage.
We likely won’t have a revolution or open revolt. After all, we are Canadians. But we will have economic disruption.
Ontario is learning this the hard way with the fight now going on between workers, Tim Horton franchise owners, and the parent company over increases to the minimum wage. It is warfare of a different sort.
At a different level, the inequality of power in the workplace lies at the heart of some of the incidences of sexual abuse, violence and misconduct we are hearing about in the news media. The response is instability and a lack of faith in the ability of our justice system to properly address the issues.
The same can be said for the work as a whole. For years, larger and larger chunks of time have been carved out of our lives in order to simply afford to live. With the advent of smart phones, most people are working every day in some fashion or another.
The system is unstable and will eventually correct itself. How big a correction is yet to be seen but, if history is to instruct us, it will be through violent means.
That is, unless we chose to “obey in advance,” the title of the first chapter in Snyder’s book.
Plato was right. The tyrants no longer conquer in the same way.
They use words and images to persuade us to quietly accept their position of power. They ask us to not question, read, nor think for ourselves. Mostly, they ask “good people to do nothing.”
But that only leads to tyranny.