The social engineers have focused on efficiency in governance for a long, long time. I'll just go back to the start of the 20th century, but in fact it goes back to antiquity, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, et al. A ruling class. So audacious to covet "damned efficient slavery" while lamenting "inefficient freedom even in the immediate aftermath of WWII. Elite rule coveted and freedom dismissed even under Obama. A history:
Circulation of Elites. Vilfredo Pareto put this concept forward, drawing on Machiavelli.:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circulation_of_elites
"Pareto introduced a social taxonomy that included six classes, Class I through Class VI. Class I corresponds to the adventurous "foxes" in Machiavelli, and Class II to the conservative "lions," particularly in the governing elite."
Foxes being Class I, not sure what class naughty felines are?
Vilfredo Pareto was quite the thinker and influencer, though most of us only know him for his Pareto Principle, aka the 80-20 rule:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilfredo_Pareto
"As a young student, Mussolini had attended some of Pareto's lectures at the University of Lausanne in 1904. It has been argued that Mussolini's move away from socialism towards a form of elitism may be attributed to Pareto's ideas. Franz Borkenau, a biographer, argued that Mussolini followed Pareto's policy ideas during the beginning of his tenure as prime minister. Karl Popper dubbed Pareto the "theoretician of totalitarianism"
His book 'The Mind and Society' was his large, influential treatise on social engineering:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mind_and_Society
"In this book Pareto presents the first sociological cycle theory, centered on the concept of an elite social class.
The Mind and Society has been named, by Martin Seymour-Smith, as one of the most influential books ever written"
Pareto was very driven to achieving the most efficient form of government possible, his Pareto Efficiency model:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency
And it's in that drive for maximum efficiency that all inefficiencies must be eliminated. Including that little troublesome 'Inefficient Freedom' thing:
Damned Efficient Slavery’ vs. ‘Inefficient Freedom’
SAN FRANCISCO (AP), January 4th, 1958
https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist0158uvic_1/mode/2up?view=theater
"Communism is mounting an attack upon the western world with economic weapons, Sir David Eccles, president of the Board of Trade of the United Kingdom, declared yesterday. He said that while the western nations are pooling their military resources against any war arising from the Soviet Union, “not enough attention has been given to pooling our economic resources, either for the expansion of trade between ourselves, or for meeting the economic offensive that is coming from the Sino-Soviet bloc.”
Sir David, member of the British cabinet, addressed members of the British-American Chamber of Commerce and Trade Centre, the San Francisco World Trade Association and the World Affairs Council of Northern California. Because the Soviets mobilize and direct all their economic resources from one centre, he said, they have a great advantage.
“Vice-President Nixon called the Russian system slavery. All right, slavery it is. But damned efficient slavery. “The west, on the other hand, is fragmented into sovereign states, as often as not pursuing rival economic policies. “We lack imaginative plans for expansion of the free world’s wealth. Indeed, we go our own sweet ways protecting our domestic industries to the detriment of those of our closest allies, trying to block each other’s trade when we should be collaborating for raising standards of life. “We cherish our freedom. All right, freedom it is, but sadly inefficient freedom.”"
FF - that was from the late 1950's. Here's the same sentiment shared in the NYT a half century later:
Our One-Party Democracy - Thomas Friedman
The New York Times, September 8, 2009
https://archive.ph/RBOvl#selection-663.0-663.310
"One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century"
"China’s leaders understand that in a world of exploding populations and rising emerging-market middle classes, demand for clean power and energy efficiency is going to soar. Beijing wants to make sure that it owns that industry and is ordering the policies to do that, including boosting gasoline prices, from the top down."
"The only way for us to match them is by legislating a rising carbon price along with efficiency and renewable standards that will stimulate massive private investment in clean-tech. Hard to do with a one-party democracy."
“Globalization has neutered the Republican Party, leaving it to represent not the have-nots of the recession but the have-nots of globalized America, the people who have been left behind either in reality or in their fears,” said Edward Goldberg, a global trade consultant who teaches at Baruch College.
“The need to compete in a globalized world has forced the meritocracy, the multinational corporate manager, the eastern financier and the technology entrepreneur to reconsider what the Republican Party has to offer. In principle, they have left the party, leaving behind not a pragmatic coalition but a group of ideological naysayers.”
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