With apologies to Benjamin Franklin and C.S. Lewis
For one who wishes to rule absolutely, the most dangerous idea for a mass of people to hold is that they are their own sovereign. From this idea arises the notion that they may control the government, and not the government controlling the people. Whenever such an idea takes hold in the minds of the population, ambitious and scrupulous politicians must do what is necessary to return them to their proper subjection — to make the people tributaries of the states, and to relieve the state of any responsibility to the people.
While this may be done by force, violence foments contempt at home and abroad toward the perceived cruelties of the offender and the pretended sufferings of the offended. Rather than compel the physics of men, it is better to manipulate their intellect, and to make them truly believe in their dependence upon the state for their peace, prosperity, and preservation.
Firstly, if a ruler wishes to be controlled by his own desires rather than by the whims of his subordinates, he must instill in the minds of men that “all people are equal and free.” Do not be deceived. This is much different than the phrase, “all men are created equal and independent.” This oft-cited maxim refers to the nature of man and not his civil capacity, though the deft statesman may easily construe this truism to fit his needs through a dilution of history and philosophy.
Make men and women think that in the removal from nature to civilization they do not sacrifice any of their original equality or freedom; that the struggle for organization out of chaos needn’t have an authoritative organizer. Rather make them believe that order is borne only from a common effort while chaos is borne only of an inimical individual. While they are free, convince them that liberty is synonymous with extravagance, and accept for a time that individual pleasure is a noble pursuit, and that an equal tolerance for these pursuits is the highest virtue.
Make them think that circumstances of birth are irrelevant; that an inherited capacity and environment does not give the inheritor a right either to enjoy a favorable circumstance or to acknowledge an unfavorable one. Make them believe that they cannot, or should not, claim either the successes or the failures of their fathers as their own, and that the ideals of preceding generations have no positive impact upon the present one. If possible, make them reject the ideals of preceding generations, and make the conservation of pre-existing philosophy the antagonist to youthful desires for progress. It does not matter what these ideals or philosophies are. To make them servants, a statesman of free people must encourage friction between the ages, even if that friction is a disagreement about the best way to reject a common ancestor. An ideal end would be for children to blame their parents for modern failings, to abhor their successes as avarice, and to avoid any semblance of responsibility between the two.
Instill in minds that success gained from industry is always at the expense of failure gained from sloth. Make dreamers believe they are equal to thinkers and doers; penalize innovation and reward imitation. Regulate excellence to make it wilt; regalize mediocrity to make it grow.
Do not let mankind believe that providence, God, or nature has ordained different persons with different capacities. Let them instead make nurture and temporal environment the ordainer of outcome. They will then believe man can manipulate his environment to achieve a favorable result, and in time they will elevate the fittest to provide for the equal survival of the rest.
Secondly, make them believe that nascent minds are tabulae rasae; that intellect and wisdom are acquired and matured in the presence of a pedagogue, not through personal experience and consequence.
Make it convenient enough for parents to entrust their children’s education to others; they will shortly delegate the rearing of their offspring’s character. In primary schools make the students’ immature judgment influence how they are educated — do not permit, under any circumstance, education to mature their judgment. Teach them their childish desires are valid, that indulgence in them is virtue, and that progress is a product of indulgence. In secondary schools, turn hobbies of passion into industry and industries of production into hobbies. Give music, theater, art, and leisure (the reflections of society) equal merit to mathematics, civics, economics, and ethics (the impulses of society). Use the public university to reflect the whims of popular culture, and make it popular to attend the public university. Increase the diversity of degrees according to the demands of the student body. You need only create degrees to make it an eventual necessity to obtain a diploma to practice in that field.
Make the completion of primary school compulsory. When this is accepted as beneficial, do the same for secondary school. When the people have accepted this, move on to make university a requirement for profitable work, so that the first third of a person’s life is spent passively acquiring knowledge rather than actively applying it, and ensure that institutions are so numerous that common and individual funds are an ever-increasing debit to doctrine.
Thirdly, discourage the notion that people are entitled to what they work for. A ruler may do this for the poor by indebting them to the state through a liberal distribution of others’ wealth. For the wealthy, who have no debt to the state, make them believe that every tax they do not incur upon their property is at the pleasure of the government. Argue that allowing them to keep their own fruit is an expenditure of the state. Argue to the poor that tax cuts are handouts to the wealthy at the expense of the impoverished. Do not allow the argument that property lawfully gained is property lawfully possessed; instead, instill in minds that property gained is property taken and may be properly taken again — and that the only property properly possessed is property provided by the state.
Create among the masses an appetite for gifts by indebting the state to others. Spend liberally upon the poor first, the middling class second, and if you have not yet spent enough, indebt yourself further by creating protective contracts with the wealthy and convince them you will not allow them to fail. You may then promise equality, for even the wealthy would rather fall to protected mediocrity than unprotected bankruptcy. You must first mitigate risk so that you may promise a shield from collapse. Then in exchange you may mitigate reward so you can gain control of assets. Create among the masses a habit of receiving your generosity and they will gladly surrender their liberty and property in exchange for its continuance, which they will have to do to requite the government’s and their own decadence.
Lastly, convince the populace that quantity of life is preferable to quality of life. Make them think that terrestrial life is a purpose of its own sake, and scoff at the notion of celestial prospects. Promise a heaven on earth so that the ruled will gladly give their livelihood in exchange for extended life. Make security preferable to liberty, and make existing preferable to living. After this is done, the people will give — from whatever they have not given you for education, security, and leisure — their remaining property for the maintenance of their bodies. Do not let men be concerned with what they do, but rather make it your business to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.
All this you must do through democratic means, but this is easily done by gradually increasing suffrage to those whose assets are not at stake in society. First let those who do not own property vote, then let those who pay no taxes vote, then let those who are dependent completely on the state vote, and finally abolish all voting restrictions whatsoever so that children and non-citizens may determine who will lead them. In each succession, the dependence on the state will increase because the envious will always outnumber the munificent.
But this is not the end of freedom. For some will cling to ideas of liberty and private property. To extinguish this, you must promote division among groups. Initially the Volents and the Sanctuarians will quarrel amongst each other, but enough divisions — between class, race, sex, age, religion, and moral systems — will create a civil chaos (perhaps, if you are lucky, it will be violent). It will not be long from then that those who have not been extinguished or expelled by themselves will tire of strife, will blame chaos on the liberty that remained among them, and will clamor for a worthy king to enslave them.
For a better explanation of the natural decay of liberty, see Polybius’s Histories, especially book VI, and Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy.
