Beneficent, Benign Establishments

First, apologies for my long blogging hiatus. I made a number of significant decisions and changes in my writing business, then wrote two short stories, a political essay, and co-authored a (free) short book on what's going on in the publishing industry, then had to finish the new novel, The Detachment… all of which kept me from posting here as often as I'd like. I'll try to be more regular now, and to that end, I think I'll post more shorter pieces, in addition to the longer essays to which I seem naturally to gravitate. This post will be one of those shorter ones.

Last week, I gave a talk at my alma mater, Cornell Law. Before the talk got started, I was chatting with a few people, including a retired judge who likes my books and who asked me why I take such a dim view of establishments (he described himself as an establishmentarian). We didn't have time to talk about it much, so I thought I'd use the question, which is an interesting one, as the basis for this post.

For me, it comes down to this: who does the establishment serve?

If you're a member of the establishment (which I think is better understood as an oligarchy), naturally you'll believe it primarily serves society. But I believe establishments are like bureaucracies, and therefore subject to Jerry Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy, which suggests:

...in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representatives who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.

In fact, there is even a related concept, known at the Iron Law of Oligarchy.

There might have been some period in the golden past when the American establishment primarily served the interests of the wider society (I doubt this, but am willing to concede for the sake of argument). Regardless, over time, the establishment has inevitably come primarily to serve its own interests, probably through the psychological mechanism of equating society's interests with its own. L'etat, c'est moi.

It's all about human nature. Having achieved, or having been handed, a position of power, profit, and privilege in society, people will naturally seek to preserve that position, even at the expense of society's other members. To argue otherwise requires a view of human nature for which I see scant evidence. And in the behavior of politicians, bankers, corporate media organs, corporations -- and particularly up close and personal in the business practices and articulated worldview of members of the New York publishing establishment -- I see overwhelming evidence in support of my less sanguine view.

I therefore look at Amerca's oligarchy -- yes, more politely and generously known in some quarters as America's establishment -- as primarily parasitical, not as primarily beneficial. And naturally, I try to reflect this view in my books.

P.S. One other thing that's been keeping me from blogging here is that I've been guest blogging elsewhere. Here's a new piece I did with novelist J.A. Konrath on his blog, debunking some foolish and pernicious thinking about self-publishing from a reasonably well known literary agent.