Essays in Idleness

Women are always in the right. Men are always in the wrong. This is the basic tenet of feminism, and the theory behind modern family law. It is justified by empirical research, in which it has been found that, indeed, women are often abused.

Similar conclusions have been reached on questions of race, ethnicity, economic class, linguistic preference, religious affiliation or non-affiliation, immigrant status, et cetera — and the laws adjusted to reflect the latest discoveries of “human rights.” The intention is to achieve “equality.”

Employees are always in the right. Employers are always in the wrong. Surely everyone knows this. In particular, employers are wrong to expect people, other than themselves, to work, in the time before a social wage can be established, by the agencies of the State, to end this oppression.

Tenants are always in the right. Landlords are always in the wrong. More generally, creditors must defer to debtors. The principle is expounded on posters around Parkdale, which call persistently for rent strikes. How dare the landlords impose their gratuitous fees on persons who would otherwise be “homeless”?

Now, I have exaggerated a little. Many of the old laws remain on the books, and the police still do (selectively) enforce them. They have been given “sensitivity training,” however, lest they enforce with too much zeal, matters of no grave importance. They recognize that the only real crime is to possess the means of self-defence.

Moreover, it is possible I misrepresent the State. It may seem to have a radical policy agenda, when in fact it is content with absolute power.

We have a democracy, after all. Tenants have more votes than landlords. In every big city the politicians of the Left have rivalries, but only with each other. “Affordable housing” is in every manifesto; and “equality” on their every lip. The odd “Conservative” who gets himself elected has successfully demonstrated that he is really a “Progressive.” Or he has found a new constituency of whiners, usually among the denizens of the suburbs — where there may be a plurality of home-owners.

Home-owners are an inconvenience. They tend to engender biological families. These have always been a challenge to the State, especially when enflamed by religious beliefs. Their loyalty to the State falls short of absoluteness.

Democracy is built on, “Us versus Them.” Parties represent the contending interests. As Thomas Aquinas noticed, democracy is naturally divisive. As he didn’t, because it hadn’t happened yet, it is a means to advance the cause of violent revolution, peacefully. It is a way for the counter-revolutionary elements to negotiate their surrender, in a piecemeal fashion. As the Leninists used to say, the bourgeosie have rights. Specifically, “they have the right to become extinct.”

Out in the country, it should be said for balance, the shoe is still sometimes on the other foot. But the cities, or conurbations, grow, and rural populations are in decline, the world over. Technology has made this possible. In this sense it is the guarantor of progress.

And yet, advanced technology is not strictly necessary to create a Cuba, a Nicaragua, a Venezuela. A monopoly of arms is sufficient. Technology is there at best to create a China: a modern, centralized Surveillance State in which the proles get food, clothing, shelter — on the one condition that they keep their mouths shut. The Maoists began by killing tens of millions. These days obedience is secured by killing a few dozen, here and there. And prison camps work just as well.

Democracy works the other way around. The Surveillance State can be built without terror. The Internet provides all it can require, and its users volunteer information on themselves, in return for their economic treats. The mega-corporation and the mega-state gradually coalesce. It remains to be seen whether the Amazon method, or the Politburo method, will prove more durable.

For “national unity” was the object all along.