BY ZVIAD KLIMENT LAZARASHVILI, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
“Divide Et Impera” is a Latin saying which in English translates as “Divide and Rule”. It refers to an ancient policy, used by such tyrants as the Caesar and Napoleon, Shah Abbas the first of Iran and the heads of the Russian empire (both, Tsarist and current), and everyone in-between, in order to sink their own, as well as the conquered people into perpetual serfdom. It is a combination of political, military and economic strategies aimed at gaining and maintaining power by breaking up people in order to deter a possibility of greater concentrations of power. The ensuing result is that the divided people individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy, – the oppressor. The use of this technique is meant to empower a dictator (or a group of dictators) to control subjects, populations, or factions of different interests, who collectively might be able to oppose his rule.
Niccolo Machiavelli identifies a similar application to military strategy, advising in Book VI of The Art of War (Dell’arte della Guerra), that a Captain should endeavor with every art to divide the forces of the enemy, either by making him suspicious of his men in whom he trusted, or by giving him cause that he has to separate his forces, and, because of this, become weaker.[1]
In the 19th and 20th centuries the strategy fast evolved and developed into a highly effective, micro-social and, I would say, cellular science for a relatively amenable implementation of serfdom en masse. Allow me to explain:
History is full of examples when it is either difficult, or financially burdening, or even quite impossible for a despot to impose his tyrannical rule over certain foreign nations or certain people within his own nation by sheer force. Before the 19th century a despot would try to conduct a social surgery, – to disassociate the targeted people from their legitimate (truly beneficent) sovereign, or to disassociate the sovereign from the elite, or to disassociate one ethnic people of a given nation from another, – the old versions of divide and rule. Essentially what the old despot was doing is that he was isolating people with common interest from one another, much like what the English did to the people of Scotland for centuries, and what Russians in vain tried to do among the indigenous nations of the Caucasus.
But soon the question arose among the professors of Moriarty creed of the day, – Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and the likeminded Sophists, – would it not be better if we manage to disassociate willingly the targeted individual not merely from the state, the beneficent sovereign or his fellow men, but rather from his very self, – his God-given nature, – freedom? After much trial and error they found the way to accomplish just that. Like all good Pharisees and hypocrites, they too adhered to the rule of thumb of sugarcoating evil, and decided to euphemize the new-style divide and rule policy by calling its milder version “socialism” and its more “beneficent” kind – “communism”.
In every case throughout history socialism and communism have two initial goals: they must take away from the people, first, the right to private property and, second, natural propensity for merit. The latter is done by establishing flat remuneration, regardless of the value produced. The former is done by promoting “public” enterprise. Without property people are rendered economically paralyzed, and without merit-based compensation people are left demoralized. Let’s discuss abolishing merit and establishing flat wages in greater depth: for one, Leonardo da Vinci and a dimwit who just dropped out of a trade school are being paid equally. In another example, a talented athlete and a fatso, who can hardly make a step, are both slouching at the track, because at the end of the race they both get the first prize, and, by the way, the first prize is always something utterly dull. Now, the dimwit is happy, and, definitely, so is the fatso, but both, Leonardo and the athlete are suicidal. Why? Because they know they are penalized for their talent and ability, – the fatso and the dimwit seem smarter, as they are accomplishing the same result as da Vinci and the athlete with less effort. But eventually both, da Vinci and the athlete grudgingly accept the prize of the day, – the identical, undifferentiated and ubiquitous first prize (the same that the fatso and the dimwit have been taking for a long time). Pretty soon they all start taking it willingly and, soon after, even happily. Mission accomplished, – by taking morsels off the hand of the tyrant, people dissociate themselves from two cardinal elements of economic freedom, – merit and competition, and soon enough they will also surrender their political freedom. The social micro-engineering project at the cellular level affected the very core and essential fibers of the individual and divided him from his own self, his nature, his God-given freedom. Instead of earning a fortune, he is receiving a pittance. One of his most important brain cells – the one which connects this man with his natural independence – has been effectively destroyed.
I believe that, irrespective of our political associations or philosophical views, at least in theory, if not in deed, we shall all unanimously and without much ado agree that freedom is an essential part of a human being. We may go as far as to concur that freedom is the very essence of a human being. Then it only follows, anything that perpetually hinders freedom is deadly and, therefore, evil; and conversely, – anything that perpetually supports freedom is vital and, therefore, good. We saw that socialism and communism, as they take away the right to own property and eliminate incentives, create a welfare case out of a citizen, who, in turn, grudgingly accepts the immediate (artificial) reality and forgets about the universal (natural) reality, – his own nature and freedom which are at its core. This eventually results in conformism and, finally, in a perfect serfdom. The man estranged from his freedom becomes an animal, a beast, a mindless Automaton who is no longer capable of thinking, discerning, taking risks, planning ahead, working hard or utilizing his talents, – and in a sense, he is no longer capable of anything which is essential for a life, that is for the life of a free man. So, by means of abolishing incentives and property rights, and the subsequent introduction of welfare, a man dwindles into an odd fellow, called a slave, and a nation – into a mass of conformists, called serfs.
I recently read several articles by a prominent 19th century Georgian (country of Georgia) economist, financier, poet, philosopher and statesman Ilia Chavchavadze. In these articles he prophesies that the battles of freedom in subsequent centuries would be won not by sword, but by sound economics. The Georgian economist warns his fellow countrymen that Georgians must now pick up and learn how to use an abacus, instead of the usual sword and shield. In fact, this most learned and talented man, the likes of which are scarcely found in the history of mankind, once introduced to finance and economics, picked up the abacus and never went back to the poetic pen, – after establishing the first bank of Georgia and quite a few other large capitalist enterprises, he never returned to poetry, and rarely got engaged in prose, history, law or even philosophy. He did not write a single poem since. This fact is hardly an accident.
[1] Machiavelli, Niccolo. (2001). The Art of War. Da Capo Press.