Yet another savage dictator has been overthrown, this time in Syria! However, the authoritarian dictatorships of hierarchical mass societies in general will continue as they have since ancient times. The fundamental socio-economic contradiction between ruling classes, their elites, and their labouring populations has never been overcome and so the spectrum of authoritarian ruling elites forming and then collapsing will continue, until they are replaced, by non hierarchical socio-economic formations. The shallow analysis of most left, right and centre pundits and political’ experts are currently attempting to justify their salaries, ‘esteem’ or ‘street credibility’ by speculating upon what form of elite dictatorship (social democratic authoritarian, oligarchic authoritarian, religious authoritarian, communist authoritarian or socialist authoritarian) would be best to follow in Assad’s footsteps.

The overthrow of the despicable class and self-dehumanised family regime of the Assad family characterised by torture and internment (e.g. in particular, the infamous Sednaya Prison) has been long overdue. It has been a long-ish interval between the domino effect occuring during the so-called Arab Spring in the middle east, and elsewhere and this current demise of a western imposed and supported puppet regime. This again shows the fragile weakness of the hiearchical mass society system over their entire socio-economic past and present history. Even the ruling elites paid enforcers can become so alienated and disgusted at the system that they rapidly dissolve or disappear in the face of concerted and determined opposition. Numerous past Dictators and Empires, have crumbled and fell apart even at times when and where they have appeared most powerful and durable, to themselves and to others.

The reason for such implosions is not hard to fathom. Elites quickly become accustomed to taking for granted that their systems of oppression and exploitation, which enables their privileged status in wealth and power to continue, are ‘natural’ or divinely granted. This means that they are frequently taken by surprise, when their eventual overthrow happens. For in fact, rather than fiction, there is nothing ‘natural‘ about controlling populations of human beings by force of arms or by force of cultural/religious traditions and habits. Outside of human aggregations, nature exhibits no such species social systems of mass physical oppression or mass physico-social control by members of their own or other species. In nature, food, water and shelter are the fundamental and naturally available bio-chemical prerequisites for all other forms of life on earth.

Only the human species, out of the millions of other species, has developed social forms in which a ruling elite, by means of its monopoly control of land, resources and military power, routinely deprives a considerable percentage of its members of adequate food, water and shelter. Therefore, when that percentage of absolutely or relatively deprived citizens reaches a sufficiently high figure, then social resistance to the governing elites reaches a critical level and the ‘normal’ levels of acceptance and resignation to injustice and oppression, is rejected. In such cases, a critical-mass becomes formed within such societies and under certain triggering events, become activated. Throughout the history of hierarchical mass societies, uprisings, civil wars and revolutions have occurred at such critical or pivotal junctures.

This most recent iteration of hierarchical mass societiies, marked by the bourgeois era and its introduction of the capitalist mode of production, is no different in this regard. However, what is different is that under the capitalist mode of production, there have been more frequent uprisings, civil wars and inter-nation wars and these have occurred on a more geographically extended basis than during the periods of ancient history or during the course of the long middle ages. This inceased tempo of social despair and active schisms is because the capitalist mode of production has, through technology and its mass production industries, continuously accelerated the processes of social atomisation and disintegration for the masses and accelerated the wealth accumulation and concentration of the elite strata of each modern country and nation.

The previous period of high level social unrest, with civil wars and revolutions was in the late 19th century and early 20th centuries. It was then that two World Wars (in 1914-18 and 1939-45) also disrupted the socio-economic system of globalised capitalism and conveniently removed millions of people by mass war-related killings and starvation.  Many millions of citizens then no longer existed to either resist or revolt, when circumstances became intolerable. The aftermath of the Second World War led to a short period of peace and a modicum of relative affluence for some working class populations and within certain populations. That period has long gone and the bulk of humanity has now entered a period of relative poverty and social deprivation whilst the expanded capitalist elites have obtained levels of wealth and conspicuous consumption which rivals, if not exceeds, the elites of previous empires reaching back to those of Ancient, Egypt, Greece and Rome.

Consequently, we are now witnessing in the 21st century, the resulting socio-economic crisis of practically all of the hierarchical mass society systems, but no longer on a regional or local basis, as in the past, but on a truly global scale. Furthermore, the crisis this time is accompanied by visible indications of the systems ongoing socio-economic effects upon climate change, global pollution of seas, rivers and arable land and on the accelerated pace of essential species loss. Therefore, the collapse of Middle Eastern regimes, and the many changes in the elite structures of post-war governance in advanced capitalist countries, as well as the less developed capitalist countries of Africa etc., is part of the jig saw of current world events. Hierarchical mass societies are being shaken up by the fundamental tensions re-surfacing between the ruling elites and the ruled.

Put simply, the hierarchical mass society system cannot deliver the riches that the ruling elite want and expect, without further deprivation being visited upon the most vulnerable of the masses. Conversely, the masses cannot achieve even the modest desires they would like to receive for a life of labour, without depriving the elite of their monopoly of concentrated power, wealth and privileges. Therefore, what sums up the current tectonic shifts – at the political level – in most countries and nations is the anthropocentric question of what form of popular governance is appropriate for administering present and future hierarchical mass societies.

This applies to the question of what happens next in Syria as well as what happens after Trump, and what happens elsewhere. And on considering this anthropocentric focussed question it becomes clear that the masses as yet cannot see beyond the continuation of hierarchical mass societies, which is why after overthrowing authoritarian dictators, or in some cases voting them out, they simply vote for (or install) other authoritarians (religious, secular democratic or fascistic – as Egypt, Turkey,  Iran etc.) to replace the existing regime. Of course by this ill thought out measure of the masses changing the captain rather than taking over the ship, the contradictions of the hierarchical mass society systems will simply continue.

Yet, sadly it is not only the general masses who have been unable to to fully comprehend the unfolding reality of 21st century hierarchical mass society contradictions. Even the radical and revolutionary left seem unable to understand that the hierarchical mass society system, which under the capitalist mode of production, has finally entered both a relative and absolute impasse. The form ultimately contradicts the social purpose. The absolute impasse is starkly revealed with regard to the global systems increasing population numbers and their physical need to continue to productively consume the inorganic and organic materials which nature and the planet have so far provided as the source of food, clothing, shelter and is now being used to promote the commodity fetishism  engendered by profit-seeking capital. Remarkably, there has been a consistent failure within mainstream ideology to comprehend that these elite determined ‘needs’ under the current hierarchical mass socio-economic system also undermines the essential (and even the seemingly unessential) biological foundations of the existence of all forms of life in general.

The real revolutionary problems facing humanity are, therefore, not only to solve the contradictions between human beings trapped in their current unjust and unnecessary class-based, socio-economic rival relationships, but also to solve the contradictions between elite humanities control of the mode of production and its negative effects upon the rest of the supportive  network of life on earth. This latter planetary interconnected and interdependent complexity of life on earth is too often obscured by the abstraction – nature! However, it has become increasingly evident that a human population which sees nothing fundamentally wrong with the current unlimited, production and consumption of organic and inorganic nature – no matter how its elite based societies are governed – is of no use to even it’s own species survival. Furthermore, such a population is of no use either for preserving the ecological diversity of life on earth, which too often, from an anthropocentric perspective, is percieved as ‘interesting’ or ‘pestilent’ rather than an absolutely ‘essential’ prerequisite for the human species to survive.

These two aspects of life on earth, (humans and nature) are not two separate realms as we have traditionally been led to understand and which some are not yet ready to challenge or question; nor are they two independent issues as contemporary language implies. This ideologically induced dualism obscures the critical interçonnections between all forms of life on earth and these real-life inter-connections are rendered into contradictions by the practices and ideologies of hierarchical mass society humanity. This fundamental contradiction between actual reality and its conceptual replication in thinking is compounded with regard to the relationship between humanity and the millions of interdependent and interconnected life form species. Yet it is these whole-scale, bio-chemical species integrations which are part of the dynamic evolutionary balance which is providing an oxygenated atmosphere, a moderate temperature gradient, a manageable humidity level, and a functional species survival rate, with its respective nutritional resource implications.

That the rest of ‘nature’ (i.e. life on earth in general) during its entire evolution, has not resorted to any form of dictatorship, yet has managed to support humanity and enabled it to survive to reach this current existential crisis point, is rarely considered.  If the evolution of life on earth in general did not need any forms of dictatorship and if  the bulk of pre-hierarchical mass society human aggregations did not need dictatorships, then the sooner they are all ended the better. Their replacement by non-hierarchical societies, with a realistic understanding of the naturally imposed  limitations to the human consumption of both organic and inorganic materials on the planet, would be even better.

Roy Ratcliffe (December 2024)