Checks on Elite Abuse of Power

Recently, on another blog, a reader posed, in the comments section, the question "What serves as a check on elite abuse of power?"

The response I submitted is elaborated on below. My response was not approved, for reasons I can understand, and, indeed, sympathize with.

I am a student of history. I find history fascinating, as well as instructive. As a conservative, I must believe that mankind has not changed all so very much over the ages, and as a conservative, I believe that by looking at the past we can better understand, as through a glass dimly, our present and perhaps our future.

In seeking to answer the question, "What serves as a check on the abuse of power by the elites?" then, I looked to history. Since I have recently been reading some Russian, and some French, history, I turn to these examples.

The status of the Russian peasant was changed to that of serf in 1649 by decree. While certainly not enviable, before that point, the Russian peasant was bound to the land at that time, and became property. (Here I distinguish between feudal dependency, which had been a feature of most European domains, and outright serfdom.) Under serfdom, a landowner could buy, sell or transfer serfs to other landowners. Living under a regime that reduced his status to that of commodity, what recourse did a serf have against abuses by the nobility?

While France has always been agriculturally rich, through the middle ages and into the modern era, the nobility exercised almost complete authority over the peasantry, and oppressed them with taxes and corvees for labor. In the absence of a legal regime to ensure protection of the peasants, how could Jacques Bonhomme protect himself against the abuse of the authority of the nobility?

The answer, for the less dewy eyed of our readers, should be clear. Revolutionary violence was not invented in 1776, or in 1789. The history of both Russian and France is littered with peasant uprisings. (Lest the Anglo-sphere pat itself too severely on the back, I might mention Wat Tyler and the Peasant's Revolt of 1381.) Stenka Rezin convulsed Russia with a peasant uprising. When peasants---or, indeed, any class---find themselves in an intolerable situation, there will generally be an early recourse to violence.

While the great peasant rebellions of history are remembered, many, if not most, peasant rebellions were on a smaller scale. Almost inevitably, given the lack of military organization among the peasantry, these rebellions were quickly crushed by the existing powers. That is, of course, of small consolation to the inhabitants of the chateaux and dachi that were killed, frequently under conditions of utmost brutality, by rebellious peasants who had been pushed beyond their limits.

Elites tend to push. Pushed far enough, the masses tend to push back.

It is no accident that the tale of the sword of Damocles is so well known, or that Shakespeare wrote "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."

When elites push too far, comforted by their legal, moral and ideological regimes, the push-back from the masses is, with distressing frequency, a savage and brutal violence.