Civilization and Beyond - Learning from History by Scott Nearing
page 64 of 324 (19%)
page 64 of 324 (19%)
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Below the high command posts there is a wide range of handymen and specialists who fill particular positions and place their time, energy, experience and expertise at the disposal of the high command. Among them are scientists, engineers, technicians. Equally important are their spokesmen, advisers and apologists: lawyers, preachers, teachers, writers, speakers, publicists, carefully chosen for their ability to apologize, passify, justify and reassure. On the political side are the diplomats and politicians. Protection for their persons and property is provided by the police and the armed forces, composed of highly paid, well-trained, well-armed destroyers and killers. Social stability and mass support come from an extensive middle class composed of public servants and body servants, small tradesmen, self-employed craftsmen, rentiers and retired persons who are assured body comforts, social recognition and preferment for themselves, their relatives and dependants. Members of this middle class are recognized on occasion, pampered, amused, diverted, bored, frustrated and eventually corrupted by the soft living which their middle class status makes possible. Close to the middle class come the white collar workers and the better paid blue collar workers. Their lives are cluttered with gadgets and fringe benefits. Their homes are paid for or bought on credit. Below these more or less regularly employed workers on salaries and wages come the semi-employed, racial or class underlings living in poverty at or near the subsistence level. Associated with this range of bourgeois occupations and often closely |
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