DEMOSCIOCRATIE

Translation of the French article by Jacques Rouchaud

In 1789, the people abolished privileges. They came back through another door: that of the grandes écoles, the ministerial cabinets and the boards of directors.

They no longer have titles. They have diplomas.

We were taught that the nobility died with the Ancien Régime. That is false. It simply changed its costume.

The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu gave it its true name: the “State nobility”. An elite coming from the grandes écoles (ENA, Polytechnique, Sciences Po), which reproduces itself from one generation to the next. Its members move from a ministry to a cabinet, from a cabinet to a large company, then return to the ministry. And they pass their advantages on to their children, no longer through a title of nobility, but through the diploma and the network.

Yesterday, you were born a count. Today, you are born into the right family, you go to the right school, you enter the right corps. The result is the same: power stays in the same hands.

The iron law

The political scientist Robert Michels went even further. With his “iron law of oligarchy”, he asserted that every organisation, even a democratic one, ends up being run by a small elite. Parties, trade unions, assemblies: all of them slide, sooner or later, towards the power of a few.

Let us look our institutions in the face. Career politicians who do nothing else their whole lives. Parties that choose the candidates before the people vote. Senior civil servants whom no one elected and whom no one can dismiss. Michels was not wrong.

“But everyone votes!”

Those who defend the system reply that the difference with the Ancien Régime remains real:

• everyone votes;
• leaders can be removed at the ballot box;
• the press can criticise them;
• judges can prosecute them;
• a child born without privilege can, admittedly with more difficulty, reach positions of power.

For them, there is no new nobility, only an imperfect democracy that should be corrected.

So be it. But let us ask ourselves the question honestly. We vote, yes: to choose between candidates whom others have selected for us. We remove a leader, yes: only to see him replaced by a classmate from the same graduating class. How many children of workers, of farmers, of cashiers sit in the ministries? “With more difficulty” means, in truth: almost never.

New aristocracy or democracy to be repaired?

The whole debate comes down to one question: is the current elite a new aristocracy in disguise, or an elite that is too closed but still controllable by the citizens?

Those who choose the second answer will propose patches: open up the grandes écoles a little, regulate the revolving door a little, add a little transparency. We have been repairing for fifty years. And for fifty years, the caste has been closing in on itself.

We give another answer. You do not reform a nobility. You abolish the conditions that give birth to it. It is not about attacking individuals, but about destroying a system: the one that turns power into a property, a career and an inheritance.

Demosciocracy: the end of career politicians

Demosciocracy does not ask the elite to open up. It organises the institutions so that no elite can ever close in on itself again.

• No more parties, no more campaigns, no more careers. The representatives are volunteer citizens, without any party label.
• A one-year mandate, not a lifetime. It can only be held again after twenty years. No one settles in, no one makes a career.
• Power starts from the ground. 352 territories, 7,040 districts: that is where decisions and representatives are born, not in the corridors of the grandes écoles.
• Those who work have their chamber. Alongside the Chamber of the People, the Chamber of Corporations brings into the heart of the State those who produce and keep the country alive.
• Every leader can be recalled, at any time. Territory director or national government: whoever betrays his programme goes.
• Merit is proven by results. The territories are compared on the same indicators. What counts is what you do, not the school you come from.
• Fair pay, never a privilege. The representative keeps his salary and his expenses are covered, so that everyone can serve, without anyone getting rich.

Michels said that every organisation ends up in the hands of an oligarchy. Demosciocracy takes him at his word: it is built, piece by piece, against this slope. Power is not a property. It is a temporary mission, entrusted by the people, and which the people take back.

The choice is yours

Keep repainting the façade of a castle that belongs only to a few. Or finally give power back to those who work, who live and who keep this country alive.

Our ancestors abolished one nobility. It is up to us to abolish the next one. The debate is open to all: join it.

Liberty — Equality — Truth

Long live demosciocracy!