The Establishment

The Establishment is used in a rather general way on WikiSpooks to refer to the (often deliberately unclear) set of relationships, figures and organisations which make up the socio political status quo. The Establishment's official (for public consumption) opinion is, by definition, the "official narrative"

The Establishment
Interest of	Cristina Martín Jiménez
Subpage(s)	•The Establishment/Incitements to Murder
The Establishment is used in a rather general way on WikiSpooks to refer to the (often deliberately unclear) set of relationships, figures and organisations which make up the socio political status quo. The Establishment's official (for public consumption) opinion is, by definition, the "official narrative"

Definition in Social Sciences

Power structure research is a field of social sciences based in part on the groundbreaking work The Power Elite by C.Wright Mills (1956). "The establishment" might be defined as an umbrella term for 1) "the social upper class" and 2) "the power elite" where the first acts as a recruiting ground for the second.

"Who has predominant power in the United States? The short answer, from 1776 to the present, is: Those who have the money -- or more specifically, who own income-producing land and businesses -- have the power. [...] In this day and age, this means that banks, corporations, agribusinesses, and big real estate developers, working separately on most policy issues, but in combination on important general issues -- such as taxes, opposition to labor unions, and trade agreements with other countries -- set the rules within which policy battles are waged." -- Professor G. William Domhoff, The Class-Domination Theory of Power

The Social Upper Class

Domhoff goes on to define "social class" in general as a set of intermarrying and interacting families who see each other as equals, share a common style of life, and have a common viewpoint on the world.

"By the "social upper class", hereafter to be called simply "the upper class," I mean that social class that is commonly agreed by most members of the society to be the "top" or "elite" or "exclusive" class. In various times and places Americans have called such people the "high hats," the "country club set," the "snobs," and the "rich." In turn, members of this class recognize themselves as distinctive. They call themselves such names as the "old families," the "established families," and the "community leaders."

The upper class makes up less than 0.5 percent of the population. The following social institutions which are clearly named in Domhoff's research are the primary class "indicators" and act as a starting point for systematic studies of power. Members of the upper class are over-represented in corporations, nonprofit organizations, and the government.

"They attend a system of private schools that extends from pre-school to the university level; the best known of these schools are the "day" and "boarding" prep schools that take the place of public high schools in the education of most upper-class teenagers. Adult members of the upper class socialize in expensive country clubs, downtown luncheon clubs, hunting clubs, and garden clubs. Young women of the upper class are "introduced" to high society each year through an elaborate series of debutante teas, parties, and balls. Women of the upper class gain experience as "volunteers" through a nationwide organization known as the Junior League, and then go on to serve as directors of cultural organizations, family service associations, and hospitals (see Kendall, 2002, for a good account of women of the upper class by a sociologist who was also a participant in upper-class organizations)."

Analysis of membership lists reveals that the social upper class is nationwide in scope (compared to "local" or "international" networks). This is because there is "overlapping" membership among the many social clubs around the country.

"These various social institutions are important in creating "social cohesion" and a sense of in-group "we-ness." This sense of cohesion is heightened by the fact that people can be excluded from these organizations. Through these institutions young members of the upper class and those who are new to wealth develop shared understandings of how to be wealthy. Because these social settings are expensive and exclusive, members of the upper class usually come to think of themselves as "special" or "superior." They think they are better than other people, and certainly better able to lead and govern. Their self-confidence and social polish are useful in dealing with people from other social classes, who often admire them and defer to their judgments." -- Professor G. William Domhoff, The Class-Domination Theory of Power

Domhoff concludes "there is no doubt that there is a nationwide upper class in the United States with its own distinctive social institutions, lifestyle, and outlook. [...] Combining our studies with findings by economists on the wealth and income distributions, it is possible to say that the upper class, comprising 0.5% to 1% of the population, owns 35-40% of all privately held wealth in the United States and receives 12-15% of total yearly income. In short, the upper class scores very high on the "who benefits" power indicator."

Official Narrative

The Establishment is the set of authoritative social institutions which have stood the test of time because of their overall benevolence; those which have served people the most consistantly for the longest time, and therefore have accrued the most power in a society.

Problems

It is a mistake to see presidents or prime ministers as the establishment (though they may be members of it) - it would be more correct so say that, for the most part at least, they are servants of it.

While the notion of organisations as meritocracies in which the hardest working and most talented people get promoted is a wonderful story, it is poor representation of reality; in practice, psychopaths and sociopaths dominate at the higher levels of hierarchical organisations. This explains observable reality - for example, how governments and corporations seem practically unaffected by credible scientists warnings of disastrous climate change or why the economic system so beloved of policy makers is explicitly psychopathic - but does not fit with the comfortable image of a society lead by the great and the good.

"There is an establishment in the United States. The word "establishment" is a general term for the power elite in international finance, business, the professions largely from the Northeast, who wield most of the power regardless of who is in the White House. "Most people are unaware of the existence of this "legitimate Mafia." Yet the power of the establishment makes itself felt from the professor who seeks a foundation grant, to the candidate for a cabinet post or State Department job. It affects the nation's policies in almost every area. For example, the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City, subsidized by Rockefeller interests since 1927 boasts a membership of at least 90 per cent establishment figures."

Palpable mendacity

The powers that be, the historical and/or ideological descendants of those whose modus operandi was naked aggression (might=right) have an obvious disregard for the desires of the members of the societies they claim to rule by right. One illustrative question should serve to dismiss the notion that the UK is a democracy in the sense that the government obeys the wishes of the citizenry. "What percentage of the UK population were in favour of the massive bank bailouts carried out by a handful of members of government?"

The corporate media may appear establishment sceptical, and sometimes promulgate official opposition narratives, but never fundamentally question the status quo. To establish their degree of commitment to the truth, one might ask "Why did no newspaper or TV station for years after 2001 even mention the WTC7, a steel reinforced skyscraper that was not hit by a plane yet collapsed at free fall speed symmetrically on its own footprint (an was announced 20 minutes early, incidentally, by the BBC)?"

International justice sounds great, but why have an entity such as the International Court of Justice if it shows no interest in prosecuting George W Bush and Tony Blair, two national leaders who demonstrably lied to start a war of aggression, officially "the supreme international crime"?

Alternatives

The establishment would love for their subjects to believe that, as Margaret Thatcher famously stated "There Is No Alternative!" Anthropologist David Gaeber describes how the establishment's "vast machine to perpetuate hopelessness" endeavours to limit people's imaginations.

The last 30 years have seen the construction of a vast bureaucratic apparatus for the creation and maintenance of hopelessness, a giant machine designed first and foremost to destroy any sense of possible alternative futures. At its root is a veritable obsession on the part of the rulers of the world - in response to the upheavals of the 60's and 70's - with ensuring that social movements cannot be seen to grow, flourish or propose alternatives. That those who challenge existing power arrangements can never under any circumstances can never be seen to win. Maintaining this illusion requires armies, prisons, police and private security firms to create a pervasive climate of fear, jingoistic conformity and despair. All these guns, surveillance cameras and propaganda engines are extraordinarily expensive and produce nothing — they're economic deadweights that are dragging the entire capitalist system down.
David Graeber

Professor Robert Jensen concurred:

I think one of the most important intellectual tasks today is to break through this assumption that hierarchies are natural, they're inevitable, that there's not much you can do to change them, and to reclaim that deeper spirit of an egalitarian quest for a more equal world in which in fact the dignity of all people can be achieved.
Robert Jensen

 

Examples

Page name	Description
Document:Maintaining a Kakistocracy
Hübsche families
Socialite	A socialite is a person, typically a woman from a wealthy and possibly aristocratic background, who is prominent in high society.

 

Related Quotations

Page	Quote	Author	Date
"Conspiracy theorist"	“Here's the thing. There's about 150 people that run the world. Anybody who wants to go into politics, they're all fucking puppets, okay? There are 150 and they're all men that run the world - period, full stop. They control most of the important assets, they control the money flows. And these are not the tech entrepreneurs. Now they are going to get rolled over the next five to ten years by the people that are really underneath pulling the strings. And when you get behind the curtain and see how that world works, what you realize is, it is unfairly set up for them and their progeny. Now, I'm not going to say that that's something that we can rip apart. But first order of business is, I want to break through and be at that table. That's the first order of business.”	Chamath Palihapitiya	2017
Deep state	“Although elected representatives are supposed to be the ruling power we see them coming and going while the true powers in our lives — political parties, bureaucracies, business corporations, the media, institutions of law and justice, quangos, international treaty agreements, financial systems, regulators etcetera — get on with business.”	Ivo Mosley	2013
Christopher Langan	“[...] but that's the way it works, it's one giant self-reinforcing system, basically it's run by people with money and if people with money want certain questions to be answered in certain ways, then they make sure that nobody advances in academia who does not parrot the party line, and say what he is expected to say, so this kind of self reinforcement is antithetical to intellectual freedom and creativity. [...] (00:11:10)”	Christopher Langan	2019
John Lennon	“I think all our society is run by insane people for insane objectives... I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal means. If anybody can put on paper what our government and the American government and the Russian... Chinese... what they are actually trying to do, and what they think they’re doing, I’d be very pleased to know what they think they’re doing. I think they’re all insane. But I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it.”	John Lennon
Craig Murray	“The naive view of the world as “goodies” and “baddies”, with our own ruling class as the good guys, is for the birds. I witnessed personally in Uzbekistan the willingness of the UK and US security services to accept and validate intelligence they knew to be false in order to pursue their policy objectives.”	Craig Murray	13 March 2018
Arend Oetker	“The USA is governed by 200 families to whom we want to have good relations [...]”	Arend Oetker	2002
Michael Parenti	“Every ruling class has wanted only this: all the rewards and none of the burdens. The operational code is: we have a lot; we can get more; we want it all.”	Michael Parenti
PropOrNot	“the following are tropes/slurs primarily used by Russian propaganda: “Neocon”, “neoliberal”, “Zionist”, “corporatist”, “warmonger”, “Rothschild”, “imperialist”, & “establishment”.”		7 January 2019
Psychopathy	“... on the surface they don't show to be that ill. Except that they are individuals with unusual needs of extreme grandiosity , extreme aggression, extreme antisocial features and extreme paranoid orientation. We find such persons very often in leadership positions of organizations or political systems, particularly at times when there are natural sharp divisions in the social body between social in-group and out-group and political ideologies or parties... that reflect that in their ideological formation... and they - under such turbulence, situations - they become the leader of an extreme group that exerts its superiority, the need to fight its enemies - they lead the group taking on a function... a direction... of the group towards triumph and exploiting the paranoid nature of the ideology showing an extremely aggressive behavior and total absence of any guilt feelings regarding the attack of the enemy [sic]. So, the search for the security of triumph, the security of the attack on the enemy, the suspicion of the danger of the enemy and the ruthlessness and total abandonment of moral constraints makes them ideal leader [sic] for such a regressed social situation. So they become very dangerous leaders of institutions... school systems... hospital systems... political parties... or nations. So... they don't become ordinary dictators - but they tend to establish totalitarian systems. They have to be loved... and feared at the same time, not just loved! They are not just narcissists who have to be admired and they are happy. They have to be loved because they are superior and the followers have to be afraid of them. We have evidence that the personality of Stalin and of Hitler [...] presented these four features. [...] And, of course to these days [sic] we have such leaders all over the world... Idi Amin - nice illustration in Africa... and so on... and... ehm... we don't have to look very far... to find they today... eh... examples of that. [laughter].”	Otto Kernberg	2017
The Twitter Files	“After the 2016 upsets of Brexit and the election of Trump, however, the establishment soured on free speech. Both events were seen as undermining NATO, and both were blamed on foreign influence on social media—specifically Russia. The U.S. and UK governments in particular saw the need to identify and purge Russian influence operations online and set up a government–private apparatus to do so.”	Peter Svab The Epoch Times	17 January 2023
Totalitarianism	“Totalitarianism, however, does not so much promise an age of faith as an age of schizophrenia. A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. Such a society, no matter how long it persists, can never afford to become either tolerant or intellectually stable. It can never permit either the truthful recording of facts or the emotional sincerity that literary creation demands.”	George Orwell

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:Bloggers Under Siege - Craig Murray Charged with Contempt of Court	blog post	27 April 2020	Ludwig De Braeckeleer	From Lockerbie to the Russia Hoax, Craig Murray has of course upset people in high-places, including some who work for Intelligence Agencies.
Document:The Big Picture, Easter 2020	Facebook post	12 April 2020	Michael Buergermeister	The aim of the lockdown seems to be threefold: to destroy the economy, distract attention from the introduction of 5G and to terrorise the populace into accepting voluntary vaccination, which would be its death knell.
Document:The Freedom of Courage	blog post	1 October 2017	Craig Murray	When you see the right wing Establishment worldwide, plus the entire mainstream media, united against ordinary people as we see today in Catalonia, it's a no-brainer which side you should be on.
Document:Twenty Years On, We’ve Learned Nothing From 9/11	Speech	17 September 2021	Ron Paul	20 years on from 9/11, Ron Paul says that The Establishment in the United States has learned nothing since the attacks.

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