The four roads of people after the collapse

By Demosthenes Kyriazis

According to historical data, which constitute the so-called historical determinism, after the collapse of the sociopolitical systems, the "Goddess Necessity" creates radical changes of them, in order to ensure citizens’ survival and the solution of their problems.

As it is proven from the past, this historical deterministic process has been realized via one of the following four ways:

1. Via an “enlightened leader who wears a black cloak”, ie the way of the black totalitarian regime.                                                .
2.  Via an “enlightened leader who wears a red cloak”, ie the way of the red totalitarian regime.                                . 
3. Via the citizens’ representatives elected on the basis of their distinct spiritual and moral forces, ie the way of the healthy representative democracy and,                          
4. Via the way of the “governing and at the same time the governed citizens”, ie the way of Athenian, of Direct, Democracy.

The proof of the above may be cited from many historical elements, but we will confine ourselves here to the following four historical events:

1. The regime of Nazism. After the 1st World War and during the Weimar Republic (1919-1933) gradually occurred the collapse of the politico-economic system of Germany, due to which unemployment, hunger and despair prevailed.
In 1933 the National Socialist Party of Adolf Hitler, promising to solve these problems, won the elections and came to power. The Nazis (the name is an abbreviation of the term Nationalsozialismus) implemented their short term promises, so led the vast majority of Germans to call Hitler Führer, which means leader, mentor, messiah.  The final results of the "Republic" of the Nazis, the Nazism as it is known, led to the total destruction of Germany and to incalculable destruction of the countries that took part in the 2^nd World War.

2. The regime off Stalinism. After Lenin’s death, in the Soviet Union prevailed a politiko-ideological confrontation with the main exponent of Trotsky, which created a risk of collapse of the communist status. In the 30’s, Stalin gave an end to this controversy, through the Great Settlement measures, (ie by deletions, imprisonments, deportations, executions, assassinations), against both the communists who disagreed with the choices and attitudes of the dominant trend of the party, and the thousands of other citizens who, rightly or wrongly, were accused of political crimes. The totalitarian regime of Stalin (Stalinism) protected the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist "Republics" (USSR) and gave solutions to social / economic problems and contributed decisively to the victorious outcome of the 2^nd World War against the Nazis. After Stalin’s death however Stalinism collapsed dragging to collapse the USSR too. The events which followed that collapse are recent and well known.

 3. The Program of New Deal. The global financial crisis of 1929 - 1930 has affected all countries, but hit hardly particularly the U.S., where companies, banks and factories closed down one after the other. People in the U.S. found themselves without work and survival means leading to hunger, desperation and crime. The complete collapse of the U.S. politico-economic system was underway.

The overcoming of the crisis and the solution of problems, was achieved through the implementation of a program named New Deal (New Agreement), introduced by the late President Franklin Roosevelt, who was known for his democratic principles and sensibilities.

The New Deal program had the following main objectives:

• Ensuring employment to the unemployed and not simply granting them unemployment benefits                       .
• Reduction of unnecessary and immoral expenditure (overspending) and not of all expenditures.          .       
• Elimination of unethical and parasitic fees.                   .
• Create jobs in productive fields.          .
• Negotiation / Agreement with the Unions for accepting and supporting the implementation of the program. Note that the Unions then acted as representatives of the workers and not as appendices of the political parties.

The implementation of the New Deal was so successful to the extent and speed of overcoming the crisis, that the principles of the New Deal to today are not just an accepted doctrine, but a doctrine constitutionally regulated in many countries. The New Deal is one of the top achievements of the institution of representation, ie the institution of representative democracy and the institution of unionism.                              .
 
4. The Descent of the Myriads[i]. As the older may remember from the school "Xenophon’s History -the Descent of the Myriads", the brother of King Cyrus of Persia, gathered 13,000 Greek mercenaries and 100,000 Asians and marched against his brother Artaxerxes king of Persia, to overthrow him and become king.

In the battle Cunaxa of Babylon (401 BC), the army of Cyrus, with the Greeks and his warriors, although less populous, defeated the forces of Artaxerxes, but the campaign came to an end because Cyrus was killed in the battle.

After Cyrus’ death, the Greeks decided to return to their homeland. Artaxerxes however, decided to exterminate them, but without an open clash with them to avoid the consequences of the conflict.

Having absolute conviction that without the guidance of their leaders the Greek soldiers were doomed to extinction, capitulated with them. Then invited the leadership of the Greeks to consult supposedly the capitulation and killed them all, ie the leader of the Greeks Clearchus, 4 generals, 20 captains and 200 soldiers who accompanied the leadership of the Greeks. In the perception of the Persian King this act was equivalent to the annihilation of approximately ten thousand (10,000) Greek soldiers.

Such a strategy could be very successful to Persians due to their monarchical mentality, but not for the democratic mentality of the Greeks.

After the killing of their leaders, the Greeks with democratic procedure decided on how best was to return to their homeland. They chose capable leaders and managed to reach the Black Sea, crossing mountainous and inaccessible areas (mountains of Kurdistan and Armenia today). The Myriads finally succeeded in achieving their target and yelled the historical shout "Thalassa, Thalassa." ( Sea..sea)

The success of Myriads seems at first to be due to the military culture of the Greeks. However in this case the military culture is interwoven with the leadership of soldiers, which had been beheaded by Artaxerxes. So the root cause of this success has to be attributed to some other reason, which is nothing else but the democratic culture and mentality of the Greek soldiers, “the culture of the city”, ie the spirit of the Direct Democracy.

 
Comments and conclusions.

From the above and many other historical events, the following conclusions may come out:

1. After the collapsing of the political systems, radical changes follow leading either to totalitarian regimes with temporary success and then total collapse (cases 1 and 2), or to healthy democratic systems with rational and permanent recovery (cases 3 and 4).
2. The entropy of systems with transient recovery and total collapse subsequently is particularly high, while the entropy of systems with rational and permanent recovery is low. It is perhaps useful to recall that the entropy is maximum in totalitarian regimes, low in regimes of representative democracy and minimal in the regimes of Direct Democracy[ii].

3. The case of Greece. The various social systems of today Greece, (ie public safety, economy, health, education ...) are now on the verge of a total collapse, and the recovery efforts have little effect. This means that the Greeks will soon have to choose one of four roads mentioned above.

It is precisely this choice the major problem of the Greeks today, and not the choice within or outside the Euro-zone. If the entropy of the systems remains at its current level, the complete collapse will occur irrespective whether we are inside or outside the Euro-zone. Vice-versa, if the entropy decreases the crisis will be faced being inside or outside the Euro-zone.

 
The way of salvation is that of low entropy.

 The first two ways of totalitarian regimes, the regimes of maximum entropy, lead deterministically to total collapse and destruction.

The third way, the New Deal, presents now in our country serious to insurmountable difficulties, due to high wear and obsolescence, of both the system of representatives of the citizens, and of the system of representatives of workers. The entropy has increased a lot and the sanitation is unlikely. These two systems that were once independent and out of the responsibility of the political system have been unified and co-responsible of the crisis.

The fourth way, the path of lower entropy, is the only path that can lead to deterministic certainty to the surpassing of the crisis and to the salvation of the society.

May the current representatives of the people believe that the road they have followed up to now has reached its end.

May the current representatives rally around a new Cleisthenes[iii] and, with the potential of digital technology, create the conditions for the fourth road, the road of the Athenian Democracy, which of course has to be adapted to the political, economic and technological advances of the 21st century; The Road of Digital Direct Democracy.