The foundations of modern liberal democracy weren't forged in the ideals of freedom and equality alone, but in the disciplined halls of Prussian military academies. In this wide-ranging conversation, Nicolas Villarreal reveals how the professional military education system that emerged in 19th century Germany created the bureaucratic apparatus that would spread across the world and enable liberal democratic capitalism to function.
What emerges is a fascinating dialectic that shapes our current political crisis: the tension between the "universal class" of professionals (bureaucrats, educators, administrators) who manage society through expertise, and Bonapartist strongmen who consolidate power within smaller cliques. Neither offers genuine democratic participation or addresses fundamental contradictions.
This historical analysis exposes blind spots in Marxist theory that continue to hamper left analysis today. Marx, focused primarily on England and France, missed crucial developments in Germany that would shape state formation globally. This oversight left Marxism without coherent theories of military power and bureaucracy—a gap that remains unfilled.
Our current economic crisis differs from previous eras. Rather than a straightforward decline in profitability, we face Soviet-style problems where increasing investments yield diminishing returns across education, healthcare, infrastructure, and technology. Professional bureaucracy grows more expensive while delivering less value, creating conditions for reactionary backlash.
The conversation ultimately points toward the need for developing an anti-professional politics that doesn't simply tail one bourgeois faction or another. As the educated professional class fractures along partisan lines, neither defending institutions that perpetuate oligarchy nor embracing reactionary populism offers a path forward. Can we envision social organization beyond the professional/Bonapartist dialectic before the increasing contradictions of capitalism lead to further crisis?
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Musis by Bitterlake, Used with Permission, all rights to Bitterlake
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Crew:
Host: C. Derick Varn
Intro and Outro Music by Bitter Lake.
Intro Video Design: Jason Myles
Art Design: Corn and C. Derick Varn
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