Rules by Which a Great Society May Be Reduced to a Fractured One
An ancient Sage valued himself upon knowing how to make a great City of a little one. Franklin, that modern Simpleton, showed how to reduce an Empire by alienating its provinces. I, a contemporary observer, shall demonstrate how the same may be accomplished not through distance but through division—not by severing remote territories but by fracturing the very heart of society itself.
I address myself to all Ministers who oversee diverse populations, which from their very complexity have become troublesome to govern, because acknowledging their humanity interferes with the simplicity of rule.
The Twenty Rules
I. Begin at the Social Periphery
In the first place, Gentlemen, consider that a great Society, like a great Tapestry, unravels most easily at its edges. Turn your attention therefore to your most vulnerable citizens—the poor, the different, the voiceless. As you strip them of dignity and rights, those closer to the center will learn to accept each new degradation as normal, until the whole fabric lies in tatters.
II. Keep the Lines Bright
That the possibility of this fracture may always exist, take special care that marginal communities never enjoy the same common Rights, the same Privileges in Commerce, the same access to Justice. Ensure they are governed by special Laws, enforced with special Severity, while denying them any meaningful Share in the choice of Legislators. Like the wise Baker who scores his dough before baking, you prepare the inevitable breaking.
III. Erase Their Prior Service
These marginalized groups have perhaps contributed their labor to build your cities, their taxes to fund your treasuries, their blood in your wars. If this should happen to increase your Wealth by their toil, your Security by their sacrifice, or your Culture by their innovations, you are to forget it all, or better yet, rewrite History to show they were always burdens, never builders. Remember: gratitude creates obligation; contempt maintains control.
IV. Presume Disloyalty
However peacefully these communities have lived among you, however much they have enriched your society, you are to suppose them always inclined to crime, to subversion, to disorder. Police them accordingly. Let armed patrols provoke confrontations, then cite each incident as proof of inherent criminality. Like the jealous Husband who creates through suspicion the very betrayal he fears, you shall manifest the monster you imagine.
V. Staff Their Oversight with the Unfit
The poor require administrators, the different need supervisors, the voiceless must have representatives appointed for them. You know that much of Government's legitimacy depends on the character of its agents. Therefore, seek out the most venal, incompetent, and cruel for these positions. Failed businessmen make excellent welfare administrators—they will treat poverty as moral failure. Bigots excel as judges in community courts—they will see guilt in every different face. The message will be clear: your Government despises those it pretends to serve.
VI. Make Justice Prohibitive
When the injured seek redress, burden them with such bureaucracy, such expense, such delay that Justice becomes a luxury they cannot afford. Require forms in languages they don't speak, demand documents they cannot obtain, set hearings at times they cannot attend. When they abandon their claims in frustration, cite their silence as proof they had no legitimate grievances.
VII. Promote the Worst Actors
When an official becomes universally reviled for corruption or cruelty toward marginal communities, do not discipline—promote. Award medals to officers who use excessive force, grant bonuses to administrators who deny the most claims, elevate judges who show the least mercy. This accomplishes two ends: it signals that abuse has official sanction, and it teaches the marginalized that their suffering is not accidental but intentional.
VIII. Reject Voluntary Assistance
If marginalized communities organize to address their own needs—creating mutual aid networks, funding their own schools, policing their own neighborhoods—you must immediately intervene. Declare such efforts illegal, dismantle their organizations, then impose official programs that accomplish less at greater cost. They must learn that self-reliance is rebellion, and dependency is loyalty.
IX. Ignore Structural Burdens
When imposing new requirements, never acknowledge the extra costs these communities already bear. The poor pay more for everything—from groceries to loans. The different face discrimination that limits their opportunities. The voiceless spend energy simply to be heard that others never need expend. Ignore all this. Declare that everyone faces the same rules, while knowing the rules weigh heaviest on those least able to bear them.
X. Throttle Liberties First, Property Later
Begin with small erosions—require special permits for their gatherings, restrict their movements after certain hours, monitor their communications for "security." Graduate to property: civil forfeiture for minor infractions, liens for unpaid fines that compound faster than they can be paid, zoning laws that destroy their businesses and communities. When they protest that they have nothing left to lose, you will have achieved your goal.
XI. Deploy Collectors as Enforcers
Create armies of inspectors, auditors, and agents whose sole purpose is to extract revenue from marginal communities. Pay them well from the proceeds of their confiscations, exempt them from the rules they enforce, and reward them for finding violations. When a mother is fined for selling tamales without a permit, when a man loses his car for a broken taillight, when a family is evicted for a noise complaint—each acts as a lesson in powerlessness.
XII. Divert the Proceeds
Whatever revenue you extract from these communities—through fines, fees, forfeitures—never invest it in their improvement. Instead, use it to hire more enforcers, build more barriers, fund more surveillance. Let them see their own money used to deepen their oppression. This transforms taxation from mere extraction to active humiliation.
XIII. Break Financial Dependence on Locals
Any official who serves marginal communities must be paid solely from the central treasury, never from local funds. Community-supported clinics, locally-funded legal aid, neighborhood-sponsored programs—all must be eliminated or absorbed. Those who might develop sympathy through sustained contact must know their livelihood depends on maintaining distance and indifference.
XIV. Harass Self-Governing Bodies
Wherever marginal communities create their own institutions—tenant unions, faith councils, cultural organizations—you must interfere constantly. Require endless permits, conduct surprise inspections, demand architectural changes to meeting places that make them unusable. If they persist in organizing, infiltrate with informants who sow discord. The message must be clear: collective action will be punished, isolation will be enforced.
XV. Turn Protectors into Predators
Take those institutions meant to serve—hospitals, schools, social services—and transform them into instruments of surveillance and control. Let teachers become immigration informants, doctors become drug enforcement agents, social workers become child-snatchers. When those seeking help instead find handcuffs, trust dies, and with it, any hope of reconciliation.
XVI. Discredit Every Grievance
When marginal communities document abuse, dismiss their evidence as fabrication. When they present witnesses, question their credibility. When they show statistics, dispute the methodology. If somehow their case becomes undeniable, blame a few "bad apples" while preserving the rotten system. Above all, never admit systemic fault—to do so would obligate systemic change.
XVII. Applaud Foreign Meddling
When international observers criticize your treatment of marginal communities, when foreign powers amplify their grievances to embarrass you, maintain studied indifference. You share the same goal—internal division weakens external power. Their highlighting of injustice serves your purpose of deepening resentment. Unity requires justice; division requires only neglect.
XVIII. Confiscate Community Defenses
Wherever marginal communities create bulwarks against oppression—community centers that nurture solidarity, cooperative economies that ensure survival, cultural institutions that preserve dignity—seize them. Convert community centers to police substations, shut down cooperatives for "regulatory violations," defund cultural programs as "wasteful." Then wonder aloud why these communities seem so "disorganized" and "lacking in values."
XIX. Misplace Security Forces
When crime threatens marginal communities, withdraw protection—cite budget constraints, operational priorities, strategic redeployments. When these same communities protest their abandonment, flood them with military-grade enforcement. Let criminals prey upon them daily while treating their calls for justice as insurrection. This teaches the ultimate lesson: they are neither protected nor trusted, neither served nor serving.
XX. Crown a Uniformed Viceroy
Finally, appoint a single Security Chief with sweeping powers over all marginal districts. Let him command budgets that dwarf those for schools and hospitals, let his word override elected officials, let his force operate with immunity. Grant him authority to declare emergencies, suspend rights, impose curfews—all in the name of "public safety." When marginal communities realize they live under occupation rather than governance, when the comfortable classes accept authoritarianism as the price of their comfort, when your Security Chief commands more loyalty than your Constitution—congratulations. You have successfully reduced a great Society to a fractured one, and perhaps, if you are truly successful, to no society at all.
Postscript
Q.E.D.—Quod Erat Demonstrandum. Thus it is demonstrated.
But perhaps, Gentlemen, you will say these Rules are too cynical, too harsh, too obviously destructive. Perhaps you prefer to believe your society fractures from the failures of the marginalized rather than from the malice of the powerful. Very well. Continue as you have been—the effect remains the same whether achieved through cruelty or mere indifference.
The genius of these Rules lies not in their novelty but in their banality. They are practiced daily in great societies across the globe, executed not by monsters but by bureaucrats, not through grand conspiracies but through petit policies, not with malicious intent but with malignant neglect.
Franklin showed how Empires lose provinces through distance and disdain. I merely observe how Societies lose themselves through division and degradation. The principle remains unchanged: Those who would rule must first learn to ruin.
And so I leave you with this thought: A Society, like a chain, is only as strong as its weakest link. You have spent considerable effort ensuring some links rust while others gleam. When the chain inevitably breaks, do not wonder why—you hold the blueprints in your hands.
A mix of what’s on my mind, what I’m learning, and what I’m going through.
Co-created with AI. 🤖
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