In a colossal reorganization of Europe’s economic system, factories in the 1800s were putting individual craftsmen like weavers and shoemakers, the old middle class, out of business. The recently dispossessed were suddenly unemployed, hungry, and angry.
The conditions for revolutions were rife throughout Europe. In this period, Rousseau-like flights of fantasy celebrated a “return to nature”, as if the solutions to modern problems could be found by becoming more primitive. This kind of thinking has ever been the refuge for the frightened, the less able, and is always encouraged by those greedy for power.
During this period of upheaval, Metternich, Austria’s foreign minister, stood like a rock for the stability of the nobility and established governments. By his efforts, the French cries for “liberty, equality, and fraternity” were stifled, for a time, after Napoleon’s early successes.
“If the principles of revolution are always the same, so are the principles of counter-revolution.” he summed up. He installed controls throughout Germany and Austria on those who would be a danger to stability.
Today, long periods of peace have given the disaffected both time and money to establish their own bitterness as a way of life to be imposed on all. Just as the practices of rabble-rousers from Marx to Alinsky have been the same, so is the way to maintain stability despite their endless whining, plotting, and attacks on every stable portion of society.
As groups of the hateful and bitter coalesce, they attack the solid center. The very rich encourage this. They do not want competition for their privileged positions, so they fund most of the attacks on the solid parts of their societies. They have always done so. They always will. So, we always need Metternichs to keep us from perishing in the vastly larger versions of Jonestown that are the ever-present dreams of lost souls.
