AUSTRALIAN UNION OF STUDENTS

HOME PAGE

JOIN THE UNION: MEMBERSHIP
FORM

FORM FOR MEMBERS TO
ADVISE A CHANGE OF THEIR ADDRESS

MAKE A DONATION

CONTACT THE
UNION

SUBMISSION ON
HIGHER EDUCATION FINANCING

SUBMISSION IN
RESPONSE TO THE GREEN PAPER ON UNEMPLOYMENT

SUBMISSION ON
CIVICS EDUCATION

POLITICAL
CORRECTNESS: ANOTHER NAME FOR ETHNIC CLEANSING

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS:
ANOTHER NAME FOR CATHOLIC VALUES

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS:
RESISTANCE AGAINST THE CATHOLIC REGIME

POLITICS: OLIGARCHY,
THE UTOPIAN SYSTEM

POLITICS:
REFORMING THE POLITICAL PARTIES

POLITICS: THE
UNION'S POLITICAL PROGRAMME

RELIGION: IS
CHRISTIANITY A CONFIDENCE TRICK?

RELIGION: WHY THE
ORTHODOX CHURCH IS THE BEST

GENETIC
ENGINEERING: WHY YOUR BODY NEEDS TO BE REDESIGNED

ADVICE: HOW TO HAVE A
SUCCESSFUL LIFE

SOME POLITICALLY INCORRECT
LINKS

Oligarchy: The Utopian
System

Throughout history, people have written
books describing ideal societies. For instance there is Plato's
"Republic", Sir Thomas More's "Utopia", and Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged".
In her science fiction novel "Atlas Shrugged", Ayn Rand describes a state
set up by American businessmen in the Rocky Mountains. They find a valley
suitable to live in and project a "force field", so that from the outside
the valley appears to be uninhabitable wilderness. They entice leading
businessmen to disappear and move to this valley, from where they
orchestrate a campaign of piracy to seize back from the Federal Government
the wealth that has been extorted from them in taxes.

"Atlas Shrugged" is very famous in America,
and Republican politicians keep copies in their offices along with the
Bible as a sign of their conservative credentials. What many of them don't
realise is that a utopian state set up by businessmen actually existed.
Ayn Rand's story describes pretty much how the Republic of Venice came
into being. People think of Venice as a place for tourists and art freaks,
but many useful lessons can be drawn from the system of government that
they had there for 1100 years.

Venice was neither a democracy nor a
dictatorship. Throughout its history Venice was governed by a group of
about 500 billionaires. These billionaires were called "noblemen", but in
those days this meant "billionaire". The more money you had, the more
noble you were. The ideas of nobility and money were inextricably linked,
and a "duchess without dosh" would be a contradiction in terms, like a
millionaire without a million.

The Venetian system of government was based
on the Roman system of government before Julius Caesar introduced czarism.
Before this, Roman society was divided into basically three classes. There
was the Patrician class, made up of billionaires, who made the laws and
commanded the armies. Then there was the Equestrian class, made up of
millionaires, who had the privilege of serving in the army on horseback,
as opposed to walking. They were also called Knights, and were the
forerunners of the feudal knights like Sir Lancelot. Finally there was the
Plebian class, of Roman citizens who didn't have enough wealth to be
classed as Knights.

Under the Roman system of government, all
of the classes had influence, but the wealthier classes had more influence
then the poorer classes. This appeared natural to people. The influence of
the Plebian class was limited to vetoing the actions of the other classes.
The Plebians elected Tribunes, who had the power of veto. For example,
they could veto a law, or stop a prosecution, or stop the actions of an
official.

The Roman system was carried over to
Venice, in that the government was in the hands of the billionaires, but
nothing important could be done without the approval of the ordinary
citizens. Eventually it was found that the ordinary citizens always agreed
with the wishes of the billionaires, and that their approval was a mere
formality, so it was abolished, and the billionaires were officially in
control of the government from then on.

You might imagine that a government run by
billionaires would be a disagreeable place for ordinary people. After all,
Australian employers seem to be constantly trying to get their employees
to do more work for less pay. As it turned out, however, throughout its
entire 1100 year history, Venice was the best place in the world for
ordinary people to live. If you could send a message backwards in time to
your ancestors, that message would be, "Move to Venice!"

To give an idea of how life was in those
days, Eastern Europe was like China today, with both poor and well-off
people. Western Europe was like North Korea today, with most people living
in extreme poverty. Venice was like Hong Kong today, with most people
having an adequate standard of living. Venice was a very healthy place to
live, despite the primitive sanitation arrangements in those days, because
the sea washed all the effluent away. Venice was so healthy that visitors
would remark that there was a higher proportion of old people than
anywhere else in the world.

The Venetian billionaires were very
concerned to prevent a czarist system of government being set up. They had
seen how the czarist system had led to the decline in size of the Roman
Empire, with whole provinces being occupied by barbarian tribes. The
problem with the czarist system was that 80% of the emperors were
incompetent. The other 20% of emperors were good, but were unable to undo
the damage that their incompetent predecessors caused.

In modern times, governments have tried the
czarist system of government. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union gained
control over a large part of the world. But all this was lost through
Gorbachev's incompetence. In Spain, General Franco defended traditional
values, but his successor, King Juan Carlos, set up a "politically
correct" regime and traditional values were swept away. This is the same
with all dictatorships. No matter how careful and competent a dictator is,
he cannot ensure that his successors will do a good job. His only hope is
to set up an oligarchy like the Venetians did.

The Venetian billionaires were directly
affected by the Roman Emperors' incompetence. Originally they lived in
Italy, but in the fifth century Italy was overrun by Gothic tribes. The
plight of Romans was very similar to the situation for whites in Southern
Africa today. The Goths would steal peoples' belongings, occupy their
houses and farms, and extort money from people. Many Romans moved to the
eastern parts of the Roman Empire, just as many Southern African whites
are moving east to Australia.

Some Romans noticed how the Goths had an
aversion to water. The Goths couldn't swim or sail boats, and being
uneducated low-lifes, had no inclination to learn how to. The Romans
realised that anyone who lived in the Venetian Islands would be safe from
attack. Consequently many of them moved to the islands. The Venetians
realised that if they set up a czarist government, some future dictator
would give the islands to the Goths, so they resolved to prevent a
dictatorship arising at all costs.

They appointed a Prime Minister, called the
Doge, but made sure that he could do nothing without the approval of a
council of other billionaires. The Prime Minister was required to be
constantly in the company of other billionaires, to prevent him scheming
to make himself a dictator. He had no formal powers at all, other than to
suggest courses of action to the other billionaires. The following picture
is of the Prime Minister Leonardo Loredan, a fifteenth century
billionaire.

The Government was run by a Cabinet
(Consiglio Minore), consisting of the Prime Minister and six other
billionaires. The Cabinet was accountable to the Senate (Maggiore
Consiglio, or Great Council) consisting of all the
billionaires. Many important affairs of state were supervised by Senate
Committees (Savii del Consiglio). Justice was enforced by a
Judicial Committee (Quarantia), consisting of billionaires who held
various judicial offices.

Outside the Prime Minister's residence and
government headquarters, shown below, the billionaires set up an alabaster
scaffold. This was to hang the Prime Minister from if he got out of line.
It was a constant reminder to the Prime Minister that his fellow
billionaires were in control. On the other hand, the Prime Minister didn't
need to worry about what would happen to his family and friends after he
died. He knew that his family and friends would not be put on trial for
corruption or war crimes because the same regime would always be in
power.

A system of government where power is
vested in a considerable number of people, but not in the whole
population, is called an oligarchy. The oligarchy in Venice was remarkably
stable in that it lasted for 1100 years, up until Napoleon occupied Venice
in 1797. This was all the more amazing since the population of Venice was
only about 200,000. Australia has enough trouble finding good politicians
with our population of 18 million, so it would be much harder with an
island nation of 200,000. It shows what an effective system of government
oligarchy is.

Oligarchy is a historically proven system
of government, but this is not the case with democracy. Democracy has only
existed in unusual conditions, for short periods of time. In ancient
Greece, for about 300 years, some of the Greek towns had democracy. Plato
told how his teacher, the famous philosopher Socrates, was executed by the
democratic Athenian government.

Democracy also arose spontaneously in
native tribes around the world. The Greeks were the first native tribes to
document their democratic practices, just as they were the first to
document cannibalism and incest. In the same way that it would be wrong to
say that the Greeks invented cannibalism and incest, so it would be wrong
to say they invented democracy. For most of Greek history, the Greeks have
had a czarist system of government.

Democracy arose in Britain after the
English Civil War. Not everyone was allowed to vote. Only men with a
certain amount of property could vote. This was also the case in the
United States, where only white men with a certain amount of property had
the vote. The poll tax prevented blacks from voting in some American
states until the 1960s. Arguably this meant that America and Britain were
oligarchies and not democracies.

Democracy as we understand it today arose
as a result of the Counterculture Movement by the Catholic pressure groups
in the 1960s. The pressure groups insisted that everyone over 18 years
should be able to vote, and that all electoral districts must have the
same number of voters. In theory this was supposed to give effect to the
will of the people. In practice it has meant that countries like Australia
have been taken over by their Catholic minority.

Everyone knows that the majority of
Australians want the death penalty reintroduced, and homosexuality banned
as it has been for the last 7000 years of recorded history. This is the
will of the Australian people. Democracy has not given effect to the will
of the people. Democracy has failed.

In the whole of recorded history, democracy
has been in effect only for the last 40 years, and before that for 300
years in ancient Greece. That is the only track record for democracy.
Whenever democracy has been in effect, it has been shown not to work.
Similarly, czarism has been shown not to work. The only system of
government with a proven track record is oligarchy.

One of the reasons for the outstanding
success of the regime in Venice may have been the ratio of billionaires,
or Senators as they were also called, to ordinary people. This was about 1
in 400, or one Senator for every 400 ordinary people. With such a high
ratio, every person in Venice would have met a Senator. Senators would
know everything that was going on in Venice, and could take immediate
action to deal with problems.

Suppose the ratio was much less than 1 in
400. Suppose it was 1 Senator to every 10,000 people. In that case, a
Senator would be out of touch with what was going on. Problems would occur
and not be dealt with. This is how the western half of the Roman Empire
was lost. On the other hand, suppose that the ratio was more than 1 in
100. It would be like voters today. Senators would see that they had no
control over the government. They would see it as a waste of time to try
to deal with problems. The government would be taken over by some faction
as in Australia where it has been taken over by the
Catholics.

The Senators in Venice were hereditary. You
would automatically become a Senator if you had noble parents. Also if you
were a billionaire and your family had lived in Venice for generations,
and you made a large donation to the government, they would make you a
Senator. This would give you the right to put the letters "N.H."
after your name (short for "Nobleman" in Latin). The Venetian system of
selecting Senators does not however appear to be crucial to the success of
the Venetian system of government. What was crucial appears to be the
ratio of Senators to ordinary people.

So, for example, you could have a oligarchy
where control of the government is vested in one political party. This is
the situation in China. The country is governed by Communist Party
members, who are approximately 1 in 400 of the population, and the
government appears to be doing the sort of things that a good government
would do. The Communist Party is communist in name only, and in reality is
the China Party. The Chinese have arrived at the ideal system of
government, so better that they keep this system of government, and not
become a democracy like Australia.

We have seen how Venice was the best place
in the world to live from an economic point of view. But it was also the
best place from a cultural point of view. After the Goths, Vandals,
Saxons, Normans, and other barbarian tribes occupied Western Europe, a
civilised way of life practically disappeared. Culture was limited to
going to church on Sunday and to the occasional fair.

In Venice and Eastern Europe, the
traditional Roman culture continued. This was similar to our culture
today, apart from the great emphasis on religion. In the fifteenth
century, after the Turks occupied the Roman Empire, many Roman refugees
travelled to Western Europe. These Greeks, as they were called in Western
Europe, brought with them their Roman culture, and this was the start of
the Renaissance, where Roman culture was reintroduced to Western
Europe.

Roman culture always existed in Venice. The
relationship between Venice and the Roman Empire was like the relationship
between Australia and England. The capital of the Roman Empire,
Constantinople, was seen by Venetians as "the old country". Just as
previous generations of Australian men admired English girls ("You'll come
a-waltzing Matilda with me"), Venetian men admired Greek girls, and
Venetian families intermarried with Constantinople families. Venetians had
the same culture as the Greeks living in Constantinople.

Despite having Greek culture, the Venetians
spoke a dialect of Latin, similar to modern Italian. Official records were
kept in Latin. A feature of the Venetian dialect was not using long words.
Unlike the Greeks, who loved long words, the Venetians would replace a
long word with something short. Instead of saying "Santi Giovanni e
Paolo" they would say "San Zanipolo". Instead of saying "San
Nicolo al Lido" they would say "Santa Claus".

Nowadays, whenever anyone suggests a
political policy that is agreeable to the mainstream population, the
Catholic media tell us that we mustn't do it, because it will be the end
of Western civilisation. For example, they say that if we ban protests by
the pressure groups, we will go back to having a North Korean standard of
living, and Western culture will be wiped out. We can evaluate this claim
of the media magnates by looking at Venice, which acted as a repository
for Western culture. If they had a certain policy in Venice, it must be
safe to have in Australia.

In Venice, all protests were banned, except
that people could write to senators expressing a grievance without fear of
getting into trouble. The Venetians had a Committee for State Security
(Consiglio dei Dieci) consisting of ten Senators. As a safeguard,
these Senators held office for only a year. The Committee for State
Security controlled a staff of fulltime secret police. The Committee had
the power to impose penalties, including death, on people engaging in
unauthorised political activity.

They didn't have "economic rationalism" in
Venice. The role of the government, as far as the Venetian billionaires
were concerned, was not to maintain a "level playing field", but to help
the billionaires become richer. The Venetians saw nothing wrong with
state-owned enterprises. They had the largest shipyard in the world,
called the Arsenal, owned by the government, which mass-produced ships,
which were then leased to Venetian businessmen.

The Venetian nobles didn't have a monopoly
on business. Any Venetian could set up a business. The Venetians had Roman
law, according to which ordinary citizens, that is plebians, had the same
legal rights as nobles. The only difference between a plebian and a noble
in the eyes of the Venetians was that a noble had more money than a
plebian. That was the definition of a noble. It is like nowadays, where
ordinary people have the same legal rights as
billionaires.

The equality of opportunity in Venice is
shown by the large number of palaces. Venice has more palaces than any
other European city. London has a handful of palaces, while Venice has
hundreds. This is because, if someone built a palace in England, the King
would bring a trumped-up charge against the owner, have him executed, and
confiscate the palace for himself. In Venice, however, the government was
geared up to preventing people from being parted from their hard-earned
wealth. The ridiculous lawsuits that are brought in American courts would
be thrown out in an instant by a Venetian court.

A typical Venetian palace is shown in the
next picture. Due to a lack of space in the Venetian Islands, Venetian
palaces are high-rise buildings. Although most palaces have four storeys
and an attic, a Venetian ceiling is about twice as high as an Australian
ceiling, so in effect the palaces are nine stories high. As you would
expect with billionaires' houses, the rooms are much larger than in
Australian homes.

The interior and exterior design of
Venetian palaces is based on the design of the Sacred Palace of the Roman
Emperors in Constantinople. This is the most luxurious building complex
that ever existed anywhere at any time. Unfortunately it has been
destroyed, but by all accounts the luxuriousness and good taste of this
Palace is difficult for the mind to comprehend.

The Venetian legal system was different
from the "feudal system" that the barbarians introduced to Western Europe.
Under the feudal system, the only rights people had were those that their
overlord allowed them. Anything not specifically allowed was forbidden.
This contrasts with Roman law, where a man's home is his castle, and he
can do whatever he likes unless the government specifically prohibits it.
Gradually feudal law was modified. English law started off as "honour
amongst thieves", and ended up for all practical purposes the same as
Roman law.

A striking feature of Venetian life was the
role of the Catholic Church. Venice was a Catholic country, and the
Venetian nobles were Catholics. Unlike other Catholic countries, however,
the Venetians kept their clergy on a tight leash. They recognised the
potential of the Catholic Church for abuse.

In Venice, the clergy were not appointed by
the Catholic Church, but by the government. A priest or a monk would only
be appointed if he came from a wealthy family and supported the existing
social order. Priests were not above the law, as they were in many parts
of Western Europe. If a priest was found sleeping with women, he would be
executed. The Venetians liked to schedule their executions of Catholic
priests to coincide with the arrival of visiting
Protestants.

The Catholic Church's Inquisition operated
in Venice as in many other parts of Europe. But no-one was ever executed
in Venice for being a Protestant. People were only ever executed for
slandering Christianity. If Karl Marx had lived in Venice, he would have
been executed for saying that religion is the opiate of the people. Venice
was the only place in Europe that welcomed Jews throughout its history.
The Jews were eventually expelled after they organised the French
Revolution, but they can't say that the Venetians didn't give them "a fair
go", at a time when for some reason everyone else in Europe hated
them.

In the last years of the Republic of
Venice, the billionaires saw that their ideal system of government was
under threat. So they sought to spread their system of government to the
rest of the world. At about this time, Freemasonry came into being. It was
claimed that Freemasonry had existed throughout history as a trade union
for stonemasons. Freemasons were told that their society had started in
ancient Egypt. There is no evidence however of Freemasonry existing before
the 18th century. Venice was the only place around where people held
Freemason type ideas, so that is probably where Freemasonry
started.

Freemasonry spread from Northern Italy to
England and North America. The American Founding Fathers were Freemasons.
This is evident from the Freemason symbols on American banknotes. The
original United States Constitution was based on the Venetian system of
government. For example, there is a Senate, and participation in the
government was originally restricted to the wealthy.

The Catholic Church claims that Freemasonry
is anti-Christian, and that Freemasons worship one of the pagan gods of
ancient Egypt. If we consider the sort of men who are Freemasons, however,
we see that they would have nothing to do with worshipping pagan gods. For
example, when some Presbyterian churches amalgamated with the Methodist
Church to form the Uniting Church, many Freemasons stopped attending the
Uniting Church. This was because some Uniting Church ministers admitted
that they had not been called by God to become ministers. This is
considered a prerequisite to being a minister.

If Freemasons who have attended church
every Sunday all their lives without fail suddenly stop attending church
because of un-Christian practices, clearly they would also stop attending
meetings of the Freemasons if they thought that there was anything pagan
about it. The claim that the Freemasons is anti-Christian is just
propaganda. The real reason that the Catholic Church is against the
Freemasons is because the Freemasons won't let Catholic priests get away
with homosexuality, pedophilia and other abuses.

Venetian history has many lessons that can
be applied to solving problems in Australia today. If you read for example
"Venice" by Lord Norwich, you will see that the only thing wrong with
Venice is that they didn't have the advanced technology that we have
today. If the Republic of Venice still existed, it would have the most
advanced technology, and would be the best place in the world to live. It
would probably be the centre for the computing industry instead of Silicon
Valley, and the Doge of Venice would be Bill Gates.

Join the
Union | Home Page | Top
of Page | Links