The Eternal Cycle

For thousands of years, human civilization has followed the same pattern. People unite for security and common interest. They form communities. Within those communities, systems develop. Social classes emerge. Rulers, warriors, merchants, producers, servants.

The community grows into a state. Ideas and ideologies are imposed to maintain cohesion and loyalty. Then, inevitably, another group across the river or beyond the mountains does the same thing. Their ideology differs. Their resources look appealing. Conflict becomes inevitable.

War erupts. The civilization built through generations of labor collapses. But history consists of cycles. The pattern repeats. The fallen state rebuilds. It defeats its previous conqueror. It grows. It acquires new enemies. It falls again. And again. And again.

This fundamental order continued unchanged for millennia. Sometimes states collapsed from internal decay without external war. Sometimes natural disasters brought them down. But the system remained constant. Different societies with different ideologies, even when populated by the same human species. Class hierarchies within those societies. Upper, middle, lower. The endless search for resources.

Humanity gave names to various systems. Feudalism. Monarchy. Communism. Socialism. Democracy. But the reality never changed. There were always elite rulers. There were always the ruled. This continues today, even under the democratic umbrella. People think they choose between options. In reality, most of those who claim to represent them belong to elite classes with no connection to actual interests.

The French Revolution demonstrated this cycle with brutal clarity. Monarchy's oppression triggered mass uprising. The people destroyed the system, hoping for better days. What followed? Absolute chaos. The Jacobins and other factions fragmented into competing groups, each claiming to fight for liberty while slaughtering opponents. For ten years after the monarchy's fall, civil order could not be established in France. Historians call this period the Reign of Terror.

Then Napoleon arrived. He restored order briefly before declaring himself emperor, effectively resurrecting the monarchy the revolution had destroyed. He plunged the nation into endless wars. Eventually, both he and his system collapsed. Chaos returned. France achieved stable democracy only in the 1900s.

Sociologists like Émile Durkheim, psychologists like Erich Fromm, and political theorists like Hannah Arendt all addressed this paradox in their work. When humans experience absolute freedom without structure, they face purposelessness and inability to determine direction. Social stability collapses.

The lesson is clear but uncomfortable. Overthrow oppressive systems, but plan what comes next. Otherwise, you create something worse than what you destroyed. This creates the vicious cycle. You must replace the system you tear down with a similar structure. And that new structure begins corrupting within a generation.

This is precisely what creates the repeating historical cycles. Love it or hate it, systems must control and guide populations to prevent both revolution from excessive oppression and anarchic collapse from excessive freedom.

In 1776, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, establishing foundations of modern capitalism under the banner of Free Market Economics. His motto for nations: Let them do. Let them produce. Laissez-faire.

This idea advocated that states should allow private sectors relative freedom to explode production and raise general welfare. But Smith also indicated, somewhat obliquely, that this system should operate for a limited period. His own writings predicted that eventually this system would spawn massive monopolies, concentrate wealth in specific populations, and ultimately drive the resource-deprived masses to revolt.

Nearly 250 years have passed since Smith prescribed a limited lifespan for this system. Despite countless patches and reforms, the system has collapsed. Capital has concentrated in corporations larger than nations. Everyone outside these mega-elites, white collar or blue collar, has become disposable labor. The middle class rapidly disappears.

Can you comprehend this? Apple's valuation exceeds Turkey's entire GDP by more than three times. How is this possible? How can a technology company be worth three times more than an entire nation's total economic value?

It represents an absurd imbalance. Turkey's annual gross national product sits around one trillion dollars. Apple's current valuation: 3.5 trillion dollars.

This massive inequality enables mega-capital owners to crush workers further and exploit planetary resources with complete impunity. No nation can stand against them. If they choose, two financial maneuvers could drive a country to bankruptcy.

Because core capitalist power concentrates in these giant corporations, and because nations hosting these corporations support the system, insatiable greed and corruption emerge.

This leads to the fundamental question. How does one control a society?