The prince, the priest and the merchant
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COMMENTS 
We the people are supposed to be in charge of the modern manifestations of power. But are we? The secular democratic process is only the old Prince-Priest-Merchant nexus in disguise, says John Samuel
In the beginning there was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God. Then the priest came to represent the word and God. Then came the sword. The sword was with the prince. And the sword was the prince. Then the prince became the state and the state became the sword. Then came trade. Trade was with the merchant. Trade was the merchant. The merchant became the market. The market became the missionary.
Thus, the world was made of words, swords and trade. The word was spread through the sword. Words sustained the sword. Then trade helped to spread the word and the sword. Here began the divine comedy of words, sword and trade. Priest, prince and merchant ran the world with their words, swords and trade. This divine comedy is the mother of all politics.
Politics represents the dynamics of power-relations in a given society at a given point in time. Power relations are often channeled through and negotiated by social institutions. Historically, socio-cultural institutions such as religion, clan, tribe and family played an important role in channeling, mediating and negotiating power and political processes.
Divinity was evoked to legitimise and sustain power in the realm of religious institutions, and religion often subcontracted the process to the family by 'legalising' and legitimising the most important events of human life -- birth, death and procreation through male-female relationships. Religion created soft-power through beliefs, knowledge, myths, rituals and institutions. Such a sense of soft-power was a prerequisite for building hard power through the sword. The priest became the first ideologue of political power. He provided the moral legitimacy for domination through patriarchy. The brahmin, mullah, monk or bishop interpreted the world and legalised their words -- by making norms, canons and law. Priests played multiple roles as philosophers, theologians, teachers, sorcerers and alchemists. Priests created the 'order of things'. The priest was a necessity for the entry and sustenance of the prince.
Power was most evident through the 'physical' contest to acquire and dominate. This was institutionalised through weapons, the army and war. The military provided the bulwark to dominate and sustain the power of the prince -- from Darius to Alexander to the Romans, from Genghis Khan to the Ottoman Turks, from Napoleon to Hitler, and from Stalin to George Bush!
So power was legitimised by the priests, disguised as philosophers or teachers, and sustained by the military of the prince. Hegemony at any given time was maintained by creating consent (often through religious-social networks) and coercion (by the military power of the prince). The priest and the prince together made law and order -- where they combined the power of the word and the sword.
With the emergence of trade, the market, and surpluses, money began to play a role in shaping politics. Eventually the art of politics was managed by the prince (with weapons and armies), the priest (who derived authority from the divine) and the merchant (who financed war). The entire colonial project and imperialist politics were driven by the old power trinity of the Prince-Priest-Merchant. They used trade, the sword and the Bible to appropriate territories, markets, cultures and the human mind. In many ways, religions and priests provided the moral and ideological framework to capture and dominate the world. Most of the major religions swept the world by either the sword or trade. And so the priest became an ideological necessity to give a moral veneer to any act of atrocity and domination. All major religions have the smell of blood acquired through war and plunder at some point in history. Patriarchy, totem, taboo and identity-based contestation became the underlying factors to acquire, sustain and manage power relationships.
Then the nation-state arrived. Prince, priest and merchants were no longer in charge. "We the people" were supposed to be in charge of the modern manifestation of power. New institutional formations came into being to channel, negotiate and sustain power. That is how political parties came in as a modern social and political institution, in the context of liberal democratic politics and the state.
With the separation of the church and state, a relatively secular democratic process emerged in many of the countries of Europe and other parts of the world. Secular democracy became the flavour of the month. Thus the priest and the merchant retreated to the background of the political process. The emergence of political parties helped to replace the old political nexus of Prince-Priest-Merchant. In the process, new power-elites competed with each other, in the name of various political parties, to capture and sustain state power. Those leaders in the business of capturing and sustaining state power through democratic processes became the modern-day equivalent of the prince.
But the merchants remained indispensable. It was they who financed political parties in the democratic exercise of capturing and sustaining state power. The political and corporate elites appropriated the modern state and institutions of governance. With the emergence of the neo-liberal policy framework, cash-rich corporate leaders began to influence political and policymaking processes by financing political parties, electoral processes and the knowledge- media network.
While this new nexus subverted the democratic process and appropriated the policymaking process, political party leaders lost the moral authority to influence society or people. This made them increasingly dependent on religious institutions and networks to seek social legitimacy and to gather votes. They needed the blessings of the religious elite to sustain their state power and electoral base. Thus the priest too returned to the forefront of the political process.
So the old nexus of the Prince, the Priest and the Merchant is back in a new avatar of political leaders-transnational corporations-religious networks. In spite of secularism and democracy, religion continues to dominate politics. Religious leaders and networks too adopted a marketing approach, using modern media, advertisements, high-tech networking and strategic influence to increase their power and presence. The military and markets are still in charge in most countries of the world. In many cases, both religious institutions and the military are in the business of discrediting, undermining and sabotaging political parties to sustain their power. The media often play a subservient role to market and religion -- as both are sources of revenue. Instead of being the fourth-estate among the democratic institutions, media has become the pimp of the new power trinity.
The interesting thing is that most authoritarian military regimes rule in collusion with religion or religious institutions. Such religious institutions are also well-entrenched social networks to channel power, collect information, and manage, control and dominate through power-networks of the prince and the priests. The prince and the priest tend to seek validation and resources from the merchant to sustain power. All three power elites see political parities as a necessary modern evil, and either appropriate political parties as an instrument to capture state power or discredit political parties to capture state power through military coup.
Thus democracy has been reduced to a formal electoral mechanism or a farce. Democracy is often used as a veneer of legitimacy to capture and sustain state power. In fact, the priest is back in the form of a new conservatism, a new fundamentalism and a new identity politics. As political parties and leaders get seduced into big money and corrupt practices, the religious leaders (the bishops, mullahs, swamis and monks) tend to influence society through their media, social networks and identity politics; harvesting the new insecurities in the context of consumerism, advanced capitalism and terrorism.
Thus politics itself is being turned into a divine comedy, where priests once again return to centrestage with their divine aura and new marketing techniques to become the kingmakers in the postmodern world. The prince and merchants get into a new power-sharing relationship. In the process, state becomes subservient to market, with the blessings of the priest. Citizens are reduced to consumers or believers -- who are ready to buy and follow, who are ready to kill or be killed for their beliefs. When citizens are robbed of their sense of agency, they end up as the puppets of the merchant or priest and dance to the tune of the prince. That, in the end, is what the democratic process is reduced to.
It is time to reclaim the state and democratic processes from the new nexus of Prince-Priest-Merchant.
InfoChange News & Features, February 2008