> Thanks to the development in marketing techniques on the one hand, and
> ironically technological and organizational changes that allowed them to
> do
> away with the conscript army and use mercenaries - the elite dependence on
> public approval decreased quite substantially as compared to, say, the
> turn
> of the century. They can practically do what they want without getting
> much
> public support, but merely neutralizing public opposition.
--------------------------------------------
At the turn of the 19th century, the franchise was still very much a
property one in the capitalist democracies. The mass of unskilled workers
and all women were denied the vote. The socialist and labour movement was
just finding its feet. The Russian and other anticapitalist revolutions lay
in the future.
The exlusion of the masses from the political process allowed the ruling classes to limit taxation and spending and other forms of government intervention in the economy. It was only the subsequent rise of worker-based labour and social democratic parties which placed constraints on the bourgeoisie's hitherto unbridled control of fiscal and monetary policy, and inflationary and redistributivist pressures quickly manifested themselves in all areas of taxation and spending.
In deflationary crises, the bourgeoisie would simply slash jobs and wages, hold fast to the gold standard, and wait for the economy to right itself - popular hardship and unorganized discontent be damned. The 30's proved the old perscriptions were no longer possible. Far from "elite dependence (having) decreased quite substantially as compared to, say the turn of the century", the ruling classes now had to take into account the mass left-wing parties and the lengthening shadow of the Soviet Union. Even the fascists had to have a social program and state planning to split the masses away from working class parties, something which discomfited the German and Italian bourgeoisies. These limits were not apparant in Victorian England or in Europe, except perhaps in Germany, and here too it was instructive that Bismarck's reforms were a direct response to the rise of the first mass workers' party, the SPD.
The most recent example of the bourgeoisie having to take the potential of mass protest into account was in Japan, during its long recession of the 90's. Throughout, the "Hayekians" complained, as they did in the 30's, about the reluctance of successive Japanese governments to drastically tighten spending and credit, force the bankruptcy of insolvent banks and firms, and watch as mass unemployment and falling wages worked their magic in restoring investment and production.
There is a reason governments - even those which pay obiesance to the Austrian school - are so reluctant to take such extreme measures these days. It isn't something as dramatic as a fear of social revolution, although that possibility will always haunt propertied classes. The threat of being voted out of office is usually sufficient to make even the most reactionary politicians hesitate. Notice Bush rushing ahead to privatize social security and medicare? Why can't the forces he represents "do what they want without getting much public support" as you claim they can?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be turning Gramsci on his head. He said modern ruling classes need to maintain control as much by consent as by force and coercion. But you see the development of "marketing" and other forms of mass communications as representing the liberation of the bourgeoisie from the need to secure "public approval", something you mistakenly believe was required of past ruling classes, but is no longer required of them in the present.