Why I don't wanna die and go to Soul Society
He's my hero, but I can't even remember his name (it was one of those kinda confusing ones where both his given and family names sound like first names. Gordon Christopher or something like that...) Anyway, he introduced our Micro 101 class to Bleach back when it was still in it's first arc and gave us 10 bonus points for writing a paragraph about the problems that would arise in a classist society like Seireitei vs. Rukongai. I don't have the paper I wrote anymore, but here's a quick 'n' dirty discussion about how I see it now.
Disclaimer: I'm barely an economist, much less a public policy one. Wanna open up a small business? I can help. Wanna know about controlling the masses? Go elsewhere. I hate politics. XP
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Let's face it, Seireitei is an impenetrable fortress and yet they're responsible for the protection and management of the society from which it has shut itself off against. We're told of rampant crime and starvation in Rukongai which can only be due to either negligence or incompetence (i.e. they don't know or they don't care) on the part of the governing body (Gotei 13). It's difficult to argue that they wouldn't know what's going on, since ranked officials, including vice-captain Abarai Renji, grew up and lived it firsthand so the only other option is incompetence. Since they're so far removed from the problems, either they have become complacent about it, ignoring the death (apparently you can die in the afterlife. Suxxors!) and suffering within the society they are supposed to protect, or they don't know how to deal with it. Considering the massive size of Rukongai, the most traditional way to deal with the problems of governance across the various classes would be to install smaller, more local government bodies to manage the local issues. This gives the people within Rukongai with a vested interest in changing their environment the power to do so. Well, in theory... ;)
Now that we've set up the local government infrastructure, we have to enforce the laws that will inevitably be made. Soul Society is a police state as far as I know, but the problem is that the police are all within the blinding walls of Seireitei. By definition, in police states the military is the upper class (as evidenced by people joining Gotei 13 to get a better life) and hold the monopoly on sanctioned violence (which is universally true for police forces everywhere). Problem is, the police is inside Seireitei and the crime is outside in Rukongai. There is mention of "the police", but it's vague and rare which, along with the fact that there is rampant crime, suggests there's not enough police officers and officials to effectively control the population. Rukongai appears to be ruled by a vague and general sense of fear and morality. Anyway, the problem with this is that there's consistent evidence to suggest that societies with wide gaps in economic class (i.e. large upper and lower class, little to no middle class) come with a high crime rate.
So, what happens when you have rampant poverty and crime in your largest class by population with too little power to control it effectively? America started it, France picked up on it... that's right. Revolution! Sure, Yama-jii can come in and crispy-fry everyone's ass into the after-afterlife (O_o?) if it's a violent affair, but in reality there are ways other than showing up at a gate with torches and pitchforks to overthrow a government and I'm not talking about locking yourself up in a basement until you get bankai. I wouldn't mind a little tutoring from Urahottie Kisuke, though...