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Sectiond.txt
1
Section D - How does statism and capitalism affect society?
2
3
D.1 Why does state intervention occur?
4
D.1.1 Does state intervention cause the problems to begin with?
5
D.1.2 Is state intervention the result of democracy?
6
D.1.3 Is state intervention socialistic?
7
8
D.2 What influence does wealth have over politics?
9
D.2.1 Is capital flight that powerful?
10
D.2.2 How extensive is business propaganda?
11
12
D.3 How does wealth influence the mass media?
13
D.3.1 How does the size, concentrated ownership, owner
14
wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant
15
mass-media firms affect media content?
16
D.3.2 What is the effect of advertising as the primary
17
income source of the mass media?
18
D.3.3 Why do the media rely on information provided by
19
government, business, and "experts" funded and approved
20
by these primary sources and agents of power?
21
D.3.4 How is "flak" used by the wealthy and powerful as a
22
means of disciplining the media?
23
D.3.5 Why do the wealthy and powerful use "anticommunism" as
24
a national religion and control mechanism?
25
D.3.6 Isn't it a "conspiracy theory" to suggest that the media are
26
used as propaganda instruments by the elite?
27
D.3.7 Isn't the "propaganda thesis" about the media contradicted by
28
the "adversarial" nature of much media reporting, e.g. its
29
exposes of government and business corruption?
30
31
D.4 What is the relationship between capitalism and the ecological crisis?
32
D.4.1 Why must capitalist firms "grow or die?"
33
34
D.5 What causes imperialism?
35
D.5.1 Has imperialism changed over time?
36
D.5.2 Is imperialism just a product of private capitalism?
37
D.5.3 Does globalisation mean the end of imperialism?
38
D.5.4 What is the relationship between imperialism and the
39
social classes within capitalism?
40
41
D.6 Are anarchists against Nationalism?
42
43
D.7 Are anarchists opposed to National Liberation struggles?
44
45
D.8 What causes militarism and what are its effects?
46
D.8.1 Will militarism change with the apparent end of the Cold War?
47
48
D.9 What is the relationship between wealth polarisation and
49
authoritarian government?
50
D.9.1 Why does political power become concentrated
51
under capitalism?
52
D.9.2 What is "invisible government"?
53
D.9.3 Why are incarceration rates rising?
54
D.9.4 Why is government secrecy and surveillance of
55
citizens on the increase?
56
D.9.5 But doesn't authoritarian government always involve
57
censorship?
58
D.9.6 What does the Right want?
59
60
D.10 How does capitalism affect technology?
61
62
D.11 What causes justifications for racism to appear?
63
D.11.1 Does free market ideology play a part in racist tendencies
64
to increase?
65
66
Section D - How does statism and capitalism affect society?
67
68
This section of the FAQ indicates how both statism and capitalism affect
69
the society they exist in. It is a continuation of sections B (Why do
70
anarchists oppose the current system?) and C (What are the myths of
71
capitalist economics?) and it discusses the impact of the underlying social
72
and power relationships within the current system on society.
73
74
This section is important because the institutions and social relationships
75
capitalism and statism spawn do not exist in a social vacuum, they have deep
76
impacts on our everyday lives. These effects go beyond us as individuals
77
(for example, the negative effects of hierarchy on our individuality) and have
78
an effect on how the political institutions in our
79
society work, how technology develops, how the media operates and so on.
80
Therefore it is worthwhile to point out how (and why) statism and capitalism
81
affect society as a whole outwith the narrow bounds of politics and economics.
82
83
So here we try and sketch some of the impact of concentrations of political
84
and economic power has upon society. While many people attack the *results*
85
of these processes (like state intervention, ecological destruction,
86
imperialism, etc.) they ignore their *causes.* This means that the
87
struggle against social evils will be never-ending, like a doctor fighting
88
the symptoms of a disease without treating the disease itself. We have
89
indicated the roots of the problems we face in sections B and C; now we
90
discuss some of the other problems they create. This section of the FAQ
91
explores the interactions of the causes and results and draws out how the
92
authoritarian and exploitative nature of capitalism affects the world we
93
live in.
94
95
It is important to remember that most supporters of capitalism refuse to
96
do this. Yes, many of them point out *some* flaws and problems within
97
society but they never relate them to the system as such. As Noam Chomsky
98
points out, they will attribute the catastrophes of capitalism "to any
99
other cause *other* than the system that consistently brings them about."
100
[_Deterring Democracy_, p. 232]
101
102
That the system and its effects are interwoven can best be seen from the
103
fact that while right-wing parties have been elected to office promising
104
to reduce the role of the state in society, the actual size and activity
105
of the state has not been reduced, indeed it has usually increased in
106
scope (both in size and in terms of power and centralisation). This is
107
unsurprising, as "free market" implies strong (and centralised) state --
108
the "freedom" of Management to manage means that the freedom of workers
109
to resist authoritarian management structures must be weakened by state
110
action. Thus, ironically, state intervention within society will continue
111
to be needed in order to ensure that society survives the rigours of market
112
forces and that elite power and privilege are protected from the masses.
113
114
D.1 Why does state intervention occur?
115
116
The state is forced to intervene in society because of the anti-social
117
effects of capitalism. The abstractly individualistic theory on which
118
capitalism is based ("everyone for themselves") results in a high degree
119
of statism since the economic system itself contains no means to combat
120
its own socially destructive workings. The state must also intervene in
121
the economy, not only to protect the interests of the ruling class but
122
also to protect society from the atomising and destructive impact of
123
capitalism. Moreover, capitalism has an inherent tendency toward
124
periodic recessions or depressions, and the attempt to prevent them has
125
become part of the state's function. However, since preventing them is
126
impossible (they are built into the system -- see section C.7), in
127
practice the state can only try to postpone them and ameliorate their
128
severity. Let's begin with the need for social intervention.
129
130
Capitalism is based on turning both labour and land into commodities. As
131
Karl Polyani points out, however, "labour and land are no other than the
132
human beings themselves of which every society consists and the natural
133
surroundings in which it exists; to include labour and land in the market
134
mechanism means to subordinate the substance of society itself to the laws
135
of the market." [_The Great Transformation_, p. 71] And this means that
136
"human society has become an accessory to the economic system," with
137
humanity placing itself fully in the hands of supply and demand. But such
138
a situation "could not exist for any length of time without annihilating
139
the human and natural substance of society; it would have physically
140
destroyed man and transformed his surroundings into a wilderness." [Ibid.,
141
pp. 41-42]
142
143
To expect that a community would remain indifferent to the scourge of
144
unemployment, dangerous working conditions, 16-hour working days, the
145
shifting of industries and occupations, and the moral and psychological
146
disruption accompanying them -- merely because economic effects, in the
147
long run, might be better -- is an absurdity. Similarly, for workers to
148
remain indifferent to, for example, poor working conditions, peacefully
149
waiting for a new boss to offer them better conditions, or for citizens
150
to wait passively for capitalists to start voluntarily acting responsibly
151
toward the environment, is to assume a servile and apathetic role
152
for humanity. Luckily, labour refuses to be a commodity and citizens
153
refuse to stand idly by while the planet's ecosystems are destroyed.
154
155
Therefore state intervention occurs as a form of protection against the
156
workings of the market. As capitalism is based on atomising society in
157
the name of "freedom" on the competitive market, it is hardly surprising that
158
defence against the anti-social workings of the market should take
159
statist forms -- there being few other structures capable of providing
160
such defence (as such social institutions have been undermined, if not
161
crushed, by the rise of capitalism in the first place). Thus, ironically,
162
"individualism" produces a "collectivist" tendency within society as
163
capitalism destroys communal forms of social organisation in favour of
164
ones based on abstract individualism, authority, and hierarchy -- all
165
qualities embodied in the state. In a free (i.e. communal) society,
166
social self-defence would not be statist but would be similar in nature
167
to trade unionism and co-operatives -- individuals working together in
168
voluntary associations to ensure a free and just society (see section I).
169
170
In addition to social protection, state intervention is required to
171
protect a country's economy (and so the economic interests of the ruling
172
class). As Noam Chomsky points out, even the USA, home of "free
173
enterprise," was marked by "large-scale intervention in the economy after
174
independence, and conquest of resources and markets. . . [while] a
175
centralised developmental state [was constructed] committed to [the]
176
creation and entrenchment of domestic manufacture and commerce,
177
subsidising local production and barring cheaper British imports,
178
constructing a legal basis for private corporate power, and in numerous
179
other ways providing an escape from the stranglehold of comparative
180
advantage." [_World Orders, Old and New_, p. 114]
181
182
In the case of Britain and a host of other countries (and more recently in
183
the cases of Japan and the Newly Industrialising Countries of the Far
184
East, like Korea) state intervention was, oddly enough, the key to
185
development and success in the "free market." In other "developing"
186
countries which have had the misfortune to be subjected to "free-market
187
reforms" (e.g. neo-liberal Structural Adjustment Programs) rather
188
than following the interventionist Japanese and Korean models, the
189
results have been devastating for the vast majority, with drastic
190
increases in poverty, homelessness, malnutrition, etc. (for the elite,
191
the results are somewhat different of course).
192
193
In the nineteenth century, states only turned to laissez-faire once they
194
could benefit from it and had a strong enough economy to survive it. "Only
195
in the mid-nineteenth century, when it had become powerful enough to
196
overcome any competition, did England [sic!] embrace free trade." [Noam
197
Chomsky, Op. Cit., p. 115] Before this, protectionism and other methods
198
were used to nurture economic development. And once laissez-faire started to
199
undermine a country's economy, it was quickly revoked. For example,
200
protectionism is often used to protect a fragile economy and militarism
201
has always been a favourite way for the ruling elite to help the economy,
202
as is still the case, for example, in the "Pentagon System" in the USA
203
(see section D.8).
204
205
State intervention has been a feature of capitalism from the start. As
206
Kropotkin argued, "nowhere has the system of 'non-intervention of the
207
State' ever existed. Everywhere the State has been, and still is, the
208
main pillar and the creator, direct and indirect, of Capitalism and its
209
powers over the masses. Nowhere, since States have grown up, have the
210
masses had the freedom of resisting the oppression by capitalists. . .
211
The state has *always* interfered in the economic life in favour of
212
the capitalist exploiter. It has always granted him protection in
213
robbery, given aid and support for further enrichment. *And it could
214
not be otherwise.* To do so was one of the functions -- the chief
215
mission -- of the State." [_Evolution and Environment_, pp. 97-8] Its
216
limited attempts at laissez-faire have always been failures, resulting
217
in a return to its statist roots. The process of selective laissez-faire
218
and collectivism has been as much a feature of capitalism in the past as
219
it is now. Indeed, as Noam Chomsky argues, "[w]hat is called 'capitalism'
220
is basically a system of corporate mercantilism, with huge and largely
221
unaccountable private tyrannies exercising vast control over the economy,
222
political systems, and social and cultural life, operating in close
223
co-operation with powerful states that intervene massively in the domestic
224
economy and international society. That is dramatically true of the United
225
States, contrary to much illusion. The rich and privileged are no more
226
willing to face market discipline than they have been in the past, though
227
they consider it just fine for the general population." ["Anarchism,
228
Marxism and Hope for the Future", _Red and Black Revolution_, issue 2]
229
230
Therefore, contrary to conventional wisdom, state intervention will always
231
be associated with capitalism due to: (1) its authoritarian nature; (2) its
232
inability to prevent the anti-social results of the competitive market;
233
(3) its fallacious assumption that society should be "an accessory to
234
the economic system"; (4) the class interests of the ruling elite; and
235
(5) the need to impose its authoritarian social relationships upon an
236
unwilling population in the first place.
237
238
State intervention is as natural to capitalism as wage labour. As Polyani
239
summarises, "the countermove against economic liberalism and laissez-faire
240
possessed all the unmistakable characteristics of a spontaneous reaction. .
241
. [and] a closely similar change from laissez-faire to 'collectivism' took
242
place in various countries at a definite stage of their industrial
243
development, pointing to the depth and independence of the underlying
244
causes of the process." [Op. Cit., pp. 149-150] For "government cannot
245
want society to break up, for it would mean that it and the dominant class
246
would be deprived of sources of exploitation; nor can it leave society to
247
maintain itself without official intervention, for then people would
248
soon realise that government serves only to defend property owners. . .
249
and they would hasten to rid themselves of both." [Errico Malatesta,
250
_Anarchy_, p. 22]
251
252
And neither should it be forgotten that state intervention was required to
253
create the "free" market in the first place. To quote Polyani again,
254
"[f]or as long as [the market] system is not established, economic
255
liberals must and will unhesitatingly call for the intervention of the
256
state in order to establish it, and once established, in order to maintain
257
it." [Op. Cit., p. 149] Protectionism and subsidy (mercantilism) -- along
258
with the liberal use of state violence against the working class -- was
259
required to create and protect capitalism and industry in the first place
260
(see section F.8 - What role did the state take in the creation of
261
capitalism?).
262
263
In short, although laissez-faire may be the ideological basis of capitalism
264
actually practised. So, while the ideologues are praising "free enterprise"
265
as the fountainhead of modern prosperity, the corporations and companies
266
are gorging at the table of the State.
267
268
The recent enthusiasm for the "free market" is in fact the product of an
269
extended boom, which in turn was a product of a state co-ordinated war
270
economy and highly interventionist Keynesian economics (a boom that the
271
apologists of capitalism use, ironically, as "evidence" that "capitalism"
272
works) plus an unhealthy dose of nostalgia for a past that never existed.
273
It's strange how a system that has never existed has produced so much!
274
275
D.1.1 Does state intervention cause the problems to begin with?
276
277
Usually, no. This does not mean that state intervention cannot have bad
278
effects on the economy or society. Given the state's centralised,
279
bureaucratic nature, it would be impossible for it *not* to have bad
280
effects. State intervention can and does make bad situations worse in
281
many cases. As Malatesta notes, "the practical evidence [is] that whatever
282
governments do is always motivated by the desire to dominate, and is
283
always geared to defending, extending and perpetuating its privileges
284
and those of the class of which it is both the representative and
285
defender." [_Anarchy_, p. 21]
286
287
However, for economic liberals (or, as we would call them today,
288
neo-liberals or "conservatives"), state intervention is the root of all
289
evil, and for them, it is precisely the state's interference with the
290
market which causes the problems that society blames on the market.
291
292
But such a position is illogical, for "whoever says regulation says
293
limitation: now, how conceive of limiting privilege before it existed?
294
... [I]t would be an effect without a cause" and so "regulation was a
295
corrective to privilege" and not vice versa. [P-J Proudhon, _System of
296
Economic Contradictions_, p. 371] As Polyani explains, the neo-liberal
297
premise is false, because state intervention always "dealt with some
298
problem arising out of modern industrial conditions or, at any rate,
299
in the market method of dealing with them." [Karl Polyani, Op. Cit.,
300
p. 146] In fact, these "collectivist" measures were usually carried
301
out by convinced supporters of laissez-faire, who were as a rule
302
uncompromising opponents of all forms of socialism (and often
303
introduced to undermine support for socialist ideas caused by the
304
excesses of "free market" capitalism).
305
306
Thus state intervention did not spring out of thin air, but occurred in
307
response to pressing social and economic needs. This can be observed in
308
the mid 19th century, which saw the closest approximation to laissez-faire
309
in the history of capitalism. As Takis Fotopoules argues, "the attempt to
310
establish pure economic liberalism, in the sense of free trade, a
311
competitive labour market and the Gold Standard, did not last more than 40
312
years, and by the 1870s and 1880s, protectionist legislation was back. . .
313
. It was also significant. . . [that all major capitalist powers] passed
314
through a period of free trade and laissez-faire, followed by a period of
315
anti-liberal legislation. ["The Nation-state and the Market," p. 48,
316
_Society and Nature_, Vol. 3, pp. 44-45]
317
318
The reason for the return of protectionist legislation was the Depression
319
of 1873-86, which marked the end of the first experiment with pure
320
economic liberalism. Paradoxically, then, the attempt to liberalise the
321
markets led to more regulation. In light of our previous analysis, this
322
is not surprising. Neither the owners of the country nor the politicians
323
desired to see society destroyed, the result to which unhindered
324
laissez-faire leads. Apologists of capitalism overlook the fact that "[a]t
325
the beginning of the Depression, Europe had been in the heyday of free
326
trade. [Polyani, Op. Cit., p. 216] State intervention came about in
327
response to the social disruptions resulting from laissez-faire. It did
328
not cause them.
329
330
Similarly, it is a fallacy to state, as Ludwig Von Mises does, that "as
331
long as unemployment benefit is paid, unemployment must exist." This
332
statement is not only ahistoric but ignores the existence of the
333
*involuntary* unemployment which caused the state to start paying out a
334
dole in order eliminate the possibility of crime as well as working class
335
self-help, which could conceivably have undermined the status quo. The
336
elite was well aware of the danger in workers organising for their own
337
benefit.
338
339
Sadly, in pursuing of ideologically correct answers, capitalist apologists
340
often ignore common sense. If one believes people exist for the economy
341
and not the economy for people, one becomes willing to sacrifice people
342
and their society today for the supposed economic benefit of future
343
generations (in reality, current profits). If one accepts the ethics of
344
mathematics, a future increase in the size of the economy is more important
345
than current social disruption. Thus Polyani again: "a social calamity is
346
primarily a cultural not an economic phenomenon that can be measured by income
347
figures." [Op. Cit., p. 157] And it is the nature of capitalism to ignore and
348
despise what cannot be measured.
349
350
D.1.2 Is state intervention the result of democracy?
351
352
No. Social and economic intervention by the modern state began long
353
before universal suffrage became widespread. For example, in Britain,
354
"collectivist" measures were introduced when property and sexual
355
restrictions on voting rights still existed. The centralist and
356
hierarchical nature of "representative" democracy means that the
357
population at large has little real control over politicians, who
358
are far more influenced by big business, business lobby groups, and
359
the state bureaucracy. This means that truly popular and democratic
360
pressures are limited within the capitalist state and the interests
361
of elites are far more decisive in explaining state actions.
362
363
The "New Deal" and the post-war Keynesianism measures of limited state
364
intervention to stimulate economic recovery from the Depression were
365
motivated by more material reasons than democracy. Thus Takis Fotopoules
366
argues that "[t]he fact . . .that 'business confidence' was at its lowest
367
could go a long way in explaining the much more tolerant attitude of those
368
controlling production towards measures encroaching on their economic
369
power and profits. In fact, it was only when -- and as long as -- state
370
interventionism had the approval of those actually controlling production
371
that it was successful" ["The Nation-state and the Market", p. 55,
372
_Society and Nature_, Vol. 3, pp. 44-45]
373
374
An example of this principle can be seen in the 1934 Wagner Act in the
375
USA, which gave US labour its first and last political victory. The act
376
made it legal for unions to organise, but this placed labour struggles
377
within the boundaries of legal procedures and so meant that they could be
378
more easily controlled. In addition, this concession was a form of
379
appeasement whose effect was to make those involved in union actions less
380
likely to start questioning the fundamental bases of the capitalist
381
system. Once the fear of a militant labour movement had passed, the
382
Wagner Act was undermined and made powerless by new laws, laws which
383
made illegal the tactics which forced the politicians to pass the
384
Wagner Act in the first place and increased the powers of bosses over
385
workers.
386
387
Needless to say, the implication of classical liberal ideology that
388
popular democracy is a threat to capitalism is the root of the fallacy
389
that democracy leads to state intervention. The notion that by limiting
390
the franchise the rich will make laws which benefit all says more about
391
the classical liberals' touching faith in the altruism of the rich than it
392
does about their understanding of human nature or their grasp of history.
393
The fact that they can join with John Locke and claim with a straight face
394
that all must abide by the rules that only the few make also says a lot
395
about their concept of "freedom."
396
397
Of course some of the more modern classical liberals (for example,
398
right-wing libertarians) advocate a "democratic state" which cannot
399
intervene in economic matters. This is no solution, however, as it only
400
gets rid of the statist response to real and pressing social problems
401
caused by capitalism without supplying anything better in its place.
402
403
Anarchists agree that the state, due to its centralisation and
404
bureaucracy, crushes the spontaneous nature of society and is a handicap
405
to social progress and evolution. However, leaving the market alone to
406
work its course fallaciously assumes that people will happily sit back and
407
let market forces rip apart their communities and environment. Getting
408
rid of state intervention without getting rid of capitalism and creating a
409
free, communal society would mean that the need for social self-protection
410
would still exist but that there would be even less means of achieving it
411
than now. The results of such a policy, as history shows, would be a
412
catastrophe for the working class (and the environment, we must add)
413
and beneficial only for the elite (as intended, of course).
414
415
The implication of the false premise that democracy leads to state
416
intervention is that the state exists for the benefit of the majority,
417
which uses the state to exploit the rich minority! Amazingly, many
418
capitalist apologists accept this as a valid inference from their
419
premise, even though it's obviously a *reductio ad absurdum* of that
420
premise as well as going against the facts of history.
421
422
D.1.3 Is state intervention socialistic?
423
424
No. Libertarian socialism is about self-liberation and self-management
425
of one's activities. Getting the state to act for us is the opposite
426
of these ideals. In addition, the question implies that socialism is
427
connected with its nemesis, statism, and that socialism means even
428
more bureaucratic control and centralisation. The identification of
429
socialism with the state is something that Stalinists and capitalist
430
apologists *both* agreed upon. However, as we'll see in section H.3.13,
431
"state socialism" is in reality just state capitalism -- the turning
432
of the world into "one office and one factory" (to use Lenin's
433
expression). Little wonder that most sane people join with anarchists
434
in rejecting it. Who wants to work under a system in which, if one
435
does not like the boss (i.e. the state), one cannot even quit?
436
437
The theory that state intervention is "creeping socialism" takes the
438
laissez-faire ideology of capitalism at its face value, not realising that
439
it is ideology rather than reality. Capitalism is a dynamic system and
440
evolves over time, but this does not mean that by moving away from its
441
theoretical starting point it is negating its essential nature and
442
becoming socialistic. Capitalism was born from state intervention, and
443
except for a very short period of laissez-faire which ended in depression,
444
has always depended on state intervention for its existence.
445
446
The claim that state intervention is "socialist" also ignores the
447
realities of power concentration under capitalism. Real socialism
448
equalises power by redistributing it to the people, but as Noam Chomsky
449
points out, "[in] a highly inegalitarian society, it is most unlikely that
450
government programs will be equalisers. Rather, it is to be expected that
451
they will be designed and manipulated by private power for their own
452
benefits; and to a significant degree the expectation is fulfilled."
453
[_The Chomsky Reader_, p. 184] "Welfare equals socialism" is nonsense.
454
455
Similarly, in Britain and the nationalisation of roughly 20% of the
456
economy (the most unprofitable sections of it as well) in 1945 by the
457
Labour Government was the direct result of ruling class fear, not
458
socialism. As Quintin Hogg, a Tory M.P. at the time, said, "If you don't
459
give the people social reforms they are going to give you social
460
revolution." Memories of the near revolutions across Europe after the
461
First World War were obviously in many minds, on both sides. Not that
462
nationalisation was particularly feared as "socialism." As anarchists at
463
the time noted, "the real opinions of capitalists can be seen from Stock
464
Exchange conditions and statements of industrialists [rather] than the
465
Tory Front bench. . . [and from these we] see that the owning class is not
466
at all displeased with the record and tendency of the Labour Party."
467
[Vernon Richards (ed.), _Neither Nationalisation nor Privatisation --
468
Selections from _Freedom_ 1945-1950_, p. 9]
469
470
So where do anarchists stand on state intervention? Usually we are
471
against it, although most of us think state health care services and
472
unemployment benefits (for example) are more socially useful than arms
473
production, and in lieu of more anarchistic solutions, better than the
474
alternative of "free market" capitalism. This does not mean we are happy
475
with state intervention, which in practice undermines working class
476
self-help, mutual aid and autonomy. Also, state intervention of the
477
"social" nature is often paternalistic, run by and for the "middle classes"
478
(i.e. professional/managerial types and other self-proclaimed "experts").
479
However, until such time as a viable anarchist counterculture is created,
480
we have little option but to "support" the lesser evil (but let's make no
481
mistake, it *is* an evil).
482
483
This is not to deny that in many ways such state "support" can be used as
484
a means of regaining some of the power and labour stolen from us by
485
capitalists in the first place. State intervention *can* give working
486
people more options than they otherwise would have. If state action could
487
not be used in this way, it is doubtful that capitalists and their hired
488
"experts" would spend so much time trying to undermine and limit it. As
489
the capitalist class happily uses the state to enforce its power and
490
property rights, working people making whatever use they can of it is
491
to be expected. Be that as it may, this does not blind anarchists to
492
the negative aspects of the welfare state and other forms of state
493
intervention (see section J.5.15 for anarchist perspectives on the
494
welfare state).
495
496
One problem with state intervention, as Kropotkin saw, is that the state's
497
absorption of social functions "necessarily favoured the development of an
498
unbridled, narrow-minded individualism. In proportion as the obligations
499
towards the State grew in numbers, the citizens were evidently relieved
500
from their obligations towards each other." [_Mutual Aid_, p. 183] In
501
the case of state "social functions," such as the British National
502
Health Service, although they were created as a *result* of the social
503
atomisation caused by capitalism, they have tended to *reinforce* the
504
individualism and lack of personal and social responsibility that produced
505
the need for such action in the first place. (Forms of community and
506
social self-help and their historical precedents will be discussed in
507
section J.5.16).
508
509
The example of nationalised industries is a good indicator of the
510
non-socialist nature of state intervention. Nationalisation meant
511
replacing the capitalist bureaucrat with a state one, with little real
512
improvement for those subjected to the "new" regime. At the height of the
513
British Labour Party's post-war nationalisations, anarchists were pointing
514
out its anti-socialist nature. Nationalisation was "really consolidating
515
the old individual capitalist class into a new and efficient class of
516
managers to run. . . state capitalism" by "installing the really creative
517
industrialists in dictatorial managerial positions." [Vernon Richards,
518
Op. Cit., p. 10]
519
520
Anarchists are in favour of self-directed activity and direct action to
521
get improvements and defend reforms in the here and now. By organising
522
strikes and protests ourselves, we can improve our lives. This does not
523
mean that using direct action to get favourable laws passed or
524
less-favourable ones revoked is a waste of time. Far from it. However,
525
unless ordinary people use their own strength and grassroots organisations
526
to enforce the law, the state and employers will honour any disliked law
527
purely in the breach. By trusting the state, social self-protection
528
against the market and power concentrations becomes hollow. In the end,
529
what the state gives (or is pressurised into giving), it can take away
530
but what we create and run ourselves is always responsive to *our*
531
desires and interests. We have seen how vulnerable state welfare
532
is to pressures from the capitalist class to see that this is a
533
truism.
534
535
D.2 What influence does wealth have over politics?
536
537
The short answer is: a great deal of influence, directly and indirectly.
538
We have already touched on this in section B.2.3 ("How does the ruling class
539
maintain control of the state?") Here we will expand on those remarks.
540
541
State policy in a capitalist democracy is usually well-insulated from popular
542
influence but very open to elite influence and money interests. Let's consider
543
the possibility of direct influence first. It's obvious that elections cost
544
money and that only the rich and corporations can realistically afford to
545
take part in a major way. Even union donations to political parties cannot
546
effectively compete with those from the business classes. For example, in
547
the 1972 US presidential elections, of the $500 million spent, only about $13
548
million came from trade unions. The vast majority of the rest undoubtedly
549
came from Big Business and wealthy individuals. For the 1956 elections, the
550
last year for which direct union-business comparisons are possible, the
551
contributions of 742 businessmen matched those of unions representing 17
552
million workers. And this was at a time when unions had large memberships
553
and before the decline of organised labour.
554
555
Therefore, logically, politics will be dominated by the rich and powerful
556
only parties supported by the wealthy will gain enough funds and
557
favourable press coverage to have a chance (see section D.3, "How does
558
wealth influence the mass media?"). Even in countries with strong union
559
movements which support labour-based parties, the political agenda is
560
dominated by the media. As the media are owned by and dependent upon
561
advertising from business, it is hardly surprising that independent
562
labour-based political agendas are difficult to follow or be taken
563
seriously. Moreover, the funds available for labour parties are always
564
less than those of capitalist supported parties, meaning that the
565
ability of the former to compete in "fair" elections is hindered. And
566
this is ignoring the fact that the state structure is designed to
567
ensure that real power lies not in the hands of elected representatives
568
but rather in the hands of the state bureaucracy (see section J.2.2)
569
which ensures that any pro-labour political agenda will be watered down
570
and made harmless to the interests of the ruling class.
571
572
To this it must be added that wealth has a massive *indirect* influence
573
over politics (and so over society and the law). We have noted above that
574
wealth controls the media and their content. However, beyond this there
575
is what can be called "Investor Confidence," which is another important
576
source of influence. If a government starts to pass laws or act in ways
577
that conflict with the desires of business, capital may become reluctant
578
to invest (and may even disinvest and move elsewhere). The economic
579
downturn that results will cause political instability, giving the
580
government no choice but to regard the interests of business as
581
privileged. "What is good for business" really is good for the
582
country, because if business suffers, so will everyone else.
583
584
David Noble provides a good summary of the effects of such indirect
585
pressures when he writes firms "have the ability to transfer production
586
from one country to another, to close a plant in one and reopen it
587
elsewhere, to direct and redirect investment wherever the 'climate' is
588
most favourable [to business]. . . . [I]t has enabled the corporation to
589
play one workforce off against another in the pursuit of the cheapest
590
and most compliant labour (which gives the misleading appearance of
591
greater efficiency). . . [I]t has compelled regions and nations to
592
compete with one another to try and attract investment by offering
593
tax incentives, labour discipline, relaxed environmental and other
594
regulations and publicly subsidised infrastructure. . . Thus has
595
emerged the great paradox of our age, according to which those nations
596
that prosper most (attract corporate investment) by most readily
597
lowering their standard of living (wages, benefits, quality of life,
598
political freedom). The net result of this system of extortion is a
599
universal lowering of conditions and expectations in the name of
600
competitiveness and prosperity." [_Progress Without People_,
601
pp. 91-92]
602
603
And, we must note, even when a country *does* lower its standard of
604
living to attract investment or encourage its own business class to
605
invest (as the USA and UK did by means of recession to discipline
606
the workforce by high unemployment), it is no guarantee that capital
607
will stay. US workers have seen their companies' profits rise while
608
their wages have stagnated and (in reward) hundreds of thousands have
609
been "down-sized" or seen their jobs moved to Mexico or South East Asia
610
sweatshops. In the far east, Japanese, Hong Kong, and South Korean workers
611
have also seen their manufacturing jobs move to low wage (and more
612
repressive/authoritarian) countries such as China and Indonesia.
613
614
As well as the mobility of capital, there is also the threat posed by
615
public debt. As Doug Henwood notes, "[p]ublic debt is a powerful way of
616
assuring that the state remains safely in capital's hands. The higher
617
a government's debt, the more it must please its bankers. Should bankers
618
grow displeased, they will refuse to roll over old debts or to extend
619
new financing on any but the most punishing terms (if at all). The
620
explosion of [US] federal debt in the 1980s vastly increased the
621
power of creditors to demand austere fiscal and monetary policies to
622
dampen the US economy as it recovered . . . from the 1989-92 slowdown."
623
[_Wall Street_, pp. 23-24] And, we must note, Wall street made a
624
fortune on the debt, directly and indirectly.
625
626
Commenting on Clinton's plans for the devolution of welfare programmes
627
from Federal to State government in America, Noam Chomsky makes the
628
important point that "under conditions of relative equality, this could
629
be a move towards democracy. Under existing circumstances, devolution is
630
intended as a further blow to the eroding democratic processes. Major
631
corporations, investment firms, and the like, can constrain or directly
632
control the acts of national governments and can set one national
633
workforce against another. But the game is much easier when the only
634
competing player that might remotely be influenced by the 'great beast' is
635
a state government, and even middle-sized enterprise can join in. The
636
shadow cast by business [over society and politics] can thus be darker,
637
and private power can move on to greater victories in the name of freedom."
638
[Noam Chomsky, "Rollback III", _Z Magazine_, March, 1995]
639
640
Economic blackmail is a very useful weapon in deterring freedom.
641
642
D.2.1 Is capital flight really that powerful?
643
644
Yes. By capital flight, business can ensure that any government which
645
becomes too independent and starts to consider the interests of those who
646
elected it will be put back into its place. Therefore we cannot expect a
647
different group of politicians to react in different ways to the same
648
institutional influences and interests. It's no coincidence that the
649
Australian Labour Party and the Spanish Socialist Party introduced
650
"Thatcherite" policies at the same time as the "Iron Lady" implemented them
651
in Britain. The New Zealand Labour government is a case in point, where
652
"within a few months of re-election [in 1984], finance minister Roger
653
Douglas set out a programme of economic 'reforms' that made Thatcher and
654
Reagan look like wimps. . . .[A]lmost everything was privatised and the
655
consequences explained away in marketspeak. Division of wealth that had
656
been unknown in New Zealand suddenly appeared, along with unemployment,
657
poverty and crime." [John Pilger, "Breaking the one party state," _New
658
Statesman_, 16/12/94]
659
660
An extreme example of capital flight being used to "discipline" a naughty
661
administration can be seen in the 1974 to '79 Labour government in
662
Britain. In January, 1974, the FT Index for the London Stock Exchange
663
stood at 500 points. In February, the Miner's went on strike, forcing
664
Heath (the Tory Prime Minister) to hold (and lose) a general election.
665
The new Labour government (which included many left-wingers in its
666
cabinet) talked about nationalising the banks and much heavy industry. In
667
August, 1974, Tony Benn announced plans to nationalise the ship building
668
industry. By December, the FT index had fallen to 150 points. By 1976 the
669
Treasury was spending $100 million a day buying back its own money to
670
support the pound. [_The Times_, 10/6/76]
671
672
_The Times_ noted that "the further decline in the value of the pound has
673
occurred despite the high level of interest rates. . . . [D]ealers said
674
that selling pressure against the pound was not heavy or persistent, but
675
there was an almost total lack of interest amongst buyers. The drop in the
676
pound is extremely surprising in view of the unanimous opinion of bankers,
677
politicians and officials that the currency is undervalued." [27/5/76]
678
679
The Labour government, faced with the power of international capital,
680
ended up having to receive a temporary "bailing out" by the IMF, which
681
imposed a package of cuts and controls, to which Labour's response was, in
682
effect, "We'll do anything you say," as one economist described it. The
683
social costs of these policies were disastrous, with unemployment rising
684
to the then unheard-of-height of one million. And let's not forget that
685
they "cut expenditure by twice the amount the IMF were promised" in an
686
attempt to appear business-friendly. [Peter Donaldson, _A Question of
687
Economics_, p. 89]
688
689
Capital will not invest in a country that does not meet its approval. In
690
1977, the Bank of England failed to get the Labour government to abolish
691
its exchange controls. Between 1979 and 1982 the Tories abolished them and
692
ended restrictions on lending for banks and building societies:
693
694
"The result of the abolition of exchange controls was visible almost
695
immediately: capital hitherto invested in the U.K. began going abroad. In
696
the _Guardian_ of 21 September, 1981, Victor Keegan noted that 'Figures
697
published last week by the Bank of England show that pension funds are now
698
investing 25% of their money abroad (compared with almost nothing a few
699
years ago) and there has been no investment at all (net) by unit trusts in
700
the UK since exchange controls were abolished.'" [Robin Ramsay, _Lobster_
701
no. 27, p. 3]
702
703
Why? What was so bad about the UK? Simply stated, the working class was
704
too militant, the trade unions were not "shackled by law and subdued," as
705
_The Economist_ recently put it [February 27, 1993], and the welfare state
706
could be lived on. The partial gains from previous struggles still existed,
707
and people had enough dignity not to accept any job offered or put up with
708
an employer's authoritarian practices. These factors created "inflexibility"
709
in the labour market, so that the working class had to be taught a lesson
710
in "good" economics.
711
712
By capital flight a rebellious population and a slightly radical government
713
were brought to heel.
714
715
D.2.2 How extensive is business propaganda?
716
717
Business spends a lot of money to ensure that people accept the status
718
quo. Referring again to the US as an example (where such techniques are
719
common), various means are used to get people to identify "free
720
enterprise" (meaning state-subsidised private power with no infringement
721
of managerial prerogatives) as "the American way." The success of these
722
campaigns is clear, since many working people now object to unions as
723
having too much power or irrationally rejecting all radical ideas as
724
"Communism" regardless of their content.
725
726
By 1978, American business was spending $1 billion a year on grassroots
727
propaganda (known as "Astroturf" by PR insiders, to reflect the appearance
728
of popular support, without the substance, and "grasstops" whereby influential
729
citizens are hired to serve as spokespersons for business interests). In
730
1983, there existed 26 general purpose foundations for this purpose with
731
endowments of $100 million or more, as well as dozens of corporate
732
foundations. These, along with media power, ensure that force -- always
733
an inefficient means of control -- is replaced by the "manufacture
734
of consent": the process whereby the limits of acceptable expression are
735
defined by the wealthy.
736
737
This process has been going on for some time. For example "[i]n April 1947,
738
the Advertising Council announced a $100 million campaign to use all media
739
to 'sell' the American economic system -- as they conceived it -- to the
740
American people; the program was officially described as a 'major project
741
of educating the American people about the economic facts of life.'
742
Corporations 'started extensive programs to indoctrinate employees,' the
743
leading business journal _Fortune_ reported, subjected their captive
744
audiences to 'Courses in Economic Education' and testing them for
745
commitment to the 'free enterprise system -- that is, Americanism.' A
746
survey conducted by the American Management Association (AMA) found that
747
many corporate leaders regarded 'propaganda' and 'economic education' as
748
synonymous, holding that 'we want our people to think right'. . . [and
749
that] 'some employers view. . . [it] as a sort of 'battle of loyalties'
750
with the unions' -- a rather unequal battle, given the resources available."
751
[Noam Chomsky, _World Orders, Old and New_, pp. 89-90]
752
753
Various institutions are used to get Big Business's message across, for
754
example, the Joint Council on Economic Education, ostensibly a charitable
755
organisation, funds economic education for teachers and provides books,
756
pamphlets and films as teaching aids. In 1974, 20,000 teachers
757
participated in its workshops. The aim is to induce teachers to present
758
corporations in an uncritical light to their students. Funding for this
759
propaganda machine comes from the American Bankers Association, AT&T, the
760
Sears Roebuck Foundation and the Ford Foundation.
761
762
As G. William Domhoff points out, "[a]lthough it [and other bodies like
763
it] has not been able to bring about active acceptance of all power elite
764
policies and perspectives, on economic or other domestic issues, it has
765
been able to ensure that opposing opinions have remained isolated, suspect
766
and only partially developed." [_Who Rules America Now?_, pp. 103-4] In
767
other words, "unacceptable" ideas are marginalised, the limits of
768
expression defined, and all within a society apparently based on
769
"the free marketplace of ideas."
770
771
The effects of this business propaganda are felt in all other aspects of
772
life, ensuring that while the US business class is extremely class
773
conscious, the rest of the American population considers "class" a swear
774
word!
775
776
D.3 How does wealth influence the mass media?
777
778
Anarchists have developed detailed and sophisticated analyses of how
779
the wealthy and powerful use the media to propagandise in their own
780
interests. Perhaps the best of these analyses is the "Propaganda Model"
781
expounded in _Manufacturing Consent_ by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman,
782
whose main theses we will summarise in this section (See also Chomsky's
783
_Necessary Illusions_ for a further discussion of this model of the
784
media).
785
786
Chomsky and Herman's "propaganda model" of the media postulates a set of
787
five "filters" that act to screen the news and other material disseminated
788
by the media. These "filters" result in a media that reflects elite
789
viewpoints and interests and mobilises "support for the special interests
790
that dominate the state and private activity." [_Manufacturing Consent_,
791
p. xi] These "filters" are: (1) the size, concentrated ownership, owner
792
wealth, and profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms; (2)
793
advertising as the primary income source of the mass media; (3) the
794
reliance of the media on information provided by government, business, and
795
"experts" funded and approved by these primary sources and agents of
796
power; (4) "flak" (negative responses to a media report) as a means
797
of disciplining the media; and (5) "anticommunism" as a national religion
798
and control mechanism.
799
800
"The raw material of news must pass through successive filters leaving
801
only the cleansed residue fit to print," Chomsky and Herman maintain. The
802
filters "fix the premises of discourse and interpretation, and the
803
definition of what is newsworthy in the first place, and they explain the
804
basis and operations of what amount to propaganda campaigns." [_Manufacturing
805
Consent_, p. 2] We will briefly consider the nature of these five filters
806
below (examples are mostly from the US media).
807
808
We stress again, before continuing, that this is a *summary* of Herman's
809
and Chomsky's thesis and we cannot hope to present the wealth of evidence
810
and argument available in either _Manufacturing Consent_ or _Necessary
811
Illusions_. We recommend either of these books for more information on and
812
evidence to support the "propaganda model" of the media.
813
814
D.3.1 How does the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, and
815
profit orientation of the dominant mass-media firms affect media
816
content?
817
818
Even a century ago, the number of media with any substantial outreach was
819
limited by the large size of the necessary investment, and this limitation
820
has become increasingly effective over time. As in any well developed
821
market, this means that there are very effective *natural* barriers to
822
entry into the media industry. Due to this process of concentration, the
823
ownership of the major media has become increasingly concentrated in fewer
824
and fewer hands. As Ben Bagdikian's stresses in his book _Media
825
Monopoly_, the 29 largest media systems account for over half of the
826
output of all newspapers, and most of the sales and audiences in
827
magazines, broadcasting, books, and movies. The "top tier" of these --
828
somewhere between 10 and 24 systems -- along with the government and wire
829
services, "defines the news agenda and supplies much of the national and
830
international news to the lower tiers of the media, and thus for the
831
general public" [Ibid., p. 5]
832
833
The twenty-four top-tier companies are large, profit-seeking corporations,
834
owned and controlled by very wealthy people. Many of these companies are
835
fully integrated into the financial market, with the result that the
836
pressures of stockholders, directors, and bankers to focus on the bottom
837
line are powerful. These pressures have intensified in recent years as
838
media stocks have become market favourites and as deregulation has
839
increased profitability and so the threat of take-overs.
840
841
The media giants have also diversified into other fields. For example GE,
842
and Westinghouse, both owners of major television networks, are huge,
843
diversified multinational companies heavily involved in the controversial
844
areas of weapons production and nuclear power. GE and Westinghouse
845
depend on the government to subsidise their nuclear power and military
846
research and development, and to create a favourable climate for their
847
overseas sales and investments. Similar dependence on the government
848
affect other media.
849
850
Because they are large corporations with international investment
851
interests, the major media tend to have a right-wing political bias. In
852
addition, members of the business class own most of the mass media, the
853
bulk of which depends for their existence on advertising revenue (which in
854
turn comes from private business). Business also provides a substantial
855
share of "experts" for news programmes and generates massive "flak." Claims
856
that they are "left-leaning" are sheer disinformation manufactured by the
857
"flak" organisations described below.
858
859
Thus Herman and Chomsky:
860
861
"the dominant media forms are quite large businesses; they are controlled
862
by very wealthy people or by managers who are subject to sharp constraints
863
by owners and other market-profit-oriented forces; and they are closely
864
interlocked, and have important common interests, with other major
865
corporations, banks, and government. This is the first powerful filter
866
that effects news choices." [Ibid., p. 14]
867
868
Needless to say, reporters and editors will be selected based upon how
869
well their work reflects the interests and needs of their employers.
870
Thus a radical reporter and a more mainstream one both of the same
871
skills and abilities would have very different careers within the
872
industry. Unless the radical reporter toned down their copy, they are
873
unlikely to see it printed unedited or unchanged. Thus the structure
874
within the media firm will tend to penalise radical viewpoints,
875
encouraging an acceptance of the status quo in order to further a
876
career. This selection process ensures that owners do not need to
877
order editors or reporters what to do -- to be successful they will
878
have to internalise the values of their employers.
879
880
D.3.2 What is the effect of advertising as the primary income source
881
of the mass media?
882
883
The main business of the media is to sell audiences to advertisers.
884
Advertisers thus acquire a kind of de facto licencing authority, since
885
without their support the media would cease to be economically viable.
886
And it is *affluent* audiences that get advertisers interested. As Chomsky
887
and Herman put it, "The idea that the drive for large audiences makes the
888
mass media 'democratic' thus suffers from the initial weakness that its
889
political analogue is a voting system weighted by income!" [Ibid., p.16]
890
891
Political discrimination is therefore structured into advertising
892
allocations by the emphasis on people with money to buy. In addition,
893
"many companies will always refuse to do business with ideological enemies
894
and those whom they perceive as damaging their interests." Thus overt
895
discrimination adds to the force of the "voting system weighted by
896
income." Accordingly, large corporate advertisers almost never sponsor
897
programs that contain serious criticisms of corporate activities, such as
898
negative ecological impacts, the workings of the military-industrial
899
complex, or corporate support of and benefits from Third World
900
dictatorships. More generally, advertisers will want "to avoid programs
901
with serious complexities and disturbing controversies that interfere with
902
the 'buying mood.'" [Ibid., p. 18]
903
904
This also has had the effect of placing working class and radical papers
905
at a serious disadvantage. Without access to advertising revenue, even the
906
most popular paper will fold or price itself out of the market. Chomsky
907
and Herman cite the UK pro-labour and pro-union _Daily Herald_ as an
908
example of this process. The Daily Herald had almost double the
909
readership of _The Times_, the _Financial Times_ and _The Guardian_
910
combined, but even with 8.1% of the national circulation it got 3.5%
911
of net advertising revenue and so could not survive on the "free market".
912
913
As Herman and Chomsky note, a "mass movement without any major media support,
914
and subject to a great deal of active press hostility, suffers a serious
915
disability, and struggles against grave odds." [Ibid., pp. 15-16] With
916
the folding of the _Daily Herald_, the labour movement lost its voice in
917
the mainstream media.
918
919
Thus advertising is an effective filter for new choice (and, indeed,
920
survival in the market).
921
922
D.3.3 Why do the media rely on information provided by government,
923
business, and "experts" funded and approved by government and business?
924
925
Two of the main reasons for the media's reliance on such sources are
926
economy and convenience: Bottom-line considerations dictate that the
927
media concentrate their resources where important news often occurs, where
928
rumours and leaks are plentiful, and where regular press conferences are
929
held. The White House, Pentagon, and the State Department, in Washington,
930
D.C., are centres of such activity.
931
932
Government and corporate sources also have the great merit of being
933
recognisable and credible by their status and prestige; moreover, they
934
have the most money available to produce a flow of news that the media can
935
use. For example, the Pentagon has a public-information service employing
936
many thousands of people, spending hundreds of millions of dollars every
937
year, and far outspending not only the public-information resources of any
938
dissenting individual or group but the *aggregate* of such groups.
939
940
Only the corporate sector has the resources to produce public information
941
and propaganda on the scale of the Pentagon and other government bodies.
942
The Chamber of Commerce, a business *collective*, had a 1983 budget for
943
research, communications, and political activities of $65 million. Besides
944
the US Chamber of Commerce, there are thousands of state and local
945
chambers of commerce and trade associations also engaged in public
946
relations and lobbying activities.
947
948
To maintain their pre-eminent position as sources, government and
949
business-news agencies expend much effort to make things easy for news
950
organisations. They provide the media organisations with facilities in
951
which to gather, give journalists advance copies of speeches and upcoming
952
reports; schedule press conferences at hours convenient for those needing
953
to meet news deadlines; write press releases in language that can be used
954
with little editing; and carefully organise press conferences and "photo
955
opportunity" sessions. This means that, in effect, the large
956
bureaucracies of the power elite *subsidise* the mass media by
957
contributing to a reduction of the media's costs of acquiring the raw
958
materials of, and producing, news. In this way, these bureaucracies gain
959
special access to the media.
960
961
Thus "[e]conomics dictates that they [the media] concentrate their
962
resources were significant news often occurs, where important rumours
963
and leaks abound, and where regular press conferences are held. . .
964
[Along with state bodies] business corporations and trade groups are
965
also regular purveyors of stories deemed newsworthy. These bureaucracies
966
turn out a large volume of material that meets the demands of news
967
organisations for reliable, scheduled flows." [Ibid., pp. 18-19]
968
969
The dominance of official sources would, of course, be weakened by the
970
existence of highly respectable unofficial sources that gave dissident
971
views with great authority. To alleviate this problem, the power elite
972
uses the strategy of "co-opting the experts" -- that is, putting them on
973
the payroll as consultants, funding their research, and organising think
974
tanks that will hire them directly and help disseminate the messages deemed
975
essential to elite interests. "Experts" on TV panel discussions and news
976
programs are often drawn from such organisations, whose funding comes
977
primarily from the corporate sector and wealthy families -- a fact that
978
is, of course, never mentioned on the programs where they appear.
979
980
D.3.4 How is "flak" used by the wealthy and powerful as a means of
981
disciplining the media?
982
983
"Flak" refers to negative responses to a media statement or program. Such
984
responses may be expressed as phone calls, letters, telegrams, e-mail
985
messages, petitions, lawsuits, speeches, bills before Congress, or other
986
modes of complaint, threat, or punishment. Flak may be generated by
987
organisations or it may come from the independent actions of individuals.
988
Large-scale flak campaigns, either by organisations or individuals with
989
substantial resources, can be both uncomfortable and costly to the media.
990
991
Advertisers are very concerned to avoid offending constituencies who might
992
produce flak, and their demands for inoffensive programming exerts
993
pressure on the media to avoid certain kinds of facts, positions, or
994
programs that are likely to call forth flak. The most deterrent kind of
995
flak comes from business and government, who have the funds to produce it
996
on a large scale.
997
998
For example, during the 1970s and 1980s, the corporate community sponsored
999
the creation of such institutions as the American Legal Foundation, the
1000
Capital Legal Foundation, the Media Institute, the Center for Media and
1001
Public Affairs, and Accuracy in Media (AIM), which may be regarded as
1002
organisations designed for the specific purpose of producing flak.
1003
Freedom House is an older US organisation which had a broader design but
1004
whose flak-producing activities became a model for the more recent
1005
organisations.
1006
1007
The Media Institute, for instance, was set up in 1972 and is funded by
1008
wealthy corporate patrons, sponsoring media monitoring projects,
1009
conferences, and studies of the media. The main focus of its studies and
1010
conferences has been the alleged failure of the media to portray business
1011
accurately and to give adequate weight to the business point of view, but
1012
it also sponsors works such as John Corry's "expose" of alleged left-wing
1013
bias in the mass media.
1014
1015
The government itself is a major producer of flak, regularly attacking,
1016
threatening, and "correcting" the media, trying to contain any deviations
1017
from the established propaganda lines in foreign or domestic policy.
1018
1019
And, we should note, while the flak machines steadily attack the media,
1020
the media treats them well. While effectively ignoring radical critiques
1021
(such as the "propaganda model"), flak receives respectful attention and
1022
their propagandistic role and links to corporations and a wider right-wing
1023
program rarely mentioned or analysed.
1024
1025
D.3.5 Why do the power elite use "anticommunism" as a national religion
1026
and control mechanism?
1027
1028
"Communism," or indeed any form of socialism, is of course regarded as the
1029
ultimate evil by the corporate rich, since the ideas of collective
1030
ownership of productive assets, giving workers more bargaining power, or
1031
allowing ordinary citizens more voice in public policy decisions threatens
1032
the very root of the class position and superior status of the elite.
1033
1034
Hence the ideology of anticommunism has been very useful, because it can
1035
be used to discredit anybody advocating policies regarded as harmful to
1036
corporate interests. It also helps to divide the Left and labour
1037
movements, justifies support for pro-US right-wing regimes abroad as
1038
"lesser evils" than communism, and discourages liberals from opposing such
1039
regimes for fear of being branded as heretics from the national religion.
1040
1041
Since the end of the Cold War, anti-communism has not been used as
1042
extensively as it once was to mobilise support for elite crusades.
1043
Instead, the "Drug War" or "anti-terrorism" now often provide the public
1044
with "official enemies" to hate and fear. Thus the Drug War was the
1045
excuse for the Bush administration's invasion of Panama, and "fighting
1046
narco-terrorists" has more recently been the official reason for
1047
shipping military hardware and surveillance equipment to Mexico (where
1048
it's actually being used against the Zapatista rebels in Chiapas, whose
1049
uprising is threatening to destabilise the country and endanger US
1050
investments).
1051
1052
Of course there are still a few official communist enemy states, like
1053
North Korea, Cuba, and China, and abuses or human rights violations in
1054
these countries are systematically played up by the media while similar
1055
abuses in client states are downplayed or ignored. Chomsky and Herman
1056
refer to the victims of abuses in enemy states as *worthy victims,* while
1057
victims who suffer at the hands of US clients or friends are *unworthy
1058
victims.* Stories about worthy victims are often made the subject of
1059
sustained propaganda campaigns, to score political points against
1060
enemies.
1061
1062
"If the government of corporate community and the media feel that a story
1063
is useful as well as dramatic, they focus on it intensively and use it to
1064
enlighten the public. This was true, for example, of the shooting down by
1065
the Soviets of the Korean airliner KAL 007 in early September 1983, which
1066
permitted an extended campaign of denigration of an official enemy and
1067
greatly advanced Reagan administration arms plans."
1068
1069
"In sharp contrast, the shooting down by Israel of a Libyan civilian
1070
airliner in February 1973 led to no outcry in the West, no denunciations
1071
for 'cold-blooded murder,' and no boycott. This difference in treatment
1072
was explained by the _New York Times_ precisely on the grounds of
1073
utility: 'No useful purpose is served by an acrimonious debate over the
1074
assignment of blame for the downing of a Libyan airliner in the Sinai
1075
peninsula last week.' There *was* a very 'useful purpose' served by
1076
focusing on the Soviet act, and a massive propaganda campaign ensued."
1077
[Ibid., p. 32]
1078
1079
D.3.6 Isn't it a "conspiracy theory" to suggest that the media are used as
1080
propaganda instruments by the elite?
1081
1082
Chomsky and Herman address this charge in the Preface to _Manufacturing
1083
Consent_: "Institutional critiques such as we present in this book are
1084
commonly dismissed by establishment commentators as 'conspiracy theories,'
1085
but this is merely an evasion. We do not use any kind of 'conspiracy'
1086
hypothesis to explain mass-media performance. In fact, our treatment is
1087
much closer to a 'free market' analysis, with the results largely an
1088
outcome of the workings of market forces."
1089
1090
They go on to suggest what some of these "market forces" are. One of the
1091
most important is the weeding-out process that determines who gets the
1092
journalistic jobs in the major media. "Most biased choices in the media
1093
arise from the preselection of right-thinking people, internalised
1094
preconceptions, and the adaptation of personnel to the constraints of
1095
ownership, organisation, market, and political power."
1096
1097
In other words, important media employees learn to internalise the values
1098
of their bosses. "Censorship is largely self-censorship, by reporters and
1099
commentators who adjust to the realities of source and media organisational
1100
requirements, and by people at higher levels within media organisations who
1101
are chosen to implement, and have usually internalised, the constraints
1102
imposed by proprietary and other market and governmental centres of power."
1103
[Ibid., p. xii]
1104
1105
But, it may be asked, isn't it still a conspiracy theory to suggest
1106
that media leaders all have similar values? Not at all. Such leaders
1107
"do similar things because they see the world through the same lenses, are
1108
subject to similar constraints and incentives, and thus feature stories or
1109
maintain silence together in tacit collective action and leader-follower
1110
behaviour." [Ibid.]
1111
1112
The fact that media leaders share the same fundamental values does not
1113
mean, however, that the media are a solid monolith on all issues. The
1114
powerful often disagree on the tactics needed to attain generally shared
1115
aims, and this gets reflected in media debate. But views that challenge
1116
the legitimacy of those aims or suggest that state power is being
1117
exercised in elite interests rather than the "national" interest" will
1118
be excluded from the mass media.
1119
1120
Therefore the "propaganda model" has as little in common with a "conspiracy
1121
theory" as saying that the management of General Motors acts to maintain
1122
and increase its profits.
1123
1124
D.3.7 Isn't the "propaganda thesis" about the media contradicted by the
1125
"adversarial" nature of much media reporting, e.g. its exposes of
1126
government and business corruption?
1127
1128
As noted above, the claim that the media are "adversarial" or (more
1129
implausibly) that they have a "left-wing bias" is due to right-wing PR
1130
organisations. This means that some "inconvenient facts" are occasionally
1131
allowed to pass through the filters in order to give the *appearance* of
1132
"objectivity"-- precisely so the media can deny charges of engaging in
1133
propaganda. As Chomsky and Herman put it: "the 'naturalness' of these
1134
processes, with inconvenient facts allowed sparingly and within the proper
1135
framework of assumptions, and fundamental dissent virtually excluded from
1136
the mass media (but permitted in a marginalised press), makes for a
1137
propaganda system that is far more credible and effective in putting over
1138
a patriotic agenda than one with official censorship." [Ibid., Preface]
1139
1140
To support their case against the "adversarial" nature of the media,
1141
Herman and Chomsky look into the claims of such right-wing media
1142
PR machines as Freedom House. However, it is soon discovered that
1143
"the very examples offered in praise of the media for their independence,
1144
or criticism of their excessive zeal, illustrate exactly the opposite."
1145
[Ibid.] Such flak, while being worthless as serious analysis, does help
1146
to reinforce the myth of an "adversarial media" (on the right the "existing
1147
level of subordination to state authority is often deemed unsatisfactory"
1148
and *this* is the source of their criticism! [Ibid., p. 301]) and so
1149
is taken seriously by the media.
1150
1151
Therefore the "adversarial" nature of the media is a myth, but this
1152
is not to imply that the media does not present critical analysis.
1153
Herman and Chomsky in fact argue that the "mass media are not a solid
1154
monolith on all issues." [Ibid., p. xii] and do not deny that it does
1155
present facts (which they do sometimes themselves cite). But, as they
1156
argue, "[t]hat the media provide some facts about an issue. . . proves
1157
absolutely nothing about the adequacy or accuracy of that coverage. The
1158
mass media do, in fact, literally suppress a great deal . . . But even
1159
more important in this context is the question given to a fact - its
1160
placement, tone, and repetitions, the framework within which it is
1161
presented, and the related facts that accompany it and give it meaning
1162
(or provide understanding) . . . there is no merit to the pretence that
1163
because certain facts may be found by a diligent and sceptical researcher,
1164
the absence of radical bias and de facto suppression is thereby
1165
demonstrated." [Ibid., pp xiv-xv]
1166
1167
D.4 What is the relationship between capitalism and the ecological crisis?
1168
1169
Environmental damage has reached alarming proportions. Almost daily there
1170
are new upwardly revised estimates of the severity of global warming,
1171
ozone destruction, topsoil loss, oxygen depletion from the clearing of
1172
rain forests, acid rain, toxic wastes and pesticide residues in food and
1173
water, the accelerating extinction rate of natural species, etc., etc.
1174
Some scientists now believe that there may be as little as 35 years to act
1175
before vital ecosystems are irreparably damaged and massive human die-offs
1176
begin [Donella M. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, and Jorgen Randers, _Beyond
1177
the Limits: Confronting Global Collapse, Envisioning a Sustainable
1178
Future_, Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 1992]. Or, as Kirkpatrick Sale
1179
puts it, "the planet is on the road to, perhaps on the verge of, global
1180
ecocide." ["Bioregionalism -- A Sense of Place," _The Nation_ 12:
1181
336-339]
1182
1183
Many anarchists see the ecological crisis as rooted in the psychology of
1184
domination, which emerged with the rise of patriarchy, slavery, and the
1185
first primitive states during the Late Neolithic. Murray Bookchin, one of
1186
the pioneers of eco-anarchism (see section E), points out that "[t]he
1187
hierarchies, classes, propertied forms, and statist institutions that
1188
emerged with social domination were carried over conceptually into
1189
humanity's relationship with nature. Nature too became increasingly
1190
regarded as a mere resource, an object, a raw material to be exploited as
1191
ruthlessly as slaves on a latifundium." [_Toward an Ecological Society_
1192
p. 41] In his view, without uprooting the psychology of domination,
1193
all attempts to stave off ecological catastrophe are likely to be
1194
mere palliatives and so doomed to failure.
1195
1196
Bookchin argues that "the conflict between humanity and nature is an
1197
extension of the conflict between human and human. Unless the ecology
1198
movement encompasses the problem of domination in all its aspects, it
1199
will contribute *nothing* toward eliminating the root causes of the
1200
ecological crisis of our time. If the ecology movement stops at
1201
mere reformism in pollution and conservation control - at mere
1202
'environmentalism' - without dealing radically with the need for an
1203
expanded concept of revolution, it will merely serve as a safety
1204
value for the existing system of natural and human exploitation."
1205
[Ibid., p. 43]
1206
1207
Since capitalism is the vehicle through which the psychology of
1208
domination finds its most ecologically destructive outlet, most
1209
eco-anarchists give the highest priority to dismantling capitalism.
1210
"Literally, the system in its endless devouring of nature will reduce the
1211
entire biosphere to the fragile simplicity of our desert and arctic
1212
biomes. We will be reversing the process of organic evolution which has
1213
differentiated flora and fauna into increasingly complex forms and
1214
relationships, thereby creating a simpler and less stable world of life.
1215
The consequences of this appalling regression are predictable enough in
1216
the long run -- the biosphere will become so fragile that it will
1217
eventually collapse from the standpoint human survival needs and remove
1218
the organic preconditions for human life. That this will eventuate from a
1219
society based on production for the sake of production is . . .merely a
1220
matter of time, although when it will occur is impossible to predict."
1221
[Ibid., p. 68]
1222
1223
It's important to stress that capitalism must be *eliminated* because it
1224
*cannot* reform itself so as to become "environment friendly," contrary to
1225
the claims of so-called "green" capitalists. This is because "[c]apitalism
1226
not only validates precapitalist notions of the domination of nature, . . .
1227
it turns the plunder of nature into society's law of life. To quibble with
1228
this kind of system about its values, to try to frighten it with visions
1229
about the consequences of growth is to quarrel with its very metabolism.
1230
One might more easily persuade a green plant to desist from photosynthesis
1231
than to ask the bourgeois economy to desist from capital accumulation."
1232
[Ibid., p. 66]
1233
1234
Thus capitalism causes ecological destruction because it is based upon
1235
domination (of human over human and so humanity over nature) and
1236
continual, endless growth (for without growth, capitalism would die).
1237
1238
D.4.1 Why must capitalist firms "grow or die?"
1239
1240
Industrial production has increased fifty fold since 1950. Obviously such
1241
expansion in a finite environment cannot go on indefinitely without
1242
disastrous consequences. Yet, as the quotation above suggests, it is
1243
impossible *in principle* for capitalism to kick its addiction to
1244
growth. It is important to understand why.
1245
1246
Capitalism is based on production for profit. In order to stay
1247
profitable, a firm must be able to produce goods and services cheaply
1248
enough to compete with other firms in the same industry. If one firm
1249
increases its productivity (as all firms must try to do), it will be able
1250
to produce more cheaply, thus undercutting its competition and capturing
1251
more market share, until eventually it forces less profitable firms into
1252
bankruptcy. Moreover, as companies with higher productivity/profitability
1253
expand, they often realise economies of scale (e.g. getting bulk rates on
1254
larger quantities of raw materials), thus giving them even more of a
1255
competitive advantage over less productive/profitable enterprises.
1256
Hence, constantly increasing productivity is essential for survival.
1257
1258
There are two ways to increase productivity, either by increasing the
1259
exploitation of workers (e.g. longer hours and/or more intense work for
1260
the same amount of pay) or by introducing new technologies that reduce
1261
the amount of labour necessary to produce the same product or service.
1262
Due to the struggle of workers to prevent increases in the level of their
1263
exploitation, new technologies are the main way that productivity is
1264
increased under capitalism (though of course capitalists are always
1265
looking for ways to increase the exploitation of workers on a given
1266
technology by other means as well).
1267
1268
But new technologies are expensive, which means that in order to pay for
1269
continuous upgrades, a firm must continually sell *more* of what it
1270
produces, and so must keep expanding its capital (machinery, floor space,
1271
workers, etc.). Indeed, to stay in the same place under capitalism is to
1272
tempt crisis - thus a firm must always strive for more profits and thus
1273
must always expand and invest. In other words, in order to survive, a firm
1274
must constantly expand and upgrade its capital and production levels so it
1275
can sell enough to *keep* expanding and upgrading its capital -- i.e. "grow
1276
or die," or "production for the sake of production."
1277
1278
Thus it is impossible in principle for capitalism to solve the ecological
1279
crisis, because "grow or die" is inherent in its nature:
1280
1281
"To speak of 'limits to growth' under a capitalistic market economy is as
1282
meaningless as to speak of limits of warfare under a warrior society. The
1283
moral pieties, that are voiced today by many well-meaning environmentalists,
1284
are as naive as the moral pieties of multinationals are manipulative.
1285
Capitalism can no more be 'persuaded' to limit growth than a human being
1286
can be 'persuaded' to stop breathing. Attempts to 'green' capitalism, to
1287
make it 'ecological', are doomed by the very nature of the system as a
1288
system of endless growth." [Murray Bookchin, _Remaking Society_,
1289
pp. 93-94]
1290
1291
As long as capitalism exists, it will *necessarily* continue its "endless
1292
devouring of nature," until it removes the "organic preconditions for human
1293
life." For this reason there can be no compromise with capitalism: We must
1294
destroy it before it destroys us. And time is running out.
1295
1296
Capitalists, of course, do not accept this conclusion. Most simply ignore
1297
the evidence or view the situation through rose-coloured spectacles,
1298
maintaining that ecological problems are not as serious as they seem or
1299
that science will find a way to solve them before it's too late. Right
1300
libertarians tend to take this approach, but they also argue that a
1301
genuinely free market capitalism would provide solutions to the ecological
1302
crisis. In section E we will show why these arguments are unsound and why
1303
libertarian socialism is our best hope for preventing ecological
1304
catastrophe.
1305
1306
D.5 What causes imperialism?
1307
1308
In a word: power. Imperialism is the process by which one country
1309
dominates another directly, by political means, or indirectly, by
1310
economic means in order to steal its wealth (either natural or
1311
produced). This, by necessity, means to exploit the exploitation
1312
of working people in the dominated nation and can also aid the
1313
exploitation of working people elsewhere. As such, imperialism
1314
cannot be considered in isolation from the dominant economic
1315
and social system. Fundamentally the cause is the same
1316
inequality of power, which is used in the service of
1317
exploitation.
1318
1319
As we will discuss in the following sections, imperialism has changed
1320
over time, particularly during the last two hundred years (where its
1321
forms and methods have evolved with the evolving needs of capitalism).
1322
But even in the classic days of empire building imperialism was driven
1323
by economic forces and needs. In order to make one's state secure,
1324
in order to increase the wealth available to the state, its ruling
1325
bureaucracy and its associated ruling class, it had to be based
1326
on a strong economy and have a sufficient resource base. By
1327
increasing the area controlled by the state, one increased the
1328
wealth available.
1329
1330
States by their nature, like capital, are expansionist bodies,
1331
with those who run them always wanting to increase the range of
1332
their power and influence. This can be best seen from the massive
1333
number of wars that have occurred in Europe over the last 500 years,
1334
as nation-states were created by Kings declaring lands to be their
1335
private property. Moreover, this conflict did not end when
1336
monarchies were replaced by more democratic forms of government.
1337
As Bakunin argued:
1338
1339
"we find wars of extermination, wars among races and nations;
1340
wars of conquest, wars to maintain equilibrium, political and
1341
religious wars, wars waged in the name of 'great ideas' . . .
1342
And what do we find beneath all that, beneath all the
1343
hypocritical phrases used in order to give these wars the
1344
appearance of humanity and right? Always the same economic
1345
phenomenon: *the tendency on the part of some to live
1346
and prosper at the expense of others* . . . the strong men
1347
who direct the destinies of the State know only too well
1348
that underlying all those wars there is only one motive:
1349
pillage, the seizing of someone else's wealth and the
1350
enslavement of someone else's labour." [_The Political
1351
Philosophy of Bakunin_, p. 170]
1352
1353
However, while the economic motive for expansion is generally
1354
the same, the economic system which a nation is based on
1355
has a definite impact on what drives that motive and nature
1356
of that imperialism. Thus the empire building of ancient
1357
Rome or Feudal England has a different economic base (and
1358
so driving need) than, say, nineteenth century Germany and
1359
England or twentieth century (or twenty-first century)
1360
United States. Here we will focus mainly on modern capitalist
1361
imperialism as it is the only one relevant in the modern
1362
world.
1363
1364
Capitalism, by its very nature, is growth-based and so is
1365
characterised by the accumulation and concentration of
1366
capital. Companies *must* expand in order to survive
1367
competition in the marketplace. This, inevitably, sees
1368
a rise in international activity and organisation as a
1369
result of competition over markets and resources within
1370
a given country. By expanding into new markets in new
1371
countries, a company can gain an advantage over its
1372
competitors as well as overcome limited markets and
1373
resources in the home nation.
1374
1375
Hence capitalism is inevitably imperialistic. Regardless of
1376
recent claims, capital has always been global. International
1377
trade has always existed and, indeed, has always played a
1378
key role in its development (mercantilism, for example,
1379
manipulated international trade to enhance the accumulation
1380
of capital). The capitalist system is the most adaptable
1381
and voracious in history. From its beginning its components
1382
(individual companies, states and capital) have been driven
1383
by the need to constantly expand or die; the changes that
1384
have occurred in recent years are an expression of this
1385
need. As Bakunin argued:
1386
1387
"just as capitalist production and banking speculation,
1388
which in the long run swallows up that production, must,
1389
under the threat of bankruptcy, ceaselessly expand
1390
at the expense of the small financial and productive
1391
enterprises which they absorb, must become universal,
1392
monopolistic enterprises extending all over the world
1393
driven on by an irrepressible urge to become a universal
1394
State. . . . Hegemony is only a modest manifestation possible
1395
under the circumstances, of this unrealisable urge inherent
1396
in every State. And the first condition of this hegemony
1397
is the relative impotence and subjection of all the
1398
neighbouring States." [Op. Cit., p. 210]
1399
1400
Therefore, economically and politically, the imperialistic
1401
activities of *both* capitalist and state-capitalist (i.e.
1402
the Soviet Union and other "socialist" nations) comes as
1403
no surprise. The changing nature of modern imperialism can be
1404
roughly linked to developments within the capitalist economy
1405
(see next section). However, the growth of big business to
1406
gain advantage in and survive competition is the key, as
1407
the size of companies ensure that they *have* to be
1408
international.
1409
1410
As power depends on profits within capitalism, this means
1411
that modern imperialism is caused more by economic factors
1412
than purely political considerations (although, obviously,
1413
this factor does play a role). As will be seen in section
1414
D.5.1, imperialism serves capital by increasing the pool
1415
of profits available for the imperialistic country in the
1416
world market as well as reducing the number of potential
1417
competitors. As Kropotkin stressed:
1418
1419
"[C]apital knows no fatherland; and if high profits can
1420
be derived from the work of Indian coolies whose wages
1421
are only one-half of those of English [i.e. British]
1422
workmen [or women], or even less, capital will migrate
1423
to India, as it has gone to Russian, although its
1424
migration may mean starvation for Lancashire and
1425
Dundee." [_Fields, Factories and Workshops_, p. 57]
1426
1427
Therefore, capital will travel to where it can maximise
1428
its profits -- regardless of the human or environmental
1429
costs at home or in the foreign land. This is the economic
1430
base for imperialism, to ensure that any trade conducted
1431
benefits the stronger party more than the weaker one. Whether
1432
this trade is between nations or between classes is irrelevant,
1433
the aim of imperialism is to give business an advantage on
1434
the market. By travelling to where labour is cheap and the
1435
labour movement weak (usually thanks to dictatorial regimes),
1436
environmental laws few or non-existent, and little stands
1437
in the way of corporate power, big business can maximise
1438
its profits. Moreover, the export of capital allows a
1439
reduction in the competitive pressures faced by companies
1440
in the home markets (at least for short periods).
1441
1442
This has two effects. Firstly, the industrially developed
1443
nation (or, more correctly corporation based in that nation)
1444
can exploit less developed nations. In this way, the dominant
1445
power can maximise for itself the benefits created by
1446
international trade. If, as some claim, trade always benefits
1447
each party, then imperialism allows the benefits of international
1448
trade to accrue more to one side than the other. Secondly, it
1449
gives big business more weapons to use to weaken the position
1450
of labour in the imperialist nation. This, again, allows the
1451
benefits of trade (this time the trade of workers liberty
1452
for wages) to accrue to more to business rather than to labour.
1453
1454
How this is done and in what manner varies and changes, but
1455
the aim is always the same -- exploitation.
1456
1457
This exploitation can be done in many ways. For example,
1458
allowing the import of cheaper raw materials and goods, the
1459
export of goods to markets sheltered from foreign competitors
1460
and the export of capital from capital-rich areas to
1461
capital-poor areas. The investing of capital in less
1462
industrially developed countries allows the capitalists
1463
in question to benefit from lower wages, for example, or from
1464
fewer environmental and social controls and laws. All these
1465
allow profits to be gathered at the expense of the working
1466
people of the oppressed nation (the rulers of these nations
1467
generally do well out of imperialism, as would be expected).
1468
The initial source of exported capital is, of course,
1469
the exploitation of labour at home but it is exported
1470
to less developed countries where capital is scarcer,
1471
the price of land lower, wages lower, and raw materials
1472
cheaper. These factors all contribute to enlarging profit
1473
margins:
1474
1475
"The relationship of these global corporations
1476
with the poorer countries had long been an exploiting
1477
one . . . Whereas U.S. corporations in Europe between
1478
1950 and 1965 invested $8.1 billion and made $5.5
1479
billion in profits, in Latin America they invested
1480
$3.8 billion and made $11.2 billion in profits,
1481
and in Africa they invested $5.2 billion and made
1482
$14.3 bullion in profits." [Howard Zinn, _A People's
1483
History of the United States_, p. 556]
1484
1485
Betsy Hartman, looking at the 1980s, concurs. "Despite
1486
the popular Western image of the Third World as a
1487
bottomless begging bowl," she observes, "it today
1488
gives more to the industrialised world than it takes.
1489
Inflows of official 'aid' and private loans and
1490
investments are exceeded by outflows in the form of
1491
repatriated profits, interest payments, and private
1492
capital sent abroad by Third World Elites." [quoted
1493
by George Bradford, _Woman's Freedom: Key to the
1494
Population Question_, p. 77]
1495
1496
In addition, imperialism allows big business to increase its
1497
strength with respect to its workforce in the imperialist
1498
nation by the threat of switching production to other
1499
countries or by using foreign investments to ride out
1500
strikes (also see section D.5.3). While the "home" working
1501
class are still exploited and oppressed, their continual
1502
attempts at organising and resisting their exploiters
1503
proved more and more successful. As such, imperialism
1504
(like capitalism) is not only driven by the need to
1505
increase profits (important as this is, of course), it
1506
is also driven by the class struggle -- the need for
1507
capital to escape from the strength of the working class
1508
in a particular country (this process played a key role
1509
in the rise of globalisation -- see section D.5.3). From
1510
this perspective, the export of capital can be seen in two
1511
ways. Firstly, as a means of disciplining rebellious workers
1512
at home by an "investment strike" (capital, in effect, runs
1513
away, so causing unemployment). Secondly, as a way to
1514
increase the 'reserve army' of the unemployed facing
1515
working people in the imperialist nations by creating new
1516
competitors for their jobs (i.e. dividing, and so ruling,
1517
workers by playing one set of workers against another).
1518
Both are related, of course, and both seek to weaken
1519
working class power by the fear of unemployment.
1520
1521
Thus imperialism, which is rooted in the search from surplus
1522
profits for big business, is also a response to working class
1523
power at home. The export of capital is done by emerging
1524
and established transnational companies to overcome working
1525
class consciousness which is often too advanced for heavy
1526
exploitation (i.e. huge profit margins), and finance capital
1527
can make easier and bigger profits by investing productive
1528
capital elsewhere.
1529
1530
Imperialism has another function, namely to hinder or
1531
control the industrialisation of other countries. Such
1532
industrialisation will, of course, mean the emergence of
1533
new capitalists, who will compete with the existing
1534
ones both in the "less developed" countries and in the
1535
world market as a whole. Imperialism, therefore, reduces
1536
competition on the world market. As we discuss in
1537
the next section, the nineteenth century saw
1538
the industrialisation of many European nations
1539
as well as America, Japan and Russia. However, this
1540
process of industrialisation conducted by other
1541
countries had a drawback. It means that more
1542
and more competitors can entry the world market.
1543
Moreover, as Kropotkin noted, they has the advantage
1544
that the "new manufacturers . . . begin where" the
1545
old have "arrived after a century of experiments and
1546
groupings" and so they "are built according to the
1547
newest and best models which have been worked out
1548
elsewhere." [Op. Cit., p. 32 and p. 49] Hence the
1549
need to stop new competitors, which was achieved
1550
by colonialism in the late nineteenth century:
1551
1552
"Industries of all kinds decentralise and are
1553
scattered all over the globe; and everywhere a
1554
variety, an integrated variety, of trades grows,
1555
instead of specialisation . . . each nation becomes
1556
in its turn a manufacturing nation . . . For each
1557
new-comer the first steps only are difficult . . .
1558
The fact is so well felt, if not understood, that
1559
the race for colonies has become the distinctive
1560
feature of the last twenty years [Kropotkin is
1561
writing in 1912]. Each nation will have her own
1562
colonies. But colonies will not help." [Op. Cit.,
1563
p. 75]
1564
1565
As such, imperialism can also be considered as a means
1566
of hindering (or controlling) industrialisation, of
1567
hindering the development of new competitors on the
1568
world market to existing big business operating on
1569
the international market. It also aids the bargaining
1570
position of business by pitting the workers in one
1571
country against another, so while they are being
1572
exploited by the same set of bosses, those bosses
1573
can use this fictional "competition" of foreign workers
1574
to squeeze concessions from workers at home.
1575
1576
Imperialism hinders industrialisation in two ways.
1577
The first way was direct colonisation. The second
1578
is by indirect means -- namely the extraction of
1579
profits by international big business.
1580
1581
A directly dominated country can be stopped from
1582
developing industry and be forced to specialise as
1583
a provider of raw materials. This was the aim of "classic"
1584
imperialism, with its empires and colonial wars. This
1585
approach has been superseded by indirect means (see
1586
next section).
1587
1588
When capital is invested in foreign nations, the
1589
surplus value extracted from the workers in those
1590
nations are not re-invested in those nations. Rather a
1591
sizeable part of it returns to the base nation of the
1592
corporation (in the form of profits for that company).
1593
Indeed, that is to be expected as the whole reason for
1594
the investment of capital in the first place was to
1595
get more out of the country than the corporation put
1596
into it. Instead of this surplus value being re-invested
1597
into industry in the less-developed nation (as would be
1598
the case with home-grown exploiters, who are dependent
1599
on local markets) it ends up in the hands of foreign
1600
exploiters who take them out of the dominated country.
1601
This means that industrial development as less
1602
resources to draw on, making the local ruling class
1603
dependent on foreign capital and its whims. By means
1604
of colonisation, the imperialist powers ensure that
1605
the less-developed nation stays that way -- so
1606
ensuring one less competitor as well as favourable
1607
access to raw materials and cheap labour.
1608
1609
Globalisation can be seen as an intensification of this
1610
process. By codifying into international agreements the
1611
ability of corporations to sue nation states for violating
1612
"free trade," the possibility of new competitor nations
1613
developing is weakened. Industrialisation will be
1614
dependent on transnational corporations and so
1615
development will be hindered and directed to ensure
1616
corporate profits and power. Unsurprisingly, those
1617
nations which *have* industrialised over the last
1618
few decades (such as the East Asian Tiger economies)
1619
have done so by using the state to protect industry
1620
and control international finance.
1621
1622
The new attack of the capitalist class ("globalisation")
1623
is a means of plundering local capitalists and diminish
1624
their power and area of control. The steady weakening
1625
and ultimate collapse of the Eastern Block (in terms of
1626
economic/political performance and ideological appeal)
1627
also played a role in this process. The end of the Cold
1628
War meant a reduction in the space available for local
1629
elites to manoeuvre. Before this local ruling classes
1630
could, if they were lucky, use the struggle between
1631
US and USSR imperialism to give them a breathing
1632
space in which they could exploit to pursue their
1633
own agenda (within limits, of course, and with the
1634
blessing of the imperialist power in whose orbit
1635
they were in). The Eastern Tiger economies were an
1636
example of this process at work. The West could use them
1637
in the ideological conflict of the Cold War as an example
1638
of the benefits of the "free market" (not that they were)
1639
and the ruling elites, while maintaining a pro-west
1640
and pro-business environment (by force directed against
1641
their own populations, of course), could pursue their
1642
own economic strategies. With the end of the Cold War,
1643
this factor is no longer in play and these elites are
1644
now "encouraged" (by economic blackmail via the World
1645
Bank and the IMF) to embrace US economic ideology.
1646
Just as neo-liberalism attacks the welfare state in
1647
the Imperialist nations, so it results in a lower
1648
tolerance of local capital in "less developed" nations.
1649
1650
Imperialism, then, is basically the ability of countries to
1651
globally and locally dictate trade relations and investments
1652
with other countries in such a way as to gain an advantage
1653
over the other countries. This can be done directly (by
1654
means of invasion and colonies) or indirectly (by means
1655
of economic and political power). Which method is used
1656
depends on the specific circumstances facing the countries
1657
in question. Moreover, it depends on the balance of class
1658
forces within each country as well (for example, a nation
1659
with a militant working class would be less likely to pursue
1660
a war policy due to the social costs involved). However, the
1661
aim of imperialism is always to enrich and empower the
1662
capitalist and bureaucratic classes.
1663
1664
This struggle for markets and resources does, by necessity,
1665
lead to conflict. This may be the wars of conquest required
1666
to initially dominate an economically "backward" nation
1667
(such as the US invasion of the Philippines, the conquest
1668
of Africa by West European states, and so on) or maintain
1669
that dominance once it has been achieved (such as the Vietnam
1670
War, the Algerian War, the Gulf War and so on). Or it may be
1671
the wars between major imperialist powers once the competition
1672
for markets and colonies reaches a point when they cannot be
1673
settled peacefully (as in the First and Second World Wars).
1674
1675
As Kropotkin argued, "men no longer fight for the
1676
pleasure of kings, they fight for the integrity
1677
of revenues and for the growing wealth . . . [for the]
1678
benefit of the barons of high finance and industry . . .
1679
[P]olitical preponderance . . . is quite simply a matter
1680
of economic preponderance in international markets. What
1681
Germany, France, Russia, England, and Austria are all
1682
trying to win . . . is not military preponderance: it
1683
is economic domination. It is the right to impose their
1684
goods and their customs tariffs on their neighbours; the
1685
right to exploit industrially backward peoples; the
1686
privilege of building railroads . . . to appropriate
1687
from a neighbour either a port which will activate
1688
commerce, or a province where surplus merchandise can
1689
be unloaded." He stressed that "[w]hen we fight today,
1690
it is to guarantee our great industrialists a profit
1691
of 30%, to assure the financial barons their domination
1692
at the Bourse [stock-exchange], and to provide the
1693
shareholders of mines and railways with their incomes."
1694
[_Words of a Rebel_, pp. 65-6]
1695
1696
In summary, imperialism has always served the interests of
1697
Capital. If it did not, if imperialism was bad for business,
1698
the business class would have opposed it. This partly explains
1699
why the colonialism of the 19th century is no more (the other
1700
reasons being social resistance to foreign domination, which
1701
obviously helped to make imperialism bad for business as well,
1702
and the need for US imperialism to gain access to these markets
1703
after the second world war). There are now more cost-effective
1704
means than direct colonialism to ensure that "underdeveloped"
1705
countries remain open to exploitation by foreign capital. Once
1706
the costs exceeded the benefits, colonialist imperialism changed
1707
into the neo-colonialism of multinationals, political influence,
1708
and the threat of force (see next section). Moreover, we must
1709
not forget that any change in imperialism relates to changes
1710
in the underlying economic system.
1711
1712
Obviously anarchists are opposed to imperialism and imperialistic
1713
wars. The Cuban anarchists spoke for all of us when they stated
1714
that they were "against all forms of imperialism and colonialism;
1715
against the economic domination of peoples . . . against military
1716
pressure to impose upon peoples political and economic system
1717
foreign to their national cultures, customs and social systems
1718
. . . We believe that among the nations of the world, the small
1719
are as worthy as the big. Just as we remain enemies of national
1720
states because each of them hold its own people in subjection;
1721
so also are we opposed to the super-states that utilise their
1722
political, economic and military power to impose their rapacious
1723
systems of exploitation on weaker countries. As against all
1724
forms of imperialism, we declare for revolutionary
1725
internationalism; for the creation of great confederations
1726
of free peoples for their mutual interests; for solidarity
1727
and mutual aid." [quoted by Sam Dolgoff, _The Cuban
1728
Revolution: A Critical Perspective_, p. 138]
1729
1730
It is impossible to be free while dependent on the power of
1731
another. If the capital one uses is owned by another country,
1732
one is in no position to resist the demands of that country.
1733
If you are dependent on foreign corporations and international
1734
finance to invest in your nation, then you have to do what
1735
they want (and so the ruling class will suppress political
1736
and social opposition to please their backers as well as
1737
maintain themselves in power). To be self-governing under
1738
capitalism, a community or nation must be economically
1739
independent. The centralisation of capital implied by
1740
imperialism means that power rests in the hands of a few
1741
others, not with those directly affected by the decisions
1742
made by that power. Thus capitalism soon makes a
1743
decentralised economy, and so a free society, impossible.
1744
As such, anarchists stress decentralisation of industry
1745
and its integration with agriculture (see section I.3.8)
1746
within the context of socialisation of property and workers'
1747
self-management of production. Only this can ensure that
1748
production meets the needs of all rather than the profits
1749
of a few.
1750
1751
Moreover, anarchists also recognise that economic imperialism
1752
is the parent of cultural and social imperialism. As Takis
1753
Fotopoulos argues, "the marketisation of culture and the
1754
recent liberalisation and deregulation of markets have
1755
contributed significantly to the present cultural
1756
homogenisation, with traditional communities and their
1757
cultures disappearing all over the world and people converted
1758
to consumers of a mass culture produced in the advanced
1759
capitalist countries and particularly the USA." [_Towards
1760
an Inclusive Democracy_, p. 40]
1761
1762
This does not mean that anarchists blindly support national
1763
liberation movements or any form of nationalism. Anarchists
1764
oppose nationalism just as much as they oppose imperialism --
1765
neither offer a way to a free society (see sections D.6 and
1766
D.7 for more details). Anarchists, therefore, are not against
1767
globalisation or international links and ties as such. Far
1768
from it, we have always been internationalists and are in
1769
favour of "globalisation from below," one that respects and
1770
encourages diversity and difference while sharing the world.
1771
However, we have no desire to live in a world turned bland
1772
by corporate power and economic imperialism. As such, we
1773
are opposed to capitalist trends which commodify culture
1774
as it commodifies social relationships. We want to make
1775
the world an interesting place to live in and that means
1776
opposing both actual (i.e. physical, political and economic)
1777
imperialism as well as the cultural and social forms of it.
1778
1779
D.5.1 How has imperialism changed over time?
1780
1781
The development of Imperialism cannot be isolated from the
1782
general dynamics and tendencies of the capitalist economy.
1783
Imperialist-capitalism, therefore, is not identical to
1784
pre-capitalist forms of imperialism, although there can,
1785
of course, be similarities. As such, it must be viewed as
1786
an advanced stage of capitalism and not as some kind of
1787
deviation of it. This kind of imperialism was attained
1788
by some nations, mostly Western European, in the late
1789
19th and early 20th-century. Since then it has changed
1790
and developed as economic and political developments
1791
occurred, but it is based on the same basic principles.
1792
1793
However, it is useful to describe the history of capitalism
1794
in order to fully understand the place imperialism holds
1795
within it, how it has changed and what functions it provides.
1796
1797
Imperialism has important economic advantages for those who
1798
run the economy. As the needs of the business class change,
1799
the forms taken by imperialism also change. We can identify
1800
three main phases: classic imperialism (i.e. conquest),
1801
indirect (economic) imperialism, and globalisation. We
1802
will consider the first two in this section and globalisation
1803
in section D.5.3. However, for all the talk of globalisation
1804
in recent years, it is important to remember that capitalism
1805
has always been an international system, that the changing
1806
forms of imperialism reflect this international nature and
1807
that the changes within imperialism are in response to
1808
developments within capitalism itself.
1809
1810
Capitalism has always been expensive. As we noted in the last
1811
section, this is unsurprising as it is based on "compete or
1812
die," which becomes "grow or die." Under mercantilism, for
1813
example, the "free" market was nationalised *within* the
1814
nation state while state aid was used to skew international
1815
trade on behalf of the home elite and favour the development
1816
of capitalist industry. This meant using the centralised state
1817
(and its armed might) to break down "internal" barriers and
1818
customs which hindered the free flow of goods, capital and,
1819
ultimately, labour. We should stress this as the state has
1820
always played a key role in the development and protection
1821
of capitalism. The use of the state to, firstly, protect
1822
infant capitalist manufacturing and, secondly, to create
1823
a "free" market (i.e. free from the customs and interference
1824
of society) should not be forgotten, particularly as this
1825
second ("internal") role is repeated "externally" through
1826
imperialism. Needless to say, this process of "internal"
1827
imperialism within the country by the ruling class by
1828
means of the state was accompanied by extensive violence
1829
against the working class (also see section F.8).
1830
1831
So, state intervention was used to create and ensure its
1832
dominant position at home by protecting it against foreign
1833
competition and the recently dispossessed working class. This
1834
transition from feudal to capitalist economy enjoyed the active
1835
promotion of the state authorities, whose increasing centralisation
1836
ran parallel with the growing strength and size of merchant
1837
capital. It also needed a powerful state to protect its
1838
international trade, to conquer colonies and to fight for
1839
control over the world market. The absolutist state was
1840
used to actively implant, help and develop capitalist trade
1841
and industry.
1842
1843
The first industrial nation was Britain. After building up
1844
its industrial base under mercantilism and crushing its
1845
rivals in various wars, it was in an ideal position to
1846
dominate the international market. It embraced free trade
1847
as its unique place as the only capitalist/industrialised
1848
nation in the world market meant that it did not have to
1849
worry about competition from other nations. Any free
1850
exchange between unequal traders will benefit the stronger
1851
party. Thus Britain, could achieve domination in the world
1852
market by means of free trade. This meant that goods were
1853
exported rather than capital.
1854
1855
Faced with the influx of cheap, mass produced goods, existing
1856
industry in Europe and the Americas faced ruin. As economist
1857
Nicholas Kaldor notes, "the arrival of cheap factory-made
1858
English goods *did* cause a loss of employment and output
1859
of small-scale industry (the artisanate) both in European
1860
countries (where it was later offset by large-scale
1861
industrialisation brought about by protection) and even
1862
more in India and China, where it was no so offset."
1863
[_Further Essays on Applied Economics_, p. 238] The
1864
existing industrial base was crushed, industrialisation
1865
was aborted and unemployment rose. These countries faced
1866
two possibilities: turn themselves into providers of
1867
raw materials for Britain or violate the principles
1868
of the market and industrialise by protectionism.
1869
1870
In many nations of Western Europe (soon to be followed
1871
by the USA and Japan), the decision was simple. Faced
1872
with this competition, these countries utilised the means
1873
by which Britain had industrialised -- state protection.
1874
Tariff barriers were raised, state aid was provided and
1875
industry revived sufficiently to turn these nations into
1876
successful competitors of Britain. This process was termed
1877
by Kropotkin as "the consecutive development of nations"
1878
(although he underestimated the importance of state
1879
aid in this process). [_Fields, Factories and Workshops_,
1880
p. 49] No nation, he argued, would let itself become
1881
specialised as the provider of raw materials or the
1882
manufacturer of a few commodities but would diversify
1883
into many different lines of production. Obviously no
1884
national ruling class would want to see itself be
1885
dependent on another and so industrial development
1886
was essential (regardless of the wishes of the general
1887
population). Thus a nation in such a situation "tries
1888
to emancipate herself from her dependency . . . and
1889
rapidly begins to manufacture all those goods she
1890
used to import." [Op. Cit., p. 32]
1891
1892
Protectionism may have violated the laws of neo-classical
1893
economics, but it proved essential for industrialisation.
1894
While, as Kropotkin argued, protectionism ensured
1895
"the high profits of those manufacturers who do not
1896
improve their factories and chiefly reply upon cheap
1897
labour and long hours," it also meant that these profits
1898
would be used to finance industry and develop an industrial
1899
base. [Op. Cit., p. 41] Without this state aid, it is
1900
doubtful that these countries would have industrialised
1901
(as Kaldor notes, "all the present 'developed' or
1902
'industrialised' countries established their industries
1903
through 'import substitution' by means of protective
1904
tariffs and/or differential subsidies." [Op. Cit.,
1905
p. 127]).
1906
1907
Within the industrialising country, the usual process of
1908
competition driving out competitors continued. More and
1909
more markets became dominated by big business (although,
1910
as Kropotkin stressed, without totally eliminating smaller
1911
workshops within an industry and even creating more around
1912
them). Oligopoly marked the national economies of the most
1913
advanced capitalist nations as a means of creating "an
1914
amalgamation of capitalists for the purpose of *dominating
1915
the market, not for cheapening the technical process.*"
1916
[Kropotkin, Op. Cit., p. 354] Indeed, as Maximoff stressed,
1917
the "specific character of Imperialism is . . . the
1918
concentration and centralisation of capital in syndicates,
1919
trusts and cartels, which . . . have a decisive voice,
1920
not only in the economic and political life of their
1921
countries, but also in the life of the nations of the
1922
worlds a whole." [_Program of Anarcho-Syndicalism_,
1923
p. 10] The modern multi-national and transnational
1924
corporations are the latest expression of this process.
1925
Simply put, the size of big business was such that
1926
it had to expand internationally as their original
1927
national markets were not sufficient and to gain further
1928
advantages over their competitors.
1929
1930
Faced with high tariff barriers and rising international
1931
competition, industry responded in two ways: export of
1932
capital and increased concentration of capital.
1933
1934
The latter was essential to gain an advantage against
1935
foreign competitors and dominate the international
1936
market as they had dominated the national one. So
1937
the imperialist form of capitalism sees the rise
1938
of big business and big finance.
1939
1940
In addition to the export of finished goods, capital
1941
(investment, venture, and finance capital) is also
1942
exported. This export of capital was an essential way
1943
of beating protectionism (and even reap benefits from it)
1944
and gain a foothold in foreign markets ("protective duties
1945
have no doubt contributed . . . towards attracting German
1946
and English manufacturers to Poland and Russia" [Kropotkin,
1947
Op. Cit., p. 41]). In addition, it allowed access to cheap
1948
labour and raw materials by placing capital in foreign lands
1949
As part of this process colonies were seized to increase the
1950
size of "friendly" markets and, of course, allow the easy
1951
export of capital into areas with cheap labour and raw
1952
materials. These two processes are both driven by the
1953
needs of capital to accumulate.
1954
1955
This form of imperialism, which arose in the late nineteenth
1956
century, was based on the creation of larger and larger
1957
businesses and the creation of colonies across the globe
1958
by the industrialised nations. Direct conquest had the
1959
advantage of opening up more of the planet for the
1960
capitalist market, thus leading to more trade and
1961
exploitation of raw materials and labour (and often
1962
slavery as well). This gave a massive boost to both
1963
the state and the industries of the invading country
1964
in terms of new profits, so allowing an increase
1965
in the number of capitalists and other social parasites
1966
that could exist in the developed nation. As Kropotkin
1967
noted at the time, "British, French, Belgian and other
1968
capitalists, by means of the ease with which they
1969
exploit countries which themselves have no developed
1970
industry, today control the labour of hundreds of
1971
millions of those people in Eastern Europe, Asia,
1972
and Africa. The result is that the number of those
1973
people in the leading industrialised countries of
1974
Europe who live off the work of others doesn't
1975
gradually decrease at all. Far from it." ["Anarchism
1976
and Syndicalism", in _Black Flag_ no. 210, p. 26]
1977
1978
As well as gaining access to raw materials, imperialism
1979
allows the dominating nation to gain access to markets
1980
for its goods. By having an empire, products produced
1981
at home can be easily dumped into foreign markets with
1982
less developed industry, undercutting locally produced
1983
goods and consequently destroying the local economy
1984
(and so potential competitors) along with the society
1985
and culture based on it. Empire building is a good way
1986
of creating privileged markets for one's goods. By
1987
eliminating foreign competition, the imperialist nation's
1988
capitalists can charge monopoly prices in the dominated
1989
country, so ensuring high profit margins for capitalist
1990
business. This adds with the problems associated with the
1991
over-production of goods:
1992
1993
"The workman being unable to purchase with their wages the
1994
riches they are producing, industry must search for new
1995
markets elsewhere, amidst the middle classes of other
1996
nations. It must find markets, in the East, in Africa,
1997
anywhere; it must increase, by trade, the number of its
1998
serfs in Egypt, in India, on the Congo. But everywhere it
1999
finds competitors in other nations which rapidly enter
2000
into the same line of industrial development. And wars,
2001
continuous wars, must be fought for the supremacy in the
2002
world-market -- wars for the possession of the East, wars
2003
for getting possession of the seas, wars for the right of
2004
imposing heavy duties on foreign merchandise." [Kropotkin,
2005
_Kropotkin's Revolutionary Pamphlets_, pp. 55-6]
2006
2007
This process of expansion into non-capitalist areas also helps
2008
Capital to weather both the subjective and objective economic
2009
pressures upon it which cause the business cycle (see section
2010
C.7 -- "What causes the capitalist business cycle?" for more on
2011
these). As wealth looted from less industrially developed countries
2012
is exported back to the home country, profit levels can be
2013
protected both from working-class demands and from any relative
2014
decline in surplus-value production caused by increased capital
2015
investment (see section C.2 for more on surplus value). In fact,
2016
imperialism often allowed the working class of the invading
2017
country to receive improved wages and living conditions as
2018
the looted wealth was imported into the country and workers
2019
could fight for, and win, improvements that otherwise would
2020
have provoked intense class conflict. And as the sons and
2021
daughters of the poor emigrated to the colonies to make a
2022
living for themselves on stolen land, the wealth extracted
2023
from those colonies helped to overcome the reduction in the
2024
supply of labour at home which would increase its market price.
2025
This loot also helps reduce competitive pressures on the nation's
2026
economy. Of course, these advantages of conquest cannot totally
2027
*stop* the business cycle nor eliminate competition, as the
2028
imperialistic nations soon discovered.
2029
2030
Therefore, the "classic" form of imperialism based on direct
2031
conquest and the creation of colonies had numerous advantages
2032
for the imperialist nations and the big business which their
2033
states represented.
2034
2035
These dominated nations were, in the main, pre-capitalist
2036
societies. The domination of imperialist powers meant the
2037
importation of capitalist social relationships and institutions
2038
into them, so provoking extensive cultural and physical
2039
resistance to these attempts of foreign capitalists to
2040
promote the growth of the free market. However, peasants',
2041
artisans' and tribal people's desires to be "left alone"
2042
was never respected, and "civilisation" was forced upon
2043
them "for their own good." As Kropotkin realised, "force
2044
is necessary to continually bring new 'uncivilised nations'
2045
under the same conditions [of wage labour]." [_Anarchism
2046
and Anarchist Communism_, p. 53] Anarchist George Bradford
2047
also stresses this, arguing that we "should remember that,
2048
historically, colonialism, bringing with it an emerging
2049
capitalist economy and wage system, destroyed the
2050
tradition economies in most countries. By substituting
2051
cash crops and monoculture for forms of sustainable
2052
agriculture, it destroyed the basic land skills of the
2053
people whom it reduced to plantation workers." [_How
2054
Deep is Deep Ecology_, p. 40] Indeed, this process
2055
was in many ways similar to the development of capitalism
2056
in the "developed" nations, with the creation of a class
2057
of landless workers who forms the nucleus of the first
2058
generation of people given up to the mercy of the
2059
manufacturers (see section F.8.3 for details).
2060
2061
However, this process had objective limitations. Firstly,
2062
the expansion of empires had the limitation that there
2063
were only so many potential colonies out there. This
2064
meant that conflicts over markets and colonies was
2065
inevitable (as the states involved knew, and so they
2066
embarked on a policy of building larger and larger
2067
armed forces). As Kropotkin argued before the First
2068
World War, the real cause of war at the time was "the
2069
competition for markets and the right to exploit
2070
nations backward in industry." [quoted by Martin
2071
Miller, _Kropotkin_, p. 225]
2072
2073
Secondly, the creation of trusts, the export of goods
2074
and the import of cheap raw materials cannot stop the
2075
business cycle nor "buy-off" the working class indefinitely
2076
(i.e. the excess profits of imperialism will never be
2077
enough to grant more and more reforms and improvements
2078
to the working class in the industrialised world). Thus
2079
the need to overcome economic slumps propelled business
2080
to find new ways of dominating the market, up to and
2081
including the use of war to grab new markets and destroy
2082
rivals. Moreover, war was a good way of side tracking
2083
class conflict at home -- which, let us not forget,
2084
had been reaching increasingly larger, more militant
2085
and more radical levels in all the imperialist nations
2086
(see John Zerzan's "Origins and Meaning of WWI" in his
2087
_Elements of Refusal_).
2088
2089
Thus this first phase of imperialism began as the growing
2090
capitalist economy started to reach the boundaries of
2091
the nationalised market created by the state within
2092
its own borders. Imperialism was then used to expand
2093
the area that could be colonised by the capital
2094
associated with a given nation-state. This stage
2095
ended, however, once the dominant powers had carved
2096
up the planet into different spheres of influence
2097
and there was nowhere new left to expand. In the
2098
competition to increase sales and access to cheap
2099
raw materials and foreign markets, nation-states
2100
came into conflict with each other. As it was
2101
obvious that a conflict was brewing, the major
2102
European countries tried to organise a "balance
2103
of power." This meant that armies were built and
2104
navies created to frighten other countries and so
2105
deter war. Unfortunately, these measures were not
2106
enough to countermand the economic and power
2107
processes at play. War did break out, a war over
2108
empires and influence, a war, it was claimed,
2109
that would end all wars. As we now know, of
2110
course, it did not because it did not fight the
2111
root cause of modern wars, capitalism.
2112
2113
After the First World War, the identification of
2114
nation-state with national capital became even
2115
more obvious, and can be seen in the rise of
2116
extensive state intervention to keep capitalism
2117
going -- for example, the rise of Fascism in Italy
2118
and Germany and the efforts of "national" governments
2119
in Britain and the USA to "solve" the economic crisis
2120
of the Great Depression. However, these attempts to
2121
solve the problems of capital did not work. The
2122
economic imperatives at work before the first world
2123
war had not gone away. Big business still needed
2124
markets and raw materials and the statification of
2125
industry under fascism only aided to the problems
2126
associated with imperialism. Another war was only
2127
a matter of time and when it came most anarchists,
2128
as they had during the first world war, opposed
2129
both sides and called for revolution:
2130
2131
"the present struggle is one between rival Imperialisms
2132
and for the protection of vested interests. The workers
2133
in every country, belonging to the oppressed class,
2134
have nothing in common with these interests and the
2135
political aspirations of the ruling class. Their
2136
immediate struggle is their *emancipation.* *Their*
2137
front line is the workshop and factory, not the
2138
Maginot Line where they will just rot and die,
2139
whilst their masters at home pile up their
2140
ill-gotten gains." ["War Commentary", quoted
2141
Mark Shipway, _Anti-Parliamentary Communism_,
2142
p. 170]
2143
2144
After the Second World War, the European countries yielded to
2145
pressure from the USA and national liberation movements and
2146
grated many former countries "independence" (often after
2147
intense conflict). As Kropotkin predicted, such social
2148
movements were to be expected for with the growth of
2149
capitalism "the number of people with an interest in
2150
the capitulation of the capitalist state system also
2151
increases." [Peter Kropotkin, "Anarchism and Syndicalism",
2152
in _Black Flag_ no. 210, p. 26] Unfortunately these
2153
"liberation" movements transformed mass struggle from
2154
a potential struggle against capitalism into movements
2155
aiming for independent capitalist nation states.
2156
2157
Not, we must stress, that the USA was being altruistic in
2158
its actions, independence for colonies weakened its
2159
rivals as well as allowing US capital access to those
2160
markets.
2161
2162
This process was accompanied by capital expanding
2163
even more *beyond* the nation-state into multinational
2164
corporations. The nature of imperialism and imperialistic
2165
wars has changed accordingly. In addition, the various
2166
successful struggles for National Liberation ensured that
2167
imperialism had to change itself in face of popular
2168
resistance. These two factors ensured that the old
2169
form of imperialism was replaced by a new system of
2170
"neo-colonialism" in which newly "independent" colonies
2171
are forced, via political and economic pressure, to open
2172
their borders to foreign capital. If a state takes up a
2173
position which the imperial powers consider "bad for
2174
business," action will be taken, from sanctions to
2175
outright invasion. Keeping the world open and "free"
2176
for capitalist exploitation has been America's general
2177
policy since 1945. It springs directly from the expansion
2178
requirements of private capital and so cannot be
2179
fundamentally changed. However, it was also influenced
2180
by the shifting needs resulting from the new political
2181
and economic order and the rivalries existing between
2182
imperialist nations (particularly those of the Cold War).
2183
As such, which method of intervention and the shift
2184
from direct colonialism to neo-colonialism (and any
2185
"anomalies") can be explained by these conflicts.
2186
2187
Within this basic framework of indirect imperialism,
2188
many "developing" nations did manage to start the process
2189
of industrialising. Partly in response to the Great
2190
Depression, some former colonies started to apply the
2191
policies used so successfully by imperialist nations
2192
like Germany and America in the previous century. They
2193
followed a policy of "import substitution" which meant
2194
that they tried to manufacture goods like, for instance,
2195
cars that they had previously imported. Without suggesting
2196
this sort of policy offered a positive alternative
2197
(it was, after all, just local capitalism) it did have
2198
one big disadvantage for the imperialist powers, it
2199
tended to deny them both markets and cheap raw materials
2200
(the current turn towards globalisation was used to
2201
break these policies). As such, whether a nation pursued
2202
such policies was dependent on the costs involved to
2203
the imperialist power involved.
2204
2205
So instead of direct rule over less developed nations (which
2206
generally proved to be too costly, both economically and
2207
politically), indirect forms of domination were now preferred,
2208
with force resorted to only if "business interests" are
2209
threatened. Examples of new-style imperialistic wars
2210
include Vietnam, the US support for the Contras in
2211
Nicaragua and the Gulf War. Political and economic power
2212
(e.g. the threat of capital flight or sanctions) is used
2213
to keep markets open for corporations based in the
2214
advanced nations, with military intervention being
2215
used only when required (although the threat of it is
2216
always there). Moreover, the competition between the
2217
USA and the USSR also had an impact. On the one hand,
2218
acts of imperial power could be justified in fighting
2219
"Communism" (for the USA) or "US imperialism" (for the
2220
USSR). On the other, fear of provoking a war or driving
2221
developing nations into the hands of the other side
2222
allowed more leeway for developing nations to pursue
2223
policies like import substitution. However, force always
2224
was the ultimate solution for imperialism, just as it
2225
had been previously.
2226
2227
Least it be considered that we are being excessive in our
2228
analysis, let us not forget that the US "has intervened
2229
well over a hundred times in the internal affairs of other
2230
nations since 1945. The rhetoric has been that we have
2231
done so largely to preserve or restore freedom and
2232
democracy, or on behalf of human rights. The reality has
2233
been that [they] . . . have been consistently designed
2234
and implemented to further the interests of US (now
2235
largely transnational) corporations, and the elites both
2236
at home and abroad who profit from their depredations."
2237
[Henry Rosemont, Jr., "U.S. Foreign Policy: the Execution
2238
of Human Rights", pp. 13-25, _Social Anarchism_, no. 29
2239
p. 13] This has involved the overthrow of democratically
2240
elected governments (such as in Iran, 1953; Guatemala,
2241
1954; Chile, 1973) and their replacement by reactionary
2242
right-wing dictatorships (usually involving the military).
2243
As George Bradford argues, "[i]n light of [the economic]
2244
looting [by corporations under imperialism], it should
2245
become clearer . . . why nationalist regimes that cease
2246
to serve as simple conduits for massive U.S. corporate
2247
exploitation come under such powerful attack --
2248
Guatemala in 1954, Chile in 1973 . . . Nicaragua [in
2249
the 1980s] . . . [U.S.] State Department philosophy
2250
since the 1950s has been to rely on various police
2251
states and to hold back 'nationalistic regimes' that
2252
might be more responsive to 'increasing popular demand
2253
for immediate improvements in the low living standards
2254
of the masses,' in order to 'protect our resources' --
2255
in their countries!" [_How Deep is Deep Ecology?_, p. 62]
2256
2257
Capital investments in developing nations have increased
2258
steadily over the years, with profits from the exploitation
2259
of cheap labour flowing back into the pockets of the corporate
2260
elite in the imperialist nation, not to its citizens as a
2261
whole (though there are sometimes temporary benefits to other
2262
classes, as discussed below). In addition, other countries are
2263
"encouraged" to buy imperialist countries' goods (often in
2264
exchange for "aid", typically military "aid") and open
2265
their markets to the dominant power's companies and their
2266
products. Imperialism is the only means of defending the
2267
foreign investments of a nation's capitalist class, and by
2268
allowing the extraction of profits and the creation of
2269
markets, it also safeguards the future of private capital.
2270
2271
So, imperialism remained intact, as Western (mostly U.S.
2272
and its junior partner, the U.K.) governments continue
2273
to provide lavish funds to petty right-wing despots
2274
under the pseudonym, "foreign aid". The express purpose
2275
of this foreign aid, noble-sounding rhetoric about
2276
freedom and democracy aside, is to ensure that the
2277
existing world order remains intact. "Stability"
2278
has become the watchword of modern imperialists, who see
2279
*any* indigenous popular movements as a threat to the
2280
existing world order.
2281
2282
Foreign aid channelled public funds to the ruling
2283
classes in Third World countries via home based
2284
transnational companies. The U.S. and other Western
2285
powers provide much-needed war material and training
2286
for the military of these governments, so that they may
2287
continue to keep the business climate friendly to foreign
2288
investors (that means tacitly and overtly supporting fascism
2289
around the globe). "Foreign aid", basically, is when the
2290
poor people of rich countries give their money to the
2291
rich people of poor countries to ensure that the
2292
investments of the rich people of rich countries
2293
is safe from the poor people of poor countries!
2294
2295
(Needless to say, the owners of the companies providing
2296
this "aid" also do very well out of it.)
2297
2298
Thus, the Third World sags beneath the weight of well-funded
2299
oppression, while its countries are sucked dry of their
2300
native wealth, in the name of "development" and in the
2301
spirit of "democracy and freedom". The United States
2302
leads the West in its global responsibility (another
2303
favourite buzzword) to ensure that this peculiar kind
2304
of "freedom" remains unchallenged by any indigenous
2305
movements. Thus, the fascist regimes remain compliant
2306
and obedient to the West, capitalism thrives unchallenged,
2307
and the plight of people everywhere simply worsens. And
2308
if a regime becomes too "independent", military force always
2309
remains an option (as can be seen from the 1990 Gulf War).
2310
2311
Thus, imperialism changes as capitalism changes. The
2312
history of capitalism generally begins with mercantilism,
2313
the state aided destruction of petit-bourgeois commodity
2314
production (artisans, guilds and peasants) by capitalist
2315
manufacturing. Once capitalist industry has found its
2316
feet, free competition ("free trade") is embraced, which
2317
naturally progresses to a concentration of production
2318
(the rise of big business), which continually strive
2319
towards monopolies -- although it rarely reaches that
2320
stage (oligopolistic competition reigns). Major economic
2321
decisions are made by a few heads of major companies and
2322
corporations. Big business, while appearing to be
2323
contrary to the foundations of capitalism, is, in
2324
fact, its most developed form -- with the world
2325
turned more and more into one big factory, under
2326
one management hierarchy. Free association is
2327
replaced by top-down orders and industrial
2328
development is distorted by the need to maintain
2329
and extend corporate power and profits.
2330
2331
With the increasing globalisation of big business and
2332
markets, capitalism (and so imperialism) is on the
2333
threshold of a new transformation. Just as direct
2334
imperialism transformed into in-direct imperialism,
2335
so in-direct imperialism is transforming into a global
2336
system of government which aims to codify the domination
2337
of corporations over governments. This process is often
2338
called "globalisation" and we discuss it in section D.5.3.
2339
First, however, we need to discuss non-private capitalist
2340
forms of imperialism associated with the Stalinist regimes
2341
and we do that in the next section.
2342
2343
D.5.2 Is imperialism just a product of private capitalism?
2344
2345
While we are predominantly interested in *capitalist* imperialism,
2346
we cannot avoid discussing the activities of the so-called
2347
"socialist" nations (such as the Soviet Union, China, etc.).
2348
Given that imperialism has an economic base caused in developed
2349
capitalism by, in part, the rise of big business organised on
2350
a wider and wider scale, we should not be surprised that the
2351
state capitalist ("socialist") nations are/were also
2352
imperialistic. As the state-capitalist system expresses the
2353
logical end point of capital concentration (the one big
2354
firm) the same presses that apply to big business will also
2355
apply to the state capitalist nation (see last section).
2356
2357
Given this, it comes as no surprise that the state-capitalist
2358
countries also participated in imperialist activities, adventures
2359
and wars, although on a lesser scale and for slightly different
2360
reasons. As can be seen by Russia's ruthless policy towards her
2361
satellites, Soviet imperialism was more inclined to the defence
2362
of what she already had and the creation of a buffer zone between
2363
herself and the West. This is not to deny that the ruling elite of
2364
the Soviet Union did not try to exploit the countries under its
2365
influence. For example, in the years after the end of the Second
2366
World War, the Eastern Block countries paid the U.S.S.R. millions
2367
of dollars in reparations. As in private capitalism, the "satellite
2368
states were regarded as a source of raw materials and of cheap
2369
manufactured goods. Russia secured the satellites exports at
2370
below world prices. And it exported to them at above world
2371
prices." [Andy Anderson, _Hungary '56_, pp. 25-6]
2372
2373
The Soviet elite also aided "anti-imperialist" movements when it
2374
served their interests and placed them within the Soviet sphere
2375
of influence (along with US pressure which closed off other options).
2376
Once the Stalinist parties had replaced the local ruling class,
2377
trade relations were formalised between the so-called "socialist"
2378
nations for the benefit of both the local and Russian rulers.
2379
In a similar way, and for identical needs, the Western Imperialist
2380
powers supported murderous local capitalist and feudal elites in
2381
their struggle against their own working classes, arguing that it
2382
was supporting "freedom" and "democracy" against Soviet aggression.
2383
2384
Needless to say, the form and content of the state capitalist
2385
domination of its satellite countries was dependent on its
2386
own economic and political structure and needs, just as
2387
traditional capitalist imperialism reflected its needs and
2388
structures. Part of the difference was, of course, the need
2389
to plunder these countries of commodities to make up for
2390
shortages caused by central planning (in contrast, capitalist
2391
imperialism tended to export goods).
2392
2393
Just as capitalist domination saw the transformation of
2394
the satellite's countries social relations from pre-capitalist
2395
forms tin favour of capitalist ones, the domination of
2396
"socialist" nations meant the elimination of traditional
2397
bourgeois social relations in favour of state capitalist
2398
ones. As such, the nature and form of imperialism was
2399
fundamentally identical and served the interests of the
2400
appropriate ruling class in each case.
2401
2402
Therefore, imperialism is not limited to states based on
2403
private capitalism -- the state capitalist regimes have
2404
also been guilty of it. This is to be expected, as both
2405
are based on minority rule, the exploitation and oppression
2406
of labour and the need to expand the resources available
2407
to it.
2408
2409
D.5.3 Does globalisation mean the end of imperialism?
2410
2411
No. While it is true that the size of multinational companies
2412
has increased along with the mobility of capital, the need for
2413
nation-states to serve corporate interests still exists. With
2414
the increased mobility of capital, i.e. its ability to move
2415
from one country and invest in another easily, and with the
2416
growth in international money markets, we have seen what can
2417
be called a "free market" in states developing. Corporations
2418
can ensure that governments do as they are told simply by
2419
threatening to move elsewhere (which they will do anyway,
2420
if it results in more profits).
2421
2422
Therefore, as Howard Zinn stresses, "it's very important to point
2423
out that globalisation is in fact imperialism and that there is a
2424
disadvantage to simply using the term 'globalisation' in a way
2425
that plays into the thinking of people at the World Bank and
2426
journalists . . . who are agog at globalisation. They just can't
2427
contain their joy at the spread of American economic and corporate
2428
power all over the world. . . it would be very good to puncture
2429
that balloon and say 'This is imperialism.'" [_Bush Drives us
2430
into Bakunin's Arms_]
2431
2432
Globalisation, like the forms of imperialism that came before
2433
it, cannot be understood unless its history is known. The
2434
current process of increasing international trade, investment
2435
and finance markets came about after the late 60s and early
2436
1970s. Increased competition from a re-built Europe and Japan
2437
challenged US domination combined with working class struggle
2438
across the globe to leave the capitalist world feeling the
2439
strain. Dissatisfaction with factory and office life combined
2440
with other social movements (such as the women's movement,
2441
anti-racist struggles, anti-war movements and so on) which
2442
demanded more than capitalism could provide. The near
2443
revolution in France, 1968, is the most famous of these
2444
struggles but it occurred all across the globe.
2445
2446
For the ruling class, the squeeze on profits and authority
2447
from ever-increasing wage demands, strikes, stoppages, boycotts,
2448
squatting, protests and other struggles meant that a solution
2449
had to be found and the working class disciplined (and profits
2450
regained). One part of the solution was to "run away" and so
2451
capital flooded into certain areas of the "developing" world.
2452
This increased the trends towards globalisation. Another
2453
solution was the embrace of Monetarism and tight money
2454
(i.e. credit) policies. This resulted in increases in the
2455
interest rate, which helped deepen the recessions of the
2456
early 1980s, which broke the back of working class resistance
2457
in the U.K. and U.S.A. High unemployment helped to discipline
2458
a rebellious working class and the new mobility of capital
2459
meant a virtual "investment strike" against nations which
2460
had a "poor industrial record" (i.e. workers who were
2461
not obedient wage slaves).
2462
2463
Moreover, as in any economic crisis, the "degree of monopoly"
2464
(i.e. the dominance of large firms) in the market increased as
2465
weaker firms went under and others merged to survive. This
2466
enhancing the tendencies toward concentration and centralisation
2467
which always exist in capitalism, so ensuring an extra thrust
2468
towards global operations as the size and position of the
2469
surviving firms required wider and larger markets to operate
2470
in.
2471
2472
Internationally, another crisis played its role in promoting
2473
globalisation. This was the Debit Crisis of the late 1970s and
2474
early 1980s. For many countries Debt plays a central part for
2475
the western powers in dictating how their economies should be
2476
organised. The debt crisis proved an ideal leverage for the
2477
western powers to force "free trade" on the "third world." This
2478
occurred when third world countries faced with falling incomes
2479
and rising interest rates defaulted on their loans (loans that
2480
were mainly given as a bribe to the ruling elites of those
2481
countries and used as a means to suppress the working people
2482
of those countries -- who now, ironically, have to repay them!).
2483
2484
Before this, as noted in the section D.5.1, many countries had
2485
followed a policy of "import substitution." This tended to
2486
create new competitors who could deny transnational
2487
corporations both markets and cheap raw materials. Instead
2488
of military force, the governments of the west sent in the
2489
IMF and World Bank (WB). The loans required by "developing" nations
2490
in the face of recession and rising debt repayments had little
2491
choice but to agree to an IMF-designed economic reform programme.
2492
If they refused, not only were they denied IMF funds, but also
2493
WB loans. Private banks and lending agencies would also pull
2494
out, as they lent under the cover of the IMF -- the only body
2495
with the power to both underpin loans and squeeze repayment
2496
from debtors.
2497
2498
These policies meant introducing austerity programmes which,
2499
in turn, meant cutting public spending, freezing wages,
2500
restricting credit, allowing foreign multinational companies
2501
to cherry pick assets at bargain prices, and passing laws to
2502
liberalise the flow of capital into and out of the country.
2503
Not surprisingly, the result was disastrous for the working
2504
population, but the debts were repaid and both local and
2505
international elites did very well out of it.
2506
2507
Thus economic factors played a key role in the process.
2508
Moreover, the size of corporations meant that they could
2509
not help working on a multinational level (and could
2510
swallow up local industry). The global market needed
2511
the global firm (and vice versa). By working on a global
2512
level, these companies could invest in nations which
2513
could ensure a favourable business climate by repressing
2514
workers. So while workers in the West suffered repression
2515
and hardship, the fate of the working class in the
2516
"developing" world was considerably worse.
2517
2518
Thus globalisation is, like the forms of imperialism that
2519
preceded it, was a response to both objective economic forces
2520
and the class struggle. Moreover, like the forms that came
2521
before, it is based on the economic power of corporations
2522
based in a few developed nations and political power of the
2523
states that are the home base of these corporations.
2524
2525
So, for better or for worse, globalisation has become the latest
2526
buzz word to describe the current stage of capitalism and so
2527
we shall use it here. It use does have positive two side effects
2528
though. Firstly, it draws attention to the increased size and
2529
power of transnational corporations and their impact on global
2530
structures of governance *and* the nation state. Secondly, it
2531
allows anarchists and other protesters to raise the issue of
2532
international solidarity and a globalisation from below which
2533
respects diversity and is based on people's needs, not profit.
2534
2535
After all, as Rebecca DeWitt stresses, anarchism and the WTO
2536
"are well suited opponents and anarchism is benefiting from
2537
this fight. The WTO is practically the epitome of an
2538
authoritarian structure of power to be fought against.
2539
People came to Seattle because they knew that it was wrong
2540
to let a secret body of officials make policies unaccountable
2541
to anyone except themselves. A non-elected body, the WTO
2542
is attempting to become more powerful than any national
2543
government . . . For anarchism, the focus of global capitalism
2544
couldn't be more ideal." ["An Anarchist Response to Seattle,"
2545
pp. 5-12, _Social Anarchism_, no. 29, p. 6]
2546
2547
While transnational companies are, perhaps, the most well-known
2548
representatives of this process of globalisation, the power and
2549
mobility of modern capitalism can be seen from the following
2550
figures. From 1986 to 1990, foreign exchange transactions rose
2551
from under $300 billion to $700 billion daily and were expected
2552
to exceed $1.3 trillion in 1994. The World Bank estimates that
2553
the total resources of international financial institutions
2554
at about $14 trillion. To put some kind of perspective on
2555
these figures, the Balse-based Bank for International Settlement
2556
estimated that the aggregate daily turnover in the foreign
2557
exchange markets at nearly $900 billion in April 1992, equal
2558
to 13 times the Gross Domestic Product of the OECD group of
2559
countries on an annualised basis [_Financial Times_, 23/9/93].
2560
In Britain, some $200-300 billion a day flows through
2561
London's foreign exchange markets. This is the equivalent
2562
of the UK's annual Gross National Product in two or three days.
2563
Needless to say, since the early 1990s, these amounts have
2564
grown to even higher levels (daily currency transactions
2565
have risen from a mere $80 billion in 1980 to $1.26 billion
2566
in 1995. In proportion to world trade, this trading in foreign
2567
exchange rose from a ration of 10:1 to nearly 70:1 [Mark
2568
Weisbrot, _Globalisation for Whom?_]).
2569
2570
Little wonder that a _Financial Times_ special supplement
2571
on the IMF stated that "Wise governments realise that the
2572
only intelligent response to the challenge of globalisation
2573
is to make their economies more acceptable" [Op. Cit.] More
2574
acceptable to business, that is, not their populations. As
2575
Chomsky puts it, "free capital flow creates what's sometimes
2576
called a 'virtual parliament' of global capital, which
2577
can exercise veto power over government policies that it
2578
considers irrational. That means things like labour rights,
2579
or educational programmes, or health, or efforts to stimulate
2580
the economy, or, in fact, anything that might help people
2581
and not profits (and therefore irrational in the technical
2582
sense)." [_Rogue States_, pp. 212-3]
2583
2584
This means that under globalisation, states will compete
2585
with each other to offer the best deals to investors and
2586
transnational companies -- such as tax breaks, union busting,
2587
no pollution controls, and so forth. The effects on the
2588
countries' ordinary people will be ignored in the name of
2589
future benefits (not so much pie in the sky when you die,
2590
more like pie in the future, maybe, if you are nice and do
2591
what you are told). For example, such an "acceptable"
2592
business climate was created in Britain, where "market
2593
forces have deprived workers of rights in the name of
2594
competition" [_Scotland on Sunday_, 9/1/95] and the
2595
number of people with less than half the average
2596
income rose from 9% of the population in 1979 to
2597
25% in 1993. The share of national wealth held by
2598
the poorer half of the population has fallen from one
2599
third to one quarter. However, as would be expected, the
2600
number of millionaires has increased, as has the welfare
2601
state for the rich, with the public's tax money being
2602
used to enrich the few via military Keynesianism,
2603
privatisation and funding for Research and Development.
2604
Like any religion, the free-market ideology is marked
2605
by the hypocrisy of those at the top and the sacrifices
2606
required from the majority at the bottom.
2607
2608
In addition, the globalisation of capital allows it to
2609
play one work force against another. For example, General
2610
Motors plans to close two dozen plants in the United States
2611
and Canada, but it has become the largest employer in Mexico.
2612
Why? Because an "economic miracle" has driven wages down.
2613
Labour's share of personal income in Mexico has "declined
2614
from 36 percent in the mid-1970's to 23 percent by 1992."
2615
Elsewhere, General Motors opened a $690 million assembly
2616
plant in the former East Germany. Why? Because there workers
2617
are willing to "work longer hours than their pampered
2618
colleagues in western Germany" (as the _Financial Times_
2619
put it) at 40% of the wage and with few benefits.
2620
[Noam Chomsky, _World Orders, Old and New_, p. 160]
2621
2622
This mobility is a useful tool in the class war. There
2623
has been "a significant impact of NAFTA on strikebreaking.
2624
About half of union organising efforts are disrupted by
2625
employer threats to transfer production abroad, for
2626
example . . . The threats are not idle. When such
2627
organising drives succeed, employers close the plant
2628
in whole or in part at triple the pre-NAFTA rate (about
2629
15 percent of the time). Plant-closing threats are almost
2630
twice as high in more mobile industries (e.g. manufacturing
2631
vs. construction)." [_Rogue States_, pp. 139-40] This
2632
process is hardly unique to America, and takes place
2633
all across the world (including in the "developing"
2634
world itself). This process has increased the bargaining
2635
power of employers and has helped to hold wages down
2636
(while productivity has increased). In the US, the
2637
share of national income going to corporate profits
2638
increased by 3.2 percentage points between the last
2639
business cycle (1989) and 1998. This represents a
2640
significant redistribution of the economic pie.
2641
[Mark Weisbrot, Op. Cit.] Hence the need for *international*
2642
workers' organisation and solidarity (as anarchists
2643
have been arguing since Bakunin).
2644
2645
This means that such agreements such as NAFTA and the
2646
recently shelved (but definitely not forgotten)
2647
Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) weaken
2648
considerably the governments of nation-states -- but
2649
only in one area, the regulation of business. Such
2650
agreements restrict the ability of governments to
2651
check capital flight, restrict currency trading,
2652
eliminate environment and labour protection laws,
2653
ease the repatriation of profits and anything else
2654
that might impede the flow of profits or reduce
2655
corporate power. Indeed, under NAFTA, corporations
2656
can sue governments if they think the government is
2657
hindering its freedom on the market. Disagreements are
2658
settled by unelected panels outside the control of
2659
democratic governments. As such, such agreements
2660
represent an increase in corporate power and ensure
2661
that states can only intervene when it suits
2662
corporations, not the general public.
2663
2664
The ability of corporations to sue governments was
2665
enshrined in chapter 11 of NAFTA. In a small town in
2666
the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi, a California firm
2667
bought an abandoned dump site nearby. It proposed to expand
2668
on the dumpsite and use it to dump toxic waste material.
2669
The people in the neighbourhood of the dump site protested.
2670
The municipality, using powers delegated to it by the state,
2671
rezoned the site and forbid Metalclad to extend its land
2672
holdings. Metalclad, under Chapter 11 of the NAFTA, then
2673
sued the Mexican government for damage to its profit
2674
margins and balance sheet as a result of being treated
2675
unequally by the people of San Luis Potosi. A trade
2676
panel, convened in Washington, agreed with the company.
2677
In Canada, the Ethyl corporation sued when the government
2678
banned its gasoline additive as a health hazard. The
2679
government settled "out of court" to prevent a public
2680
spectacle of a corporation overruling the nation's
2681
Parliament.
2682
2683
NAFTA and other Free Trade agreements are designed for
2684
corporations and corporate rule. Chapter 11 was not
2685
enshrined in the NAFTA in order to make a better world
2686
for the people of Canada, any more than for the people
2687
of San Luis Potosi but, instead, for the capitalist elite.
2688
2689
This is an inherently imperialist situation, which will
2690
"justify" further intervention in the "developing" nations
2691
by the US and other imperialist nations, either through indirect
2692
military aid to client regimes or through outright invasion,
2693
depending on the nature of the "crisis of democracy" (a term
2694
used by the Trilateral Commission to characterise popular
2695
uprisings and a politicising of the general public).
2696
2697
However, force is always required to protect private capital.
2698
Even a globalised capitalist company still requires a defender.
2699
After all, "[a]t the international level, U.S. corporations
2700
need the government to insure that target countries are
2701
'safe for investment' (no movements for freedom and democracy),
2702
that loans will be repaid, contracts kept, and international
2703
law respected (but only when it is useful to do so)." [Henry
2704
Rosemont, Jr., Op. Cit., p. 18]
2705
2706
Therefore it makes sense for corporations to pick and choose
2707
between states for the best protection, blackmailing their
2708
citizens to pay for the armed forces via taxes. For the
2709
foreseeable future, America seems to be the global rent-a-cop
2710
of choice. On a local level, capital will move to countries
2711
whose governments supply what it demands and punish those
2712
which do not. Therefore, far from ending imperialism,
2713
globalisation will see it continue, but with one major
2714
difference: the citizens in the imperialist countries will
2715
see even fewer benefits from imperialism than before, while,
2716
as ever, still having to carry the costs.
2717
2718
So, in spite of claims that governments are powerless
2719
in the face of global capital, we should never forget that
2720
state power has increased drastically in one area -- in
2721
state repression against its own citizens. No matter how
2722
mobile capital is, it still needs to take concrete form
2723
to generate surplus value. Without wage salves, capital
2724
would not survive. As such, it can never permanently escape
2725
from its own contradictions -- wherever it goes, it has
2726
to create workers who have a tendency to disobey and
2727
do problematic things like demand higher wages, better
2728
working conditions, go on strike and so on (indeed, this
2729
fact has seen companies based on "developing" nations
2730
move to less "developed" to find more compliant labour).
2731
2732
This, of course, necessitates a strengthening of the
2733
state in its role as protector of property and as a
2734
defence against any unrest provoked by the inequalities,
2735
impoverishment and despair caused by globalisation
2736
(and, of course, the hope, solidarity and direct action
2737
generated by that unrest within the working class).
2738
Hence the rise of the neo-liberal consensus in both
2739
Britain and the USA saw an increase in the number of
2740
police, police powers and in laws directed against the
2741
labour and radical movements. As Malatesta argued:
2742
2743
"[L]iberalism, is in theory a kind of anarchy without
2744
socialism, and therefore is simply a lie, for freedom
2745
is not possible without equality, and real anarchy
2746
cannot exist without solidarity, without socialism.
2747
The criticism liberals direct at government consists
2748
of wanting to deprive it of some of its functions and
2749
to call upon the capitalists to fight it out among
2750
themselves, but it cannot attack the repressive functions
2751
which are of its essence: for with the *gendarme* the
2752
property owner could not exist, indeed the government's
2753
powers of repression must perforce increase as free
2754
competition results in more discord and inequality."
2755
[_Anarchy_, p. 46]
2756
2757
As such, it would be a mistake (as many in the
2758
anti-globalisation movement do) to contrast the market
2759
to the state. State and capital are not opposed to each
2760
other -- in fact, the opposite is the case. The modern
2761
state exists to protect capitalist rule, just as every
2762
state exists to defend minority rule, and it is
2763
essential for nation states to attract and retain capital
2764
within their borders to ensure their revenue by having a
2765
suitably strong economy to tax. Globalisation is a
2766
state-led initiative whose primary aim is to keep
2767
the economically dominant happy. The states which
2768
are being "undermined" by globalisation are not
2769
horrified by this process as certain protestors are,
2770
which should give pause for thought. States are
2771
complicit in the process of globalisation -- unsurprisingly,
2772
as they represent the ruling elites who favour and benefit
2773
from globalisation.
2774
2775
Moreover, with the advent of a "global market" under
2776
GATT, corporations still need politicians to act for them
2777
in creating a "free" market which best suits their interests.
2778
Therefore, by backing powerful states, corporate elites
2779
can increase their bargaining powers and help shape the
2780
"New World Order" in their own image.
2781
2782
Governments may be, as Malatesta put it, the property owners
2783
*gendarme*, but they can be influenced by their subjects,
2784
unlike multinationals. NAFTA was designed to reduce this
2785
influence even more. Changes in government policy reflect
2786
the changing needs of business, modified, of course, by
2787
fear of the working population and its strength. Which
2788
explains globalisation -- the need for capital to strengthen
2789
its position vis-a-vis labour by pitting one labour force
2790
against -- and our next step, namely to strengthen and
2791
globalise working class resistance. Only when it is
2792
clear that the costs of globalisation -- in terms of
2793
strikes, protests, boycotts, occupations and so on --
2794
is higher than potential profits will business turn
2795
away from it. Only international working class direct
2796
action and solidarity will get results. Until that
2797
happens, we will see governments co-operating in the
2798
process of globalisation.
2799
2800
To sum up, globalisation will see imperialism change as
2801
capitalism itself changes. The need for imperialism remains,
2802
as the interests of private capital still need to be defended
2803
against the dispossessed. All that changes is that the
2804
governments of the imperialistic nations become even
2805
more accountable to capital and even less to their
2806
populations.
2807
2808
D.5.4 What is the relationship between imperialism and the social
2809
classes within capitalism?
2810
2811
The two main classes within capitalist society are, as we
2812
indicated in section B.7, the ruling class and the working
2813
class. The grey area between these two classes is sometimes
2814
called the middle class. As would be expected, different
2815
classes have different positions in society and, therefore,
2816
different relationships with imperialism (as befitting their
2817
difference social positions within capitalism).
2818
2819
Moreover, we have to also take into account the differences
2820
resulting from the relative positions of the nations in
2821
question in the world economic and political systems. The
2822
ruling class in imperialist nations will not have identical
2823
interests as those in the dominated ones, for example. As
2824
such, our discussion will have indicate these differences
2825
as well.
2826
2827
The relationship between the ruling class and imperialism is
2828
quite simple: It is in favour of it when it supports its
2829
interests and when the benefits outweigh the costs. Therefore,
2830
for imperialist countries, the ruling class will always be
2831
in favour of expanding their influence and power as long as
2832
it pays dividends. If the costs outweigh the benefits,
2833
of course, sections of the ruling class will argue against
2834
imperialist adventures and wars (as, for example, elements
2835
of the US elite did when it was clear that they would lose
2836
both the Vietnam war and, perhaps, the class war at home
2837
by continuing it).
2838
2839
Moreover, there are strong economic forces at work as well.
2840
Due to capital's need to grow in order to survive and
2841
compete on the market, find new markets and raw materials,
2842
it needs to expand (as we discussed in section D.5). Consequently,
2843
it needs to conquer foreign markets and gain access to cheap
2844
raw materials and labour. As such, a nation with a powerful
2845
capitalist economy will need an aggressive and expansionist
2846
foreign policy, which it achieves by buying politicians,
2847
initiating media propaganda campaigns, funding right-wing
2848
think tanks, and so on, as previously described.
2849
2850
Thus the ruling class benefits from, and so usually supports,
2851
imperialism -- only, we stress, when the costs out-weight the
2852
benefits will we see members of the elite oppose it. Which,
2853
of course, explains the elites support for what is termed
2854
"globalisation." Needless to say, the ruling class has done
2855
*very* well over the last few decades. For example, in the US,
2856
the gaps between rich and poor *and* between the rich and
2857
middle income reaching their widest point on record in 1997
2858
(from the _Congressional Budget Office_ study on Historic
2859
Effective Tax Rates 1979-1997). The top 1% saw their after-tax
2860
incomes rise by $414,200 between 1979-97, the middle fifth
2861
by $3,400 and the bottom fifth fell by -$100. The benefits
2862
of globalisation are concentrated at the top, as is to be
2863
expected (indeed, almost all of the income gains from
2864
economic growth between 1989 and 1998 accrued to the top
2865
5% of American families).
2866
2867
Needless to say, the local ruling classes of the dominated
2868
nations may not see it that way. While, of course, local
2869
ruling classes do extremely well from imperialism, they
2870
need not *like* the position of dependence and subordination
2871
they are placed in. Moreover, the steady stream of profits
2872
leaving the country for foreign corporations cannot be used
2873
to enrich local elites even more. Just as the capitalist
2874
dislikes the state or a union limiting their power or
2875
taxing/reducing their profits, so the dominated nation's
2876
ruling class dislikes imperialist domination and will
2877
seek to ignore or escape it whenever possible. This is
2878
because "every State, in so far as it wants to live not
2879
only on paper and not merely by sufferance of its
2880
neighbours, but to enjoy real independence -- inevitably
2881
must become a conquering State." [Bakunin, Op. Cit.,
2882
p. 211]
2883
2884
Many of the post-war imperialist conflicts were of this nature,
2885
with local elites trying to disentangle themselves from an
2886
imperialist power. Similarly, many conflicts (either fought
2887
directly by imperialist powers or funded indirectly by them)
2888
were the direct result of ensuring that a nation trying to
2889
free itself from imperialist domination did not serve as
2890
a positive example for other satellite nations. Thus the
2891
local ruling class, while benefiting from imperialism, may
2892
dislike its dependent position and, if it feels strong
2893
enough, may contest their position and gain more independence
2894
for themselves.
2895
2896
Which means that local ruling classes can come into conflict
2897
with imperialist ones. These can express themselves as
2898
wars of national liberation, for example, or just as normal
2899
conflicts (such as the Gulf War). As competition is at the
2900
heart of capitalism, we should not be surprised that sections
2901
of the international ruling class disagree and fight each
2902
other. As we argue in more detail in section D.7, while
2903
anarchists oppose imperialism and defend the rights of
2904
oppressed nations to resist it, we do not support national
2905
liberation movements as these are cross class alliances
2906
which aim to consolidate the local elites power and this
2907
must, by necessity, mean the subjection of working people
2908
(just as support for any nation state means). Therefore
2909
we never call for the victory of the dominated
2910
country over the imperialist. Instead we call for a
2911
victory of the workers (and peasants) of that country
2912
against both home and foreign exploiters (in effect,
2913
"no war but the class war").
2914
2915
The relationship between the working class and imperialism
2916
is more complex. In traditional imperialism, foreign trade
2917
and the export of capital often make it possible to import
2918
cheap goods from abroad and increase profits for the
2919
capitalist class, and in this sense, workers gain because
2920
they can improve their standard of living without necessarily
2921
coming into system-threatening conflict with their employers
2922
(i.e. struggle can win reforms which otherwise would be strongly
2923
resisted by the capitalist class). Needless to say, those
2924
workers made redundant by these cheap imports may not consider
2925
this as a benefit and, by increasing the pool of unemployment,
2926
help hold or drive down wages for the whole working population.
2927
2928
Moreover, capital export and military spending under imperialistic
2929
policies may lead to a higher rate of profit for capitalists and
2930
allow them to temporarily avoid recession, thus keeping employment
2931
and wages higher than would be the case otherwise. So workers
2932
benefit in this sense as well. Therefore, in imperialistic nations
2933
during economic boom times, one finds a tendency among the
2934
working class (particularly the unorganised sector) to support
2935
foreign military adventurism and an aggressive foreign policy.
2936
This is part of what is often called the "embourgeoisement" of
2937
the proletariat, or the co-optation of labour by capitalist
2938
ideology and "patriotic" propaganda.
2939
2940
However, as soon as international rivalry between imperialist
2941
powers becomes too intense, capitalists will attempt to
2942
maintain their profit rates by depressing wages and laying
2943
people off in their own country. Workers' real wages will
2944
also suffer if military spending goes beyond a certain point.
2945
Moreover, if militarism leads to actual war, the working
2946
class has much more to lose than to gain as they will be
2947
fighting it and making the necessary sacrifices on the
2948
"home front" in order to win it. In addition, while
2949
imperialism can improve living conditions (for a time), it
2950
cannot remove the hierarchical nature of capitalism and
2951
therefore cannot stop the class struggle, the spirit of
2952
revolt and the instinct for freedom. So, while workers in
2953
the developed nations may sometimes benefit from imperialism,
2954
such periods cannot last long and cannot, in fact, end
2955
the class struggle.
2956
2957
Rudolf Rocker was correct to stress the contradictory
2958
(and self-defeating) nature of working class support for
2959
imperialism:
2960
2961
"No doubt some small comforts may sometimes fall to the
2962
share of the workers when the bourgeoisie of their country
2963
attain some advantage over that of another country; but
2964
this always happens at the cost of their own freedom and
2965
the economic oppression of other peoples. The worker. . .
2966
participates to some extent in the profits which, without
2967
effort on their part, fall into the laps of the bourgeoisie
2968
of his country from the unrestrained exploitation of colonial
2969
peoples; but sooner or later there comes the time when these
2970
people too, wake up, and he has to pay all the more dearly
2971
for the small advantages he has enjoyed. . . . Small gains
2972
arising from increased opportunity of employment and
2973
higher wages may accrue to the workers in a successful
2974
state from the carving out of new markets at the cost of
2975
others; but at the same time their brothers on the other
2976
side of the border have to pay for them by unemployment
2977
and the lowering of the standards of labour. The result
2978
is an ever widening rift in the international labour
2979
movement . . . By this rift the liberation of the workers
2980
from the yoke of wage-slavery is pushed further and further
2981
into the distance. As long as the worker ties up his
2982
interests with those of the bourgeoisie of his country
2983
instead of with his class, he must logically also take
2984
in his stride all the results of that relationship.
2985
He must stand ready to fight the wars of the possessing
2986
classes for the retention and extension of their markets,
2987
and to defend any injustice they may perpetrate on other
2988
people . . . Only when the workers in every country shall
2989
come to understand clearly that their interests are
2990
everywhere the same, and out of this understanding learn
2991
to act together, will the effective basis be laid for
2992
the international liberation of the working class."
2993
[_Anarcho-Syndicalism_, p. 61]
2994
2995
Ultimately, any "collaboration of workers and employers . . .
2996
can only result in the workers being condemned to . . . eat
2997
the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table." [Rocker,
2998
Op. Cit., p. 60] This applies to both the imperialist and
2999
the satellite state, of course. Moreover, as we argued in
3000
section D.5.1, imperialism needs to have a strong military
3001
force available for it (without force, the imperialist
3002
state could not defend the property of its citizens or
3003
companies invested in foreign countries nor have the
3004
means to threaten satellite nations seeking an independent
3005
path). As such, the military machine must be strengthen
3006
and this "is not directed only against the external
3007
enemy; it aims much more at the internal enemy. It
3008
concerns that element of labour which has learned not
3009
to hope for anything from our institutions, that awakened
3010
part of the working people which has realised that
3011
the war of classes underlies all wars among nations,
3012
and that if war is justified at all it is the war
3013
against economic dependence and political slavery, the
3014
two dominant issues involved in the struggle of the
3015
classes." In other words, the nation "which is to be
3016
protected by a huge military force is not" that "of the
3017
people, but that of the privileged class; the class
3018
which robs and exploits the masses, and controls their
3019
lives from the cradle to the grave." [Emma Goldman,
3020
_Red Emma Speaks_, p. 306 and p. 302]
3021
3022
However, under globalisation things are somewhat different.
3023
With the increase in world trade and the signing of "free
3024
trade" agreements like NAFTA, the position of workers in
3025
the imperialist nations need not improve. For example,
3026
over the last twenty-five years, the wages -- adjusted for
3027
inflation -- of the typical American employee have actually
3028
fallen, even as the economy has grown. In other words, the
3029
majority of Americans are no longer sharing in the gains
3030
from economic growth. This is very different from the
3031
previous era, for example 1946-73, when the real wages
3032
of the typical worker rose by about 80 percent. Not
3033
that this globalisation has aided the working class in
3034
the "developing" nations. In Latin America, for example, GDP
3035
per capita grew by 75 percent from 1960-1980, whereas
3036
between 1981 and 1998 it has only risen 6 percent. [Mark
3037
Weisbrot, Dean Baker, Robert Naiman, and Gila Neta,
3038
_Growth May Be Good for the Poor-- But are IMF and
3039
World Bank Policies Good for Growth?_]
3040
3041
As Chomsky noted, "[t]o the credit of the _Wall Street
3042
Journal_, it points out that there's a 'but.' Mexico has
3043
'a stellar reputation,' and it's an economic miracle,
3044
but the population is being devastated. There's been
3045
a 40 percent drop in purchasing power since 1994. The
3046
poverty rate is going up and is in fact rising fast.
3047
The economic miracle wiped out, they say, a generation
3048
of progress; most Mexicans are poorer than their parents.
3049
Other sources reveal that agriculture is being wiped
3050
out by US-subsidised agricultural imports, manufacturing
3051
wages have declines about 20 percent, general wages
3052
even more. In fact, NAFTA is a remarkable success: it's
3053
the first trade agreement in history that's succeeded in
3054
harming the populations of all three countries involved.
3055
That's quite an achievement." In the U.S., "the
3056
medium income (half above, half below) for families
3057
has gotten back now to what it was in 1989, which is
3058
below what it was in the 1970s." [_Rogue States_,
3059
pp. 98-9 and p. 213]
3060
3061
An achievement which was predicted. But, of course,
3062
while occasionally admitting that globalisation may harm
3063
the wages of workers in developed countries, it is
3064
argued that it will benefit those in the "developing"
3065
world. It is amazing how open to socialist arguments
3066
capitalists and their supporters are, as long as its
3067
not their income being redistributed! As can be seen
3068
from NAFTA, this did not happen. Faced with cheap
3069
imports, agriculture and local industry would be
3070
undermined, increasing the number of workers seeking
3071
work, so forcing down wages as the bargaining power of
3072
labour is decreased. Combine this with governments which
3073
act in the interests of capital (as always) and force the
3074
poor to accept the costs of economic austerity and back
3075
business attempts to break unions and workers resistance
3076
then we have a situation where productivity can increase
3077
dramatically while wages fall behind (either relatively
3078
or absolutely). As has been the case in both the USA
3079
and Mexico, for example.
3080
3081
This reversal has had much to do with changes in the global
3082
"rules of the game," which have greatly favoured corporations
3083
and weakened labour. Unsurprisingly, the North American
3084
union movement has opposed NAFTA and other treaties which
3085
empower business over labour. Therefore, the position of
3086
labour within both imperialist and dominated nations can
3087
be harmed under globalisation, so ensuring international
3088
solidarity and organisation have a stronger reason to be
3089
embraced by both sides. This should not come as a surprise,
3090
however, as the process towards globalisation was accelerated
3091
by intensive class struggle across the world and was used
3092
as a tool against the working class (see last section).
3093
3094
It is difficult to generalise about the effects of imperialism
3095
on the "middle class" (i.e. professionals, self-employed, small
3096
business people, peasants and so on -- *not* middle income
3097
groups, who are usually working class). Some groups within
3098
this strata stand to gain, others to lose (in particular,
3099
peasants who are impoverished by cheap imports of food).
3100
This lack of common interests and a common organisational
3101
base makes the middle class unstable and susceptible to
3102
patriotic sloganeering, vague theories of national or
3103
racial superiority, or fascist scape-goating of minorities
3104
for society's problems. For this reason, the ruling class
3105
finds it relatively easy to recruit large sectors of the
3106
middle class (as well as unorganised sectors of the
3107
working class) to an aggressive and expansionist
3108
foreign policy, through media propaganda campaigns.
3109
Since many in organised labour tends to perceive
3110
imperialism as being against its overall best interests,
3111
and thus usually opposes it, the ruling class is able to
3112
intensify the hostility of the middle class to the organised
3113
working class by portraying the latter as "unpatriotic"
3114
and "unwilling to sacrifice" for the "national interest."
3115
3116
Sadly, the trade union bureaucracy usually accepts the
3117
"patriotic" message, particularly at times of war, and
3118
often collaborates with the state to further imperialistic
3119
interests. This eventually brings them into conflict with
3120
the rank-and-file, whose interests are ignored even more
3121
than usual when this occurs. Under imperialism, like any
3122
form of capitalism, the working class will pay the bill
3123
required to maintain it.
3124
3125
Hence, in general, imperialism tends to produce a tightening
3126
of class lines and increasingly severe social conflict
3127
between contending interest groups, which has a tendency
3128
to foster the growth of authoritarian government (see
3129
section D.9).
3130
3131
D.6 Are anarchists against Nationalism?
3132
3133
To begin to answer this question, we must first define what we mean by
3134
nationalism. For many people, it is just the natural attachment to home,
3135
the place one grew up. These feelings, however, obviously do not exist in
3136
a social vacuum. Nationality, as Bakunin noted, is a "natural and social
3137
fact," as "every people and the smallest folk-unit has its own character,
3138
its own specific mode of existence, its own way of speaking, feeling,
3139
thinking, and acting; and it is this idiosyncrasy that constitutes the
3140
essence of nationality." [_The Political Philosophy of Bakunin_, p. 325]
3141
3142
Perhaps it is in the interest of anarchists to distinguish between
3143
*nationality* or *ethnicity* (that is, cultural affinity) and *nationalism*
3144
(confined to the state and government itself) as a better way of defining
3145
what we support and oppose -- nationalism, at root, is destructive and
3146
reactionary, whereas ethnic and cultural affinity is a source of community,
3147
social diversity and vitality.
3148
3149
Such diversity is to be celebrated and allowed to express it itself on its
3150
own terms. Or, as Murray Bookchin puts it, "[t]hat specific peoples should
3151
be free to fully develop their own cultural capacities is not merely a
3152
right but a desideratum. The world would be a drab place indeed if a
3153
magnificent mosaic of different cultures does not replace the largely
3154
decultured and homogenised world created by modern capitalism."
3155
["Nationalism and the 'National Question'", _Society and Nature_,
3156
pp. 8-36, No. 5, pp. 28-29] But, as he also warns, such cultural freedom
3157
and variety should *not* be confused with nationalism. The latter is far
3158
more (and ethically, a lot less) than simple recognition of cultural
3159
uniqueness and love of home. Nationalism is the love of, or the desire to
3160
create, a nation-state. And for this reason anarchists are opposed
3161
to it, in all its forms.
3162
3163
This means that nationalism cannot and must not be confused with
3164
nationality. The later is a product of social processes while the
3165
former to a product of state action and elite rule. Social evolution
3166
cannot be squeezed into the narrow, restricting borders of the nation
3167
state without harming the individuals whose lives *make* that social
3168
development happen in the first place.
3169
3170
The state, as we have seen, is a centralised body invested with power
3171
and a social monopoly of force. As such it pre-empts the autonomy of
3172
localities and peoples, and in the name of the "nation" crushes the
3173
living, breathing reality of "nations" (i.e. peoples and their cultures)
3174
with one law, one culture and one "official" history. Unlike most
3175
nationalists, anarchists recognise that almost all "nations" are in
3176
fact not homogeneous, and so consider nationality to be far wider in
3177
application than just lines on maps, created by conquest. Hence we think
3178
that recreating the centralised state in a slightly smaller area, as
3179
nationalist movements generally advocate, cannot solve what is called
3180
the "national question."
3181
3182
Ultimately, as Rudolf Rocker argues, the "nation is not the cause,
3183
but the result of the state. It is the state that creates the nation,
3184
not the nation the state." [_Nationalism and Culture_, p. 200]
3185
Every state is an artificial mechanism imposed upon society by
3186
some ruler in order to defend and make secure the interests of
3187
privileged minorities within society. Nationalism was created to
3188
reinforce the state by providing it with the loyalty of a people
3189
of shared linguistic, ethnic, and cultural affinities. And if
3190
these shared affinities do not exist, the state will create them
3191
by centralising education in its own hands, imposing an "official"
3192
language and attempting to crush cultural differences from the people's
3193
within its borders.
3194
3195
Hence we see the all too familiar sight of successful "national liberation"
3196
movements replacing foreign oppression with a home-based one. This is
3197
unsurprising as nationalism delivers power to local ruling classes as
3198
it relies on taking state power. As a result, Nationalism can never
3199
deliver freedom to the working class (the vast majority of a given
3200
"nation"). Moreover, nationalism hides class differences within the
3201
"nation" by arguing that all people must unite around their supposedly
3202
common interests (as members of the same "nation"), when in fact they have
3203
nothing in common due to the existence of hierarchies and classes. Its
3204
function is to build a mass support base for local elites angry with
3205
imperialism for blocking their ambitions to rule and exploit "their"
3206
nation and fellow country people:
3207
3208
"[W]e must not forget that we are always dealing with the organised
3209
selfishness of privileged minorities which hide behind the skirts of
3210
the nation, hide behind the credulity of the masses [when discussing
3211
Nationalism]. We speak of national interests, national capital, national
3212
spheres of interest, national honour, and national spirit; but we forget
3213
that behind all this there are hidden merely the selfish interests of
3214
power-loving politicians and money-loving business men for whom the
3215
nation is a convenient cover to hide their personal greed and their
3216
schemes for political power from the eyes of the world." [Rudolf Rocker,
3217
Op. Cit., pp. 252-3]
3218
3219
Moreover, the Nation has effectively replaced God in terms of justifying
3220
injustice and oppression and allowing individuals to wash their hands
3221
of their own actions. For "under cover of the nation everything can be
3222
hid" argues Rocker (echoing Bakunin, we must note). "The national
3223
flag covers every injustice, every unhumanity, every lie, every outrage,
3224
every crime. The collective responsibility of the nation kills the
3225
sense of justice of the individual and brings man to the point where
3226
he overlooks injustice done; where, indeed, it may appear to him a
3227
meritorious act if committed in the interests of the nation." [Op.
3228
Cit., p. 252] (perhaps, in the future, the economy will increasingly
3229
replace the nation just as the nation replaced god as the means of
3230
escaping personal responsibility of our acts? Only time will tell,
3231
but "economic efficiency" has been as commonly used to justify
3232
oppression and exploitation as "reasons of state" and "the national
3233
interest" have been).
3234
3235
Thus anarchists oppose nationalism in all its forms as harmful to
3236
the interests of those who make up a given nation and their cultural
3237
identities. However, anarchists are opposed to all forms of exploitation
3238
and oppression, including imperialism (i.e. a situation of external
3239
domination where the ruling class of one country dominates the people
3240
and territory of another country - see section D.5). While rejecting
3241
Nationalism, anarchists do not necessarily oppose national liberation
3242
struggles against such domination (see section D.7 for details).
3243
However, it goes without saying that national "liberation" movements
3244
that take on notions of racial, cultural or ethnic "superiority" or
3245
"purity" or believe that cultural differences are somehow "rooted"
3246
in biology get no support from anarchists.
3247
3248
D.7 Are anarchists opposed to National Liberation struggles?
3249
3250
While anarchists are opposed to nationalism (see last section), this does
3251
not mean that they are indifferent to national liberation struggles. Quite
3252
the opposite. In the words of Bakunin, "I feel myself always the patriot of
3253
all oppressed fatherlands. . . Nationality. . . is a historic, local fact
3254
which, like all real and harmless facts, has the right to claim general
3255
acceptance. . . Every people, like every person, is involuntarily that
3256
which it is and therefore has a right to be itself. . . Nationality is
3257
not a principle; it is a legitimate fact, just as individuality is. Every
3258
nationality, great or small, has the incontestable right to be itself, to
3259
live according to its own nature. This right is simply the corollary of
3260
the general principal of freedom." [quoted by Alfredo M. Bonanno in
3261
_Anarchism and the National Liberation Struggle_, pp. 19-20]
3262
3263
More recently Murray Bookchin has expressed similar sentiments: "No left
3264
libertarian. . . can oppose the *right* of a subjugated people to establish
3265
itself as an autonomous entity -- be it in a [libertarian] confederation.
3266
. . or as a nation-state based in hierarchical and class inequities."
3267
["Nationalism and the 'National Question'", _Society and Nature_,
3268
pp. 8-36, No. 5,, p. 31] Even so, anarchists do not elevate the
3269
idea of national liberation into a mindless article of faith, as much
3270
of the Leninist-influenced left has done this century, calling for
3271
support for the oppressed nation without first inquiring into "what
3272
kind of society a given 'national liberation' movement would likely
3273
produce." To do so, as Bookchin points out, would be to "support national
3274
liberation struggles for instrumental purposes, merely as a means
3275
of 'weakening' imperialism," which leads to "a condition of moral
3276
bankruptcy" as socialist ideas become associated with the authoritarian
3277
and statist goals of the "anti-imperialist" dictatorships in "liberated"
3278
nations. [Ibid., pp. 25-31] "But to oppose an oppressor is not
3279
equivalent to calling for *support* for everything formerly colonised
3280
nation-states do." [Ibid., p. 31]
3281
3282
Thus anarchists oppose foreign oppression and are usually sympathetic
3283
to attempts by those who suffer it to end it. This does not mean that
3284
we necessarily support national liberation movements as such (after all,
3285
they usually desire to create a new state) but we cannot sit back
3286
and watch one nation oppress another and so act to stop that oppression
3287
(by, for example, protesting against the oppressing nation and trying
3288
to get them to change their policies and withdraw from the oppressed
3289
nations affairs).
3290
3291
A major problem with national liberation struggles is that they usually
3292
counterpoise the common interests of "the nation" to those of an
3293
oppressor, but assume that *class* is irrelevant. Although nationalist
3294
movements often cut across classes, they still seek to increase autonomy
3295
for certain parts of society while ignoring that of other parts. For
3296
anarchists, a new national state would not bring any fundamental change in
3297
the lives of most people, who would still be powerless both economically
3298
and socially. Looking around the world at all the many nation-states in
3299
existence, we see the same gross disparities in power, influence and
3300
wealth restricting self-determination for working-class people, even if
3301
they are free "nationally." It seems hypocritical for nationalist leaders
3302
to talk of liberating their own nation from imperialism while advocating
3303
the creation of a capitalist nation-state, which will be oppressive to
3304
its own population and, perhaps, eventually become imperialistic itself
3305
as it develops to a certain point and has to seek foreign outlets for
3306
its products and capital in order to continue economic growth and realise
3307
suitable profit levels (as is happening, for example, with South Korea).
3308
3309
In response to national liberation struggles, anarchists stress the
3310
self-liberation of the working class, which can be only achieved by its
3311
members' own efforts, creating and using their own organisations. In
3312
this process there can be no separation of political, social and economic
3313
goals. The struggle against imperialism cannot be separated from the
3314
struggle against capitalism. This has been the approach of most, if
3315
not all, anarchist movements in the face of foreign domination --
3316
the combination of the struggle against foreign domination with the
3317
class struggle against native oppressors. In many different countries
3318
(including Bulgaria, Mexico, Cuba and Korea) anarchists have tried, by
3319
their "propaganda, and above all *action*, [to] encourage the masses to
3320
turn the struggle for political independence into the struggle for the
3321
Social Revolution." [Sam Dolgoff, _The Cuban Revolution - A critical
3322
perspective_, p. 41 - Dolgoff is referring to the Cuban movement here,
3323
but his comments are applicable to most historical -- and current --
3324
situations]
3325
3326
Moreover, we should point out that Anarchists in imperialist countries
3327
have also opposed national oppression by both words and deeds. For
3328
example, the prominent Japanese Anarchist Kotoku Shusi was framed
3329
and executed in 1910 after campaigning against Japanese expansionism.
3330
In Italy, the anarchist movement opposed Italian expansionism into Eritrea
3331
and Ethiopia in the 1880s and 1890s, and organised a massive anti-war
3332
movement against the 1911 invasion of Libya. In 1909, the Spanish
3333
Anarchists organised a mass strike against intervention in Morocco.
3334
More recently, anarchists in France struggled against two colonial wars
3335
(in Indochina and Algeria) in the late 50's and early 60's, anarchists
3336
world-wide opposed US aggression in Latin America and Vietnam (without,
3337
we must note, supporting the Cuban and Vietnamese Stalinist regimes),
3338
opposed the Gulf War (during which most anarchists raised the call of
3339
"No war but the class war") as well as opposing Soviet imperialism.
3340
3341
In practise national liberation movements are full of contradictions between
3342
the way the rank and file sees progress being made (and their hopes and
3343
dreams) and the wishes of their ruling class members/leaders. The leadership
3344
will always resolve this conflict in favour of the future ruling class.
3345
Most of the time that makes it possible for individuals members of these
3346
struggles to realise this and break from these politics towards anarchism.
3347
But at times of major conflict this contradiction will become very apparent
3348
and at this stage it's possible that large numbers may break from nationalism
3349
*if* an alternative that addresses their concerns exists. Providing that
3350
anarchist do not compromise our ideals such movements against foreign
3351
domination can be wonderful opportunities to spread our politics, ideals
3352
and ideas -- and to show up the limitations and dangers of nationalism itself
3353
and present a viable alternative.
3354
3355
For anarchists, the key question is whether freedom is for abstract
3356
concepts like "the nation" or for the individuals who make up the
3357
nationality and give it life. Oppression must be fought on all fronts,
3358
within nations and internationally, in order for working-class people to
3359
gain the fruits of freedom. Any national liberation struggle which bases
3360
itself on nationalism is doomed to failure as a movement for extending
3361
human freedom. Thus anarchists "refuse to participate in national liberation
3362
fronts; they participate in class fronts which may or may not be involved
3363
in national liberation struggles. The struggle must spread to establish
3364
economic, political and social structures in the liberated territories,
3365
based on federalist and libertarian organisations." [Alfredo M. Bonanno,
3366
_Anarchism and the National Liberation Struggle_, p. 12]
3367
3368
So while anarchists unmask nationalism for what it is, we do not disdain
3369
the basic struggle for identity and self-management which nationalism
3370
diverts. We encourage direct action and the spirit of revolt against all
3371
forms of oppression -- social, economic, political, racial, sexual,
3372
religious and national. By this method, we aim to turn national liberation
3373
struggles into *human* liberation struggles. And while fighting against
3374
oppression, we struggle for anarchy, a free confederation of communes
3375
based on workplace and community assemblies. A confederation which will
3376
place the nation-state, all nation-states, into the dust-bin of history
3377
where it belongs.
3378
3379
And as far as "national" identity within an anarchist society is concerned,
3380
our position is clear and simple. As Bakunin noted with respect to the
3381
Polish struggle for national liberation during the last century,
3382
anarchists, as "adversaries of every State, . . . reject the rights and
3383
frontiers called historic. For us Poland only begins, only truly exists
3384
there where the labouring masses are and want to be Polish, it ends where,
3385
renouncing all particular links with Poland, the masses wish to establish
3386
other national links." [quoted in "Bakunin", Jean Caroline Cahm, in
3387
_Socialism and Nationalism_, volume 1, pp. 22-49, p. 43]
3388
3389
D.8 What causes militarism and what are its effects?
3390
3391
There are two main causes of capitalist militarism. Firstly, there is
3392
the need to contain the domestic enemy - the oppressed and exploited
3393
sections of the population. The other, as noted in the section on
3394
imperialism, is that a strong military is necessary in order for a
3395
ruling class to pursue an aggressive and expansionist foreign policy.
3396
For most developed capitalist nations, this kind of foreign policy
3397
becomes more and more important because of economic forces, i.e. in order
3398
to provide outlets for its goods and to prevent the system from collapsing
3399
by expanding the market continually outward. This outward expansion of,
3400
and so competition between, capital needs military force to protect its
3401
interests (particularly those invested in other countries) and give it
3402
added clout in the economic jungle of the world market.
3403
3404
Capitalist militarism also serves several other purposes and has a number
3405
of effects. First, it promotes the development of a specially favoured group
3406
of companies involved in the production of armaments or armament related
3407
products ("defence" contractors), who have a direct interest in the
3408
maximum expansion of military production. Since this group is particularly
3409
wealthy, it exerts great pressure on government to pursue the type of
3410
state intervention and, often, the aggressive foreign policies it wants.
3411
3412
This "special relationship" between state and Big Business also has the
3413
advantage that it allows the ordinary citizen to pay for industrial
3414
Research and Development. Government subsidies provide an important way
3415
for companies to fund their research and development at taxpayer expense,
3416
which often yields "spin-offs" with great commercial potential as consumer
3417
products (e.g. computers). Needless to say, all the profits go to the
3418
defence contractors and to the commercial companies who buy licences to
3419
patented technologies from them, rather than being shared with the public
3420
which funded the R&D that made the profits possible.
3421
3422
It is necessary to provide some details to indicate the size and impact of
3423
military spending on the US economy:
3424
3425
"Since 1945. . . there have been new industries sparking investment and
3426
employment . . In most of them, basic research and technological progress
3427
were closely linked to the expanding military sector. The major innovation
3428
in the 1950s was electronics . . . [which] increased its output 15 percent
3429
per year. It was of critical importance in workplace automation, with the
3430
federal government providing the bulk of the research and development
3431
(R&D) dollars for military-orientated purposes. Infrared instrumentation,
3432
pressure and temperature measuring equipment, medical electronics, and
3433
thermoelectric energy conversion all benefited from military R&D. By
3434
the 1960s indirect and direct military demand accounted for as much as
3435
70 percent of the total output of the electronics industry. Feedbacks also
3436
developed between electronics and aircraft, the second growth industry of
3437
the 1950s. By 1960 . . . [i]ts annual investment outlays were 5.3 times
3438
larger than their 1947-49 level, and over 90 percent of its output went
3439
to the military. Synthetics (plastics and fibers) was another growth industry
3440
owning much of its development to military-related projects. Throughout the
3441
1950s and 1960s, military-related R&D, including space, accounted for 40
3442
to 50 percent of total public and private R&D spending and at least 85%
3443
of federal government share." [Richard B. Du Boff, _Accumulation and Power_,
3444
pp. 103-4]
3445
3446
Not only this, government spending on road building (initially justified
3447
using defence concerns) also gave a massive boost to private capital
3448
(and, in the process, totally transformed America into a land fit for
3449
car and oil corporations). The cumulative impact of the 1944, 1956 and 1968
3450
Federal Highway Acts "allowed $70 billion to be spent on the interstates
3451
without [the money] passing through the congressional appropriations
3452
board." The 1956 Act "[i]n effect wrote into law the 1932 National
3453
Highway Users Conference strategy of G[eneral] M[otors] chairman
3454
Alfred P. Sloan to channel gasoline and other motor vehicle-related
3455
excise taxes into highway construction." GM also illegally bought-up
3456
and effectively destroyed public transit companies across America, so
3457
reducing competition against private car ownership. The net effect of
3458
this state intervention was that by 1963-66 "one in every six business
3459
enterprise was directly dependent on the manufacture, distribution,
3460
servicing, and the use of motor vehicles." The impact of this process
3461
is still evident today -- both in terms of ecological destruction
3462
and in the fact that automobile and oil companies are still dominate
3463
the top twenty of the Fortune 500. [Op. Cit., p. 102]
3464
3465
This system, which can be called military Keynesianism, has three advantages
3466
over socially-based state intervention. Firstly, unlike social programmes,
3467
military intervention does not improve the situation (and thus, hopes)
3468
of the majority, who can continue to be marginalised by the system,
3469
suffer the discipline of the labour market and feel the threat of
3470
unemployment. Secondly, it acts likes welfare for the rich, ensuring
3471
that while the many are subject to market forces, the few can escape
3472
that fate - while singing the praises of the "free market". And, thirdly,
3473
it does not compete with private capital.
3474
3475
Because of the connection between militarism and imperialism, it was
3476
natural after World War II that America should become the world's leading
3477
military state at the same time that it was becoming the world's leading
3478
economic power, and that strong ties developed between government,
3479
business, and the armed forces. American "military capitalism" is
3480
described in detail below, but the remarks also apply to a number of
3481
other "advanced" capitalist states.
3482
3483
In his farewell address, President Eisenhower warned of the danger posed to
3484
individual liberties and democratic processes by the "military-industrial
3485
complex," which might, he cautioned, seek to keep the economy in a state
3486
of continual war-readiness simply because it is good business. This echoed
3487
the warning which had been made earlier by sociologist C. Wright Mills (in
3488
_The Power Elite_, 1956), who pointed out that since the end of World War
3489
II the military had become enlarged and decisive to the shape of the
3490
entire American economy, and that US capitalism had in fact become a
3491
military capitalism. This situation has not substantially changed since
3492
Mills wrote, for it is still the case that all US military officers have
3493
grown up in the atmosphere of the post-war military-industrial alliance and
3494
have been explicitly educated and trained to carry it on. So, despite
3495
recent cuts in the US defence budget, American capitalism remains
3496
military capitalism, with a huge armaments industry and defence
3497
contractors still among the most powerful of political entities.
3498
3499
D.8.1 Will militarism change with the apparent end of the Cold War?
3500
3501
Many politicians seemed to think so in the early nineties, asserting that a
3502
"peace dividend" was at hand. Since the Gulf War, however, Americans have
3503
heard little more about it. Although it's true that some fat was trimmed
3504
from the defence budget, both economic and political pressures have tended
3505
to keep the basic military-industrial complex intact, insuring a state of
3506
global war-readiness and continuing production of ever more advanced
3507
weapons systems into the foreseeable future.
3508
3509
Since it's having more and more trouble dominating the world economically,
3510
America now claims superpower status largely on the basis of its military
3511
superiority. Therefore the US won't be likely to renounce this
3512
superiority willingly-- especially since the prospect of recapturing world
3513
economic superiority appears to depend in part on her ability to bully
3514
other nations into granting economic concessions and privileges, as in the
3515
past. Hence the US public is being bombarded with propaganda designed to
3516
show that an ongoing US military presence is necessary in every corner of
3517
the planet.
3518
3519
For example, after the Gulf War the draft of a government White Paper was
3520
released in which it was argued that the US must maintain its status as
3521
the world's strongest military power and not hesitate to act unilaterally
3522
if UN approval for future military actions is not forthcoming. Although
3523
then President Bush, under election-year political pressures, denied that
3524
he personally held such views, the document reflected the thinking of
3525
powerful authoritarian forces in government -- thinking that has a way of
3526
becoming public policy through secret National Security Directives (see
3527
section D.9.2, "Invisible government").
3528
3529
For these reasons it would not be wise to bet on a deep and sustained
3530
American demilitarisation. It is true that troop strength is being cut
3531
back in response to Soviet withdrawals from Eastern Europe; but these
3532
cutbacks are also prompted by the development of automated weapons systems
3533
which reduce the number of soldiers needed to win battles, as demonstrated
3534
in the Persian Gulf.
3535
3536
Although there may appear to be no urgent need for huge military budgets
3537
now that the Soviet threat is gone, the US has found it impossible to kick
3538
its forty-year addiction to militarism. As Noam Chomsky points out in
3539
many of his works, the "Pentagon System," in which the public is forced
3540
to subsidise research and development of high tech industry through subsidies
3541
to defence contractors, is a covert substitute in the US for the overt
3542
industrial planning policies of other "advanced" capitalist nations, like
3543
Germany and Japan. US defence businesses, which are among the biggest
3544
lobbyists, cannot afford to lose this "corporate welfare." Moreover,
3545
continued corporate downsizing and high levels of unemployment will
3546
produce strong pressure to maintain defence industries simply in order to
3547
keep people working.
3548
3549
Despite some recent modest trimming of defence budgets, the demands of US
3550
military capitalism still take priority over the needs of the people. For
3551
example, Holly Sklar points out that Washington, Detroit, and Philadelphia
3552
have higher infant death rates than Jamaica or Costa Rica and that Black
3553
America as a whole has a higher infant mortality rate than Nigeria; yet
3554
the US still spends less public funds on education than on the military,
3555
and more on military bands than on the National Endowment for the Arts
3556
["Brave New World Order," in Cynthia Peters, ed., _Collateral Damage_,
3557
1992, pp. 3-46]. But of course, politicians continue to maintain that
3558
education and social services must be cut back even further because there
3559
is "no money" to fund them.
3560
3561
A serious problem at this point, however, is that the collapse of the
3562
Soviet Union leaves the Pentagon in desperate need of a sufficiently
3563
dangerous and demonic enemy to justify continued military spending in the
3564
style to which it's accustomed. Saddam Hussein was temporarily helpful,
3565
but he's not enough of a menace to warrant the robust defence budgets of
3566
yore now that his military machine has been smashed. There are some
3567
indications, however, that the US government has its sights on Iran.
3568
3569
The main point in favour of targeting Iran is that the American public
3570
still craves revenge for the 1979 hostage humiliation, the Lebanon
3571
bombing, the Iran-Contra scandal, and other outrages, and can thus be
3572
relied on to support a war of retribution. Hence it would not be
3573
surprising to hear much more in the future about a possible Iranian
3574
nuclear threat and about the dangers of Iranian influence in the Moslem
3575
republics of the ex-Soviet empire.
3576
3577
In the wake of the Persian Gulf War, the United States has quietly been
3578
building a network of defence alliances reminiscent of the Eisenhower years
3579
after World War II, so that America may now be called upon to police
3580
disturbances all over the Arab World. Sending troops to Somalia appears
3581
to have been designed to help accustom Americans to such a role.
3582
3583
Besides Iran, unfriendly regimes in North Korea, Cuba, and Libya, as well
3584
as communist guerrilla groups in various South American nations, also hold
3585
great promise as future testing grounds for new weapons systems. And of
3586
course there is the recent troop deployments to Haiti and Bosnia, which
3587
provide the Pentagon with more arguments for continued high levels of
3588
defence spending. In a nutshell, then, the trend toward increasing
3589
militarism is not likely to be checked by the present military
3590
"downsizing," which will merely produce a leaner and more efficient
3591
fighting machine.
3592
3593
D.9 What is the relationship between wealth polarisation and
3594
authoritarian government?
3595
3596
We have previously noted the recent increase in the rate of wealth
3597
polarisation, with its erosion of working-class living standards. This
3598
process has been referred to by Noam Chomsky as "Third-Worldisation." It
3599
is appearing in a particularly acute form in the US -- the "richest"
3600
industrialised nation which also has the highest level of poverty, since it
3601
is the most polarised -- but the process can be seen in other "advanced"
3602
industrial nations as well, particularly in the UK.
3603
3604
Third World governments are typically authoritarian, since harsh measures
3605
are required to suppress rebellions among their impoverished and
3606
discontented masses. Hence "Third-Worldisation" implies not only economic
3607
polarisation but also increasingly authoritarian governments. As Philip
3608
Slater puts it, a large, educated, and alert "middle class" (i.e. average
3609
income earners) has always been the backbone of democracy, and anything
3610
that concentrates wealth tends to weaken democratic institutions [_A Dream
3611
Deferred_, p. 68].
3612
3613
If this is true, then along with increasing wealth polarisation in the US
3614
we should expect to see signs of growing authoritarianism. This
3615
hypothesis is confirmed by numerous facts, including the following:
3616
continuing growth of an "imperial presidency" (concentration of political
3617
power); extralegal operations by the executive branch (e.g. the
3618
Iran-Contra scandal, the Grenada and Panama invasions); skyrocketing
3619
incarceration rates; more official secrecy and censorship; the rise of the
3620
Far Right; more police and prisons; FBI requests for massive wiretapping
3621
capability; and so on. Public support for draconian measures to deal with
3622
crime reflect the increasingly authoritarian mood of citizens beginning to
3623
panic in the face of an ongoing social breakdown, which has been brought
3624
about, quite simply, by ruling-class greed that has gotten out of hand --
3625
a fact that is carefully obscured by the media.
3626
3627
One might think that representative democracy and constitutionally
3628
guaranteed freedoms would make an authoritarian government impossible in
3629
the United States and other liberal democratic nations with similar
3630
constitutional "protections" for civil rights. In reality, however, the
3631
declaration of a "national emergency" would allow the central government
3632
to ignore constitutional guarantees with impunity and set up what Hannah
3633
Arendt calls "invisible government" -- mechanisms allowing an
3634
administration to circumvent constitutional structures while leaving
3635
them nominally in place (see section D.9.2).
3636
3637
In this regard it is important to remember that the Nazis created a
3638
"shadow government" in Germany even as the "democratic" Weimar
3639
constitution continued to operate in theory. Hitler at first implemented
3640
his programmes through the constitution, using existing government agencies
3641
and departments. Later he set up Nazi Party bureaus that duplicated the
3642
functions of the Weimar government, allowing the latter to remain in place
3643
but without power, while the Nazi bureaus (especially the SS, and of
3644
course Hitler himself) held the actual power. The Communist Party in
3645
Russia created a similar invisible government after the Bolshevik
3646
revolution, leaving the revolutionary constitution as well as the
3647
government bureaucracy in place while Communist Party agencies and the
3648
General Secretary wielded the real power [See Marilyn French, _Beyond
3649
Power_, p. 349].
3650
3651
If the drift toward social breakdown continues in the "advanced"
3652
industrial nations, it's not difficult to conceive of voters electing
3653
overtly authoritarian, right-wing administrations campaigning on
3654
"law-and-order" platforms. In the face of widespread rioting, looting,
3655
and mayhem (especially if it spilled over from the ghettos and threatened
3656
the suburbs), reactionary hysteria could propel authoritarian types into
3657
both the executive and legislative branches of government. The "middle
3658
classes" (i.e. professionals, small business people and so on) would then
3659
support charismatic martial-style leaders who promised to restore law and
3660
order, particularly if they were men with impressive military or police
3661
credentials.
3662
3663
Once elected, and with the support of willing legislatures and courts,
3664
authoritarian administrations could easily create much more extensive
3665
mechanisms of invisible government than already exist, giving the
3666
executive branch virtually dictatorial powers. Such administrations could
3667
also vastly increase government control of the media, implement martial
3668
law, escalate foreign militarism, further expand the funding and scope of
3669
the police, national guard units, secret police and foreign intelligence
3670
agencies, and authorise more widespread surveillance of citizens as
3671
well as the infiltration of dissident political groups. Random searches
3672
and seizures, curfews, government control of all organised meetings,
3673
harassment or outright banning of groups that disagreed with or attempted
3674
to block government policies, and the imprisonment of political dissidents
3675
and others judged to be dangerous to "national security" would then become
3676
routine.
3677
3678
These developments would not occur all at once, but so gradually,
3679
imperceptibly, and logically -- given the need to maintain "law and order"
3680
was underway. Indeed, it is already underway in the US (see Bertram
3681
Gross, _Friendly Fascism_, South End Press, 1989).
3682
3683
In the following subsections we will examine some of the symptoms of
3684
growing authoritarianism listed above, again referring primarily to the
3685
example of the United States. We are including these sections in the FAQ
3686
because the disturbing trends canvassed here give the anarchist programme of
3687
social reconstruction more urgency than would otherwise be the case. For
3688
if radical and dissident groups are muzzled -- as always happens under
3689
authoritarian rule -- that programme will be much more difficult to achieve.
3690
3691
D.9.1 Why does political power become concentrated under capitalism?
3692
3693
Under capitalism, political power tends to become concentrated in the
3694
executive branch of government, along with a corresponding decline in the
3695
effectiveness of parliamentary institutions. As Paul Sweezy points out,
3696
parliaments grew out of the struggle of capitalists against the power of
3697
centralised monarchies during the early modern period, and hence the
3698
function of parliaments has always been to check and control the exercise
3699
of executive power. For this reason, "parliaments flourished and reached
3700
the peak of their prestige in the period of competitive capitalism when
3701
the functions of the state, particularly in the economic sphere, were
3702
reduced to a minimum." [_Theory of Capitalist Development_, p. 310]
3703
3704
As capitalism develops, however, the ruling class must seek to expand its
3705
capital through foreign investments, which leads to imperialism, which in
3706
turn leads to a tightening of class lines and increasingly severe social
3707
conflict, as we have seen earlier (see section D.5.2). As this happens,
3708
legislatures become battlegrounds of contending parties, divided by
3709
divergent class and group interests, which reduces their capacity for
3710
positive action. And at the same time, the ruling class increasingly
3711
needs a strong centralised state that can protect its interests in
3712
foreign countries as well as solve difficult and complex economic
3713
problems. "Under the circumstances, parliament is forced to give up
3714
one after another of its cherished prerogatives and to see built up
3715
under its very eyes the kind of centralised and uncontrolled authority
3716
against which, in its youth, it had fought so hard and so well."
3717
[Ibid., p. 319]
3718
3719
This process can be seen clearly in the history of the United States.
3720
Since World War II, power has become centralised in the hands of the
3721
president to such an extent that scholars now refer to an "imperial
3722
presidency," following Arthur Schlesinger's 1973 book of that title.
3723
3724
Contemporary US presidents' appropriation of congressional authority,
3725
especially in matters relating to national security, has paralleled the
3726
rise of the United States as the world's strongest and most imperialistic
3727
military power. In the increasingly dangerous and interdependent world
3728
of the 20th century, the perceived need for a leader who can act quickly
3729
and decisively, without possibly disastrous obstruction by Congress, has
3730
provided an impetus for ever greater concentration of power in the
3731
White House.
3732
3733
This concentration has taken place in both foreign and domestic policy,
3734
but it has been catalysed above all by a series of foreign policy
3735
decisions in which modern US presidents have seized the most vital of all
3736
government powers, the power to make war. And as they have continued to
3737
commit troops to war without congressional authorisation or public debate,
3738
their unilateral policy-making has spilled over into domestic affairs as well.
3739
3740
In the atmosphere of omnipresent crisis that developed in the fifties, the
3741
United States appointed itself guardian of the "free world" against the
3742
Red Menace. This placed unprecedented military resources under the control
3743
of the President. At the same time, the Eisenhower Administration
3744
established a system of pacts and treaties with nations all over the
3745
globe, making it difficult for Congress to limit the President's
3746
deployment of troops according to the requirements of treaty obligations
3747
and national security, both of which were left to presidential judgement.
3748
The CIA, a secretive agency accountable to Congress only after the fact,
3749
was made the primary instrument of US intervention in the internal affairs
3750
of other nations for national security reasons.
3751
3752
With President Johnson's massive deployment of troops to Vietnam, the
3753
scope of presidential war-making power took a giant leap forward. Unlike
3754
Truman's earlier decision to commit troops in Korea without prior
3755
congressional approval, the UN had not issued any resolutions to
3756
legitimate US involvement in Vietnam. In justifying the President's
3757
decision, the State Department implied that in the interdependent world of
3758
the twentieth century, warfare anywhere on the globe could constitute an
3759
attack on the United States which might require immediate response, and
3760
hence that the Commander-in-Chief was authorised to take "defensive" war
3761
measures without congressional approval or UN authorisation.
3762
3763
Following Vietnam, the presidency was further strengthened by the creation
3764
of an all-volunteer military, which is less subject to rebellions in the
3765
face of popular opposition to a foreign war than a conscripted force.
3766
With their control over the armed forces more secure, presidents since
3767
Nixon have been liberated for a much wider range of foreign adventures.
3768
The collapse of the Soviet military threat now makes it easier than ever
3769
for the President to pursue military options in striving to achieve
3770
foreign policy objectives, as the Persian Gulf conflict clearly showed.
3771
United States involvement there would have been much more difficult during
3772
the Cold War, with the Soviet Union supporting Iraq.
3773
3774
It is sometimes argued that Watergate fatally weakened the power of the US
3775
presidency, but this is not actually the case. Michael Lind lists
3776
several reasons why [in "The Case for Congressional Power: the
3777
Out-of-Control Presidency," _The New Republic_, Aug. 14, 1995]. First,
3778
the President can still wage war at will, without consulting Congress.
3779
Second, thanks to precedents set by Bush and Clinton, important economic
3780
treaties (like GATT and NAFTA) can be rammed through Congress as
3781
"fast-track" legislation, which limits the time allowed for debate and
3782
forbids amendments. Third, thanks to Jimmy Carter, who reformed the
3783
Senior Executive Service to give the White House more control over career
3784
bureaucrats, and Ronald Reagan, who politicised the upper levels of the
3785
executive branch to an unprecedented degree, presidents can now pack
3786
government with their spoilsmen and reward partisan bureaucrats. Fourth,
3787
thanks to George Bush, presidents now have a powerful new technique to
3788
enhance presidential prerogatives and erode the intent of Congress even
3789
further -- namely, signing laws while announcing that they will not obey
3790
them. Fifth, thanks also to Bush, yet another new instrument of arbitrary
3791
presidential power has been created: the "tsar," a presidential appointee
3792
with vague, sweeping charges that overlap with or supersede the powers of
3793
department heads.
3794
3795
As Lind also points out, the White House staff that has ballooned since
3796
World War II seems close to becoming an extra-constitutional "fourth
3797
branch" of government The creation of presidential "tsars" whose powers
3798
overlap or supersede those of department heads is reminiscent of the
3799
creation of shadow governments by Hitler and Stalin (see also section
3800
D.9.2 - What is "Invisible government"?).
3801
3802
Besides the reasons noted above, another cause of increasing political
3803
centralisation under capitalism is that industrialisation forces masses of
3804
people into alienated wage slavery, breaking their bonds to other people,
3805
to the land, and to tradition, which in turn encourages strong central
3806
governments to assume the role of surrogate parent and to provide
3807
direction for their citizens in political, intellectual, moral, and even
3808
spiritual matters [see Hannah Arendt, _The Origins of Totalitarianism_,
3809
1968]. And as Marilyn French emphasises [in _Beyond Power_], the growing
3810
concentration of political power in the capitalist state can also be
3811
attributed to the form of the corporation, which is a microcosm of the
3812
authoritarian state, since it is based on centralised authority,
3813
bureaucratic hierarchy, antidemocratic controls, and lack of individual
3814
initiative and autonomy. Thus the millions of people who work for large
3815
corporations tend automatically to develop the psychological traits
3816
needed to survive and "succeed" under authoritarian rule: notably,
3817
obedience, conformity, efficiency, subservience, and fear of responsibility.
3818
The political system naturally tends to reflect the psychological conditions
3819
created at the workplace, where most people spend about half their time.
3820
3821
Reviewing such trends, Ralph Miliband concludes that "[h]owever strident
3822
the rhetoric of democracy and popular sovereignty may be, and despite the
3823
'populist' overtones which politics must now incorporate, the trend is
3824
toward the ever-greater appropriation of power at the top" [_Divided
3825
Societies_, Oxford, 1989].
3826
3827
D.9.2. What is "invisible government"?
3828
3829
We've already briefly noted the phenomenon of "invisible government" or
3830
"shadow government" (see section D.9), which occurs when an administration
3831
is able to bypass or weaken official government agencies or institutions
3832
to implement policies that are not officially permitted. In the US, the
3833
Reagan Administration's Iran-Contra affair is an example. During that
3834
episode the National Security Council, an arm of the executive branch,
3835
secretly funded the Contras, a mercenary counterinsurgency force in
3836
Central America, in direct violation of the Boland Amendment which
3837
Congress had passed for the specific purpose of prohibiting such funding.
3838
The fact that investigators could not prove the President's authorisation
3839
or even knowledge of the operation is a tribute to the presidential
3840
"deniability" its planners took care to build into it.
3841
3842
Other recent cases of invisible government in the United States involve
3843
the weakening of official government agencies to the point where they can
3844
no longer effectively carry out their mandate. Reagan's tenure in the
3845
White House again provides a number of examples. The Environmental
3846
Protection Agency, for instance, was for all practical purposes
3847
neutralised when employees dedicated to genuine environmental protection
3848
were removed and replaced with people loyal to corporate polluters.
3849
Evidence suggests that the Department of the Interior under
3850
Reagan-appointee James Watt was similarly co-opted. Such detours around
3851
the law are deliberate policy tools that allow presidents to exercise much
3852
more actual power than they appear to have on paper.
3853
3854
One of the most potent methods of invisible government in the US is the
3855
President's authority to determine foreign and domestic policy through
3856
National Security Directives that are kept secret from Congress and the
3857
American people. Such NSDs cover a virtually unlimited field of actions,
3858
shaping policy that may be radically different from what is stated
3859
publicly by the White House and involving such matters as interference
3860
with First Amendment rights, initiation of activities that could lead to
3861
war, escalation of military conflicts, and even the commitment of billions
3862
of dollars in loan guarantees -- all without congressional approval or
3863
even knowledge.
3864
3865
According to congressional researchers, past administrations have used
3866
national security orders to intensify the war in Vietnam, send US
3867
commandos to Africa, and bribe foreign governments. The Reagan
3868
Administration wrote more than 320 secret directives on everything from
3869
the future of Micronesia to ways to keep the government running after a
3870
nuclear holocaust. Jeffrey Richelson, a leading scholar on US
3871
intelligence, says that the Bush Administration had written more than 100
3872
NSDs as of early 1992 on subjects ranging from the drug wars to nuclear
3873
weaponry to support for guerrillas in Afghanistan to politicians in
3874
Panama. Although the subjects of such orders have been discovered by
3875
diligent reporters and researchers, none of the texts has been
3876
declassified or released to Congress. Indeed, the Bush Administration
3877
consistently refused to release even *un*classified NSDs!
3878
3879
On October 31, 1989, nine months before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait,
3880
President Bush signed NSD-26, ordering US agencies to expand political and
3881
economic ties with Iraq, giving Iraq access to US financial aid involving
3882
a billion-dollar loan guarantee as well as military technology and
3883
foodstuffs later sold for cash. Members of Congress, concerned that
3884
policy decisions involving billion-dollar commitments of funds should be
3885
made jointly with the legislature, dispatched investigators in 1991 to
3886
obtain a list of the secret directives. The White House refused to
3887
co-operate, ordering the directives kept secret "because they deal with
3888
national security." Iraq's default on the loans it obtained through
3889
NSD-26 means that American taxpayers are footing the billion-dollar
3890
bill.
3891
3892
The underlying authoritarianism of politicians is often belied by their
3893
words. For instance, even as Reagan claimed to favour diminished
3894
centralisation he was calling for a radical increase in his control of the
3895
budget and for extended CIA activities inside the country -- with less
3896
congressional surveillance -- both of which served to increase centralised
3897
power [Tom Farrer, "The Making of Reaganism," New York Review of Books,
3898
Jan 21, 1982, cited in Marilyn French, _Beyond Power_, p. 346]. President
3899
Clinton's recent use of an Executive Order to bail out Mexico from its
3900
debt crisis after Congress failed to appropriate the money falls right
3901
into the authoritarian tradition of running the country by fiat.
3902
3903
Perhaps the most disturbing revelation to emerge from the Iran-Contra
3904
affair was the Reagan administration's contingency plan for imposing
3905
martial law. Alfonso Chardy, a reporter for the _Miami Herald_, revealed
3906
in July 1987 that Lt. Col. Oliver North, while serving on the National
3907
Security Council's staff, had worked with the Federal Emergency Management
3908
Agency on a plan to suspend the Bill of Rights by imposing martial law in
3909
the event of "national opposition to a US military invasion abroad."
3910
This martial law directive was still in effect in 1988 [ Richard O. Curry,
3911
ed., _Freedom at Risk: Secrecy, Censorship, and Repression in the
3912
1980s_, Temple University Press, 1988].
3913
3914
Former US Attorney General Edwin Meese declared that the single most
3915
important factor in implementing martial law would be "advance
3916
intelligence gathering to facilitate internment of the leaders of civil
3917
disturbances" [Ibid., p. 28}. As discussed in B.16.5, during the 1980s
3918
the FBI greatly increased its surveillance of individuals and groups
3919
judged to be potentially "subversive," thus providing the Administration
3920
with a convenient list of people who would be subject to immediate
3921
internment during civil disturbances. The Omnibus Counter-terrorism Bill
3922
now being debated in the US Congress would give the President virtually
3923
dictatorial powers, by allowing him to imprison and bankrupt dissidents by
3924
declaring their organisations "terrorist."
3925
3926
D.9.3 Why are incarceration rates rising?
3927
3928
A large prison population is another characteristic of authoritarian
3929
regimes. Hence the burgeoning US incarceration rate during the past decade,
3930
coupled with the recent rapid growth of the prison "industry" must be
3931
regarded as further evidence of a drift toward authoritarian government,
3932
as one would expect given the phenomenon of "Third-Worldisation."
3933
3934
Prison inmates in the US are predominantly poor, and the sentences handed
3935
out to people without social prestige or the resources to defend
3936
themselves are much harsher than those received by people with higher
3937
incomes who are charged with the same crimes. Federal Bureau of Justice
3938
Statistics show that the median incomes of male prisoners before
3939
sentencing is about one-third that of the general population. Median
3940
incomes of inmates are even lower if the relatively few (and
3941
more-affluent) white-collar criminals are not included in the
3942
calculations.
3943
3944
Since the poor are disproportionately from minorities, the prison
3945
population is also disproportionately minority. By 1992, the American
3946
authorities were imprisoning black men at a rate five times higher than
3947
the old apartheid regime had done at its worst in South Africa, and there
3948
were more prisoners of Mexican descent in the US than in all of Mexico
3949
[Phil Wilayto, "Prisons and Capitalist Restructuring," _Workers' World_,
3950
January 15, 1995].
3951
3952
Michael Specter reports that more than 90 percent of all the offences committed
3953
by prison inmates are crimes against property ["Community Corrections," _The
3954
Nation_, March 13, 1982]. In an era where the richest one percent of the
3955
population owns more property than the bottom 90 percent combined, it's
3956
hardly a surprise that those at the very bottom should try to recoup illegally
3957
some of the maldistributed wealth they are unable to obtain legally.
3958
3959
In the 1980s the United States created mandatory sentences for dozens of
3960
drug offences, expanded capital punishment, and greatly increased the
3961
powers of police and prosecutors. The result was a doubling of the
3962
prison population from 1985 to 1994, according to a report recently issued
3963
by the US Department of Justice. Yet the overall crime rate in the U.S.
3964
has remained almost constant during the past twenty years, according to
3965
the same report. Indeed, the rate dropped 15 percent from 1980 to 1984, yet
3966
the number of prisoners increased 43 percent during that same period.
3967
The crime rate then increased by 14 percent from 1985 to 1989, while the
3968
number of prisoners grew by 52 percent.
3969
3970
Although the growth of the US prison population has been swollen out of
3971
proportion to the crime rate by new drug sentencing laws, drug use has
3972
not decreased. Repressive measures are clearly not working, as anyone
3973
can see, yet they're still favoured over social programmes, which continue to
3974
be scaled back. For example, a recently passed crime law in the US
3975
commits billions of dollars for more police and prisons, while at the same
3976
time the new Republican Congress eliminates family planning clinics,
3977
school lunch programmes, summer youth jobs programmes, etc. Prison
3978
construction has become a high-growth industry, one of the few "bright"
3979
spots in the American economy, attracting much investment by Wall Street
3980
vultures.
3981
3982
D.9.4 Why is government secrecy and surveillance of citizens on the increase?
3983
3984
Authoritarian governments are characterised by fully developed secret
3985
police forces, extensive government surveillance of civilians, a high
3986
level of official secrecy and censorship, and an elaborate system of state
3987
coercion to intimidate and silence dissenters. All of these phenomena
3988
have existed in the US for at least eighty years, but since World War II
3989
they have taken more extreme forms, especially during the 1980s. In this
3990
section we will examine the operations of the secret police.
3991
3992
The creation of an elaborate US "national security" apparatus has come
3993
about gradually since 1945 through congressional enactments, numerous
3994
executive orders and national security directives, and a series of Supreme
3995
Court decisions that have eroded First Amendment rights. The policies of
3996
the Reagan administration, however, reflected radical departures from the
3997
past, as revealed not only by their comprehensive scope but by their
3998
institutionalisation of secrecy, censorship, and repression in ways that
3999
will be difficult, if not impossible, to eradicate. As Richard Curry
4000
points out, the Reagan administration's success stems "from major
4001
structural and technological changes that have occurred in American
4002
society during the twentieth century -- especially the emergence of the
4003
modern bureaucratic State and the invention of sophisticated electronic
4004
devices that make surveillance possible in new and insidious ways."
4005
[Curry, Op. Cit., p. 4]
4006
4007
The FBI has used "countersubversive" surveillance techniques and kept
4008
lists of people and groups judged to be potential national security
4009
threats since the days of the Red Scare in the 1920s. Such activities
4010
were expanded in the late 1930s when Franklin Roosevelt instructed the FBI
4011
to gather information about Fascist and Communist activities in the US and
4012
to conduct investigations into possible espionage and sabotage. FBI chief
4013
J. Edgar Hoover interpreted these directives as authorising open-ended
4014
inquiries into a very broad category of potential "subversives"; and by
4015
repeatedly misinforming a succession of careless or indifferent presidents
4016
and attorneys general about the precise scope of Roosevelt's directives,
4017
Hoover managed for more than 30 years to elicit tacit executive approval
4018
for continuous FBI investigations into an ever-expanding class of
4019
political dissidents [Geoffrey R. Stone, "The Reagan Administration, the
4020
First Amendment, and FBI Domestic Security Investigations," in Curry,
4021
Ibid.].
4022
4023
The advent of the Cold War, ongoing conflicts with the Soviet Union, and
4024
fears of the "international Communist conspiracy" provided justification
4025
not only for covert CIA operations and American military intervention in
4026
countries all over the globe, but also contributed to the FBI's rationale
4027
for expanding its domestic surveillance activities.
4028
4029
Thus in 1957, without authorisation from Congress or any president,
4030
Hoover launched a highly secret operation called COINTELPRO:
4031
4032
"From 1957 to 1974, the bureau opened investigative files on more than
4033
half a million 'subversive' Americans. In the course of these investigations,
4034
the bureau, in the name of 'national security,' engaged in widespread
4035
wire-tapping, bugging, mail-openings, and break-ins. Even more insidious
4036
was the bureau's extensive use of informers and undercover operative to
4037
infiltrate and report on the activities and membership of 'subversive'
4038
political associations ranging from the Socialist Workers Party to the
4039
NAACP to the Medical Committee for Human Rights to a Milwaukee Boy Scout
4040
troop." [Stone, Ibid., p. 274].
4041
4042
But COINTELPRO involved much more than just investigation and
4043
surveillance. It was used to discredit, weaken, and ultimately destroy the
4044
New Left and Black radical movements of the sixties and early seventies,
4045
i.e. to silence the major sources of political dissent and opposition.
4046
4047
The FBI fomented violence through the use of agents provocateurs and destroyed
4048
the credibility of movement leaders by framing them, bringing false
4049
charges against them, distributing offensive materials published in their
4050
name, spreading false rumours, sabotaging equipment, stealing money, and
4051
other dirty tricks. By such means the Bureau exacerbated internal
4052
frictions within movements, turning members against each other as
4053
well as other groups.
4054
4055
Government documents show the FBI and police involved in creating
4056
acrimonious disputes which ultimately led to the break-up of such groups
4057
as Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panther Party, and the
4058
Liberation News Service. The Bureau also played a part in the failure of
4059
such groups to form alliances across racial, class, and regional lines.
4060
The FBI is implicated in the assassination of Malcolm X, who was killed in
4061
a "factional dispute" that the Bureau bragged of having "developed" in the
4062
Nation of Islam, and of Martin Luther King, Jr., who was the target of an
4063
elaborate FBI plot to drive him to suicide before he was conveniently
4064
killed by a sniper. Other radicals were portrayed as criminals,
4065
adulterers, or government agents, while still others were murdered in
4066
phoney "shoot-outs" where the only shooting was done by the police.
4067
4068
These activities finally came to public attention because of the Watergate
4069
investigations, congressional hearings, and information obtained under the
4070
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In response to the revelations of FBI
4071
abuse, Attorney General Edward Levi in 1976 set forth a set of public
4072
guidelines governing the initiation and scope of the bureau's domestic
4073
security investigations, severely restricting its ability to investigate
4074
political dissidents.
4075
4076
The Levi guidelines, however, proved to be only a temporary reversal of
4077
the trend. Although throughout his presidency Ronald Reagan professed to
4078
be against the increase of state power in regard to domestic policy, he in
4079
fact expanded the power of the national bureaucracy for "national
4080
security" purposes in systematic and unprecedented ways. One of the most
4081
significant of these was his immediate elimination of the safeguards
4082
against FBI abuse that the Levi guidelines had been designed to prevent.
4083
This was accomplished through two interrelated executive branch
4084
initiatives: Executive Order 12333, issued in 1981, and Attorney General
4085
William French Smith's guidelines, which replaced Levi's in 1983.
4086
4087
The Smith guidelines permitted the FBI to launch domestic security
4088
investigations if the facts "reasonably indicated" that groups or
4089
individuals were involved in criminal activity. More importantly,
4090
however, the new guidelines also authorised the FBI to "anticipate or
4091
prevent crime." As a result, the FBI could now investigate groups or
4092
individuals whose statements "advocated" criminal activity or indicated an
4093
*apparent intent* to engage in crime, particularly crimes of violence.
4094
4095
As Curry notes, the language of the Smith guidelines provided FBI
4096
officials with sufficient interpretative latitude to investigate virtually
4097
any group or individual it chose to target, including political activists
4098
who opposed the administration's foreign policy. Not surprisingly, under
4099
the new guidelines the Bureau immediately began investigating a wide
4100
variety of political dissidents, quickly making up for the time it had
4101
lost since 1976. Congressional sources show that in 1985 alone the FBI
4102
conducted 96 investigations of groups and individuals opposed to the
4103
Reagan Administration's Central American policies, including religious
4104
organisations who expressed solidarity with Central American refugees.
4105
4106
The Smith guidelines only allowed the Bureau to investigate dissidents.
4107
Now, however, there is a far greater threat to the US Bill of Rights
4108
waiting in the wings: the so-called Omnibus Counter-Terrorism Bill. If
4109
passed, this bill would allow the President, on his own initiative and by
4110
his own definition, to declare any person or organisation "terrorist."
4111
4112
Section 301(c)6 states that these presidential rulings will be considered
4113
as conclusive and cannot be appealed in court. The Attorney General would
4114
also be handed new enforcement powers, e.g. suspects would be considered
4115
guilty unless proven innocent, and the source or nature of the
4116
evidence brought against suspects would not have to be revealed if the
4117
Justice Department claimed a "national security" interest in suppressing
4118
such facts, as of course it would. Suspects could also be held without
4119
bail and deported for any reason if they were visiting aliens. Resident
4120
aliens would be entitled to a hearing, but could nevertheless be deported
4121
even if no crime were proven! US citizens could be put in jail for up to
4122
ten years and pay a $250,000 fine if declared guilty.
4123
4124
An equally scary provision of the Counter-Terrorism Bill is Section 603,
4125
which subsumes all "terrorist" crimes under the RICO (Racketeer-Influenced
4126
Criminal Organisation) civil asset forfeiture statutes. Thus anyone
4127
merely accused of "interfering" or "impeding" or "threatening" a current
4128
or former federal employee could have all their property seized under
4129
"conspiracy to commit terrorism" charges. Some in Congress now want to
4130
designate all local gun-related charges as federal terrorist crimes.
4131
Obviously the Counter-Terrorism Bill would simply add to the abuses that
4132
are already widespread in drug cases under the seizure and forfeiture laws.
4133
This is hardly surprising, since Federal and state agencies and local
4134
police are encouraged to make seizures and get to keep the property for
4135
their own use, and since anonymous informants who make charges leading to
4136
seizures are entitled to part of the property seized.
4137
4138
If this bill passes, it is certain to be used against the Left, as
4139
COINTELPRO was in the past. For it will greatly increase the size and
4140
funding of the FBI and give it the power to engage in "anti-terrorist"
4141
activities all over the country, without judicial oversight. The mind
4142
reels at the ability this bill would give the government to suppress
4143
dissidents or critics of capitalism, who have historically been the
4144
favourite targets of FBI abuses. For example, if an agent provocateur
4145
were to bring an illegal stick of dynamite to a peaceful meeting of
4146
philosophical anarchists, he could later report everyone at the meeting to
4147
the government on charges of conspiracy to commit a terrorist act. The
4148
agent could even blow something up with the dynamite and claim that other
4149
members knew of the plan. Everyone in the group could then have all their
4150
property seized and be jailed for up to ten years!
4151
4152
Even if the Counter-Terrorism Bill doesn't pass in its present form, the
4153
fact that a draconian measure like this is even being considered says
4154
volumes about the direction in which the US -- and by implication the
4155
other "advanced" capitalist states -- are headed.
4156
4157
D.9.5 But doesn't authoritarian government always involve censorship?
4158
4159
Yes. And central governments have been quietly increasing their power
4160
over the media for the past several decades. Monopolistic control of mass
4161
communications may not be readily evident in nominally democratic
4162
societies, where there seem to be many different sources of information.
4163
Yet on closer inspection it turns out that virtually all the major media
4164
the same neocapitalist world view. This is because the so-called "free"
4165
press is owned by a handful of capitalistic media conglomerates. Such
4166
uniformity insures that any facts, concepts, or opinions that clash with
4167
or tend to discredit the fundamental principles of that world view are
4168
unlikely to reach a wide audience (see section D.3).
4169
4170
There are numerous ties between government, news magazines, and
4171
newspapers. Corporate interests dominate television and radio; and for
4172
reasons described earlier, the interests of major corporations largely
4173
coincide with those of the government. The tendency in recent
4174
years has been toward the absorption of small independent print media,
4175
especially newspapers, by conglomerates that derive their major profits
4176
from such industries as steel, oil, and telephone equipment. As Marilyn
4177
French notes, the effect of these conglomerates' control "is to warn
4178
communications media away from anything that might be disturbing, and
4179
toward a bland, best-of-all-possible-worlds point of view. Although
4180
people have a wide range of reading and viewing material to choose from,
4181
the majority of it offers the same kinds of distraction -- fads and
4182
fashions, surface glitter -- or tranquillisation: all problems are
4183
solvable, no serious injustice or evil is permitted to continue" [French,
4184
Op. Cit., p. 350]. In other words, people are granted ever-increasing
4185
access to an ever-decreasing range of "acceptable" ideas.
4186
4187
These trends represent an unofficial and unsystematic form of censorship.
4188
In the United States, however, the federal government has been extending
4189
official and systematic forms of censorship as well. Again, the Reagan
4190
Administration proceeded furthest in this regard. In 1983 alone, more
4191
than 28,000 speeches, articles, and books written by government employees
4192
were submitted to government censors for clearance. The Reagan government
4193
even set a precedent for restricting information that is not classified.
4194
This it accomplished by passing laws requiring all government employees
4195
with security clearances to sign Standard Form 189, which allows them to
4196
be prosecuted for divulging not only classified information but that which
4197
is "nonclassified but classifiable." The latter is a deliberately vague,
4198
Catch-22 category that has sufficient interpretative latitude to allow for
4199
the harassment of most would-be whistle-blowers [Curry, Op. Cit.].
4200
4201
The United States Information Agency (USIA), which sends scholars overseas
4202
as part of its AMPARTS programme of educational and cultural exchanges, has
4203
attempted to screen the political opinions of scholars it selects for
4204
foreign speaking engagements. In 1983 the House Foreign Affairs
4205
Subcommittee on International Operations criticised USIA officials for
4206
"violating the letter and spirit of its charter" in choosing its AMPARTS
4207
speakers on the basis of "partisan political ideology."
4208
4209
In early 1984 the USIA's policies became a national scandal when the
4210
_Washington Post_ revealed that since late 1981 the USIA had been
4211
compiling a blacklist containing not only the names of prominent academics
4212
but of national figures, including Coretta Scott King, Congressman Jack
4213
Brooks, and former Senator Gary Hart. Under the Immigration,
4214
Naturalisation, and Nationality Act (known as "the McCarran Act") foreign
4215
nationals have been denied entry into the United States because of their
4216
political and ideological beliefs. Among the most notable among the
4217
thousands who have been so denied are Nobel Prize-winning authors Gabriel
4218
Garcia Marquez and Czeslaw Milosz, as well as author Carlos Fuentes,
4219
playwright Dario Fo, actress Franca Rame, novelist Doris Lessing, NATO
4220
Deputy Supreme Commander Nino Pasti, renowned Canadian writer Farley
4221
Mowat, American-born feminist writer Margaret Randall, and Hortensia
4222
Allende, widow of the former Socialist president of Chile, Salvador
4223
Allende.
4224
4225
In perhaps the most disturbing censorship development in recent years, the
4226
Reagan Administration used the powers of the Trading with the Enemy Act to
4227
place an embargo on magazines and newspapers from Cuba, North Vietnam, and
4228
Albania (but not China or the ex-Soviet Union), and confiscated certain
4229
Iranian books purchased by television journalists abroad. These materials
4230
were not embargoed because they contained American secrets, but simply
4231
because it was thought they might contain information the Administration
4232
did not want Americans to know [French, Op. Cit., p. 433].
4233
4234
Official censorship was also highly evident during the recent Persian Gulf
4235
massacre. In this one-sided conflict, the government not only severely
4236
curtailed the press's access to information about the war, restricting
4237
reporters to escorted "press pools," but to a large extent turned the
4238
major news media into compliant instruments of Administration propaganda.
4239
This was accomplished by creating competition between the TV networks and
4240
news services for the limited number of slots in the pools, thus making
4241
news departments dependent on the government's good will and turning news
4242
anchors into cheerleaders for the US-led slaughter.
4243
4244
Reporting on the Gulf War was also directly censored by the military, by
4245
news and photo agencies, or by both. For instance, when award-winning
4246
journalist Jon Alpert, a longtime NBC stringer, "came back from Iraq with
4247
spectacular videotape of Basra [Iraq's second largest city, population
4248
800,000] and other areas of Iraq devastated by US bombing, NBC president
4249
Michael Gartner not only ordered that the footage not be aired but forbade
4250
Alpert from working for the network in the future" [Fairness and Accuracy
4251
in Reporting, _Extra, Special Issue on the Gulf War_, 1991, p. 15].
4252
4253
As John R. Macarthur has documented, congressional approval for the war
4254
might not have been forthcoming without a huge preliminary propaganda and
4255
disinformation campaign designed to demonise Saddam Hussein and his
4256
troops. The centrepiece of this campaign -- the now infamous story of
4257
Iraqi soldiers allegedly ripping premature Kuwaiti babies from their
4258
incubators and leaving them to die on the cold hospital floor -- was a
4259
total fabrication masterminded by an American public relations firm funded
4260
by the Kuwaiti government-in-exile and eagerly disseminated by the
4261
Administration with the help of a credulous and uncritical news
4262
establishment [John R. Macarthur, _Second Front: Censorship and
4263
Propaganda in the Gulf War_, Hill & Wang, 1992; also, John Stauber and
4264
Sheldon Rampton, _Toxic Sludge is Good For You! Lies, Damn Lies
4265
and the Public Relations Industry_, Common Courage Press, 1995].
4266
4267
These trends toward a system of official and unofficial censorship do not
4268
bode well for future freedom of speech and of the press. For they
4269
establish precedents for muzzling, intimidating, and co-opting the primary
4270
sources of public information -- precedents that can be invoked whenever
4271
an administration finds it convenient. This is just one more piece of
4272
evidence that late capitalism is leading inexorably toward authoritarian
4273
government.
4274
4275
D.9.6 What does the Right want?
4276
4277
In his book _Post-Conservative America_ Kevin Phillips, one of the most
4278
knowledgeable and serious conservative ideologues, discusses the
4279
possibility of fundamental alterations that he regards as desirable in the
4280
US government. His proposals leave no doubt about the direction in which
4281
the Right wishes to proceed. "Governmental power is too diffused to make
4282
difficult and necessary economic and technical decisions," Phillips
4283
maintains. "[A]ccordingly, the nature of that power must be re-thought.
4284
Power at the federal level must be augmented, and lodged for the most part
4285
in the executive branch" [p. 218].
4286
4287
In the model state Phillips describes, Congress would be reduced to a mere
4288
tool of a presidency grown even more "imperial" than it already is, with
4289
congressional leaders serving in the Cabinet and the two-party system
4290
merged into a single-party coalition. Before we dismiss this idea as
4291
impossible to implement, let's remember that the distinction between the
4292
two major parties has already been virtually obliterated, as each is
4293
controlled by the corporate elite, albeit by different factions within it.
4294
4295
Despite many tactical disagreements, virtually all members of this elite
4296
share a basic set of principles, attitudes, ideals, and values. Whether
4297
Democrat or Republican, most of them have graduated from the same Ivy
4298
League schools, belong to the same exclusive social clubs, serve on the
4299
same interlocking boards of directors of the same major corporations, and
4300
send their children to the same private boarding schools [See G. William
4301
Domhoff, Who Rules America Now? 1983; C. Wright Mills, _The Power Elite_,
4302
1956]. Perhaps most importantly, they share the same psychology, which
4303
means that they have the same priorities and interests: namely, those of
4304
corporate America.
4305
4306
Hence there's actually only one party already -- the Business Party -- which
4307
wears two different masks to hide its real face from the public. Similar
4308
remarks apply to the liberal democratic regimes in the rest of the advanced
4309
capitalist states. The absence of a true opposition party, which itself is
4310
a main characteristic of authoritarian regimes, is thus an accomplished fact
4311
already, and has been so for many years.
4312
4313
Besides the merging of the major political parties, other forces are
4314
leading inexorably toward the scenario described by Phillips. For
4315
instance, the power of the executive branch continues to grow because the
4316
authority of Congress has been progressively weakened by scandals,
4317
partisan bickering, gridlock, and ongoing revelations of legislative
4318
corruption. Indeed, bribe-taking, influence-peddling, check-bouncing,
4319
conflicts of interest, shady deals, sex scandals, and general
4320
incompetence now seem almost routine on Capitol Hill. Unless something is
4321
done to restore congressional respectability, the climate will remain
4322
conducive to a further consolidation of power in the presidency.
4323
4324
Phillips assures us that all the changes he envisions can be accomplished
4325
without altering the Constitution. Such marvels are indeed possible. The
4326
Emperor Augustus centralised all real power in his own hands without
4327
disbanding the Roman Senate or the Roman Republic; Hitler implemented
4328
his Nazi programmes while leaving the Weimar constitution intact; Stalin
4329
ruled under the revolutionary constitution which was theoretically
4330
democratic.
4331
4332
The facts cited here as evidence for the gradual authoritarianisation
4333
of the United States have been canvassed before by others, sometimes
4334
accompanied by warnings of impending dictatorship. So far such warnings
4335
have proven to be premature. What is especially alarming today, however,
4336
is that the many signs of growing authoritarianism examined above are now
4337
coinciding with the symptoms of a social breakdown -- a "coincidence" which
4338
in the past has heralded the approach of tyranny.
4339
4340
Fully authoritarian regimes in the US and other First World nations would
4341
represent far more than a mere threat to citizens' civil liberties and
4342
their hopes for a better society. For authoritarian regimes tend to be
4343
associated with reckless military adventurism led by autocratic heads of
4344
state. Thus, in a nuclear world in which Europe and Japan followed the US
4345
lead toward authoritarian government, the likelihood of nuclear aggression
4346
by irresponsible politicians would continue to grow. In that case, the
4347
former anxieties of the Cold War would seem mild by comparison. Hence the
4348
urgency of the anarchist programme of anti-authoritarianism, political
4349
decentralisation, and grassroots democracy -- the only real antidotes to the
4350
disturbing trends described above.
4351
4352
As an aside we should note that many naysayers and ruling class apologists
4353
often deny the growing authoritarianism as "paranoia" or "conspiracy
4354
theorising." The common retort is "but if things are as bad as you say,
4355
how come the government lets you write this seditious FAQ?"
4356
4357
The reason we can write this work unmolested is testimony to the lack
4358
of power possessed by the public at large, in the existing political
4359
culture--that is, countercultural movements needn't be a concern to the
4360
government until they become broader-based and capable of challenging the
4361
existing economic order--only then is it "necessary" for the repressive,
4362
authoritarian forces to work on undermining the movement.
4363
4364
So long as there is no effective organising and no threat to the interests
4365
of the ruling elite, people are permitted to say whatever they want. This
4366
creates the illusion that the society is open to all ideas, when, in fact,
4367
it isn't. But, as the decimation of the Wobblies and anarchist movement
4368
after the First World War first illustrated, the government will seek to
4369
eradicate any movement that poses a significant threat.
4370
4371
The proper application of spin to dissident ideology can make it seem that
4372
*any* alternatives to the present system "just wouldn't work" or "are
4373
utopian", even when such alternatives are in the self-interest of the
4374
population at large. This ideological pruning creates the misperception in
4375
people's minds that radical theories haven't been successfully implemented
4376
because they are inherently flawed--and naturally, the current authoritarian
4377
ideology is portrayed as the only "sane" course of action for people to follow.
4378
4379
For example, most Americans reject socialism outright, without any
4380
understanding or even willingness to understand what socialism is
4381
really about. This isn't because (libertarian) socialism is wrong; it's
4382
a direct result of capitalist propagandising of the past 70 years (and
4383
its assertion that "socialism" equals Stalinism).
4384
4385
Extending this attitude to the people themselves, authoritarians (with
4386
generous help from the corporate press) paint dissidents as "crackpots"
4387
and "extremists," while representing themselves as reasonable "moderates",
4388
regardless of the relative positions they are advocating. In this way, a
4389
community opposing a toxic waste incinerator in their area can be lambasted
4390
in the press as the bad guys, when what is really happening is a local
4391
community is practising democracy, daring to challenge the
4392
corporate/government authoritarians!
4393
4394
In the Third World, dissenters are typically violently murdered and tossed
4395
into unmarked mass graves; here, in the First World, more subtle subversion
4396
must take place. The "invisible hand" of advanced capitalist authoritarian
4397
societies is no less effective; the end result is the same, if the
4398
methodology differs--the elimination of alternatives to the present
4399
socio-economic order.
4400
4401
D.10 How does capitalism affect technology?
4402
4403
Technology has an obvious effect on individual freedom, in some ways
4404
increasing it, in others restricting it. However, since capitalism is
4405
a social system based on inequalities of power, it is a truism that
4406
technology will reflect those inequalities, as it does not develop
4407
in a social vacuum.
4408
4409
No technology evolves and spreads unless there are people who benefit
4410
from it and have sufficient means to disseminate it. In a capitalist
4411
society, technologies useful to the rich and powerful are generally
4412
the ones that spread. This can be seen from capitalist industry, where
4413
technology has been implemented specifically to deskill the worker, so
4414
replacing the skilled, valued craftperson with the easily trained (and
4415
eliminated!) "mass worker." By making trying to make any individual
4416
worker dispensable, the capitalist hopes to deprive workers of a means
4417
of controlling the relation between their effort on the job and the pay
4418
they receive. In Proudhon's words, the "machine, or the workshop, after
4419
having degraded the labourer by giving him a master, completes his
4420
degeneracy by reducing him from the rank of artisan to that of common
4421
workman." [_System of Economical Contradictions_, p. 202]
4422
4423
So, unsurprisingly, technology within a hierarchical society will tend
4424
to re-enforce hierarchy and domination. Managers/capitalists will select
4425
technology that will protect and extend their power (and profits), not
4426
weaken it. Thus, while it is often claimed that technology is "neutral"
4427
this is not (and can never be) the case. Simply put, "progress" within
4428
a hierarchical system will reflect the power structures of that system.
4429
4430
As George Reitzer notes, technological innovation under a hierarchical
4431
system soon results in "increased control and the replacement of human
4432
with non-human technology. In fact, the replacement of human with
4433
non-human technology is very often motivated by a desire for greater
4434
control, which of course is motivated by the need for profit-maximisation.
4435
The great sources of uncertainty and unpredictability in any rationalising
4436
system are people. . . .McDonaldisation involves the search for the means
4437
to exert increasing control over both employees and customers." [George
4438
Reitzer, _The McDonaldisation of Society_, p. 100] For Reitzer,
4439
capitalism is marked by the "irrationality of rationality," in which
4440
this process of control results in a system based on crushing the
4441
individuality and humanity of those who live within it.
4442
4443
In this process of controlling employees for the purpose of maximising
4444
profit, deskilling comes about because skilled labour is more expensive
4445
than unskilled or semi-skilled and skilled workers have more power over
4446
their working conditions and work due to the difficulty in replacing
4447
them. In addition it is easier to "rationalise" the production process
4448
with methods like Taylorism, a system of strict production schedules
4449
and activities based on the amount of time (as determined by management)
4450
that workers "need" to perform various operations in the workplace, thus
4451
requiring simple, easily analysed and timed movements. And as companies
4452
are in competition, each has to copy the most "efficient" (i.e. profit
4453
maximising) production techniques introduced by the others in order to
4454
remain profitable, no matter how dehumanising this may be for workers.
4455
Thus the evil effects of the division of labour and deskilling becoming
4456
widespread. Instead of managing their own work, workers are turned into
4457
human machines in a labour process they do not control, instead being
4458
controlled by those who own the machines they use (see also Harry Braverman,
4459
_Labour and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth
4460
Century_, Monthly Review Press, 1974).
4461
4462
As Max Stirner noted (echoing Adam Smith), this process of deskilling and
4463
controlling work means that "[w]hen everyone is to cultivate himself into
4464
man, condemning a man to *machine-like labour* amounts to the same thing
4465
as slavery. . . . Every labour is to have the intent that the man be
4466
satisfied. Therefore he must become a *master* in it too, be able to
4467
perform it as a totality. He who in a pin-factory only puts on heads, only
4468
draws the wire, works, as it were mechanically, like a machine; he remains
4469
half-trained, does not become a master: his labour cannot *satisfy* him,
4470
it can only *fatigue* him. His labour is nothing by itself, has no object
4471
*in itself,* is nothing complete in itself; he labours only into another's
4472
hands, and is *used* (exploited) by this other." [_The Ego and Its Own_,
4473
p. 121] Kropotkin makes a similar argument against the division of
4474
labour ("machine-like labour") in _The Conquest of Bread_ (see chapter
4475
XV -- "The Division of Labour") as did Proudhon (see chapters III and
4476
IV of _System of Economical Contradictions_).
4477
4478
Modern industry is set up to ensure that workers do not become "masters"
4479
of their work but instead follow the orders of management. The evolution
4480
of technology lies in the relations of power within a society. This is
4481
because "the viability of a design is not simply a technical or even
4482
economic evaluation but rather a political one. A technology is deemed
4483
viable if it conforms to the existing relations of power." [David Noble,
4484
_Progress without People_, p. 63]
4485
4486
This process of controlling, restricting, and de-individualising labour
4487
is a key feature of capitalism. Work that is skilled and controlled by
4488
workers in empowering to them in two ways. Firstly it gives them pride
4489
in their work and themselves. Secondly, it makes it harder to replace
4490
them or suck profits out of them. Therefore, in order to remove the
4491
"subjective" factor (i.e. individuality and worker control) from the
4492
work process, capital needs methods of controlling the workforce to
4493
prevent workers from asserting their individuality, thus preventing
4494
them from arranging their own lives and work and resisting the
4495
authority of the bosses.
4496
4497
This need to control workers can be seen from the type of machinery
4498
introduced during the Industrial Revolution. According to Andrew Ure, a
4499
consultant for the factory owners, "[i]n the factories for spinning coarse
4500
yarn. . .the mule-spinners [skilled workers] have abused their powers
4501
beyond endurance, domineering in the most arrogant manner. . . over their
4502
masters. High wages. . . have, in too many cases, cherished pride and
4503
supplied funds for supporting refractory spirits in strikes. . . . During
4504
a disastrous turmoil of [this] kind. . . several capitalists. . . had
4505
recourse to the celebrated machinists. . . of Manchester. . . [to
4506
construct] a self-acting mule. . . . This invention confirms the great
4507
doctrine already propounded, that when capital enlists science in her
4508
service, the refractory hand of labour will always be taught docility"
4509
[Andrew Ure, _Philosophy of Manufactures_, pp. 336-368 -- quoted by
4510
Noble, Op. Cit., p. 125]
4511
4512
Why is it necessary for workers to be "taught docility"? Because "[b]y the
4513
infirmity of human nature, it happens that the more skilful the workman,
4514
the more self-willed and intractable he is apt to become, and of course
4515
the less fit a component of mechanical system in which . . . he may do
4516
great damage to the whole." [Ibid.] Proudhon quotes an English Manufacturer
4517
who argues the same point:
4518
4519
"The insubordination of our workmen has given us the idea of dispensing
4520
with them. We have made and stimulated every imaginable effort to replace
4521
the service of men by tools more docile, and we have achieved our object.
4522
Machinery has delivered capital from the oppression of labour." [_System
4523
of Economical Contradictions_, p. 189]
4524
4525
As David Noble summarises, during the Industrial Revolution "Capital
4526
invested in machines that would reinforce the system of domination
4527
[in the workplace], and this decision to invest, which might in the
4528
long run render the chosen technique economical, was not itself an
4529
economical decision but a political one, with cultural sanction."
4530
[Op. Cit., p. 6]
4531
4532
A similar process was at work in the US, where the rise in trade unionism
4533
resulted in "industrial managers bec[oming] even more insistent that skill
4534
and initiative not be left on the shop floor, and that, by the same token,
4535
shop floor workers not have control over the reproduction of relevant
4536
skills through craft-regulated apprenticeship training. Fearful that
4537
skilled shop-floor workers would use their scare resources to reduce
4538
their effort and increase their pay, management deemed that knowledge
4539
of the shop-floor process must reside with the managerial structure."
4540
[William Lazonick, _Organisation and Technology in Capitalist
4541
Development_, p. 273]
4542
4543
American managers happily embraced Taylorism (aka "scientific management"),
4544
according to which the task of the manager was to gather into his possession
4545
all available knowledge about the work he oversaw and reorganise it. Taylor
4546
himself considered the task for workers was "to do what they are told to
4547
do promptly and without asking questions or making suggestions." [quoted
4548
by David Noble, _American By Design_, p. 268] Taylor also relied exclusively
4549
upon incentive-pay schemes which mechanically linked pay to productivity
4550
and had no appreciation of the subtleties of psychology or sociology (which
4551
would have told him that enjoyment of work and creativity is more important
4552
for people than just higher pay). Unsurprisingly, workers responded to
4553
his schemes by insubordination, sabotage and strikes and it was "discovered
4554
. . . that the 'time and motion' experts frequently knew very little
4555
about the proper work activities under their supervision, that often they
4556
simply guessed at the optimum rates for given operations . . . it meant
4557
that the arbitrary authority of management has simply been reintroduced
4558
in a less apparent form." [David Noble, Op. Cit., p. 272] Although, now,
4559
the power of management could hide begin the "objectivity" of "science."
4560
4561
Katherine Stone also argues (in her account of "The Origins of Job Structure
4562
in the Steel Industry" in America) that the "transfer of skill [from the
4563
worker to management] was not a response to the necessities of production,
4564
but was, rather, a strategy to rob workers of their power" by "tak[ing]
4565
knowledge and authority from the skilled workers and creating a management
4566
cadre able to direct production." Stone highlights that this deskilling
4567
process was combined by a "divide and rule" policy by management by wage
4568
incentives and new promotion policies. This created a reward system in
4569
which workers who played by the rules would receive concrete gains in
4570
terms of income and status. Over time, such a structure would become
4571
to be seen as "the natural way to organise work and one which offered
4572
them personal advancement" even though, "when the system was set up,
4573
it was neither obvious nor rational. The job ladders were created just
4574
when the skill requirements for jobs in the industry were diminishing
4575
as a result of the new technology, and jobs were becoming more and more
4576
equal as to the learning time and responsibility involved." The modern
4577
structure of the capitalist workplace was created to break workers
4578
resistance to capitalist authority and was deliberately "aimed at altering
4579
workers' ways of thinking and feeling -- which they did by making workers'
4580
individual 'objective' self-interests congruent with that of the employers
4581
and in conflict with workers' collective self-interest." It was a means of
4582
"labour discipline" and of "motivating workers to work for the employers'
4583
gain and preventing workers from uniting to take back control of
4584
production." Stone notes that the "development of the new labour
4585
system in the steel industry was repeated throughout the economy in
4586
different industries. As in the steel industry, the core of these new
4587
labour systems were the creation of artificial job hierarchies and the
4588
transfer pf skills from workers to the managers." [Root & Branch (ed.),
4589
_Root and Branch: The Rise of the Workers' Movements_, pp. 152-5]
4590
4591
This process was recognised by libertarians at the time, with the I.W.W.,
4592
for example, arguing that "[l]abourers are no longer classified by difference
4593
in trade skill, but the employer assigns them according to the machine
4594
which they are attached. These divisions, far from representing differences
4595
in skill or interests among the labourers, are imposed by the employers
4596
that workers may be pitted against one another and spurred to greater
4597
exertion in the shop, and that all resistance to capitalist tyranny may
4598
be weakened by artificial distinctions." [quoted by Katherine Stone,
4599
Op. Cit., p. 157] For this reason, anarchists and syndicalists argued
4600
for, and built, industrial unions -- one union per workplace and industry
4601
tyranny.
4602
4603
Needless to say, such management schemes never last in the long run nor
4604
totally work in the short run either -- which explains why hierarchical
4605
management continues, as does technological deskilling (workers always
4606
find ways of using new technology to increase their power within the
4607
workplace and so undermine management decisions to their own advantage).
4608
4609
This of process deskilling workers was complemented by many factors -- state
4610
protected markets (in the form of tariffs and government orders -- the "lead
4611
in technological innovation came in armaments where assured government orders
4612
justified high fixed-cost investments"); the use of "both political and
4613
economic power [by American Capitalists] to eradicate and diffuse workers'
4614
attempts to assert shop-floor control"; and "repression, instigated and
4615
financed both privately and publicly, to eliminate radical elements [and
4616
often not-so-radical elements as well, we must note] in the American labour
4617
movement." [William Lazonick, _Competitive Advantage on the Shop Floor_,
4618
p. 218, p. 303]) Thus state action played a key role in destroying
4619
craft control within industry, along with the large financial resources
4620
of capitalists compared to workers.
4621
4622
Bringing this sorry story up to date, we find "many, if not most,
4623
American managers are reluctant to develop skills [and initiative]
4624
on the shop floor for the fear of losing control of the flow of
4625
work." [William Lazonick, _Organisation and Technology in Capitalist
4626
Development_, pp. 279-280] Given that there is a division of knowledge
4627
in society (and, obviously, in the workplace as well) this means that
4628
capitalism has selected to introduce a management and technology mix
4629
which leads to inefficiency and waste of valuable knowledge, experience
4630
and skills.
4631
4632
Thus the capitalist workplace is both produced by and is a weapon
4633
in the class struggle and reflects the shifting power relations
4634
between workers and employers. The creation of artificial job
4635
hierarchies, the transfer of skills away from workers to managers
4636
and technological development are all products of class struggle.
4637
Thus technological progress and workplace organisation within
4638
capitalism have little to do with "efficiency" and far more to
4639
do with profits and power.
4640
4641
This means that while self-management has consistently proven to
4642
be more efficient (and empowering) than hierarchical management
4643
structures (see section J.5.12), capitalism actively selects
4644
*against* it. This is because capitalism is motivated purely
4645
by increasing profits, and the maximisation of profits is best
4646
done by disempowering workers and empowering bosses (i.e. the
4647
maximisation of power) -- even though this concentration of power
4648
harms efficiency by distorting and restricting information flow
4649
and the gathering and use of widely distributed knowledge within
4650
the firm (as in any command economy) as well as having a serious
4651
impact on the wider economy and social efficiency.
4652
4653
Thus the last refuge of the capitalist/technophile (namely that the
4654
productivity gains of technology outweigh the human costs or the means
4655
used to achieve them) is doubly flawed. Firstly, disempowering technology
4656
may maximise profits, but it need not increase efficient utilisation of
4657
resources or workers time, skills or potential (and as we argue in greater
4658
detail later, in section J.5.12, efficiency and profit maximisation are two
4659
different things, with such deskilling and management control actually
4660
*reducing* efficiency -- compared to workers' control -- but as it allows
4661
managers to maximise profits the capitalist market selects it). Secondly,
4662
"when investment does in fact generate innovation, does such innovation yield
4663
greater productivity?. . . After conducting a poll of industry executives
4664
on trends in automation, _Business Week_ concluded in 1982 that 'there
4665
is a heavy backing for capital investment in a variety of labour-saving
4666
technologies that are designed to fatten profits without necessary
4667
adding to productive output.'" David Noble concludes that "whenever
4668
managers are able to use automation to 'fatten profits' and enhance their
4669
authority (by eliminating jobs and extorting concessions and obedience from
4670
the workers who remain) without at the same time increasing social product,
4671
they appear more than ready to do." [David Noble, _Progress Without People_,
4672
pp. 86-87 and p. 89]
4673
4674
Of course the claim is that higher wages follow increased investment and
4675
technological innovation ("in the long run" -- although usually "the long
4676
run" has to be helped to arrive by workers' struggle and protest!). Passing
4677
aside the question of whether slightly increased consumption really makes
4678
up for dehumanising and uncreative work, we must note that it is usually
4679
the capitalist who *really* benefits from technological change in money
4680
terms. For example, between 1920 and 1927 (a period when unemployment
4681
caused by technology became commonplace) the automobile industry (which was
4682
at the forefront of technological change) saw wages rise by 23.7%. Thus,
4683
claim supporters of capitalism, technology is in all our interests. However,
4684
capital surpluses rose by 192.9% during the same period -- 8 times faster!
4685
Little wonder wages rose! Similarly, over the last 20 years the USA and
4686
many other countries have seen companies "down-sizing" and "right-sizing"
4687
their workforce and introducing new technologies. The result? Simply
4688
put, the 1970s saw the start of "no-wage growth expansions." Before
4689
the early 1970s, "real wage growth tracked the growth of productivity
4690
and production in the economy overall. After . . ., they ceased to do
4691
so. . . Real wage growth fell sharply below measured productivity growth."
4692
[James K. Galbraith, _Created Unequal_, p. 79] So while real wages have
4693
stagnated, profits have been increasing as productivity rises and the
4694
rich have been getting richer -- technology yet again showing whose
4695
side it is on.
4696
4697
Overall, as David Noble notes (with regards to manufacturing):
4698
4699
"U.S. Manufacturing industry over the last thirty years . . . [has
4700
seen] the value of capital stock (machinery) relative to labour
4701
double, reflecting the trend towards mechanisation and automation.
4702
As a consequence . . . the absolute output person hour increased
4703
115%, more than double. But during this same period, real earnings
4704
for hourly workers . . . rose only 84%, less than double. Thus, after
4705
three decades of automation-based progress, workers are now earning
4706
less relative to their output than before. That is, they are producing
4707
more for less; working more for their boss and less for themselves."
4708
[Op. Cit., pp. 92-3]
4709
4710
Noble continues:
4711
4712
"For if the impact of automation on workers has not been ambiguous,
4713
neither has the impact on management and those it serves -- labour's
4714
loss has been their gain. During the same first thirty years of our
4715
age of automation, corporate after tax profits have increased 450%,
4716
more than five times the increase in real earnings for workers."
4717
[Op. Cit., p. 95]
4718
4719
But why? Because labour has the ability to produce a flexible amount
4720
of output (use value) for a given wage. Unlike coal or steel, a worker
4721
can be made to work more intensely during a given working period and
4722
so technology can be utilised to maximise that effort as well as
4723
increasing the pool of potential replacements for an employee by
4724
deskilling their work (so reducing workers' power to get higher
4725
wages for their work). Thus technology is a key way of increasing
4726
the power of the boss, which in turn can increase output per worker
4727
while ensuring that the workers' receive relatively less of that output
4728
back in terms of wages -- "Machines," argued Proudhon, "promised us an
4729
increase of wealth they have kept their word, but at the same time
4730
endowing us with an increase of poverty. They promised us liberty. . .
4731
[but] have brought us slavery." [Op. Cit., p. 199]
4732
4733
But do not get us wrong, technological progress does not imply that
4734
we are victims. Far from it, much innovation is the direct result
4735
of our resistance to hierarchy and its tools. For example, capitalists
4736
turned to Taylorism and "scientific management" in response to
4737
the power of skilled craft workers to control their work and working
4738
environment (the famous 1892 Homestead strike, for example, was a
4739
direct product of the desire of the company to end the skilled workers'
4740
control and power on the shop-floor). In response to this, factory
4741
and other workers created a whole new structure of working class
4742
power -- a new kind of unionism based on the industrial level. This
4743
can be seen in many different countries. For example, in Spain, the
4744
C.N.T. (an anarcho-syndicalist union) adopted the *sindicato unico*
4745
(one union) in 1918 which united all workers of the same workplace
4746
in the same union (by uniting skilled and unskilled in a single
4747
organisation, the union increased their fighting power). In the UK,
4748
the shop stewards movement arose during the first world war based on
4749
workplace organisation (a movement inspired by the pre-war syndicalist
4750
revolt and which included many syndicalist activists). This movement
4751
was partly in response to the reformist TUC unions working with the
4752
state during the war to suppress class struggle. In Germany, the
4753
1919 near revolution saw the creation of revolutionary workplace unions
4754
and councils (and a large increase in the size of the anarcho-syndicalist
4755
union FAU which was organised by industry). In the USA, the 1930s saw a
4756
massive and militant union organising drive by the C.I.O. based on
4757
industrial unionism and collective bargaining (inspired, in part, by
4758
the example of the I.W.W. and its broad organisation of unskilled
4759
workers).
4760
4761
More recently, workers in the 1960s and 70s responded to the
4762
increasing reformism and bureaucratic nature of such unions as
4763
the CIO and TUC by organising themselves directly on the shop
4764
floor to control their work and working conditions. This informal
4765
movement expressed itself in wildcat strikes against both unions
4766
and management, sabotage and unofficial workers' control of production
4767
(see John Zerzan's essay "Organised Labour and the Revolt Against
4768
Work" in _Elements of Refusal_). In the UK, the shop stewards'
4769
movement revived itself, organising much of the unofficial strikes
4770
and protests which occurred in the 1960s and 70s. A similar
4771
tendency was seen in many countries during this period.
4772
4773
So in response to a new developments in technology and workplace
4774
organisation, workers' developed new forms of resistance which
4775
in turn provokes a response by management. Thus technology and
4776
its (ab)uses is very much a product of the class struggle, of
4777
the struggle for freedom in the workplace.
4778
4779
With a given technology, workers and radicals soon learn to
4780
resist it and, sometimes, use it in ways never dreamed off to
4781
resist their bosses and the state (which necessitates a transformation
4782
of within technology again to try and give the bosses an upper hand!).
4783
The use of the Internet, for example, to organise, spread and co-ordinate
4784
information, resistance and struggles is a classic example of this
4785
process (see Jason Wehling, "'Netwars' and Activists Power on the
4786
Internet", _Scottish Anarchist_ no. 2 for details). There is
4787
always a "guerrilla war" associated with technology, with workers
4788
and radicals developing their own tactics to gain counter control
4789
for themselves. Thus much technological change reflects *our*
4790
power and activity to change our own lives and working conditions.
4791
We must never forget that.
4792
4793
While some may dismiss our analysis as "Luddite," to do so is
4794
make "technology" an idol to be worshipped rather than something
4795
to be critically analysed. Moreover, to do so is to misrepresent
4796
the ideas of the Luddites themselves -- they never actually opposed
4797
*all* technology or machinery. Rather, they opposed "all Machinery
4798
hurtful to Commonality" (as a March 1812 letter to a hated Manufacturer
4799
put it). Rather than worship technological progress (or view it
4800
uncritically), the Luddites subjected technology to critical analysis
4801
and evaluation. They opposed those forms of machinery that harmed
4802
themselves or society. Unlike those who smear others as "Luddites,"
4803
the labourers who broke machines were not intimidated by the modern
4804
notion of progress. Their sense of right and wrong was not clouded
4805
by the notion that technology was somehow inevitable or neutral.
4806
They did not think that *human* values (or their own interests)
4807
were irrelevant in evaluating the benefits and drawbacks of a given
4808
technology and its effects on workers and society as a whole. Nor
4809
did they consider their skills and livelihood as less important
4810
than the profits and power of the capitalists. In other words,
4811
they would have agreed with Proudhon's comment that machinery
4812
"plays the leading role in industry, man is secondary" *and* they
4813
acted to change this relationship. [Op. Cit., p. 204] Indeed,
4814
it would be temping to argue that worshippers of technological
4815
progress are, in effect, urging us *not* to think and to sacrifice
4816
ourselves to a new abstraction like the state or capital. The Luddites
4817
were an example of working people deciding what their interests were
4818
and acting to defend them by their own direct action -- in this case
4819
opposing technology which benefited the ruling class by giving them
4820
an edge in the class struggle. Anarchists follow this critical
4821
approach to technology, recognising that it is not neutral nor
4822
above criticism.
4823
4824
For capital, the source of problems in industry is people. Unlike
4825
machines, people can think, feel, dream, hope and act. The "evolution" of
4826
technology will, therefore, reflect the class struggle within society and
4827
the struggle for liberty against the forces of authority. Technology, far
4828
from being neutral, reflects the interests of those with power. Technology
4829
will only be truly our friend once we control it ourselves and *modify*
4830
to reflect *human* values (this may mean that some forms of technology
4831
will have to be written off and replaces by new forms in a free society).
4832
Until that happens, most technological processes -- regardless of the other
4833
advantages they may have -- will be used to exploit and control people.
4834
4835
Thus Proudhon's comments that "in the present condition of society,
4836
the workshop with its hierarchical organisation, and machinery" could
4837
only serve "exclusively the interests of the least numerous, the least
4838
industrious, and the wealthiest class" rather than "be employed for the
4839
benefit of all." [Op. Cit., p. 205]
4840
4841
While resisting technological "progress" (by means up to and including
4842
machine breaking) is essential in the here and now, the issue of
4843
technology can only be truly solved when those who use a given
4844
technology control its development, introduction and use. Little
4845
wonder, therefore, that anarchists consider workers' self-management
4846
as a key means of solving the problems created by technology. Proudhon,
4847
for example, argued that the solution to the problems created by the
4848
division of labour and technology could only be solved by "association",
4849
and "by a broad education, by the obligation of apprenticeship, and by
4850
the co-operation of all who take part in the collective work." This
4851
would ensure that "the division of labour can no longer be a cause of
4852
degradation for the workman [or workwoman]." [_The General Idea of the
4853
Revolution_, p. 223]
4854
4855
While as far as technology goes, it may not be enough to get rid of
4856
the boss, this is a necessary first step in creating a technology which
4857
enhances freedom rather than controlling and shaping the worker (or user
4858
in general) and enhancing the power and profits of the capitalist (see
4859
also section I.4.9 -- Should technological advance be seen as
4860
anti-anarchistic?).
4861
4862
D.11 What causes justifications for racism to appear?
4863
4864
The tendency toward social breakdown which is inherent in the growth of
4865
wealth polarisation, as discussed in section D.9, is also producing a growth
4866
in racism in the countries affected. As we have seen, social breakdown leads
4867
to the increasingly authoritarian government prompted by the need of the
4868
ruling class to contain protest and civil unrest among those at the
4869
bottom of the wealth pyramid. In the US those in the lowest economic
4870
strata belong mostly to racial minorities, while in several European
4871
countries there are growing populations of impoverished minorities
4872
from the Third World, often from former colonies. The desire of the
4873
more affluent strata to justify their superior economic positions
4874
is, as one would expect, causing racially based theories of privilege
4875
to become more popular.
4876
4877
That racist feelings are gaining strength in America is evidenced by the
4878
increasing political influence of the Far Right, whose thinly disguised
4879
racism reflects the darkening vision of a growing segment of the
4880
conservative community. Further evidence can be seen in the growth of
4881
ultraconservative extremist groups preaching avowedly racist philosophies,
4882
such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nations, the White Aryan Resistance,
4883
and others [see James Ridgeway, _Blood in the Face: The Ku Klux Klan,
4884
Aryan Nations, Nazi Skinheads, and the Rise of a New White Culture_,
4885
Thunder's Mouth Press, 1990]. Thus, American Politicians and organisers
4886
such as Pat Buchanan, David Duke, and Ralph Metzger have been able to
4887
exploit the budding racism of lower- and middle-class white youths, who
4888
must compete for increasingly scarce jobs with desperate minorities who
4889
are willing to work at very low wages. The expanding popularity of such
4890
racist groups in the US is matched by a similar phenomenon in Europe,
4891
where xenophobia and a weak economy have propelled extreme right-wing
4892
politicians into the limelight on promises to deport foreigners.
4893
4894
Most conservative US politicians have taken pains to distance themselves
4895
officially from the Far Right. Yet during the 1992 presidential campaign,
4896
mainstream conservative politicians used code words and innuendo ("welfare
4897
queens," "quotas," etc.) to convey a thinly veiled racist message.
4898
David Duke's candidacy for the governorship of Louisiana in 1991 and for
4899
the presidency in 1992, as well as the Republican Convention speeches of
4900
Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson, reflected the increasing influence of the
4901
Far Right in American politics. More recently there has been Proposition
4902
187 in California, targeting illegal immigrants.
4903
4904
What easier way is there to divert people's anger than onto scapegoats?
4905
Anger about bad housing, no housing, boring work, no work, bad wages and
4906
conditions, job insecurity, no future, and so on. Instead of attacking the
4907
real causes of these (and other) problems, people are encouraged to direct
4908
their anger against people who face the same problems just because they
4909
have a different skin colour or come from a different part of the world!
4910
Little wonder politicians and their rich backers like to play the racist
4911
card -- it diverts attention away from them and the system they run (i.e.
4912
the *real* causes of our problems).
4913
4914
Racism, in other words, tries to turn class hatred into race hatred.
4915
Little wonder that sections of the ruling elite will turn to it, as
4916
and when required. Their class interests (and, often, their personal
4917
bigotry) requires them to do so -- a divided working class will never
4918
challenge their position in society.
4919
4920
Therefore, justifications for racism appear for two reasons. Firstly,
4921
to try and justify the existing inequalities within society (for example,
4922
the infamous -- and highly inaccurate -- "Bell Curve" and related works).
4923
Secondly, to divide the working class and divert anger about living
4924
conditions and social problems away from the ruling elite and their
4925
system onto scapegoats in our own class.
4926
4927
D.11.1 Does free market ideology play a part in racist tendencies to increase?
4928
4929
The most important factor in the right-wing resurgence in the US has been
4930
the institutionalisation of the Reagan-Bush brand of conservatism, whose
4931
hallmark was the reinstatement, to some degree, of laissez-faire economic
4932
policies (and, to an even larger degree, of laissez-faire rhetoric). A
4933
"free market," Reagan's economic "experts" argued, necessarily produced
4934
inequality; but by allowing unhindered market forces to select the
4935
economically fittest and to weed out the unfit, the economy would become
4936
healthy again. The wealth of those who survived and prospered in the
4937
harsh new climate would ultimately benefit the less fortunate, through
4938
a "trickle-down" effect which was supposed to create millions of new
4939
high-paying jobs.
4940
4941
All this would be accomplished by deregulating business, reducing taxes
4942
on the wealthy, and dismantling or drastically cutting back federal
4943
programmes designed to promote social equality, fairness, and compassion.
4944
The aptly named Laffer Curve illustrated how cutting taxes actually *raises*
4945
government revenue. In actuality, and unsurprisingly, the opposite happened,
4946
with wealth flooding upwards and the creation of low-paying, dead-end jobs.
4947
(the biggest "Laffers" in this scenario were the ruling class, who saw
4948
unprecedented gains in wealth at the expense of the rest of us).
4949
4950
The Reaganites' doctrine of inequality gave the official seal of approval
4951
to ideas of racial superiority that right-wing extremists had used for
4952
years to rationalise the exploitation of minorities. If, on average, blacks
4953
and Hispanics earn only about half as much as whites; if more than a
4954
third of all blacks and a quarter of all Hispanics lived below the poverty
4955
line; if the economic gap between whites and non-whites was growing --
4956
well, that just proved that there was a racial component in the
4957
Social-Darwinian selection process, showing that minorities "deserved"
4958
their poverty and lower social status because they were "less fit."
4959
4960
In the words of left-liberal economist James K. Galbraith:
4961
4962
"What the economists did, in effect, was to reason backward, from the
4963
troublesome effect to a cause that would rationalise and justify it
4964
. . . [I]t is the work of the efficient market [they argued], and the
4965
fundamental legitimacy of the outcome is not supposed to be questioned.
4966
4967
"The *apologia* is a dreadful thing. It has distorted our understanding,
4968
twisted our perspective, and crabbed our politics. On the right, as one
4969
might expect, the winners on the expanded scale of wealth and incomes are
4970
given a reason for self-satisfaction and an excuse for gloating. Their
4971
gains are due to personal merit, the application of high intelligence,
4972
and the smiles of fortune. Those on the loosing side are guilty of sloth,
4973
self-indulgence, and whining. Perhaps they have bad culture. Or perhaps
4974
they have bad genes. While no serious economist would make that last
4975
leap into racist fantasy, the underlying structure of the economists'
4976
argument has undoubtedly helped to legitimise, before a larger public,
4977
those who promote such ideas." [_Created Unequal: The Crisis in American
4978
Pay_, p. 264]
4979
4980
The logical corollary of this social Darwinism is that whites who are
4981
"less fit" (i.e., poor) also deserve their poverty. But philosophies of
4982
racial hatred are not necessarily consistent. Thus the ranks of white
4983
supremacist organisations have been swollen in recent years by
4984
undereducated and underemployed white youths frustrated by a declining
4985
industrial labour market and a noticeably eroding social status [Ridgeway,
4986
Ibid., p.186]. Rather than drawing the logical Social-Darwinian
4987
conclusion -- that they too are "inferior" -- they have instead blamed
4988
blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and Jews for "unfairly" taking their jobs.
4989
Thus the neo-Nazi skinheads, for example, have been mostly recruited from
4990
disgruntled working-class whites below the age of 30. This has provided
4991
leaders of right-wing extremist groups with a growing base of potential
4992
storm troopers.
4993
4994
Therefore, laissez-faire ideology helps create a social environment in
4995
which racist tendencies can increase. Firstly, it does so by increasing
4996
poverty, job insecurity, inequality and so on which right-wing groups
4997
can use to gather support by creating scapegoats in our own class to
4998
blame (for example, by blaming poverty on blacks "taking our jobs" rather
4999
than capitalists moving their capital to other, more profitable, countries
5000
or them cutting wages and conditions for *all* workers -- and as we
5001
point out in section B.1.4, racism, by dividing the working class,
5002
makes poverty and inequality *worse* and so is self-defeating). Secondly,
5003
it abets racists by legitimising the notions that inequalities in pay
5004
and wealth are due to racial differences rather than a hierarchical system
5005
which harms *all* working class people (and uses racism to divide, and
5006
so weaken, the oppressed). By pointing to individuals rather than to
5007
institutions, organisations, customs, history and above all power -- the
5008
relative power between workers and capitalists, citizens and the state,
5009
the market power of big business, etc. -- laissez-faire ideology points
5010
analysis into a dead-end as well as apologetics for the wealthy, apologetics
5011
which can be, and are, utilised by racists to justify their evil politics.
5012
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