4
<title>D.9 Why does political power become concentrated under capitalism?</title>
9
<h1>D.9 Why does political power become concentrated under capitalism?</h1>
12
Under capitalism, political power tends to become concentrated in the
13
executive branch of government, along with a corresponding decline in
14
the effectiveness of parliamentary institutions. As Kropotkin discussed
15
in his account of <i>"Representative Government,"</i> parliaments grew out of
16
the struggle of capitalists against the power of centralised monarchies
17
during the early modern period. This meant that the function of
18
parliaments was to check and control the exercise of executive power
19
when it was controlled by another class (namely the aristocracy and
20
landlords). The role of Parliaments flourished and reached the peak
21
of their prestige in the struggle against the monarchy and immediately
24
With the end of absolute monarchy, legislatures become battlegrounds of
25
contending parties, divided by divergent class and group interests. This
26
reduces their capacity for positive action, particularly when struggle
27
outside parliament is pressurising representatives to take some interest
28
in public concerns. The ruling class also needs a strong centralised state
29
that can protect its interests internally and externally and which can
30
ignore both popular demands and the vested interests of specific sections
31
of the dominant economic and social elites in order to pursue policies
32
required to keep the system as a whole going. This means that there will
33
be a tendency for Parliaments to give up its prerogatives, building up a
34
centralised and uncontrolled authority in the form of an empowered
35
executive against which, ironically, it had fought against at its birth.
37
This process can be seen clearly in the history of the United States.
38
Since World War II, power has become centralised in the hands of the
39
president to such an extent that some scholars now refer to an <i>"imperial
40
presidency,"</i> following Arthur Schlesinger's 1973 book of that title.
41
In the UK, Prime Minister Tony Blair has been repeatedly criticised
42
for his <i>"presidential"</i> form of government, while Parliament has been
43
repeatedly side-tracked. This builds on tendencies which flow back
44
to, at least, the Thatcher government which started the neo-liberal
45
transformation of the UK with its associated rise in inequality,
46
social polarisation and increases in state centralisation and
49
Contemporary US presidents' appropriation of congressional authority,
50
especially in matters relating to national security, has paralleled the
51
rise of the United States as the world's strongest and most imperialistic
52
military power. In the increasingly dangerous and interdependent world
53
of the 20th century, the perceived need for a leader who can act quickly
54
and decisively, without possibly disastrous obstruction by Congress, has
55
provided an impetus for ever greater concentration of power in the
56
White House. This concentration has taken place in both foreign and
57
domestic policy, but it has been catalysed above all by a series of
58
foreign policy decisions in which modern US presidents have seized the
59
most vital of all government powers, the power to make war. For example,
60
President Truman decided to commit troops in Korea without prior
61
congressional approval while the Eisenhower Administration established
62
a system of pacts and treaties with nations all over the globe, making
63
it difficult for Congress to limit the President's deployment of troops
64
according to the requirements of treaty obligations and national security,
65
both of which were left to presidential judgement. The CIA, a secretive
66
agency accountable to Congress only after the fact, was made the primary
67
instrument of US intervention in the internal affairs of other nations
68
for national security reasons. This process of executive control over
69
war reached a peak post-911, with Bush's nonsense of a <i>"pre-emptive"</i>
70
war and public acknowledgement of a long standing US policy that the
71
Commander-in-Chief was authorised to take "defensive" war measures
72
without congressional approval or UN authorisation.
74
And as they have continued to commit troops to war without congressional
75
authorisation or genuine public debate, the President's unilateral
76
policy-making has spilled over into domestic affairs as well. Most
77
obviously, thanks to Bush I and Clinton, important economic treaties
78
(like GATT and NAFTA) can be rammed through Congress as <i>"fast-track"</i>
79
legislation, which limits the time allowed for debate and forbids
80
amendments. Thanks to Jimmy Carter, who reformed the Senior Executive
81
Service to give the White House more control over career bureaucrats,
82
and Ronald Reagan, who politicised the upper levels of the executive
83
branch to an unprecedented degree, presidents can now pack government
84
with their spoilsmen and reward partisan bureaucrats (the lack of
85
response by FEMA during the Katrina hurricane is an example of this).
86
Thanks to the first Bush, presidents now have a powerful new technique
87
to enhance presidential prerogatives and erode the intent of Congress even
88
further -- namely, signing laws while announcing that they will not obey
89
them. Fifth, thanks also to Bush, yet another new instrument of arbitrary
90
presidential power has been created: the "tsar," a presidential appointee
91
with vague, sweeping charges that overlap with or supersede the powers of
92
department heads. [Michael Lind, <i>"The Case for Congressional Power: the
93
Out-of-Control Presidency,"</i> <b>The New Republic</b>, Aug. 14, 1995]
95
Thus we find administrations bypassing or weakening official government
96
agencies or institutions to implement policies that are not officially
97
permitted. In the US, the Reagan Administration's Iran-Contra affair is
98
an example. During that episode the National Security Council, an arm
99
of the executive branch, secretly funded the Contras, a mercenary
100
counter-revolutionary force in Central America, in direct violation of
101
the Boland Amendment which Congress had passed for the specific purpose
102
of prohibiting such funding. Then there is the weakening of government
103
agencies to the point where they can no longer effectively carry out
104
their mandate. Reagan's tenure in the White House again provides a
105
number of examples. The Environmental Protection Agency, for instance,
106
was for all practical purposes neutralised when employees dedicated to
107
genuine environmental protection were removed and replaced with people
108
loyal to corporate polluters. Such detours around the law are deliberate
109
policy tools that allow presidents to exercise much more actual power
110
than they appear to have on paper. Finally, the President's authority
111
to determine foreign and domestic policy through National Security
112
Directives that are kept secret from Congress and the American people.
113
Such NSDs cover a virtually unlimited field of actions, shaping policy
114
that may be radically different from what is stated publicly by the
115
White House and involving such matters as interference with First
116
Amendment rights, initiation of activities that could lead to war,
117
escalation of military conflicts, and even the commitment of billions
118
of dollars in loan guarantees -- all without congressional approval or
121
President Clinton's use of an Executive Order to bail out Mexico from
122
its debt crisis after Congress failed to appropriate the money falls
123
right into the authoritarian tradition of running the country by fiat,
124
a process which accelerated with his successor George Bush (in keeping
125
with the general tendencies of Republican administrations in particular).
126
The second Bush took this disdain for democracy and the law even further.
127
His administration has tried to roll back numerous basic liberties and
128
rights as well. He has sought to strip people accused of crimes of rights
129
that date as far back as the Magna Carta in Anglo-American jurisprudence:
130
elimination of presumption of innocence, keeping suspects in indefinite
131
imprisonment, ending trial by impartial jury, restricting access to lawyers
132
and knowledge of evidence and charges against the accused. He has regularly
133
stated when signing legislation that he will assert the right to ignore
134
those parts of laws with which he disagrees. His administration has
135
adopted policies which have ignored the Geneva Convention (labelled
136
as <i>"quaint"</i>) and publicly tolerated torture of suspects and prisoners
137
of war. That this underlying authoritarianism of politicians is often
138
belied by their words should go without saying (an obvious fact, somehow
139
missed by the mainstream media, which made satire redundant in the case
142
Not that this centralisation of powers has bothered the representatives
143
whom are being disempowered by it. Quite the reverse. This is unsurprising,
144
for under a leader which <i>"guarantees 'order' -- that is to say internal
145
exploitation and external expansion -- than the parliament submits to all
146
his caprices and arms him with ever new powers . . . That is understandable:
147
all government has tendency to become personal since that is its origin and
148
its essence . . . it will always search for the man on whom it can unload
149
the cares of government and to whom in turn it will submit. As long as we
150
confide to a small group all the economic, political, military, financial
151
and industrial prerogatives with which we arm them today, this small group
152
will necessarily be inclined . . . to submit to a single chief."</i>
153
[Kropotkin, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 128] As such, there are institutional forces at
154
work within the government organisational structure which encourage these
155
tendencies and as long as they find favour with business interests they
156
will not be challenged.
158
This is a key factor, of course. If increased authoritarianism and
159
concentration of decision making were actually harming the interests of
160
the economically dominant elite then more concern would be expressed
161
about them in what passes for public discourse. However, the reduction
162
of democratic processes fits in well with the neo-liberal agenda (and,
163
indeed, this agenda dependent on it). As Chomsky notes, <i>"democracy reduces
164
to empty form"</i> when the votes of the general public votes no impact or
165
role in determining economic and social development. In other words,
166
<i>"neoliberal reforms are antithetical to promotion of democracy. They
167
are not designed to shrink the state, as often asserted, but to
168
strengthen state institutions to serve even more than before the
169
needs of the substantial people."</i> This has seen <i>"extensive gerrymandering
170
to prevent competition for seats in the House, the most democratic of
171
government institutions and therefore the most worrisome,"</i> while congress
172
has been <i>"geared to implementing the pro-business policies"</i> and the
173
White House has been reconstructed into top-down systems, in a
174
similar way to that of a corporation (<i>"In structure, the political
175
counterpart to a corporation is a totalitarian state."</i>) [<b>Op. Cit.</b>,
176
p. 218, p. 237 and p. 238]
178
The aim is to exclude the general politic from civil society,
179
creating Locke's system of rule by property owners only. As one
180
expert (and critic) on Locke argues in his scheme, the <i>"labouring
181
class, being without estate, are subject to, but not full members
182
of civil society"</i> and the <i>"right to rule (more accurately, the right
183
to control any government) is given to men of estate only."</i> The
184
working class will be in but not part of civil society in the same
185
way that they are in but not part of a company. The labouring class
186
may do the actual work in a capitalist firm, but they <i>"cannot take
187
part in the operation of the company at the same level as the owners."</i>
188
Thus the ideal (classical) "liberal" state is a <i>"joint-stock company
189
of owners whose majority decision binds not only themselves but also
190
their employees."</i> [C. B. MacPherson, <b>The Political Theory of
191
Possessive Individualism</b>, p. 248, p. 249 and p. 251] The aim of
192
significant sections of the right and the ruling class is to achieve
193
this goal within the context of a nominally democratic state which,
194
on paper, allows significant civil liberties but which, in practice,
195
operates like a corporation. Liberty for the many will be reduced to
196
market forms, the ability to buy and sell, within the rules designed
197
by and for the property owners. Centralised state power within an
198
overall authoritarian social culture is the best way to achieve this
201
It should be stressed that the rise of inequality and centralised
202
state power has came about by design, not by accident. Both
203
trends delight the rich and the right, whose aim has always been
204
to exclude the general population from the public sphere, eliminate
205
taxation on wealth and income derived from owning it and roll back
206
the limited reforms the general population have won over the years.
207
In his book <b>Post-Conservative America</b> Kevin Phillips, one of the
208
most knowledgeable and serious conservative ideologues, discusses the
209
possibility of fundamental alterations that he regards as desirable in the
210
US government. His proposals leave no doubt about the direction in which
211
the Right wishes to proceed. <i>"Governmental power is too diffused to make
212
difficult and necessary economic and technical decisions,"</i> Phillips
213
maintains. <i>"[A]ccordingly, the nature of that power must be re-thought.
214
Power at the federal level must be augmented, and lodged for the most part
215
in the executive branch."</i> [p. 218] He assures us that all the changes
216
he envisions can be accomplished without altering the Constitution.
218
As one moderate British Conservative MP has documented, the "free-market"
219
Conservative Thatcher government of the 1980s increased centralisation of
220
power and led a sustained <i>"assault on local government."</i> One key reason
221
was <i>"dislike of opposition"</i> which applied to <i>"intermediate institutions"</i>
222
between the individual and the state. These <i>"were despised and disliked
223
because they got in the way of 'free-market forces' . . . and were liable
224
to disagree with Thatcherite policies."</i> Indeed, they simply abolished
225
elected local governments (like the Greater London Council) which were
226
opposed to the policies of the central government. They controlled the
227
rest by removing their power to raise their own funds, which destroyed
228
their local autonomy. The net effect of neo-liberal reforms was that
229
Britain became <i>"ever more centralised"</i> and local government was
230
<i>"fragmenting and weakening."</i> [<b>Dancing with Dogma</b>, p. 261, p. 262
233
This reversal of what, traditionally, conservatives and even
234
liberals had argued had its roots in the "free market" capitalist
235
ideology. For <i>"[n]othing is to stand in the way of the free
236
market, and no such fripperies as democratic votes are to be
237
allowed to upset it. The unadulterated free market is unalterable,
238
and those who dislike it or suffer from it must learn to put
239
up with it. In Rousseau's language, they must be forced to
240
be free."</i> as such there was <i>"no paradox"</i> to the <i>"Thatcherite
241
devotion to both the free market and a strong state"</i> as the
242
<i>"establishment of individualism and a free-market state is
243
an unbending if not dictatorial venture which demands the
244
prevention of collective action and the submission of
245
dissenting institutions and individuals."</i> Thus rhetoric
246
about "liberty" and rolling back the state can easily be
247
<i>"combined in practice with centralisation and the expansion
248
of the state's frontiers."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 273-4 and p. 273]
249
A similar process occurred under Reagan in America.
251
As Chomsky stresses, the <i>"antidemocratic thrust has precedents,
252
of course, but is reaching new heights"</i> under the current set of
253
<i>"reactionary statists"</i> who <i>"are dedicated warriors. With consistency
254
and passion that approach caricature, their policies serve the serve
255
the substantial people -- in fact, an unusually narrow sector of
256
them -- and disregard or harm the underlying population and future
257
generations. They are also seeking to use their current opportunities
258
to institutionalise these arrangements, so that it will be no small
259
task to reconstruct a more humane and democratic society."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>,
260
p. 238 and p. 236] As we noted in <a href="secD1.html">section D.1</a>, the likes of Reagan,
261
Thatcher and Bush do not appear by accident. They and the policies
262
they implement reflect the interests of significant sectors of the
263
ruling elite and their desires. These will not disappear if different,
264
more progressive sounding, politicians are elected. Nor will the nature
265
of the state machine and its bureaucracy, nor will the workings and
266
needs of the capitalist economy.
268
This helps explains why the distinctions between the two major parties
269
in the US have been, to a large extent, virtually obliterated. Each is
270
controlled by the corporate elite, albeit by different factions within it.
271
Despite many tactical and verbal disagreements, virtually all members of
272
this elite share a basic set of principles, attitudes, ideals, and values.
273
Whether Democrat or Republican, most of them have graduated from the same
274
Ivy League schools, belong to the same exclusive social clubs, serve on the
275
same interlocking boards of directors of the same major corporations, and
276
send their children to the same private boarding schools (see G. William
277
Domhoff, <b>Who Rules America Now?</b> and C. Wright Mills, <b>The Power Elite</b>).
278
Perhaps most importantly, they share the same psychology, which means
279
that they have the same priorities and interests: namely, those of
280
corporate America. That the Democrats are somewhat more dependent and
281
responsive to progressive working class people while the Republicans
282
are beholden to the rich and sections of the religious right come election
283
time should not make us confuse rhetoric with the reality of policies
284
pursued and underlying common assumptions and interests.
286
This means that in the USA there is really only one party -- the Business
287
Party -- which wears two different masks to hide its real face from the
288
public. Similar remarks apply to the liberal democratic regimes in the
289
rest of the advanced capitalist states. In the UK, Blair's "New Labour"
290
has taken over the mantle of Thatcherism and have implemented policies
291
based on its assumptions. Unsurprisingly, it received the backing of
292
numerous right-wing newspapers as well as funding from wealthy
293
individuals. In other words, the UK system has mutated into a more
294
US style one of two Business parties one of which gets more trade
295
union support than the other (needless to say, it is unlikely that
296
Labour will be changing its name to "Capital" unless forced to by
297
the trading standards office nor does it look likely that the trade
298
union bureaucracy will reconsider their funding in spite of the fact
299
New Labour simply ignored them when not actually attacking them!).
300
The absence of a true opposition party, which itself is a main
301
characteristic of authoritarian regimes, is thus an accomplished
302
fact already, and has been so for many years.
304
Besides the reasons noted above, another cause of increasing political
305
centralisation under capitalism is that industrialisation forces masses of
306
people into alienated wage slavery, breaking their bonds to other people,
307
to the land, and to tradition, which in turn encourages strong central
308
governments to assume the role of surrogate parent and to provide
309
direction for their citizens in political, intellectual, moral, and even
310
spiritual matters. (see Hannah Arendt, <b>The Origins of Totalitarianism</b>).
311
And as Marilyn French emphasises in <b>Beyond Power</b>, the growing
312
concentration of political power in the capitalist state can also be
313
attributed to the form of the corporation, which is a microcosm of
314
the authoritarian state, since it is based on centralised authority,
315
bureaucratic hierarchy, antidemocratic controls, and lack of individual
316
initiative and autonomy. Thus the millions of people who work for large
317
corporations tend automatically to develop the psychological traits
318
needed to survive and "succeed" under authoritarian rule: notably,
319
obedience, conformity, efficiency, subservience, and fear of responsibility.
320
The political system naturally tends to reflect the psychological conditions
321
created at the workplace, where most people spend about half their time.
323
Reviewing such trends, Marxist Ralph Miliband concludes that <i>"it points
324
in the direction of a regime in which democratic forms have ceased to
325
provide effective constraints upon state power."</i> The <i>"distribution of
326
power"</i> will become <i>"more unequal"</i> and so <i>"[h]owever strident the
327
rhetoric of democracy and popular sovereignty may be, and despite the
328
'populist' overtones which politics must now incorporate, the trend is
329
toward the ever-greater appropriation of power at the top."</i> [<b>Divided
330
Societies</b>, p. 166 and p. 204] As such, this reduction in genuine
331
liberty, democracy and growth in executive power does not flow simply
332
from the intentions of a few bad apples. Rather, they reflect economic
333
developments, the needs of the system as a whole plus the pressures
334
associated with the way specific institutions are structured and
335
operate as well as the need to exclude, control and marginalise the
336
general population. Thus while we can struggle and resist specific
337
manifestations of this process, we need to fight and eliminate their
338
root causes within capitalism and statism themselves if we want to
339
turn them back and, eventually, end them.
341
This increase in centralised and authoritarian rule may not result in
342
obvious elimination of such basic rights as freedom of speech. However,
343
this is due to the success of the project to reduce genuine freedom
344
and democracy rather than its failure. If the general population are
345
successfully marginalised and excluded from the public sphere (i.e.
346
turned into Locke's system of being within but not part of a society)
347
then a legal framework which recognises civil liberties would still
348
be maintained. That most basic liberties would remain relatively intact
349
and that most radicals will remain unmolested would be a testimony to
350
the lack of power possessed by the public at large in the existing
351
system. That is, countercultural movements need not be a concern to the
352
government until they become broader-based and capable of challenging
353
the existing socio-economic order -- only then is it "necessary" for
354
the repressive, authoritarian forces to work on undermining the movement.
355
So long as there is no effective organising and no threat to the interests
356
of the ruling elite, people are permitted to say whatever they want. This
357
creates the illusion that the system is open to all ideas, when, in fact,
358
it is not. But, as the decimation of the Wobblies and anarchist movement
359
after the First World War first illustrated, the government will seek to
360
eradicate any movement that poses a significant threat.
363
<h2><a name="secd91">D.9.1 What is the relationship between wealth polarisation
364
and authoritarian government?</a></h2>
367
We have previously noted the recent increase in the rate of wealth
368
polarisation, with its erosion of working-class living standards (see
369
<a href="secB7.html">section B.7</a>). This process has been referred to by Noam Chomsky as
370
"Third-Worldisation." It is appearing in a particularly acute form
371
in the US -- the "richest" industrialised nation which also has the
372
highest level of poverty, since it is the most polarised -- but the
373
process can be seen in other "advanced" industrial nations as well,
374
particularly in the UK. As neo-liberalism has spread, so has
377
Third World governments are typically authoritarian, since harsh
378
measures are required to suppress rebellions among their impoverished
379
and discontented masses. Hence "Third-Worldisation" implies not only
380
economic polarisation but also increasingly authoritarian governments.
381
As Philip Slater puts it, a large, educated, and alert "middle class"
382
(i.e. average income earners) has always been the backbone of democracy,
383
and anything that concentrates wealth tends to weaken democratic
384
institutions. [<b>A Dream Deferred</b>, p. 68] This analysis is echoed
385
by left-liberal economist James K. Galbraith:
387
<i>"As polarisation of wages, incomes and wealth develops, the common
388
interests and common social programs of society fall into decline.
389
We have seen this too, in this country over thirty years, beginning
390
with the erosion of public services and public investments,
391
particularly in the cities, with the assault on the poor and on
392
immigrants and the disabled that led to the welfare bill of 1996,
393
and continuing now manufactured crises of Medicare and the social
394
security system. The haves are on the march. With growing inequality,
395
so grows their power. And so also diminish the voices of solidarity
396
and mutual reinforcement, the voices of civil society, the voices
397
of a democratic and egalitarian middle class."</i> [<b>Created Unequal:
398
The Crisis in American Pay</b>, p. 265]
400
If this is true, then along with increasing wealth polarisation in the
401
US we should expect to see signs of growing authoritarianism. This
402
hypothesis is confirmed by numerous facts, including the following:
403
continuing growth of an <i>"imperial presidency"</i> (concentration of political
404
power); extralegal operations by the executive branch (e.g. the
405
Iran-Contra scandal, the Grenada and Panama invasions); skyrocketing
406
incarceration rates; more official secrecy and censorship; the rise of the
407
Far Right; more police and prisons; FBI requests for massive wiretapping
408
capability; and so on. Public support for draconian measures to deal with
409
crime reflect the increasingly authoritarian mood of citizens beginning to
410
panic in the face of an ongoing social breakdown, which has been brought
411
about, quite simply, by ruling-class greed that has gotten out of hand --
412
a fact that is carefully obscured by the media. The 911 attacks have been
413
used to bolster these authoritarian trends, as would be expected.
415
One might think that representative democracy and constitutionally
416
guaranteed freedoms would make an authoritarian government impossible
417
in the United States and other liberal democratic nations with similar
418
constitutional "protections" for civil rights. In reality, however, the
419
declaration of a "national emergency" would allow the central government
420
to ignore constitutional guarantees with impunity and set up what Hannah
421
Arendt calls <i>"invisible government"</i> -- mechanisms allowing an
422
administration to circumvent constitutional structures while leaving
423
them nominally in place. The erosion of civil liberties and increase
424
in state powers post-911 in both the US and UK should show that such
425
concerns are extremely valid.
427
In response to social breakdown or "terrorism," voters may turn to
428
martial-style leaders (aided by the media). Once elected, and with
429
the support of willing legislatures and courts, administrations could
430
easily create much more extensive mechanisms of authoritarian government
431
than already exist, giving the executive branch virtually dictatorial
432
powers. Such administrations could escalate foreign militarism, further
433
expand the funding and scope of the police, national guard units, secret
434
police and foreign intelligence agencies, and authorise more widespread
435
surveillance of citizens as well as the infiltration of dissident
436
political groups (all of which happened in post-911 America). There
437
would be a corresponding rise of government secrecy (as <i>"popular
438
understanding of the workings of government is not conducive to
439
instilling proper reverence for powerful leaders and their nobility."</i>
440
[Chomsky, <b>Failed States</b>, p.238]). These developments would not occur
441
all at once, but so gradually, imperceptibly, and logically -- given
442
the need to maintain "law and order" -- that most people would not
443
even be aware that an authoritarian take-over was underway. Indeed,
444
there is substantial evidence that this is already underway in the US
445
(see <b>Friendly Fascism</b> by Bertram Gross for details).
447
We will examine some of the symptoms of growing authoritarianism listed
448
above, again referring primarily to the example of the United States.
449
The general trend has been a hollowing out of even the limited
450
democratic structures associated with representative states in favour
451
of a purely formal appearance of elections which are used to justify
452
ignoring the popular will, authoritarianism and "top-down" rule by
453
the executive. While these have always been a feature of the state
454
(and must be, if it is to do its function as we discussed in
455
<a href="secB2.html">section B.2</a>) the tendencies are
456
increasing and should be of concern for all
457
those who seek to protect, never mind, expand what human rights and
458
civil liberties we have. While anarchists have no illusions about the
459
nature of even so-called democratic states, we are not indifferent
460
to the form of state we have to endure and how it changes. As
463
<i>"there is no doubt that the worst of democracies is always preferable,
464
if only from an educational point of view, than the best of dictatorships.
465
Of course democracy, so-called government of the people, is a lie; but
466
the lie always slightly binds the liar and limits the extent of his
467
arbitrary power . . . Democracy is a lie, it is oppression and is in
468
reality, oligarchy; that is, government by the few to the advantage
469
of a privileged class. But we can still fight it in the name of
470
freedom and equality, unlike those who have replaced it or want to
471
replace it with something worse."</i> [<b>The Anarchist Revolution</b>, p. 77]
473
We must stress that as long as governments exist, then this struggle
474
against authoritarianism will continue. As Kropotkin argued, these
475
tendencies <i>"do not depend on individuals; they are inherent in the
476
institution."</i> We must always remember that <i>"[o]f its own accord,
477
representative government does not offer real liberties, and it
478
can accommodate itself remarkably well to despotism. Freedoms have
479
to be seized from it, as much as they do from absolute kings; and
480
once they have been gained they must be defended against parliament
481
as much as they were against a king."</i> [<b>Words of a Rebel</b>, p. 137
484
So we cannot assume that legal rights against and restrictions
485
on state or economic power are enough in themselves. Liberty needs
486
to be continually defended by the mass of the population who cannot
487
leave it to others to act for them. <i>"If we want . . . to leave
488
the gates wide open to reaction,"</i> Kropotkin put it, <i>"we have
489
only to confide our affairs to a representative government."</i> Only
490
<i>"extra-parliamentary agitation"</i> will stop the state <i>"imping[ing]
491
continually on the country's political rights"</i> or <i>"suppress[ing]
492
them with a strike of the pen."</i> The state must always <i>"find itself
493
faced by a mass of people ready to rebel."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b> p. 129 and
497
<h2><a name="secd92">D.9.2 Why is government surveillance of citizens on the increase?</a></h2>
500
Authoritarian governments are characterised by fully developed secret
501
police forces, extensive government surveillance of civilians, a high
502
level of official secrecy and censorship, and an elaborate system of
503
state coercion to intimidate and silence dissenters. All of these
504
phenomena have existed in the US since suppression of the anarchist
505
inspired No-Conscription League and the IWW for its unionising
506
and anti-war activity. The post-World War I Red Scare and Palmer
507
raids continued this process of wartime jailings and intimidation,
508
combined with the deportation of aliens (the arrest, trial and
509
subsequent deportation of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman
510
is but one example of this war on radicals). [Howard Zinn, <b>A
511
People's History of America</b>, pp. 363-7]
513
However, since World War II these systems have taken more extreme forms,
514
especially during the 1980s and 2000s. Indeed, one of the most disturbing
515
revelations to emerge from the Iran-Contra affair was the Reagan
516
administration's contingency plan for imposing martial law. Alfonso
517
Chardy, a reporter for the Miami Herald, revealed in July 1987 that
518
Lt. Col. Oliver North, while serving on the National Security Council's
519
staff, had worked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency on a plan
520
to suspend the Bill of Rights by imposing martial law in the event of
521
<i>"national opposition to a US military invasion abroad."</i> [Richard O.
522
Curry (ed.), <b>Freedom at Risk: Secrecy, Censorship, and Repression
523
in the 1980s</b>] However, this rise in authoritarian-style government
524
policies is not limited to just possibilities and so in this section
525
we will examine the operations of the secret police in the USA since
526
the 1950s. First, however, we must stress that these tendencies are
527
hardly US specific. For example, the secret services in the UK have
528
regularly spied on left-wing groups as well as being heavily involved
529
in undermining the 1984-5 Miners strike. [S. Milne, <b>The Enemy Within</b>]
531
The creation of an elaborate US "national security" apparatus has come
532
about gradually since 1945 through congressional enactments, numerous
533
executive orders and national security directives, and a series of Supreme
534
Court decisions that have eroded First Amendment rights. The policies of
535
the Reagan administration, however, reflected radical departures from the
536
past, as revealed not only by their comprehensive scope but by their
537
institutionalisation of secrecy, censorship, and repression in ways that
538
will be difficult, if not impossible, to eradicate. As Richard Curry
539
points out, the Reagan administration's success stems <i>"from major
540
structural and technological changes that have occurred in American
541
society during the twentieth century -- especially the emergence of the
542
modern bureaucratic State and the invention of sophisticated electronic
543
devices that make surveillance possible in new and insidious ways."</i>
544
[<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 4]
546
The FBI has used <i>"countersubversive"</i> surveillance techniques and kept
547
lists of people and groups judged to be potential national security
548
threats since the days of the Red Scare in the 1920s. Such activities
549
were expanded in the late 1930s when Franklin Roosevelt instructed the
550
FBI to gather information about Fascist and Communist activities in
551
the US and to conduct investigations into possible espionage and
552
sabotage (although for most of the 1920s and 1930s, fascists and fascist
553
sympathisers were, at best, ignored and, at worse, publicly praised
554
while anti-fascists like anarchist Carol Tresca were spied on and
555
harassed by the authorities. [Nunzio Pernicone, <b>Carlo Tresca</b>]). FBI
556
chief J. Edgar Hoover interpreted these directives as authorising
557
open-ended inquiries into a very broad category of potential "subversives";
558
and by repeatedly misinforming a succession of careless or indifferent
559
presidents and attorneys general about the precise scope of Roosevelt's
560
directives, Hoover managed for more than 30 years to elicit tacit
561
executive approval for continuous FBI investigations into an
562
ever-expanding class of political dissidents. [Geoffrey R. Stone,
563
<i>"The Reagan Administration, the First Amendment, and FBI Domestic
564
Security Investigations,"</i> Curry (ed.), <b>Op. Cit.</b>]
566
The advent of the Cold War, ongoing conflicts with the Soviet Union, and
567
fears of the "international Communist conspiracy" provided justification
568
not only for covert CIA operations and American military intervention in
569
countries all over the globe, but also contributed to the FBI's rationale
570
for expanding its domestic surveillance activities. Thus in 1957, without
571
authorisation from Congress or any president, Hoover launched a highly
572
secret operation called COINTELPRO:
574
<i>"From 1957 to 1974, the bureau opened investigative files on more than
575
half a million 'subversive' Americans. In the course of these investigations,
576
the bureau, in the name of 'national security,' engaged in widespread
577
wire-tapping, bugging, mail-openings, and break-ins. Even more insidious
578
was the bureau's extensive use of informers and undercover operative to
579
infiltrate and report on the activities and membership of 'subversive'
580
political associations ranging from the Socialist Workers Party to the
581
NAACP to the Medical Committee for Human Rights to a Milwaukee Boy Scout
582
troop."</i> [Stone, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 274]
584
But COINTELPRO involved much more than just investigation and
585
surveillance. As Chomsky notes, it was <i>"one of its major programs of
586
repression"</i> and was used to discredit, weaken, and ultimately destroy
587
the New Left and Black radical movements of the sixties and early seventies,
588
i.e. to silence the major sources of political dissent and opposition. It's
589
aim was to <i>"disrupt"</i> a wide range of popular movements <i>"by instigating
590
violence in the ghetto, direct participation in police assassination of
591
a Black Panther organiser, burglaries and harassment of the Socialist
592
Workers Party over many years, and other methods of defamation and
593
disruption."</i> [<b>Necessary Illusions</b>, p. 189]
595
The FBI fomented violence through the use of agents provocateurs and
596
destroyed the credibility of movement leaders by framing them, bringing
597
false charges against them, distributing offensive materials published in
598
their name, spreading false rumours, sabotaging equipment, stealing money,
599
and other dirty tricks. By such means the Bureau exacerbated internal
600
frictions within movements, turning members against each other as
601
well as other groups. For example, during the civil rights movement,
602
while the government was making concessions and verbally supporting the
603
movement, the FBI was harassing and breaking up black groups. Between
604
1956 and 1971, the FBI took 295 actions against black groups as part
605
of COLINTELPRO. [Zinn, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 455]
607
Government documents show the FBI and police involved in creating
608
acrimonious disputes which ultimately led to the break-up of such groups
609
as Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panther Party, and the
610
Liberation News Service. The Bureau also played a part in the failure of
611
such groups to form alliances across racial, class, and regional lines.
612
The FBI is implicated in the assassination of Malcolm X, who was killed in
613
a "factional dispute" that the Bureau bragged of having "developed" in the
614
Nation of Islam. Martin Luther King, Jr., was the target of an elaborate
615
FBI plot to drive him to suicide before he was conveniently killed by a
616
lone sniper. Other radicals were portrayed as "Communists", criminals,
617
adulterers, or government agents, while still others were murdered in
618
phoney "shoot-outs" where the only shooting was done by the police.
620
These activities finally came to public attention because of the Watergate
621
investigations, congressional hearings, and information obtained under the
622
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In response to the revelations of FBI
623
abuse, Attorney General Edward Levi in 1976 set forth a set of public
624
guidelines governing the initiation and scope of the bureau's domestic
625
security investigations, severely restricting its ability to investigate
626
political dissidents.
628
The Levi guidelines, however, proved to be only a temporary reversal of
629
the trend. Although throughout his presidency Ronald Reagan professed to
630
be against the increase of state power in regard to domestic policy, he
631
in fact expanded the power of the national bureaucracy for "national
632
security" purposes in systematic and unprecedented ways. One of the most
633
significant of these was his immediate elimination of the safeguards
634
against FBI abuse that the Levi guidelines had been designed to prevent.
635
This was accomplished through two interrelated executive branch
636
initiatives: Executive Order 12333, issued in 1981, and Attorney General
637
William French Smith's guidelines, which replaced Levi's in 1983.
638
The Smith guidelines permitted the FBI to launch domestic security
639
investigations if the facts <i>"reasonably indicated"</i> that groups or
640
individuals were involved in criminal activity. More importantly,
641
however, the new guidelines also authorised the FBI to <i>"anticipate or
642
prevent crime."</i> As a result, the FBI could now investigate groups or
643
individuals whose statements <i>"advocated"</i> criminal activity or indicated
644
an <b>apparent intent</b> to engage in crime, particularly crimes of violence.
646
As Curry notes, the language of the Smith guidelines provided FBI
647
officials with sufficient interpretative latitude to investigate virtually
648
any group or individual it chose to target, including political activists
649
who opposed the administration's foreign policy. Not surprisingly, under
650
the new guidelines the Bureau immediately began investigating a wide
651
variety of political dissidents, quickly making up for the time it had
652
lost since 1976. Congressional sources show that in 1985 alone the FBI
653
conducted 96 investigations of groups and individuals opposed to the
654
Reagan Administration's Central American policies, including religious
655
organisations who expressed solidarity with Central American refugees.
657
Since the 1980s, the state has used the threat of "terrorism" (both
658
domestic and international) to bolster its means of repression. The
659
aim has been to allow the President, on his own initiative and by
660
his own definition, to declare any person or organisation "terrorist"
661
and so eliminate any rights they may, in theory, have. The 911 attacks
662
were used to pass in effect a "wish-list" (in the form of the PATRIOT
663
act) of measures long sought by both the secret state and the right
664
but which they had difficulty in passing previously due to public
665
scrutiny. Post-911, as after the Oklahoma bombing, much opposition was
666
muted while those that did raise their voices were dismissed as, at
667
best, naive or, at worse, pro-terrorist.
669
Post-911, presidential rulings are considered as conclusive while the
670
Attorney General was handed new enforcement powers, e.g. suspects
671
would be considered guilty unless proven innocent, and the source or
672
nature of the evidence brought against suspects would not have to be
673
revealed if the Justice Department claimed a <i>"national security"</i>
674
interest in suppressing such facts, as of course it would. Security
675
agencies were given massive new powers to gather information on and
676
act against suspected "terrorists" (i.e., any enemy of the state,
677
dissident or critic of capitalism). As intended, the ability to
678
abuse these powers is staggering. They greatly increased the
679
size and funding of the FBI and gave it the power to engage in
680
"anti-terrorist" activities all over the country, without judicial
681
oversight. Unsurprisingly, during the run-up to the Iraq invasion
682
of 2003, the anti-war movement was targeted with these new powers
683
of surveillance. That the secret state, for example, seriously argued
684
that potential "terrorists" could exist within Quaker peace groups
685
says it all. Unsurprisingly, given the history of the secret state
686
the new measures were turned against the Left, as COINTELPRO and
687
similar laws were in the past.
689
If, as the Bush Administration continually asserted, the terrorists
690
hate the west for our freedoms (rather than their self-proclaimed
691
hatred of US foreign policy) then that government is the greatest
692
appeaser the world has ever seen (not to mention the greatest
693
recruiting agent they ever had). It has done more to undermine
694
freedom and increase state power (along with the threat of
695
terrorism) that the terrorists ever dreamed. However, it would
696
be a mistake to draw the conclusion that it is simply incompetence,
697
arrogance and ignorance which was at work (tempting as that may be).
698
Rather, there are institutional factors at work as well (a fact
699
that becomes obvious when looking at the history of the secret
700
state and its activities). The fact that such draconian measures
701
were even considered says volumes about the direction in which the
702
US -- and by implication the other "advanced" capitalist states --
706
<h2><a name="secd93">D.9.3 What causes justifications for racism to appear?</a></h2>
709
The tendency toward social breakdown which is inherent in the growth of
710
wealth polarisation, as discussed above, is also producing a growth
711
in racism in the countries affected. As we have seen, social breakdown
712
leads to the increasingly authoritarian government prompted by the need
713
of the ruling class to contain protest and civil unrest among those at
714
the bottom of the wealth pyramid. In the US those in the lowest economic
715
strata belong mostly to racial minorities, while in several European
716
countries there are growing populations of impoverished minorities
717
from the Third World, often from former colonies. The desire of the
718
more affluent strata to justify their superior economic positions
719
is, as one would expect, causing racially based theories of privilege
720
to become more popular.
722
That racist feelings are gaining strength in America is evidenced by
723
the increasing political influence of the right, whose thinly disguised
724
racism reflects the darkening vision of a growing segment of the
725
conservative community. Further evidence can be seen in the growth of
726
ultraconservative extremist groups preaching avowedly racist philosophies,
727
such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nations, the White Aryan Resistance,
728
and others (see James Ridgeway's <b>Blood in the Face: The Ku Klux Klan,
729
Aryan Nations, Nazi Skinheads, and the Rise of a New White Culture</b>).
730
Much the same can be said of Europe, with the growth of parties like
731
the BNP in Britain, the FN in France and similar organisations elsewhere.
733
Most conservative politicians have taken pains to distance themselves
734
officially from the extreme right. Yet they are dependent on getting
735
votes of those influenced by the right-wing media personalities and
736
the extreme right. This means that this racism cannot help seep into
737
their election campaigns and, unsurprisingly, mainstream conservative
738
politicians have used, and continue to use, code words and innuendo
739
("welfare queens," "quotas," etc.) to convey a thinly veiled racist
740
message. This allows mainstream right-wingers to exploit the budding
741
racism of lower- and middle-class white youths, who must compete for
742
increasingly scarce jobs with desperate minorities who are willing
743
to work at very low wages. As Lorenzo Lom'boa Ervin notes:
745
<i>"Basing themselves on alienated white social forces, the Nazis and
746
Klan are trying to build a mass movement which can hire itself out
747
to the Capitalists at the proper moment and assume state power . . .
748
Fascism is the ultimate authoritarian society when in power, even
749
though it has changed its face to a mixture of crude racism and
750
smoother racism in the modern democratic state.
752
"So in addition to the Nazis and the Klan, there are other Right-Wing
753
forces that have been on the rise . . . They include ultra-conservative
754
rightist politicians and Christian fundamentalist preachers, along
755
with the extreme right section of the Capitalist ruling class itself,
756
small business owners, talk show hosts . . . along with the professors,
757
economists, philosophers and others in academia who are providing the
758
ideological weapons for the Capitalist offensive against the workers
759
and oppresses people. So not all racists wear sheets. These are the
760
'respectable' racists, the New Right conservatives . . . The Capitalist
761
class has already shown their willingness to use this conservative
762
movement as a smoke screen for an attack on the Labor movement, Black
763
struggle, and the entire working class."</i> [<b>Anarchism and the Black
764
Revolution</b>, p. 18]
766
The expanding popularity of such racist groups in the US is matched
767
by a similar phenomenon in Europe, where xenophobia and a weak economy
768
have propelled extreme right-wing politicians into the limelight
769
on promises to deport foreigners. This poisons the whole mainstream
770
political spectrum, with centre and centre-left politicians pandering
771
to racism and introducing aspects of the right's agenda under the
772
rhetoric of "addressing concerns" and raising the prospect that
773
by not doing what the right wants, the right will expand in influence.
774
How legitimising the right by implementing its ideas is meant to
775
undercut their support is never explained, but the "greater evil"
776
argument does have its utility for every opportunistic politician
777
(particularly one under pressure from the right-wing media whipping
778
up scare stories about immigration and such like to advance the
779
interests of their wealthy backers).
781
What easier way is there to divert people's anger than onto scapegoats?
782
Anger about bad housing, no housing, boring work, no work, bad wages and
783
conditions, job insecurity, no future, and so on. Instead of attacking the
784
real causes of these (and other) problems, people are encouraged to direct
785
their anger against people who face the same problems just because they
786
have a different skin colour or come from a different part of the world!
787
Little wonder politicians and their rich backers like to play the racist
788
card -- it diverts attention away from them and the system they run (i.e.
789
the <b>real</b> causes of our problems).
791
Racism, in other words, tries to turn <b>class</b> issues into "race" issues.
792
Little wonder that sections of the ruling elite will turn to it, as
793
and when required. Their class interests (and, often, their personal
794
bigotry) requires them to do so -- a divided working class will never
795
challenge their position in society. This means that justifications
796
for racism appear for two reasons. Firstly, to try and justify the
797
existing inequalities within society (for example, the infamous --
798
and highly inaccurate -- <i>"Bell Curve"</i> and related works). Secondly,
799
to divide the working class and divert anger about living conditions
800
and social problems away from the ruling elite and their system onto
801
scapegoats in our own class. After all, <i>"for the past fifty years
802
American business has been organising a major class war, and they
803
needed troops -- there <b>are</b> votes after all, and you can't just
804
come before the electorate and say, 'Vote for me, I'm trying to
805
screw you.' So what they've had to do is appeal to the population
806
on some other grounds. Well, there aren't a lot of other grounds,
807
and everybody picks the same ones . . . -- jingoism, racism, fear,
808
religious fundamentalism: These are ways of appealing to people if
809
you're trying to organise a mass base of support for policies that
810
are really intended to crush them."</i> [Chomsky, <b>Understanding Power</b>,
813
Part of the right-wing resurgence in the US and elsewhere has been
814
the institutionalisation of the Reagan-Bush brand of conservatism,
815
whose hallmark was the reinstatement, to some degree, of laissez-faire
816
economic policies (and, to an even larger degree, of laissez-faire
817
rhetoric). A "free market," Reagan's economic "experts" argued,
818
necessarily produced inequality; but by allowing unhindered market
819
forces to select the economically fittest and to weed out the unfit,
820
the economy would become healthy again. The wealth of those who survived
821
and prospered in the harsh new climate would ultimately benefit the
822
less fortunate, through a "trickle-down" effect which was supposed
823
to create millions of new high-paying jobs.
825
All this would be accomplished by deregulating business, reducing taxes
826
on the wealthy, and dismantling or drastically cutting back federal
827
programmes designed to promote social equality, fairness, and compassion.
828
The aptly named Laffer Curve (although invented without the burden of
829
any empirical research or evidence) alleged to illustrate how cutting
830
taxes actually <b>raises</b> government revenue. When this program of
831
pro-business policies was applied the results were, unsurprisingly,
832
the opposite of that proclaimed, with wealth flooding upwards and the
833
creation of low-paying, dead-end jobs (the biggest "Laffers" in this
834
scenario were the ruling class, who saw unprecedented gains in wealth
835
at the expense of the rest of us).
837
The Reaganites' doctrine of inequality gave the official seal of approval
838
to ideas of racial superiority that right-wing extremists had used for
839
years to rationalise the exploitation of minorities. If, on average,
840
blacks and Hispanics earn only about half as much as whites; if more
841
than a third of all blacks and a quarter of all Hispanics lived below
842
the poverty line; if the economic gap between whites and non-whites was
843
growing -- well, that just proved that there was a racial component in
844
the Social-Darwinian selection process, showing that minorities "deserved"
845
their poverty and lower social status because they were "less fit." By
846
focusing on individuals, laissez-faire economics hides the social roots
847
of inequality and the effect that economic institutions and social
848
attitudes have on inequality. In the words of left-liberal economist
851
<i>"What the economists did, in effect, was to reason backward, from the
852
troublesome effect to a cause that would rationalise and justify it
853
. . . [I]t is the work of the efficient market [they argued], and the
854
fundamental legitimacy of the outcome is not supposed to be questioned.
856
"The <b>apologia</b> is a dreadful thing. It has distorted our understanding,
857
twisted our perspective, and crabbed our politics. On the right, as one
858
might expect, the winners on the expanded scale of wealth and incomes are
859
given a reason for self-satisfaction and an excuse for gloating. Their
860
gains are due to personal merit, the application of high intelligence,
861
and the smiles of fortune. Those on the loosing side are guilty of sloth,
862
self-indulgence, and whining. Perhaps they have bad culture. Or perhaps
863
they have bad genes. While no serious economist would make that last
864
leap into racist fantasy, the underlying structure of the economists'
865
argument has undoubtedly helped to legitimise, before a larger public,
866
those who promote such ideas."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 264]
868
The logical corollary of this social Darwinism is that whites who are
869
"less fit" (i.e., poor) also deserve their poverty. But philosophies of
870
racial hatred are not necessarily consistent. Thus the ranks of white
871
supremacist organisations have been swollen in recent years by
872
undereducated and underemployed white youths frustrated by a declining
873
industrial labour market and a noticeably eroding social status.
874
[Ridgeway, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p.186] Rather than drawing the logical Social-Darwinian
875
conclusion -- that they, too, are "inferior" -- they have instead blamed
876
blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and Jews for "unfairly" taking their jobs.
877
Thus the neo-Nazi skinheads, for example, have been mostly recruited from
878
disgruntled working-class whites below the age of 30. This has provided
879
leaders of right-wing extremist groups with a growing base of potential
882
Therefore, laissez-faire ideology helps create a social environment in
883
which racist tendencies can increase. Firstly, it does so by increasing
884
poverty, job insecurity, inequality and so on which right-wing groups
885
can use to gather support by creating scapegoats in our own class to
886
blame (for example, by blaming poverty on blacks "taking our jobs" rather
887
than capitalists moving their capital to other, more profitable, countries
888
or them cutting wages and conditions for <b>all</b> workers -- and as we
889
point out in <a href="secB1.html#secb14">section B.1.4</a>, racism, by dividing the working class,
890
makes poverty and inequality <b>worse</b> and so is self-defeating). Secondly,
891
it abets racists by legitimising the notions that inequalities in pay
892
and wealth are due to racial differences rather than a hierarchical system
893
which harms <b>all</b> working class people (and uses racism to divide, and
894
so weaken, the oppressed). By pointing to individuals rather than to
895
institutions, organisations, customs, history and above all power -- the
896
relative power between workers and capitalists, citizens and the state,
897
the market power of big business, etc. -- laissez-faire ideology points
898
analysis into a dead-end as well as apologetics for the wealthy, apologetics
899
which can be, and are, utilised by racists to justify their evil politics.
b'\\ No newline at end of file'
added
removed
html/secD9.html
