1 A Unified Political-Economic Configuration
The epistemological foundation of a democratic society and government, thematically, is a modern variation of the mid-nineteenthāearly twentieth-century concern about the fusion of psychology and history, structure and ideology, or, simply, mind and society. This can be seen as a dialogue between Marx and Freud, with Karl Mannheim hovering over the edges. The sociology of knowledge replaces the sociology of revolution as a means of understanding and transforming the contemporary order and what constitutes acceptable social change. My angle of vision which addresses these relationships is not to split the difference, but to strike out for the new. I adopt a moral-philosophical approach to delineate the genesis and practice of public policy in modern America.
In what follows, my emphasis is perhaps best seen in terms of the conflict between a democratic society founded on the rule of law (an idealization only partially realized in the American past), and its violation or contradiction through a long-term, linear pattern of near-absolutistic capitalist development. The latter lacks structural and cultural variegation. It thus makes possible and effects the interpenetration of business and government, capitalism and the State, to the consequent shrinkage of the ideological spectrum. The seeds are present for what I shall term āa prefascist configuration.ā
Much of the writing will be viewed as controversial, particularly regarding capitalism, and more so because the analysis is grounded in the record and experience of the Obama administration. Coming after the election and first months of the Trump presidency, which I see as the de-structuralizing of government itself, Obama, despite my criticisms, would appear tame by comparison, from the standpoint of policy, ideology, personnel, and the political culture being shaped in a fascist direction. I will have more to say about Trump in a later volume (if I live; I am presently in hospice home care), but the point here, simply, is that Obama, and his predecessors dating back to the aftermath of World War II, demonstrated continuities in political-structural development that paved the way for Trumpās rise. With Obama centrally in mind, this becomes a critical analysis of liberalism as it has evolved in America to the present day.
As I proceed seriatim through the text, several points, by way of preview, stand out. In approach, I seek to reinterpret the nature of government (here, the State ) and its relation to capitalism. An analysis of this relationship also entails, conversely, that of capitalism as the energizer of state power. There is a blending, or perhaps better, integration, of various disciplines/approaches, including a rich embroidery of sources embedded in the text. (On footnoting, surely we have reached a point, beyond mere novelty or experimentation, where form can be adapted to content and still possess scholarly merit.) The reader will recognize at once the usual suspects in political philosophy without the use of a conventional format citing chapter and verse, in sum, a rich universe of informal citations, as, for example, Melville ās Bartleby, Marxās Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, or Marcuse ās Eros and Civilization, to name but a few.
One general concern is the synchronization of polity and economy, in this case through a comparative analysis of America and Japan, from which I suggest the structural-ideological dimensions of fascism (as in, and borrowing from, Barrington Mooreās chapter, āAsian Fascism,ā in his Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, in the USA [not Mooreās focus on this topic] and Japan in their respective historical developments). This led meā Moore, my esteemed teacherāto the intellectual atmosphere of Harvard and Yale (my first teaching assignment) in the 1950sā1960s. This was important for a delineation of political consciousness, which itself helps to expose structural-political abuse. What we have, then, in my attempt at sustained theorizing, is the evolving character of American capitalism. My time-frame is the months leading up to, and commencing, Obamaās second term. This may surprise the reader, but Obama, as he/she shall see, I find pivotally significant in what I think of as the march to the abyss.
The interrelated universe of policy might be summarized as the materialization of consciousness, and the militarization of Exceptionalism, themes crisscrossing throughout the analysis. I confess that this is a pessimistic work, what I take to be the eclipse of democracy, as can be seen in the political-ideological investment America has in Obamaās signature weapon, the armed drone for targeted assassination. This raises for me the relation between drone assassination and alienation, which prompted a close look at Marxās Manuscripts, and a description of the psychodynamics of the process. And from there, it appeared a natural step to societyās absorption of its own systemic negativity (opposition, dissent, etc.), an extrapolation from Marcuse ās Reason and Revolution, itself reliant on his interpretation of the Hegelian dialectic.
Power is a primary topic of my book, embodied in the structural-cultural dynamics of the interpenetration of business and government, capitalism and the State, but now with this addition to what Masao Maruyama, the Japanese political scientist, would call the co-partnership, the military factor, into a triadic arrangement of ruling groups. This also allows for the integration of domestic and foreign policy (here, a militarization of consciousness ), which makes of power a near-absolute. And when power has been internalized, this assists in the social bonding of classes: the transmission of power from above, complicity and compliance from below. The analysis then takes up Marcuse ās point (from Lord Acton ) in Eros, that a society can be judged by its worst features, a paradigm of moral evaluation (symbolically and perhaps in actuality, for America, drone assassination; for Nazi Germany, the death camps).
Marx ās rooting of alienation in the commodity structure of capitalism provides an explanation for the prevailing trait of desensitization, which makes the commission of war crimes or complicity in them understandable.
So much of American historical development can be apprehended through the analysis of capitalism itself, for example, the punitiveness of privatization, as ināresiding in the latterā human separation, alienation, invidious comparison. The nation becomes a successful reproduction of its political-economic system, beginning from its structural foundations and cultural elaboration, all pointing to the maintenance of inequality and its internalization/introjection as its teleological purpose. Why else privatization? My emphasis on purpose, however, is not as a deterministic end or result, because structural foundations are themselves the product of human creation, and inequality here is part of the logic of construction and the reason for legitimating/sanctioning the structure.
Ownership is the basis for ethnocentrism (simply, the weāthey dichotomy). Privatization gives a solipsistic character to property and ownership. Acquisitiveness (possessions ) and acquisition (power ) go together, and represent at bottom control. Privatization implies the use of force, for both an exercise in domination. From there I take up the anatomy of privatization and its relation, as a constituent element, to domestic and foreign policy. I discuss how the drone furthers these purposes. Finally, in this area, we see the relation between the privatization and the objectification of the individual. That includes the externalization of the self and the creation of human separation. Capitalism looms larger in the total analysis, the wider structural-institutional setting for the play of forces defining and supporting the condition of alienation (e.g., the denial of moral obligation, as in William Graham Sumner ).
I discuss the reconceptualization of military power, a next step in the modernization of warfare. This entails a paradigm of decision-making on drone assassination, with attention to the role of John Brennan, as well as the greater relevance of paramilitary forces, without sacrifice to heavy military expenditures, main forces, naval power (as part of the overall strategy of globalāread, Chinaāconfrontation), and nuclear modernization. (One can see, in the military aspect alone, the importance I attach to Obama, although there is much more, including the abrogation of civil liberties.) Counterterrorism has a special place in this context, not least as the fulcrum for damping down criticism and dissent affecting the fundamentals of capitalism. (One must not underestimate counterterrorism as the ideological gatekeeper of orthodoxy.)
I find that social systems cannot subsist on bifurcation. A unitary formation is critical for the locus of power arrangements, and essential to class structure, the centralization of authority, and ideological cohesion. There is a rightward shift of the political spectrum under Obama, as borne out by the way he is seen as too radical by many contemporaries (my idea of false consciousness ). Castigation by the Right enables him to present policies on war, intervention, support for business, as somehow Centrist when in reality they are part of a rightward shift. Actual Centrism is viewed as an unacceptable tilt to the Left. This Centrism is as a poison seeping into the remotest pores of government and society. Obama emerges as an ideologue masking as a pragmatist. Even his ascription of paramilitary forces serves to evade, and gain practical exemption from, international law, codes of military conduct, and previously clear lines of demarcation.
I make reference to the ājust war ā doctrine, which seeks moral justification for immoral ends and is antidemocratic as interpreted by the White House. It is antithetical, in context, to a moral social system, its objectives being global hegemony, market fundamentalism, and hierarchical social ordering. As to claims to being a moral social system, we can see the mentality of body countsāan additive mindset, given the logic of permanent war. Not to be forgotten, there is the practice of indefinite detention under Obama, an absolute disregard for habeas corpus rights, as is also the case with rendition and military commissions (no Miranda rights). Throughout the narrative, drone warfare equals extrajudicial killings. It is as though America craves terrorism as a means of energizing its own global ambitions, and keeping its people receptive and on edge for what lay ahead.
2 The Way Forward
Beyond a moral-philosophical approach, I shall attempt to re-create the intellectual-scholarly atmosphere of a half-century ago, beyond the attention now given to the culture wars, and focus on ideology, social structure, and hierarchical modes of societal organization. A voice from the past? Not necessarily, for these areas remain vital, if largely covered over, for understanding the present and future. Actually, my thinking is classic Emersonian. I relate the particular to the general, the concrete to the abstract, which makes unnecessary dwelling on the empyrean heights or accepting current interpretations as gospel truth.
The individual is all, the remainder an escape via reification to the barrenness of ideology. Real persons create history, institutions, culture, nationhood, themes of conflict (notably, class), and reconciliation (also echoing class, translated into power, dominance, order). The human being, not metaphysical ārealitiesā du jour, embodies the specificity of life as it is lived. Perhaps Jamesian (Henry more than William ), I seek refuge in merging aesthetics and social protest as an inspirational point for the ever-present search for new forms, modes of expression, and the means of penetrating the petrified walls of ideological dogma. Whether as literature, social science, philosophy, or other fields of human endeavor, we have constructed an enclosing universe of discourse vividly seen in contemporary political life. The walls of circumscription in thought result in a certain hardening in America, an encrustation of human indifference.
The celebration of the life impulse need not be Sorelian (Georges Sorel ), culminating in violence. It can also signify non-dominative social relations, mindful of beauty, nurturing a public morality and mentality conveying an implicit or explicit demand for equality. In institutional translation, this reflects a respect for the rule of law and equitable structural arrangements of power and influence. It appears, though, a vanishing dream, a bruiting about of emancipation as cover for increasing repression. It is not my purpose to shock or patronize the reader. I want to provoke thoughts about the adequacy of current shibboleths (ideological usages) of democracy, liberalism, and other concepts on offer, which obfuscate the delusional nature of Voltaire ās political formulaāto which, in exposing, he showed he knew betterāof this being the best of all possible worlds.
It isnāt. One need not descend to Spengler ās level to recognize the importance of the role of dehumanization, desensitization, and depersonalization, all working in harmony, for shaping the present-day governing ethos: alienation, the product of our own making. For this reason, epistemology, the nature and grounds of knowledge as primarily rooted in social systems, is a useful starting point for inquiring into the vitalityāinceptively democratic, or notāof political culture, class alignments, policymaking, and ideological themes. I focus on aspects of the Obama Administration. This is a finite time period, which, granted a modicum of historical distance, allows for the exploration of policymaking defining current practice and prospective trends. Rather than enumerate still further the bookās contents (the annotative table of contents is helpful in this regard), I wan...