Chris Hedges’ article, “The Bankruptcy of the American Left,” is worth reading.
Mr. Hedges is correct: the Democratic Party and the left (or at least a large part of it) has been distracted by identity politics, failing to recognize that race, sexism, class, and capitalism are twisted together in a noose that will hang us all.
They cannot be addressed separately: racism, sexism, and class issues will not be properly addressed (much less resolved) as long as corporate/finance capitalism exists. A good example of why is found in The New York Times opinion piece by David Leonhardt, “The Black-White Wage Gap Is as Big as It Was in 1950.” Structural racism has not been reduced, despite Civil Rights laws, so Black Americans are not allowed to participate in the economy. Instead, many are sent to prison, where they function as slave labor for corporations. One report puts it bluntly: White supremacy is the preexisting condition that prevents Black Americans from thriving in a capitalist economic system.
Thomas Picketty, the French economist who wrote Capital in the 21st Century and Capital and Ideology, provides a shorthand formula that describes our society under capitalism: r>g. Dr. Picketty explains:
“Over the past century, the rate of return on capital (r) and existing wealth, owned disproportionately by the rich, had exceeded the rate of growth in the economy (g) as a whole. That had created a chasm of inequality comparable to what existed during the Gilded Age …”
What this means is that the wealthy are cannibalizing our society. This cannibalization disproportionately affects People of Color, Native Peoples, and women.
We have become a de facto authoritarian state (a process begun long before Mr. Trump) in which we exist to support the interests of corporations and the wealthy. The police riots at the ongoing civil rights demonstrations are reminders of what’s important, and it isn’t people or civil rights. Amnesty International identified 125 incidents in which the police violated human rights, and researchers at the University of Chicago reported that the state sanctioned violence by police failed to meet basic human rights standards. Further none of the 20 police departments studied were “operating under state laws that were in accord with human rights standards.”
Sheldon Wolin’s description of inverted totalitarianism, about which Mr. Hedges has long written, describes our current situation. Dr. Wolin, according to political scientist Wendy Brown, foretold the “heavy statism [that]forged what we now call neoliberalism, and in [so doing] revealed the novel fusions of economic with political power that he took to be poisoning democracy at its root.” Mr. Hedges summarized Dr. Wolin:
“Inverted totalitarianism is different from classical forms of totalitarianism. It does not find its expression in a demagogue or charismatic leader but in the faceless anonymity of the corporate state. Our inverted totalitarianism pays outward fealty to the facade of electoral politics, the Constitution, civil liberties, freedom of the press, the independence of the judiciary, and the iconography, traditions and language of American patriotism, but it has effectively seized all of the mechanisms of power to render the citizen impotent.”
Dr. Wolin’s Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism is an excellent and important read to develop an understanding of the threats we face.
In an interview, Dr. Wolin told Mr. Hedges:
“‘Downsizing, reorganization, bubbles bursting, unions busted, quickly outdated skills, and transfer of jobs abroad create not just fear but an economy of fear, a system of control whose power feeds on uncertainty, yet a system that, according to its analysts, is eminently rational … Inverted totalitarianism also perpetuates politics all the time, but a politics that is not political.’ The endless and extravagant election cycles, he said, are an example of politics without politics.”
How is it possible for such an anti-democratic system to be maintained in a nation that prides itself on being the world’s preeminent democracy? First, that pride is false pride, because American democracy is far from being the gold standard; in 2019 and 2020, the U.S. was listed as a “flawed democracy” by most researchers. In 2018, the U.S. was added to the list of the most dangerous countries for members of the press. Second, the ruling class carefully maintains cultural hegemony over society. It’s a concept developed by the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci while he was (of course) imprisoned by Benito Mussolini. Cultural hegemony achieves:
“Consent to the rule of the dominant group … by the spread of ideologies — beliefs, assumptions, and values — through social institutions such as schools, churches, courts, and the media, among others. These institutions do the work of socializing people into the norms, values, and beliefs of the dominant social group. As such, the group that controls these institutions controls the rest of society.”
Capitalists, through their influence on values and beliefs, control the cultural narrative. In America, individualism is good and social well being is bad. Greed is a virtue but altruism is a sin. It’s okay to let families starve on the street to minimize corporate taxes. The official purpose of prisons is to keep “bad people” out of society, but the real purpose to convert surplus labor into corporate assets.
Cultural hegemony isn’t imposed, it’s enculturated: it’s the capitalist attitudes people acquire from parents, teachers, ministers, and politicians when they learn about the surrounding culture. It’s the values and norms they hear on the radio or television (even online). It’s why racism, sexism, classism, and xenophobia exist despite laws to the contrary: those are attitudes that are useful to the ruling capitalist class, especially, as Mr. Hedges points out,when they divert people away from addressing real problems because they’re busy arguing over identities.
The hegemonic culture is supported by the middle class, including the Democratic and Republican Party’s leaders. It maintains the fiction of equality and democracy by defining acceptable discourse and action — which most definitely does not include an uprising by Black Americans that destroys the property of corporations. Hence, the “law and order” talk from Mr. Trump and his supporters, and liberal tongue-clucking about “going too far.”
Actual police violence against Black Americans is of temporary interest. Threats to corporate assets, however, will not be tolerated.
