The Big Swindle

What would happen if Americans became convinced that they live neither in a democracy nor a capitalist economy?  For two generations now, Noam Chomsky has been in the forefront of those building a strong case for such an unsettling model of US governance.


As a thinker, Chomsky is admirably steeped in the advanced methods, skills, and disciplines associated with both accomplished scientists and with masterful polemicists. Either way, any points upon which he might have overstated his case may be checked empirically. But if we, less dedicated bunglers, should initially rely on what passes for common sense tests based on widely shared public perceptions, it might be startling to realize how few of us would be able to thoughtfully dismiss his claims out of hand.

The "no democracy" idea, is actually becoming more and more widely held in all sectors of our society every day. Studies like those of Gilens and Page do more than raise uncomfortable questions about the influence of public opinion or even voting on public policy. They provide empirical evidence, confirming widely held suspicions, that legislative and administrative priorities are overwhelmingly oriented to the demands of economic elites and big business interests. More chilling, though (because so much more nefarious), is the plutocratic influence on the judiciary.

Anti-populist decisions by judges and precedents of case law go back further in history than 19th century Supreme Court decisions that encompassed corporations inside the legal definition of "persons". The power of judge-made law to define personhood is one of the most horrifyingly sublime of any earthly power. But it's there in 'Dred Scott' and and also in 'Roe v Wade'. Contemporary populist discontent may be incited by 'Citizens United,' but there is much less grumbling against decisions denying personhood rights to individuals (unaccountably) put on terrorist lists - which in an age of Hellfire and Drones - can be a literal death sentence.

Contemplating this in all its gruesome majesty, should be humbling for progressives or Bernie-ites (like me) who might be tempted to dismiss rabid popular resentment of government and unruly disgust with "politics as usual" as mere products of poorly educated grievances being manipulated by divisive scapegoating tactics and other forms of corporate propaganda. But even a cursory review of recent history and current conditions is sufficient to demonstrate the empty superficiality of such an assessment.

It takes very little formal education to perceive that real wages have stagnated since the 1970s while both hours worked and productivity have increased exploitatively. In the popular mind, studies claiming government spurns ordinary citizens in favor of the corporate juggernaut might not be dissimilar to studies belatedly confirming that our dogs love us more than our cats do. These are just things that everybody knows already. What's lamentably plausible, though, is that formal education might actually make us much less likely to acknowledge or build meaningful ideas upon what, to the less indoctrinated, is just common sense. (This, by the way, is what Chomsky calls "the propaganda model - and its another he has advanced for over 50 years.)

If the above points about democracy are even provisionally conceded, the facile and obvious leap of logic might be to simply blame systemic capitalism. But Chomsky (and/or the thinkers who influenced him) is still more than one step in front of us. True capitalism, he gently but firmly reminds us, is both defined and legitimized by the principle that profits - even vast profits - go to those who invest and risk precious resources. Unfortunately, for idealistic apprehensions that the US economy is organized along capitalist lines, the actual rewards (call them surplus value, profits, or return on investment) of the system are lawfully intercepted and monopolized before they can even tickle the pocket rims of the bona fide, risk taking, actual investors. And, in case you haven't already guessed it, the complacent or outraged victims of those anti-capitalist swindlers are you, me, our parents, and our grandparents to the extent that we have been taxpayers.

Dwight D. Eisenhower did us something of a favor by coining the term "military industrial complex". The term evokes an image of legions of GI Billed, public university hotshots slowly and inexorably morphing into paunchy, pocket protected drones as they fuss over blueprints for gattling-gunned fighter planes, missile guidance systems, or miniaturized surveillance devices. Or, maybe, they drain their days away designing the latest and greatest polymers, composite materials, or freeze-dried meals, ready to eat on the battlefield. Either way, they are cogs in the machine of Military Keynesianism keeping large parts of the American economy employed generating (wastefully superfluous, or deterrent necessitated) implements of mass destruction and death, unleashed primarily on Third World peoples by our own armed forces or their surrogates.

But the image invoked by Eisenhower's famous coinage effectively obscures the Great Swindle that gives the lie to the illusion that our economy is fundamentally capitalist. Chomsky points out that our high-tech economy from networked computers to GPS and cell phones is build on a base of taxpayer funded research and development. The same point is made with regard to modern pharmaceuticals - and even the public relations industry has its roots in state-sponsored efforts originating during World War I. This model concedes the existence of privately funded R&D, but notes that the bulk of that is focused on marketing concerns. In this model, the "App Economy" is basically a means to generate smartphone and tablet purchases.

To the extent that the claims of this model are empirically verifiable, they represent a polemical dagger pointing at, if not actually piercing, the heart of conventional free-market ideology used to legitimate rising inequality even while it bolsters tax and spending decisions benefitting the .01% while beggaring everyone else. In this model, taxpayers are being regularly bilked out of their legitimate claim to benefit from the returns generated by their coerced investment. What's worse is these same pigeons are also plucked once again when corporations and institutions deemed (unaccountably) too big to fail . . . actually do.

Skeptics certainly should test and push against such a model. I'd be somewhat confident that it can't be comprehensively extended to the construction and hospitality industries. . . . Well, there are companies like Halliburton that do military construction and provisioning as part of the increasingly privatized logistical functions of our global military machine. But still . . .

A sharper skeptic would probably argue that the automotive industry - even though it builds transportation for the military - is also largely an exception. But since I've lived most of my life just a few miles up the river from the historic Federal Arsenal at Springfield, I'm compelled to point out that Henry Ford's assembly line would have been completely unthinkable if not for 'interchangeable parts.' And though my third grade History textbook gave credit for that development to Eli "Cotton Gin" Whitney, it turns out the famous inventor was only a mere evangelist for what eventually became the technological underpinning of the modern precision machine trade and most subsequent forms of advanced manufacturing.

The actual implementation of interchangeable parts was painstakingly worked out, over many years of effort - through brute (federally funded) tenacity and ingenuity - at the Springfield Armory where they accomplished the practical development of the principles, the gauging, and the precision that made it doable. Like an antebellum NASA, the Federal Armory spun off private arms companies like Colt and Smith & Wesson before those precision tools, the experts that could engineer them, and the men trained to use them (interchangeably) could diffuse into other brand new industries such as sewing machines, bicycles, farm equipment and, eventually, automobiles.

But even if we look beyond interchangeable parts, the automotive industry is, historically and currently, completely dependent on state and federal funded highway construction paid for by taxpayers, just as the railroad industry was made viable by cheap land provided by the Federal Government courtesy of the US Army who had forcefully liberated it from native peoples. With regard to the automobile - and therefore all its peripheral industries, the model holds.

The average American, voter or not and regardless of education level, is not overly concerned with ideology in its explicit forms. Implicit ideology, the pervasive commercial cultural water we swim in, is mostly consumerist and designed to induce unceasing narcissistic, atomistic pursuit of triviality. Any cant about democracy is largely eclipsed by contradictory and uneasy protestations about ‘Freedom!’, which in turn, are inevitably bound, pummeled, and gagged by a bullying bluster of paranoid jingoism.  In such a swirlpool, any authentically idealistic, or rationally aspirational rhetoric about democracy or freedom can be difficult to distinguish from cynical manipulation or knee jerk mindlessness. Either way, explicit invocations of these values have approximately the same effect as do snippets of glossy magazine advice concerning sex, relationships, housekeeping, or careers. They're momentarily compelling in an urgent, lonely way, but so inconsonant with our individually perceived realities that their disquieting influence is quickly submerged and dissolved in the soul beating sea of modern insecurities.

What happens, though, when uncertain complacency becomes stomach churning bewilderment which is then engulfed by a bitter, frantic sense of betrayal? What if the curtain, ripped down mostly by its own soggy mildewed weight, reveals an unsteady workshop of quarreling, blinkered 'wannabe' wizards, each too incapacitated by greed, ambition, self-righteousness, or pure unadulterated idiocy to acknowledge their own foul contributions to their stewing brew of exploitation?

What happens when Americans recoil in empirically justified rage against an establishment that now clearly appears to have been playing them for suckers for generations? Is the most deadly enemy to our idiot elite an aroused citizenry? Will the response be meaningful reform or dog-wagging deadly wars in concert with harsh domestic repression?

We may be seeing some preliminary answers unfurling even now as Donald Trump marches, lizard-like, toward the White House. 

Or it may just be up to us.