Democracy Incorporated Part 20

CHAPTER TEN.

DOMESTIC POLITICS IN THE ERA OF SUPERPOWER AND EMPIRE.

1. Cited by Philip Gourevitch, "Bushspeak," New Yorker, September 13, 2004, 4142.

2. As shown by the case of a former Young Republican loyalist, Jack Abramoff, ideological fervency is no prophylactic against corruption, in this case fleecing Indian tribes, even as it keeps faith with the long tradition of special treatment, including racist insults, of Native Americans. It is also instructive to note how the last three candidates proposed for Supreme Court appointments by the Bush administration-Miers, Roberts, Alito-had served long apprentices.h.i.+ps in Republican Party organizations and in Republican administrations. In a recent but not unrelated development, right-wing groups have mounted a campaign in several states to make it possible to indict judges whose opinions run counter to the ideology of the groups.

3. Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System: A Report of the Committee on Political Parties, American Political Science Review 44, no. 3, pt. 2, Supplement (1950): 19. Details concerning the composition of the Party Councils can be found at 43.

4. "On the Road, Bush Fields Softb.a.l.l.s from the Faithful," New York Times, August 16, 2004, A-11.

5. Niall Ferguson, Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire (New York: Penguin, 2004), vii ff., and "America, Unconscious Colossus," Daedalus, Spring 2005, 1833. Mann, Incoherent Empire, 13, sees the United States as "a disturbed, misshapen monster stumbling clumsily across the world."

6. Charles Krauthamer as quoted by Mann, Incoherent Empire, 10.

7. Anthony Pagden, "Empire, Liberalism and the Quest for Perpetual Peace," in Daedalus, Spring 2005, 4657, at 52.

8. "Cheney Sees 'Shameless' Revision on War," New York Times, November 22, 2005, A-1.

9. Cited in Mann, Incoherent Empire, 11.

10. The major exception is the continuing controversy over procedural rights. This contrasts with the lively academic discourse on justice during the last three decades of the twentieth century, thanks primarily to the focus provided by the magistral work of John Rawls.

11. See Johnston, Perfectly Legal.

12. The long-term objective of the tax reformers is to establish a flat tax. The originators of the idea of a flat tax candidly wrote that the tax "would be a tremendous boon to the economic elite. . . . It is an obvious mathematical law that lower taxes on the successful will have to be made up by higher taxes on average people." Cited by John Ca.s.sidy, "Tax Code," New Yorker, September 6, 2004, 75.

13. In attempting to erase felons from the voter rolls, the state of Florida managed to erase legal voters as well.

14. In much of previous American history spontaneous movements have played an important role in invigorating politics. Such were the Grange movement, the Populists, and, recently, the Green party. It could be argued that spontaneity also drove the campaign of Howard Dean. The successful effort to crush him, undertaken by both the media and his opponents, ill.u.s.trates the rigidity of the current party system and what it feels threatened by.

15. For details and examples, see Singer, Corporate Warriors, especially 73 ff.; Scahill, Blackwater, 321 ff., is especially interesting for the policing role a.s.sumed by private security forces in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Scahill, chap. 1, is also revealing of the religious element in the Blackwater hierarchy.

16. Santa Rosa Press Democrat, March 7, 2004, A-3.

17. A remarkable variation on winning was described recently in the New York Times. There a former congressman and now consultant suggested that it might be better for the party if it were not to win the 2006 midterm elections. This would force the Republicans to "struggle" through the remainder of President Bush's term and better position the Democrats for 2008. See Adam Nagourney, "Hey Democrats, Why Win?" May 14, 2006, sec. 4, p. 1. Yet another symptom of the party's failure to oppose was the large number of its candidates in the 2006 midterm elections whose views were strikingly similar to those of conservative Republicans. See Shaila Dewan and Anne Kornblut, "In Key House Races, Democrats Run to the Right," New York Times, October 30, 2006, A-1.

18. Quoted in David M. Halbfinger, "Shedding Populist Tone, Kerry Starts Move to Middle," New York Times, May 8, 2004, A-14.

19. For a discussion of the strategies of welfare opponents, especially as they relate to bureaucracy, see Jacob S. Hacker, "Privatizing Risk without Privatizing the Welfare State: The Hidden Politics of Social Policy Retrenchment in the United States," American Political Science Review 98, no. 2 (May 2004): 24360. Another tactic favored by lobbyists is to have their proposals inserted in appropriation bills at a stage where the items cannot be removed except through the defeat of the entire bill.

20. Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America (New York: Metropolitan Books, (2004) is devoted to the question of why the less powerful and poorer cla.s.ses vote against their own interests.

21. A majority of Americans are said to favor having a religious president.

22. Cited in Halbfinger, "Shedding Populist Tone, Kerry Starts Move to Middle," A-14.

23. Only in the last month before the election did Kerry attempt a clarification of his views on these matters, and even then the differences seemed more rhetorical than substantive.

24. The takeover of the Democratic Party by the "center" is an eerie echo of the fate of the Centre Party (largely Catholic) in the Weimar Republic. Amidst the increasingly polarized politics of the 1920s and early 1930s, the party could not make up its mind whether to support the Right (n.a.z.is and extreme conservatives) or the Left (Social Democrats and Communists). It ended up supporting the Right and was abolished soon after the n.a.z.is took power.

25. The Missouri Compromise also stipulated that Kansas and Nebraska would be organized as free territories.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

INVERTED TOTALITARIANISM: ANTECEDENTS AND PRECEDENTS.

1. In March 2006, in response to a lawsuit, New York city police commanders made public reports on their arrest tactics during political demonstrations of 2002. These included "pro-active arrests," covert surveillance, seizure of demonstrators who were "obviously potential rioters," and the deployment of undercover officers to infiltrate political gatherings. It was proposed that a tactic of "utiliz[ing] undercover officers to distribute misinformation within the crowds" be resumed, although it had been disavowed thirty years earlier by the city and federal governments. For a further description of police tactics, see Jim Dwyer, "Police Files Say Arrest Tactics Calmed Protest," New York Times, March 17, 2006, A-1.

2. During the traditional New Year's Eve celebration in New York City to usher in 2005, police armed with machine guns patrolled the crowds.

3. The twofold threat presented by Dean was, first, his forthright insistence that the war in Iraq was a gigantic blunder and that the United States needed to withdraw as soon as feasible; and, second, the threat of a popular mobilization, especially of the young. The Democratic Party wanted voters, not militants.

4. On the role of paramilitary forces in preparing the way to power in Italy, see Mann, Fascists, 6869.

5. Ibid., 37 ff.

6. See Carl Schorske, Fin-de-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture (New York: Knopf, 1980), 116 ff.

7. The New York Times reported that in a Roper poll in the summer of 2005, 72 percent of the respondents believed that wrongdoing was widespread in industry; that only 2 percent described CEOs of large corporations as very trustworthy. In a Harris poll of November 2005, 90 percent of the respondents said that big companies had too much influence in Was.h.i.+ngton. The Times's photo accompanying the report pictured an executive shackled helplessly to a target dotted with knives that had apparently missed. "Take Your Best Shot," December 9, 2005, C-1.

8. See the curious piece in the New York Times, "An Unexpected Odd Couple: Free Markets and Freedom," June 14, 2007, A-4, where a few American intellectuals are said to have become doubtful that capitalism and democracy "need each other to survive." Those interviewed were perplexed primarily by China, which is becoming more capitalistic but hardly more democratic; some also seemed to believe that while democracy depends upon capitalism, the reverse is not true. Marx would have agreed. One appeared to suggest that democracy and capitalism were incompatible.

9. Neoconservatives, according to one neoconservative, accept that they live in "a democratic age." They "recognize" the "fundamental justice of democratic equality" (which the author left undefined). Democracy's "shortcomings" are its "low aspirations and dehumanizing tendencies." He concludes: "Only neoconservatism among contemporary conservative modes of thought has made its peace with democracy. That fact might also be considered a serious weakness, but would be a subject for another day." Adam Wolfson, "Conservatives and Neoconservatives," in The Neocon Reader, ed. Irwin Stelzer (New York: Grove Press, 2004), 223, 231.

10. Here the essay "The Neoconservative Persuasion" by Irving Kristol, regarded by many as the intellectual G.o.dfather of neoconservatism, is indicative. While he supports "economic growth" as the means to "promote the spread of affluence among all cla.s.ses" so that "a property-owning and taxpaying population will, in time, become less vulnerable to egalitarian illusions and demagogic appeals," he rejects the notion that conservatives should favor a weak "State." In Stelzer, The Neocon Reader, 35. In the same volume he begins his essay "A Conservative Welfare State" by writing, "I shall pay no attention to the economics of the welfare state." He goes on: "What conservatives ought to seek, first of all, is a welfare state consistent with the basic moral principles of our civilization and the basic political principles of our nation. . . . [W]e should figure out what we want before we calculate what we can afford, not the reverse, which is the normal conservative predisposition" (145).

11. See John Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, Money, and the English State, 16881783 (New York: Knopf, 1988). Brewer writes, "The late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw an astonis.h.i.+ng transformation in British government, one which put muscle on the bones of the British body politic, increasing its endurance, strength and reach. Britain was able to shoulder an ever-more ponderous burden of military commitments thanks to a radical increase in taxation, the development of public deficit finance (a national debt) on an unprecedented scale, and the growth of a sizable administration devoted to organizing the fiscal and military activities of the state" (xvii).

12. Burkean conservatism resurfaced in the late 1950s and early 1960s in writers such as Russell Kirk and William Buckley. They are now somewhat scornfully labeled "paleoconservatives" by some neocons.

13. The infatuation of American academics with Bentham and J. S. Mill was mostly a twentieth-century phenomenon.

14. Schlesinger, The Coming of the New Deal, chaps. 25.

15. A major exception was the directive of President Truman ending segregation in the armed forces.

16. See Eric Nordlinger, On the Democratic State (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), for a defense of the neoliberal state.

17. Among the influential studies are James Burnham, The Managerial Revolution (New York: John Day, 1941); Peter Drucker, The Practice of Management (London: Heinemann, 1956); and Chandler and Daems, Managerial Hierarchies; and, more critically, Herman, Corporate Control, Corporate Power. The great forerunner of these studies was Thorstein Veblen. See his The Theory of Business Enterprise (New York: Mentor, 1904, 1932) and The Engineers and the Price System (New York: Harcourt, 1921), 1963.

18. On the opposition between reason and pa.s.sion, see The Federalist, No. 49, p. 343; No. 50, p. 346; No. 58, p. 396. On pa.s.sion and interest, see No. 10, p. 61; on pa.s.sion as strong, irregular, and selfish, see No. 6, p. 29; No. 20, p. 128; No. 41, pp. 264, 275; No. 42, p. 283; No. 63, pp. 423, 425.

19. Quoted in Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York: Knopf, 1991), 246. I am much indebted to Wood's discussion of interests.

20. In The Federalist, No. 35, pp. 21921 Hamilton dismissed as "visionary" the claim that "actual representation of all cla.s.ses of the people by persons of each cla.s.s" could be achieved. He argued that "merchants" were "the natural patron and friend" of "mechanics and manufacturers" and "have acquired endowments" lacking in the other cla.s.ses.

21. Ibid., No. 23, pp. 15051; No. 46, p. 318.

22. Note also the recent spate of celebratory biographies of Was.h.i.+ngton, Hamilton, and Adams; at the same time Jefferson's standing as a leader and democratic spokesman has fallen sharply.

23. See the important work by Nash, The Unknown American Revolution.

24. Madison, The Federalist, No. 58, p. 397; John Jay, No. 4, p. 22.

25. See Madison's usage, "the people stimulated by some irregular pa.s.sion." Ibid., No. 63, p. 425; and Hamilton, "Are not popular a.s.semblies frequently subject to to the impulses of rage, resentment, jealousy, avarice, and of other irregular and violent propensities?" No. 6, p. 32.

26. See the stimulating account in Charles Wiebe, Self-Rule: A Cultural History of American Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), especially pts. 1 and 2; and my Tocqueville, chaps. 12 and 19.

27. James Madison, The Federalist, No. 10, p. 64.

28. Ibid., No. 71, p. 482.

29. Ibid., No. 9, p. 51; No. 31, p. 95.

30. Cited by James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet (New York: Viking, 2004), 203.

31. The Federalist, No. 10, p. 64.

32. Cited in Gould, Grand Old Party, 379.

33. See the lively study by Frank, What's the Matter with Kansas? It is rarely pointed out that the racial categories of pollsters serve to reinforce racism and its stereotypes.

34. Cited in Merrill D. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 773.

35. There is a helpful discussion of Hamilton's ideas on empire, as well as of the various emphases given to the term by earlier and contemporary writers, in Gerald Stourzh, Alexander Hamilton and the Idea of Republican Government (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1970), especially 189 ff.

36. There is a judicious a.s.sessment of Turner in Richard Hofstadter, The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington (New York: Knopf, 1969), 47 ff.

37. The Frontier in American History (New York: Holt, 1920, 1947), 10. Turner was suspicious of certain immigrant groups: "But even in the dull brains of great ma.s.ses of these unfortunates from southern and eastern Europe the idea of America as the land of freedom and opportunity to rise, the land of pioneer democratic ideals, has found lodgment, and if it is given time and is not turned into revolutionary lines it will fructify" (278).

38. Ibid., preface, ii; 21921.

39. The Federalist, No. 51, p. 351.

40. Ibid., No. 70, p. 472.

41. More accurately, Hamilton's vision of the executive was more expansively developed at the Const.i.tutional Convention at Philadelphia. There he argued for an executive who would serve for life and similarly for one branch of the legislature. See Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the the Federal Convention, 3 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1911), 1:289, 292.

42. Cited in Ferguson, Colossus, 80.

43. Charlie Savage, "Bush a.s.serts Power to Ignore Laws," Santa Rosa Press Democrat, May 1, 2006, A-1.

44. Justice Alito, who served under Attorney General Meese during the Reagan administration, helped devise a strategy for circ.u.mventing congressional intentions.

45. Quoted by Emmanuel Todd, Apres l'empire: essai sur la decomposition du systeme americain (Paris: Gallimard, 2002), 22.

46. In Hegel's famous allegory of the interaction between master and slave the master is degraded by the practices of mastery while the slave is elevated by inventing ways of resistance. See Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 11119.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

DEMOTIC MOMENTS.

1. To P. S. Dupont de Nemours, April 24, 1816, in Writings (New York: Library of America, 1984), 1385.

2. "Popular Sovereignty as Procedure," in Deliberative Democracy: Essays on Reason and Politics, ed. James Bohman and William Rehig (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997), 43. Italics in original.

3. See the proposals for congressional action in "Budget to Hurt Poor People . . . ," New York Times, January 30, 2006, A-14.

4. One of the striking features of the recent spate of literature celebrating the American empire is the near universal silence of its authors about the internal or domestic consequences of empire. See Ferguson's Colossus and Walter Russell Mead's Power, Terror, Peace, and War (New York: Knopf, 2004).

5. At the beginning of Bush's second term a series of personnel changes signaled a pause in imperial ambitions. The imperial face was remodeled as democracy's worldwide advocate, the grumpy Rumsfeld traded in for the stylish Rice. Wolfowitz was transferred from the Defense Department to the World Bank; Bolton, the a.s.sistant secretary of state for arms control with an appet.i.te for bullying, was given a recess appointment as amba.s.sador to the UN; and other hawks have left government in order to be with their families.

6. During the 2004 presidential campaign it was obvious that the Democrats and their supporters were united almost exclusively by their dislike of Bush. The same tendency to focus primarily on the leader was also evident in the immediate aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

7. Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, ed. and trans. Quintin h.o.a.re and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1971), 273.