Political versus Apolitical Strategies
Posted by Anna Morgenstern on Jun 5, 2011 in Feature Articles • 7 commentsThe problem with any sort of “political” ideology is that they are largely made up of a “laundry list” of specific issue proposals. This is true whether there is an underlying consistent idea behind them or not.
Let’s first examine the favorite whipping boy of many people, “libertarianism”. The problem, as some of the more clever leftoids have argued, is that the ruling class will look through this laundry list and throw their weight behind the parts of it that strengthen their position, and discard the rest, thus making libertarianism into a less aggressively socially conservative form of conservatism.
“Lower taxes?”
Sure, let’s lower taxes for the rich.
“Less regulation?”
Well, let’s remove the regulations that counteract corporate power, but not the other ones (see: Enron).
“Legalize drugs?”
No friggin’ way, chief.
But what’s not clearly understood is that this is also true for “liberalism” and so-called “social democracy” or “democratic socialism” or what have you. Modern American “liberalism” is simply Mass Corporatism on steroids. It’s pure bureaucratism. You play nice and obey the rules and if you’re a very excellent drone you get to make money, but not too much, unless you become an insider. In some ways, it’s a bit less harsh than the conservative version of Corporatism but it’s also much harder to evade or escape. The conservatives give you more of a chance to do your own thing, but they also leave you utterly fucked if you fail.
There is no political ideology that can escape this co-optive process carried out by the ruling class. This has led to a principle called the Iron Law of Oligarchy which states that every form of political organization ends up becoming an oligarchy. I think this is true of any political structure, but not necessarily every social structure.
Being a renegade, an anarchist, an agorist or a syndicalist is a zebra of a different stripe. These are what I’d call “anti-political” or “apolitical” ideologies. In these schemes, the non-ruling class takes it upon themselves to create their own sub-society that functions outside the political-economic superstructure, rather than trying to influence that superstructure. This of course leads to conflict at the margins, which, until a certain critical mass is reached, requires stealth and evasion from the authoritarian structure.
As the superstructure grows more advanced and integrated, direct conflict becomes less and less effective as a strategy over time. So in a sense, all of the “political” ideologies are the bulwark, the front line forces, of the ruling class oligarchy. The age of the mass strike came to an end after WWI, for the most part, in the US, and in the 60s in Europe. But there are forms of direct action that have subtly replaced this, in which workers and freelancers take back their surplus value from the oligarchy.
The response has been the warfare-outsourcing project, in which the ruling class devastates the peripheral states and then ruthlessly exploits the surviving working class there. This is what the “cold war” and now, the “war on terror”, were designed to accomplish. Orwell predicted this aspect of things in his book 1984 pretty well. Then for the core states, bread and circuses or soma, keep the population from drifting into the grey zones and keep them supporting the oligarchy. Huxley predicted this aspect of things in his book Brave New World pretty well.
The problem for the ruling class is that they can’t really keep it up forever. We’re bleeding them, and they’re eating their own raw materials trying to maintain an inefficient oligarchic economy. This is the reason why “green” ideology has become popular lately. The ruling class hopes to use fear of environmental destruction in order to suppress consumption by the working class, allowing them to “sustain” corporate hegemony. The fear of environmental destruction is a real fear, but it is the state-corporate oligarchy itself which is causing the destruction. They use the conservatives as a red herring to provide a comical, irresponsible “anti-environmentalist” position that will help drive the more reasonable portion of the population into the “pro-environmentalist” camp.
The mask of political liberty and/or justice is beginning to show too many cracks. The ruling class is forced to act more and more openly and directly to keep the game of spinning plates going, as the inefficiencies and crises inherent in large hierarchic systems start to occur more frequently. This drives more people into the grey zone, into various renegade ideologies (including simple “I don’t give a fuck”ism). This creates more crises for the ruling class — lather, rinse and repeat. The question that lies before us is whether they will be able to re-establish themselves after the collapse.
Whether they can pull a Russia and liquidate, and let the collapse act as a “blow off valve” for their structural inefficiency and come back in a slightly less totalitarian, but no less authoritarian form… or perhaps a China, where they gradually balance economic freedom for some with cultural hegemony over all. These two nations are, perhaps, experiments for the ruling class.
We renegades must find each other and strengthen our own non-political societies, despite our differences in opinion, if we hope to provide a better alternative than these experiments.
Damn, this is good!
To the liberal-conservative comparison, I'd add that the conservatives' cops are somewhat bigger and meaner, but the liberals' cops are paired up with social workers in a tag team match.
On the issue of exporting the worst forms of exploitation to the periphery, this has been offset to a considerable extent since the '70s by the abandonment of the New Deal contract and the importation of the worst forms of repression from the periphery to the core. The super rich are basically retreating into their gated communities and turning the U.S. into part of the Third World.
It is early, and I just read this, but I'm not quite understanding what exactly this has to to do with "political versus apolitical strategies". I am getting more of a vibe of contrasting and comparing two cultural paradigms, and not necessarily two opposing strategies.
If the ruling class is run by big business, then why would they use "Green" propaganda to suppress consumption? Doesn't reducing consumption reduce corporate profits?
Not two opposing strategies, but two types of strategy.
"The problem with any sort of “political” ideology is that they are largely made up of a “laundry list” of specific issue proposals. This is true whether there is an underlying consistent idea behind them or not."
vs
"In these schemes, the non-ruling class takes it upon themselves to create their own sub-society that functions outside the political-economic superstructure, rather than trying to influence that superstructure. "
I didn't, admittedly, go into the specifics of how parliamentarian reformists tactically implement their strategy because I felt it was rather obvious to anyone living in a parliamentary republic.
This article is an incredibly insightful and succint analysis of the ruling classes and the development of the status quo. It's so good it almost blinds me from the rest of the article. I merely scanned the part on the political strategy because, while it's good, it's known territory. But not to worry, I will read the whole thing again because it only gets better and better the moment you get into apolitical strategies.
Also very insightful is the of the ruling classes face. I always find it disturbing to witness about the predicaments and speculate about the plots of the 'ruling classes' , but then I simply consider what I would do if I believed I could represent and lead "the international community" or the like. Anything I can imagine them potentially doing, they can certainly think of as well.
The first paragraph reminded me of this:
"But the principles you accept (consciously or subconsciously) may clash with or contradict one another; they, too have to be integrated. What integrates them? Philosophy. A philosophic system is an integrated view of existence. As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation — or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: *self-doubt*, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown."
– Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It, An address given to the graduating class of the United States Military Academy at West Point on March 6, 1974
Anyone can see from what this article describes that most people's minds subconsciously harbor a staggering philosophical junk heap strung together with violence and apathy to violence.
Green products are either more expensive, or actually give the corporation a stable control over the green movement by moving it away from revolutionary ideas and back into consumption. The "green" is an advertising scheme that recuperates possible loss long-term. Another aspect is that the ruling class "Green solutions" actually give the corporations production projects and, because contracted by the State, lowers the cost of those projects and simultaneously raises the profits–it also functions as a cartelizing scheme to discourage competition even further, which actually helps the oligopoly in a market. In fact, some of the "Green regulations" become counter-productive, considering the inevitability of large globalized bureaucracies to create unprecedented environmental externalities that are "socialized" via the State. Protection of property here is obviously one-sided and there is no inherent permanent value to cultivation when violence is used to extract value elsewhere, abroad, away from the local. While that remains, their actually won't be a solution to environmental issues. It's all rhetoric.