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December 28, 2017 at 11:33 am #79702
ZooeyModeratorThe following is an excerpt from Dennis Marker’s new book 15 Steps to Corporate Feudalism [3], published this year. In the text below, Marker shares one of the steps he sees as central to the destruction of the middle class since Ronald Reagan took over.
Your goal for this step is to figure out how to teach the middle class to hate their own government using a strategy that takes into consideration the political climate of the United States of thirty years ago.
Teaching the middle class to hate their government was an essential part of the plan to implement Corporate Feudalism. A middle class cannot exist without a strong government. This is because only a government has the power to stand up to the giant corporations of today’s world, or the powerful individuals and private armies of earlier times. It is the government that enforces the laws to protect the middle class from those who would like to become their economic rulers. That is why prior to the Industrial Revolution and the creation of the middle class all economies were run according to some version of the feudal system. If you want to put an end to the middle class and replace it with a feudal republic, you would need to change people’s perception of their government.
Obviously a government does not have to be on the side of its people, as can be seen by the existence of countless dictatorships and oligarchies throughout the world. Even the corporatocracy that currently exists in the United States falls far short of being on the side of its middle class. But US history shows that a government committed to serving its citizens can, in fact, help create and maintain a healthy middle class even in the face of powerful corporations whose only interest is maximizing their own power and profits.
It is like the story in old westerns of a big bad landowner who takes what he wants when he wants it, ruthlessly terrorizing a town without a strong sheriff. Any individual who tries to stop the landowner is beaten into submission or killed. The situation continues until the town finds a strong enough sheriff to regain control over the landowner and his gang. This is the Old West version of the feudal system. In westerns, the feudal lord comes first and the sheriff comes later. But in the United States of thirty years ago, the government was the strong sheriff keeping the late-twentieth-century feudal lords from taking what they wanted. As long as the government was supported by its citizens—particularly its middle class—no one could ride into town and steal what belonged to the people. But if the government were weakened or destroyed, a different situation would arise. The intent of the plan for Corporate Feudalism was to convince the middle class to fire their sheriff. And that’s just what happened.
Thirty years ago at the onset of the Reagan Revolution, the middle class basically appreciated and respected their government and believed that living in the United States was good for the middle class. They took their status for granted. The connection between what was good about the United States and its government was clear to the American public. For the most part, people believed the government was on their side and largely responsible for the high standard of living they enjoyed. Their government built the roads that made transportation easy. Their government made the laws and regulations that kept US workers safe at their jobs. Their government ensured that their food was safe. The labor strife that had empowered the middle class was now decades old, and the Vietnam War had ended, although not well. In many ways the United States of thirty years ago was a happy place, and most people understood their government’s role in keeping it that way. While there were problems, including the energy crisis, they seemed manageable. Not everyone was happy with everything the government did, of course, but there was general agreement that the US government was the best government anywhere.
Then the US government found itself in the crosshairs of the brand-new Reagan Revolution with no way to understand why it was under attack and no way to defend itself. For thirty years, it took blow after blow. Now, while still standing, that government is very different from what it was when Reagan took office. It is much weaker, no longer able to offer the protections or provide the services the middle class took for granted thirty years ago—the same kinds of services that many European democracies have continued to provide for their citizens during the period of US economic and social decline. And in its weakened state the US government has lost the support of the very citizens who depended on it the most, the middle class.
How did this happen? When Ronald Reagan got to Washington, he set out to convince the middle class that their government was their enemy, using his considerable powers of persuasion. The basic message of Reagan and the conservatives was that everyone would be better off if the federal government just disappeared. They were smart enough not to say this directly, however. Instead, they just landed one body blow after another without openly expressing their desire to destroy the government.
For example, Reagan attacked government workers, contending they were lazy, they wasted taxpayer money, and they involved themselves in issues they knew nothing about, like regulating large businesses and corporations. Within the first few years of Reagan’s election, the morale of the federal workforce plummeted as these employees saw their image shift from being considered public servants trying to make life in the United States better for everyone to being seen as lazy, despised bureaucrats wasting taxpayer money. Far from being a place where committed public servants worked to help the public, Washington, DC, became known as the place where crooks, thieves, and lazy workers stole taxpayer money for foolish purposes or their own personal benefit.
While federal workers had unions to protect their jobs, they did not have high-priced lobbyists and media consultants to safeguard their image. The unions representing federal workers came under the same harsh attack as the workers themselves, but the attacks went largely unanswered. The nation’s first movie star president had intentionally created this negative image of government workers, and he was convincing.
Following Reagan, other conservatives continued to lead the charge against the government, often using the same language the Reagan administration had employed. Few found language more effective than the Reagan one-liner, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help,” but they didn’t need to. The leap from John F. Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” to Reagan’s cynical and supposedly frightening “I’m from the government and I’m here to help,” had been successfully made.
In addition to waging a full-scale campaign against the government and its employees, the Reagan administration also implemented another practice that was equally destructive to the image of government—filling government positions with people who hated government, a practice that continues to this day. For those seeking to change the United States from a middle-class democracy to a corporate feudal republic, there are three major advantages to this practice. First, you give government jobs to your conservative friends and cronies. Second, you keep dedicated public servants who want to see government succeed out of government. Third, and most importantly, you have a cadre of conservative ideologues working inside the government to sabotage and destroy the government at every turn.
The advantages for conservatives of sabotaging and destroying the government are almost limitless. Looking at a few examples from George W. Bush’s administration shows why. Thirty years ago the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), a government agency committed to protecting the public by monitoring the safety of toys and other products, made a positive difference in people’s lives. However, during George W. Bush’s administration conservatives who filled many of the civil service positions and all of the politically appointed slots did not believe the government should be in the business of helping to protect the public, and they did everything in their power to avoid carrying out their responsibilities. When Congress tried to give the CPSC more money to do a better job of regulating products imported from China, for example, the Bush-appointed agency head refused. She said they had plenty of money to do their job, although in reality they weren’t doing their job at all. Then reports started coming in about unsafe toys originating in China. People were outraged, as they should have been, and blamed the government. By failing to do their jobs, the conservatives were encouraging people to give up on their own government, which was exactly what conservatives wanted.
Thirty years ago, in an effort to make their point, conservatives often exaggerated the examples of government corruption and waste, but during George W. Bush’s administration scandals involving everything from toys to military contracting became the norm. And who were the perpetrators of most of these crimes against the United States and its taxpayers? They were government-hating conservatives working inside the government, placed there for this very reason. Each time one of these conservatives was caught in another scandal, the American public’s view of government deteriorated a little more. If you believe in a government that helps its citizens, this seems bad. But if you believe that the best government is no government this seems great, so the people who wanted to establish Corporate Feudalism couldn’t have been happier.
That was the plan used by Corporate Feudalists to convince millions of middle-class people to hate their own government. Did you think of a more effective way to accomplish this goal? Or do you believe the plan that was used was the most effective one available?
Dennis Marker has worked for the US Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency, various political campaigns, and at Sojourners magazine. He is the author of 15 Steps to Corporate Feudalism [3] (2012).
December 29, 2017 at 8:21 am #79722
CalParticipantThen the US government found itself in the crosshairs of the brand-new Reagan Revolution with no way to understand why it was under attack and no way to defend itself. For thirty years, it took blow after blow. Now, while still standing, that government is very different from what it was when Reagan took office. It is much weaker, no longer able to offer the protections or provide the services the middle class took for granted thirty years ago—the same kinds of services that many European democracies have continued to provide for their citizens during the period of US economic and social decline.
This question about the role of government is complex and difficult, but I’m not sure how accurate this guy’s presentation of the picture is.
If the left is going to have an important place at the table to discuss solutions for the problems that the country faces, it needs an accurate understanding of the current condition and the problem.
30 years ago, (at the end of the Reagan’s term), 19 million people were receiving SNAP (food stamps). 44 million people received SNAP benefits this year.
30 years ago, 3 million people received WIC benefits. 7 million people received WIC benefits this year.
I didn’t look at the numbers, but I bet other programs for the poor, like Medicaid, HUD, & CHiP, have continued to grow.
Sure the population has grown, but it hasn’t doubled in the last 30 years. Government, at least some aspects of it, has continued to grow.
The stats seem to echo my own limited, personal experience. The abject, crushing poverty I saw at times as a child in the 80’s has receded a bit.
December 29, 2017 at 11:25 am #79727
znModeratorFirst off I positively do not care about hits to welfare because that stuff is economically insignificant.
I do care that Reagan ruined the american economy by fostering the illusion that trickle down economics works when in fact it flat out does not. Giving more wealth to the top 1% hurts the economy, it doesn’t help it. The evidence on this is overwhelming.
Plus the developed world is full of thriving economies that are heavily into basic social welfare, including things like single payer insurance. That stuff works. It’s better, and it works.
The mere slogan “government’s big” does nothing for me. I consider right libertarians to be trapped in what amounts to a religion where beliefs, however false, blind them to truths.
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December 29, 2017 at 3:59 pm #79731
Billy_TParticipantGood article. But I’d argue against the statement that the middle class needs the government the most. IMO, it’s flat out obvious that the rich need the government the most, and always have. In fact, the capitalist system itself would die a very quick death if movement conservatives and right-libertarians (propertarians) ever got what they say they want: “small government.” The dirty little secret going back to the earliest rising of capitalism is that it never could have achieved hegemony without massive public spending on its behalf, and it never would have survived even its first downturn.
(Without exception, the public sector has saved/revived capitalism every time it goes into contraction.)
In short, taxpayers have spent trillions of dollars to promote it, expand it, sustain it, reduce business costs and bail it out endlessly. Just since 1970, the world has had more than 100 massive taxpayer bailouts of capitalism, with the most recent (2007-2009) at one point hitting 16 trillion. And all the infrastructure, currency/valuation, treaties, trade agreements, wars, coups, courts, police and rescue, R and D, etc. etc. . . . It just pisses me off to no end when I hear conservatives talk as if the government is unnecessary, even for business, not to mention the victims of its dominance and destruction.
To make a long story short, I think Reagan and his followers are, to be very generous, among the most mendacious and opportunistic cretins in American history — for a host of reasons. One of the biggest is this: the very institutions they bashed, scapegoated and helped destroy paved the way for 100% of the “success” capitalists can ever claim. They basically wanted to pull up the ladder they inherited so no one else would benefit, living under the delusion that “big government” had suddenly become unimportant for the continuance of the capitalist system.
More than thirty years later, and they’re still operating under this delusion, and even more fiercely, aggressively dedicated to Ayn Rand’s poisonous vision of the world.
December 29, 2017 at 4:09 pm #79732Billy_TParticipantI also find it ironic that leftists actually have answers for how we can really get to “small government,” and as close to no “state” as possible — which is my own dream.
The key to that is replacing the capitalist system with a fully democratized and egalitarian, publicly held, non-profit economy, based locally and federated. And by publicly held, I mean directly, not through proxies like political parties. Not through “the state.”
I’ve never read anyone on the political right who has a valid plan to get to “small government,” because, almost to a person, they cling to the capitalist system. Small government is simply incompatible with capitalism for a gazillion reasons. It depends on massive international government to keep it going for the reasons list above and . . . . it’s the first economic system in history to unify all previously independent systems/markets. It’s the first unified economic system, evah. No way that can be maintained without the concerted efforts of dozens of Big Gubmints worldwide.
December 29, 2017 at 4:22 pm #79733Billy_TParticipantFirst off I positively do not care about hits to welfare because that stuff is economically insignificant.
I do care that Reagan ruined the american economy by fostering the illusion that trickle down economics works when in fact it flat out does not. Giving more wealth to the top 1% hurts the economy, it doesn’t help it. The evidence on this is overwhelming.
Plus the developed world is full of thriving economies that are heavily into basic social welfare, including things like single payer insurance. That stuff works. It’s better, and it works.
The mere slogan “government’s big” does nothing for me. I consider right libertarians to be trapped in what amounts to a religion where beliefs, however false, blind them to truths.
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Lotsa good points, ZN.
The system is rigged, but not in the way movement conservatives believe. We’re not allowed to have fully non-profit, publicly held choices for key goods and services, because Corporate America won’t allow it. And they won’t allow it because they know that they can’t compete with it.
Reagan and his followers also did a bang up job pushing the Big Lie that the private sector is always better at everything. In reality, if the public sector were set free, had zero private interests dictating what it could do, it would trounce the private sector in virtually every sphere. I honestly can’t think of a single exception at the moment, though there may be some. The private, for-profit sector simply can’t compete on price, value, working conditions, rank and file pay or overall quality, because its overhead is far too high. And its overhead is far too high because it chooses to maximize executive/ownership compensation, and has far too many additional expenses, like shareholder dividends, tax lawyers, ads/marketing, unsold merchandise, etc . . . and it needs to make profits on top of all of that. As in, it needs to charge more, give less to consumers, pay less to rank and file workers, in order for it to all work out (maths). And it needs a hell of a lot of help from the public sector beyond that.
The public sector never comes close to the same overhead costs, and is far more egalitarian in its wage ratios (in the 5 to 1 range).
In short, Americans would be far better off if we could at LEAST choose between non-profit, public sector and for-profit, private options. We aren’t allowed that choice.
December 29, 2017 at 4:55 pm #79737
PA RamParticipantWhere government does fail it is often set up for failure by the forces that want it to fail.
The Republicans hate government.
So they run for office, defund programs or in Trump’s case do that and put the most incompetent people they can find to run it–make a lot of noise about how it is failing(even though they share that responsibility) and offer a solution of private enterprise as the tonic this nation needs. Only that solution can work. Only that solution can save us.
Except it doesn’t.
It isn’t made for that.
But yes–people are being conditioned to hate government.
Look–the government can pick winners and losers by writing the rules.
A government that does not serve the economic interests of the majority of its citizens will eventually be doomed to failure. But on the way out–some people will get very very rich. And they may not have much of a need for government when all the gold is gone.
That’s what is slowly happening.
And many Americans–those who will be hurt by this–are cheering the loudest.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. " Philip K. Dick
December 29, 2017 at 6:26 pm #79743Billy_TParticipantWhere government does fail it is often set up for failure by the forces that want it to fail.
The Republicans hate government.
So they run for office, defund programs or in Trump’s case do that and put the most incompetent people they can find to run it–make a lot of noise about how it is failing(even though they share that responsibility) and offer a solution of private enterprise as the tonic this nation needs. Only that solution can work. Only that solution can save us.
Except it doesn’t.
It isn’t made for that.
But yes–people are being conditioned to hate government.
Look–the government can pick winners and losers by writing the rules.
A government that does not serve the economic interests of the majority of its citizens will eventually be doomed to failure. But on the way out–some people will get very very rich. And they may not have much of a need for government when all the gold is gone.
That’s what is slowly happening.
And many Americans–those who will be hurt by this–are cheering the loudest.
The Dems didn’t help this, either, by basically, at least since the early 1970s, shooting for Republican Lite.
It ticks me off, for instance, when they say they want to do business tax credits too. Sheesh. The answer isn’t more bribes for business. The answer is to hire directly into the public sector. The private sector has proven that it’s just not going to pay enough to the rank and file, and it will always chase after cheaper and cheaper labor overseas, and/or automate it out of existence. IMO, we need to stop pampering, coddling, begging, bribing businesses to do what they should be doing all along: hire Americans and pay high wages.
Cut out the middlemen. Hire into the public sector directly, where we can also secure jobs and prevent them from going overseas or disappear due to automation. The Dems never should have capitulated to the GOP regarding this endless slashing of social spending. They should always have fought them ferociously and gone with direct spending/hiring, without apology.
IMO, NOT doing this is what led to Trump and the rise of white nationalism. Same thing happened in Europe. The soft neoliberalism of centrists gave us the hard neoliberalism PLUS white nationalism of the hard right. This simply can’t be stopped by more centrism. It can only be stopped by aggressive left-populism, in my view — and, it’s the most effective and efficient answer to boot.
December 29, 2017 at 6:58 pm #79744Billy_TParticipantAnother thing to consider: Representation. Government, ideally and theoretically “represents” all of us, if it’s based on (small d and small r) democratic, republican principles. The degree to which it does is perhaps THE metric for its success.
Corporations? They never do. Never will. Never have that intention. It’s not anywhere on their radar. They “represent” the interests of ownership. That’s it. No one else. Not workers, consumers or the sustainability of the earth. Just ownership, which is a tiny sliver of the population.
I understand the anger toward any government that does not represent we the people. But it’s never made any sense to me that the same people, angry at government, would prefer that the private sector gains even more power over our lives. The answer isn’t to crush the only sector with at least the potential to represent us, the public sector. It’s just not possible in the private sector under the capitalist system.
IMO, the only way to attain real representation is to make the economy fully democratic too, and hold everything else to the highest standards of full representation under the law. Place everything in the “commons” except one’s home and personal affects. That would be my own preference.
Knowing that won’t happen in my lifetime . . . . I’d certainly take making America a social democracy like Scandinavia instead.
January 3, 2018 at 8:53 am #79878
wvParticipantI dont have any real problems with the article other than I’d say Reagan didnt ‘start’ that about the ‘Gubment bein bad’. The rich-and-powerful had been using that argument long before Reagan came along. Ya know. Just like corporate-power didnt begin with Citizens United, etc.
When i talk to rightwingers or rightwing-libertarians, they are completely blind to the problem of Corporate-Power. All they see is Government-Power. They only see half the problem. Many reasons for that, as weve discussed over the years.
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“Our picture of the world is provided by those that profit from our ignorance.” Gavin Gee“It is arguable that the success of business propaganda in persuading us, for so long, that we are free from propaganda is one of the most significant propaganda achievements of the twentieth century.” Alex Carey
January 3, 2018 at 12:12 pm #79885Billy_TParticipantI dont have any real problems with the article other than I’d say Reagan didnt ‘start’ that about the ‘Gubment bein bad’. The rich-and-powerful had been using that argument long before Reagan came along. Ya know. Just like corporate-power didnt begin with Citizens United, etc.
When i talk to rightwingers or rightwing-libertarians, they are completely blind to the problem of Corporate-Power. All they see is Government-Power. They only see half the problem. Many reasons for that, as weve discussed over the years.
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v
“Our picture of the world is provided by those that profit from our ignorance.” Gavin Gee“It is arguable that the success of business propaganda in persuading us, for so long, that we are free from propaganda is one of the most significant propaganda achievements of the twentieth century.” Alex Carey
The right-libertarian (propertarian) argument is supposedly about the unchecked power of government, and its monopoly on force. So one would think the issue of the concentration of power would be key for them as well — wherever it exists. But it’s not. Propertarians are fine with concentrations of wealth and power in the private sector, and their vision of a night watchman state, or minarchy, whether they admit to this or not, would simply accelerate and multiply the concentration of wealth and power in that private sector. It would, by definition, be even more unchecked than it is now.
I think the vast majority of leftists — with very few exceptions — want all concentrations of power checked, wherever they may be. And this is the main difference between the two forms of “libertarianism.” The left’s form wants to do away with hierarchy and disperse power and wealth, and end its concentration, as the most logical answer to problems of power. The right’s version — which is far more recent — wants to do away with just the public sector’s concentrations, not the private’s. In a world in which private sector power largely dictates and controls the public sector, this strikes me as . . . to be generous . . . misguided.
January 4, 2018 at 1:54 am #79905znModeratorThe left’s form wants to do away with hierarchy and disperse power and wealth, and end its concentration, as the most logical answer to problems of power. The right’s version — which is far more recent — wants to do away with just the public sector’s concentrations, not the private’s. In a world in which private sector power largely dictates and controls the public sector, this strikes me as . . . to be generous . . . misguided.
Yeah.
BUT.
The left (generally speaking) does believe in the good the public sector can do, eg. single payer insurance. Just stating the obvious of course but if something like that led to some branch of gubmint growing larger, that’s just simply not an issue.
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January 4, 2018 at 8:01 am #79906Billy_TParticipantThe left’s form wants to do away with hierarchy and disperse power and wealth, and end its concentration, as the most logical answer to problems of power. The right’s version — which is far more recent — wants to do away with just the public sector’s concentrations, not the private’s. In a world in which private sector power largely dictates and controls the public sector, this strikes me as . . . to be generous . . . misguided.
Yeah.
BUT.
The left (generally speaking) does believe in the good the public sector can do, eg. single payer insurance. Just stating the obvious of course but if something like that led to some branch of gubmint growing larger, that’s just simply not an issue.
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Just to be clear: I was talking about left-libertarian/libertarian socialist views and goals, not the entire left spectrum’s.
I think the expansion of the non-profit public sector, unfettered by corporate interests, is both a major benefit in itself and the best way toward those goals. As mentioned before, IMO, if the American public were able to freely choose between truly non-profit public goods and services, versus for-profit private ones . . . . they’d eventually switch over to the public side. But things are rigged to prevent this, of course.
So, yeah, definitely. I’m in favor of Single Payer right now. Have been for a long time. Plus a massive expansion of non-profit health care on the delivery side of things too. And “free” cradle to grave education at all state schools . . . and the creation of a massive “Green” grid — for energy, transportation, agro, cleanup, etc.
It’s not the size of government. It’s what it does, how well it does it, and who it represents.
Also, there is a big difference between “the state” and government. I think humankind needs to evolve away from “states” and toward true egalitarian, democratic, self-government, stripped of hierarchies, bureaucracies, etc. etc. to the degree possible. But this will obviously take time.
January 4, 2018 at 8:34 am #79907znModeratorThe left’s form wants to do away with hierarchy and disperse power and wealth, and end its concentration, as the most logical answer to problems of power. The right’s version — which is far more recent — wants to do away with just the public sector’s concentrations, not the private’s. In a world in which private sector power largely dictates and controls the public sector, this strikes me as . . . to be generous . . . misguided.
Yeah.
BUT.
The left (generally speaking) does believe in the good the public sector can do, eg. single payer insurance. Just stating the obvious of course but if something like that led to some branch of gubmint growing larger, that’s just simply not an issue.
.
Just to be clear: I was talking about left-libertarian/libertarian socialist views and goals, not the entire left spectrum’s.
I think the expansion of the non-profit public sector, unfettered by corporate interests, is both a major benefit in itself and the best way toward those goals. As mentioned before, IMO, if the American public were able to freely choose between truly non-profit public goods and services, versus for-profit private ones . . . . they’d eventually switch over to the public side. But things are rigged to prevent this, of course.
So, yeah, definitely. I’m in favor of Single Payer right now. Have been for a long time. Plus a massive expansion of non-profit health care on the delivery side of things too. And “free” cradle to grave education at all state schools . . . and the creation of a massive “Green” grid — for energy, transportation, agro, cleanup, etc.
It’s not the size of government. It’s what it does, how well it does it, and who it represents.
Also, there is a big difference between “the state” and government. I think humankind needs to evolve away from “states” and toward true egalitarian, democratic, self-government, stripped of hierarchies, bureaucracies, etc. etc. to the degree possible. But this will obviously take time.
As is often the case, I wasn’t offering a critique or disagreement or anything that required much of a response. I agreed (“yeah”) and then just tossed in a minor qualifier (public sector economics is fine) which I assumed you agreed with. I thought of it as a stand-alone post with a minor point. IE I wasn’t debating.
Though your response was fun in terms of adding more ideas to think about.
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