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Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Why Occupy? Fourth in a Four Part Series: Anarchist Social Justice



Dissident Voice: a radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justice

Why Occupy?

Fourth in a Four Part Series: Anarchist Social Justice

In our last publication, we addressed some of the problems of the TPP. It endangers the planet, threatens labor, violates human rights, and it globalizes free trade into another form of neo-imperialism. This is further proof that the 1 percent, both in the United States and around the world, undermine democratic self-determination in the economic and political realms. We argue that free markets, as they manifest themselves today, destabilize the world economy, while fair markets stabilize. Most importantly, the global economy needs to move away from comparative advantage theory towards fair competitive advantage. Although it works for the plutocracy and its corporations, comparative advantage is outdated, and it spells bad news for the rest of us. We argue for an economy, a global economy, based on “common pool resource theory,” in which the economy is understood as a natural resource to be protected just like the environment. We borrow this idea from Elenor Ostrom. Indeed, it is time to start thinking about the economy in the same way that we (ought to) think about preserving the environment and protecting it accordingly.

What follows is the final part of our analysis of oligarchy.

Community of Meaning, Popular Justice

As a justifiable reaction to the problem of oligarchy in organizations and liberal democratic institutions, some theorists and activists have identified alternative political arrangements to liberal democratic organizations and institutions. Such anarchist examples include Chomsky’s recommendations of the Kibbutzim villages of Israel and the worker-owned cooperatives of Spain’s Mondragon experiments. Other anarchist examples are based on the New Social Movements (NSM) school, which, for the most part, have become an activist alternative means of self-governance through autonomous grass roots organizations (see Alan Scott’s Ideology and New Social Movements). Leading NSM theorists include Alain Touraine, Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, Claus Offe, Immanueal Wallerstein, Michel Foucalut, and Jurgen Habermas. These proponents base their anarchist tendencies on identity, politics, culture, and ideology, which for all intents and purposes has emerged in the women’s movement, ecological and environmental movements, LGBTQ rights, peace movement, and more.

Currently, anarchist NSM organizations have surfaced in the current culture through what can be described as the “community of meaning” and “popular justice.” The goal of these alternative methods of self-governance is to bypass the rigid oligarchy of the state, and for that matter, even nonprofit organizations that tend toward oligarchic structures. As such, the community of meaning concept is based to a large degree on the anarchist-environmentalist-feminist notion that human relationships in society are primarily based upon a “conscience collective,” that is, the fostering of diverse talents and skills within a local setting (community, neighborhood, school, etc.). The strategy enables persons to respond to various needs and cultivate unique talents while striving to maintain sustainable development strategies and promote “socio-economic justice.” The community of meaning can also be understood within the context of Marxist anarchist tendencies in which the state would eventually give way to self-governing communities with the intention of fostering both individual and collective solidarity “determined precisely by the connection of individuals, a connection which consists partly in the economic prerequisites and partly in the necessary solidarity of the development of all … on the basis of existing productive forces” (see Marx and Engels, The German Ideology).  Likewise, individuals within a particular community are united, according to Durkheim, not so much by what they have in common, but rather, by their very differences, interdependence, and “organic solidarity.”

The community of meaning, as Hampson and Reddy assert, becomes an indispensable condition for cooperation within society and is subsequently grounded upon ensuring a sustainable planet based on the fundamental human needs of local communities as the policy priority. This approach necessarily commits local and global communities, as Mittleman argues, to sustainable development strategies based upon mutually interrelated human concerns. Thus, if sustainability is to have priority in local policy initiatives at both the local and global community levels, and if public or nonprofit organizations are unable to meet this criteria, then anarchist communities of meaning must bypass these institutions and promote local and global strategies favorable to environmental and socio-economic justice based on sustainable development goals. The guidelines for a community of meaning, act as a strategy in which concerned people seek to address the causes of poverty and simultaneously prevent, and even reverse, environmental degradation. Moreover, the community of meaning, whether informal or formal in nature, seeks to implement where possible, policies based on what is known as “popular justice.” In fact, Engle Merry and Milner argue that the anarchist combination of the community of meaning and popular justice strategies “is part of a protest against the state and its legal system by subordinate, disadvantaged, or marginalized groups.”

The notion of popular justice for Engle Merry, “is a process for making decisions and compelling compliance to a set of rules that is relatively informal in ritual and decorum, nonprofessional in language and personnel, local in scope, and limited in jurisdiction.” Theoretically, popular justice governs the community of meaning and simultaneously attempts to apply local standards and rules, that is commonsense forms of reasoning to human relationships rather than state laws. Forums of popular justice, in its original conception, are specifically intended to resolve disputes that involve small sums of money, aspects of family life, and interpersonal injury short of murder. Nevertheless, popular justice forums can act, in similar capacity, as a model by which environmental and socioeconomic justice concerns can be addressed as a form of binding arbitration. According to Engel Merry and Milner, these forums thus create a venue for the less powerful members of society, such as, “the urban poor, rural peasants, the working class, minorities, women,” to voice their concerns. In contrast, elites utilize formal legal institutions through the state, since those same elites have co-opted those very institutions and can thus control those institutions for their own ends.

In the past, popular justice has manifested itself in numerous venues. One form of popular justice can be identified as “reformist.” In the reformist tradition popular justice intends to develop adequate procedures for the varied complexities the legal system facilitates; its goal is to make the system work more efficiently, not to change its fundamental principles. This is intended to increase popular participation in the functions of a centralized judicial system. Reformist approaches to popular justice usually appear in countries based on the principles of liberal democracy and capitalist economies. Failures in the judicial system are generally attributed to the burdens on the legal system rather than to the underlying structures of capitalism and its relationship to law and the state. On the other hand, the socialist tradition of popular justice is derived from Marxist-Leninist theories about the role of popular justice “tribunals” to empower the masses to address violations of laws and rules. The role of the tribunals is to also educate the masses in the creation of the Marxist “new man” of the revolutionary socialist order. According to Engle Merry, the masses are included when “socialist popular justice promises to transform relations of power from the domination of the bourgeoisie to that of the proletariat.” Yet popular justice in this tradition tends to reinforce existing structures of power in the same manner as that of the reformist. Both socialist and reformist approaches promote a form of institutional justice closely connected to, and controlled by, the state.

Another model of popular justice, based on violent uprisings in the anarchic tradition, is one that is associated with mass revolt against the state and the existing social order. While anarchic uprisings certainly can be nonviolent, they nevertheless tend to be violent and are derived from popular unrest due to perceived social injustices. As a result of anarchic uprisings, the masses generally intend to terminate their oppression and punish or reeducate their enemies. In this case the masses do not rely on an abstract idea of justice, but on their own experience and extent of the injuries they have suffered. However, this type of popular justice in its violent form is usually “quelled by the state or brought under control of local communities.”

The anarchic-environmentalist-feminist notion of popular justice associated with the community of meaning, tends to be more closely connected to, and controlled by, indigenous people and grassroots movements. While this version of popular justice does not necessarily rule out its use by elites, it nevertheless attempts to function outside the state and institutional mechanisms. A withdrawal from society, which is arguably too rigid, hierarchical and bureaucratic to serve the needs of a popular majority, is one of the goals of popular justice. The central understanding of this form of justice, according to Rifkin, is “decentralization … replacing centralized bureaucracy with small, local forums on a more humane scale.” In this sense community norms govern people in a more humanistic and democratic manner while simultaneously maintaining local autonomy.

Conclusion

As Weber observes, “How are freedom and democracy in the long run at all possible under the domination of highly developed capitalism?” Some would argue that the vast disparity of economic power and wealth that is increasing in the United States, translates into greater inequality for the poor and marginalized. The question remains pertinent today. As this crisis deepens (the contradiction between the egalitarian expectations of democracy and the rational utility of capital), the state and its citizenry have the historical choice to address this conflict. Here, Marcuse urges the human community to initiate “the radical reconstruction of society … to find there the images and tones which may break through the established universe of discourse and preserve the future.” If organizations and their policy outcomes are to have greater meaning and democratic accountability for the twenty-first century, and if, in fact, it is worthwhile to understand how organizations tend to serve elites within these very organizations, and not the rank and file members that comprise it, then the primary goal of a democratic society would be to strengthen their democratic institutions and restructure the allocation of power away from elite control. As such, anarchist principles of social justice point the way for this restructuring and renewal of democratic institutions. The strengthening of democratic institutions must therefore come from outside these very institutions as a form of ongoing anarchist critique, agitation, and even civil disobedience if needed. The continued challenge for committed democrats is to be mindful that democratic institutions act on behalf of an elite interest and, ipso facto, subvert democratic egalitarian self-determining groups. Hence, providing resistance to the oligarchic nature of democratic institutions in the United States and other democracies through anarchic justice is vital to democracy and greater democratic participation. Anarchic resistance to democratic institutions is, in essence, the lifeblood of democracy.

Here is what we prescribe. We argue for anarchy as a form of democratic governance. One way to engender this in the United States is to move to a parliamentary system. Secondly, we argue for a Marxist form of economics that prevents exploitation. Additionally, Ostrom’s “common pool resource theory” is part of the solution. Finally, we argue, along with C. Wright Mills’ thesis in his great work The Power Elite, that the state has been coopted by the rich, or the 1 percent, and that the capitalist class uses the state at the expense of everyone else. In our next series, we want to take a look at liberalism and address some of the hidden aspects of social justice hidden therein, specifically through John Locke and Adam Smith.


• Read Part One here:  Read Part Two here;  Read Part Three here.

Edward Martin is Professor of Public Policy and Administration, Graduate Center for Public Policy and Administration at California State University, Long Beach, and co-author of Savage State: Welfare Capitalism and Inequality; Mateo Pimentel lives on the Mexican-US border, writing for many alternative political newsletters and Web sites. He can be reached at: mateo.pimentel@gmail.com. Read other articles by Edward Martin and Mateo Pimentel.



Why Occupy? Third in a Four Part Series: Anarchy as Alternative



Dissident Voice: a radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justice

Why Occupy?

Third in a Four Part Series: Anarchy as Alternative

In Parts One and Two of this series, we argued that to prevent oligarchic rule, democratic and economic institutions need to be salvaged, ironically, through anarchist political activism and Marxist capital analysis, specifically Marx’s labor theory of value, which identifies the systemic and structural nature of exploitation. The point is that workers are “entitled” to the surplus value they create. We also argued that globalization as manifested in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), amounts to imperialism. In this particular case, we utilize the economic analysis provided by British economist John Hobson. In his great work Imperialism, Hobson, an anti-imperialist capitalist, argues something far more insightful than Marx ever did. The worst that Marx had ever claimed about capitalism was that the system would literally destroy itself. What Hobson argues is that, not only will the system destroy itself, but that taken to a global level the capitalist system will destroy the world. Imagine that, coming from a capitalist. Contrary to popular scholarship, many Marxists claim this same conclusion, such as Lenin, Magdoff, and Sweezy. But it was Hobson who originally argued that capitalism would have to extend beyond its own borders to maintain its competitive edge and control markets outside of its own country. This is compounded by the fact that other countries are forced to do the same, and in so doing, set the stage for a form of economic competition known as “trade wars.” Consequently unbridled, international, globalized capitalism will undermine the dynamic nature of markets, which on the other hand, given rational boundaries, can be an effective and efficient mechanism for allocating scarce economic goods, services, and resources. Take a look at any of the works by World Systems Theorists such as Immanuel Wallerstein and Andre Gunder Frank.

Now to the point: The Trans-Pacific Partnership follows along these same lines. Though our information is based on a leak, from WikiLeaks, we have no reason to doubt the veracity of this leak since to-date, WikiLeaks has never been wrong. So we proceed.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership can be broken down accordingly.

(1) The Partnership basically is a secret plan for international elites to capture and exploit underdeveloped markets. This means that underdeveloped markets, in least-developed countries can be exploited, meaning their labor force extorted and environmental restrictions obliterated. This extends to Australia and New Zealand as well, though they are not “developing” countries. Nevertheless, the point of “fast-track” legislation is to conceal this economic and environmental disaster arrangement.

(2) TPP will harm the global environment. In this arrangement, the environment will no longer be protected, and already weakened domestic and international environmental regulations will further harm the environment, which has a direct effect on the health of the populations of these countries, including the people of the United States. In fact, the fracking industry will have no regulations placed on it at all. There will be no limit on increased carbon emissions, which invariably contaminates the earth, water, air, and ozone. Liquid natural gas exports to TPP countries will have no environmental regulations either, and in the United States, no environmental clearance at all from the Department of Energy.

(3) Labor in TPP countries will be subject to increased pressure to provide concessions, along with health benefits, job security, etc. This includes the United States. And with the export of capital, jobs in the United States become at-risk, if not, lost completely. The potential for leveraging international labor for increased profits and productivity becomes paramount in their business plan. In other words, pay labor a subsistence wage and maximize profits and productivity at all costs for the shareholders. Can you imagine trying to unionize? Under this agreement, it is unknown what rights organized labor has in TPP countries, specifically Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. We know what the situation is for labor in non-democratic countries such as Vietnam and Brunai. Zip!

(4) As in authoritarian and totalitarian countries, the TPP intends to criminalize Internet access and expression. Criticizing and protesting this trade agreement will be met with legal action based on TPP surveillance. The policing and surveillance will take place within TPP countries, making dissent on the economic and environmental impacts due to the TPP, punishable by law.  Sovereignty and due process are absent. Thus the goal of intimidation of dissident groups is effectively quelled from the outset. Moreover, the rights of corporations involved in the TPP give them the ability to sue those groups or individuals who seek economic or environmental damages from those countries participating in the TPP. In other words, foreign and international firms are elevated to the level of sovereign status within the United States and can then sue for damages.

(5) Democratic governance under TPP has been subordinated to market rationale. This is not the way that democratic societies and international institutions should be run. Nor is the TPP something that a democratic government should espouse, even though Barak Obama, Chris Matthews, Lawrence O’Donnell, Chris Hayes, Jonathan Altar, Charles Krauthammer, Fox News, et al, argue has always been the way trade agreements have been carried out. We say fuck no! Occupy said bull shit to this. And if it weren’t for the labor unions, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Rachel Maddow, and Ed Shultz speaking out against this, TPP would be a done deal right now. And the pro TPP people keep saying the anti TPP are just wrong. Well, there is one way to resolve this pissing match … open up the deal to the light of day and let’s have at it. But you know they won’t because this deal is meant to bone American and TPP participant countries’ labor and environment. Of course, they will use the same line going back to the Reagan era where if the elites get rich, then it will trickle down to everyone.

(6) All of this is possible because the corporate and power elite in this country, and outside of this country, for all intents and purposes, control our government. The following is our continued analysis of why oligarchic arrangements in the United States have led to the Occupy movement of Wall Street. This also pertains to the clandestine TPP operation and its economic quest for domination. And this same oligarchic dimension also applies to the Department of Justice and the recent exoneration by the new Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, of the corporate chiefs found guilty of fraud re: Citicorp (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), London-based Barclays (BCS) and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). They get fined 2 billion dollars but they get to keep the 62 billion remaining. This shit is getting outrageous!

Next week we will conclude with our fourth and final entry. We will elaborate on an explanation of how we can break this newest sinister arm of the oligarchic arrangement. It will go beyond political anarchy, Marx’s labor theory of value, and anti-imperialist capitalism. We want markets to work and so we are going to argue that markets optimize when they are responsive to the general will of the people and thus promote the common good. Here’s a clue: liberal notions of labor entitlements from capitalist gurus and a free market freak, fair enterprise Nobel economist, influenced by the Austrian school of economics. What the hell! We’re using a former socialist gone fascist to explain the phenomena of oligarchies in democratic political and economic institutions. Why not use liberal thought? Maybe the answer was there all along…

Anarchism and Oligarchic State 

The tendency of organizations (democratic governments, political parties, unions, etc.) is to become oligarchic and therefore obfuscate and undermine democratic rule. Thus it is plausible that the very legitimacy of “democratic” government is in question, especially because oligarchic rule does not serve the general will of the people and the purposes of self-governance. Rather, it serves an elite cadre within organizations in which individuals position themselves for control of the organizations. Liberal democratic self-governance is in question, specifically as it relates to contemporary liberal theorists such as John Rawls in A Theory of Justice, and Robert Nozick in Anarchy, State and Utopia.  Both liberal theories – Rawls’ in prioritizing legal rights for those least advantaged in society (welfare rights), and Nozick’s in prioritizing maximum individual liberty (libertarianism) – are challenged by oligarchic tendencies, that is, if Michels’ position is correct. This oligarchic tendency is also present in radical and Marxist democratic organizations that argue for democratic rights as the foundation of economic social justice in a democratic society. Reinhold Niebuhr, Edward Banfield, Amartya Sen, and Rodney Peffer all espouse this tradition.

The problem associated with the inherent nature of democratic organizations to emerge as non-democratic oligarchies is exactly what anarchism seeks to confront.  Anarchist critiques of the oligarchic and authoritarian tendencies of Enlightenment liberalism and capitalist development according to its chief spokespersons, such as, Gerrard Winstanley, William Godwin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Henry David Thoreau, Benjamin Tucker, and Emma Goldman and contemporary critiques of modern liberalism, liberal democracies and neoliberal capitalism by philosophical anarchists such as Charles Frankel, Noam Chomsky, Michael Albert, Murray Bookchin, Robert Paul Wolff and A. John Simmons, demand serious attention. Here the understanding is that government, law, and public policy, is hardly justification for moral guidance in the lives of people. In fact, government coercion for anarchists is the very basis of tyranny because it violates the very nature of autonomous and free individuals and communities.  Nonviolent civil disobedience, therefore, becomes the modus operandi of anarchists and government dissenters in this tradition.

Early seventeenth century British anarchist, Gerrard Winstanley, argued that the capitalist accumulation of wealth and property resulted in greater social inequality and that land should be understood as a “common treasury,” and that the promotion of federalism within nations and internationalism promoted throughout the world represented the earliest developments in anarchist theory. Winstanley argued that peasants possessed the fundamental human right to the wealth they create and to the land that they worked. Known as the “Diggers,” Winstanley urged peasants to “squat” on stretches of unused common land in Southern England in order to provide themselves with both a domicile and a living. Moreover, for Winstanley, the individual person is marginalized by both monarchical and parliamentary (democratic) rule. For anarchists, both authoritarian and democratic rule resulted in plutocratic elite domination. Much like today’s libertarian movement, anarchists believed that the individual person should be given the utmost possible freedom and that voluntary institutions best represent the human person’s natural social tendencies. Yet, the voluntary association of unionized workers, pitted against the elite control and possession of capital, clearly differentiates anarchists from libertarians. Marxists, on the other hand, differ from anarchists for the most part precisely over the role of the state, since the state has a role to play in the revolutionary class struggle. Anarchists would not deny that class warfare results from capitalist exploitation; however, they tend to view any role of the state in resolving this conflict as lacking any political legitimacy.

Later eighteenth century British anarchists, such as William Godwin, argued that violent revolutionary action was a legitimate course of action in the event that the new “capitalist state” became increasingly tyrannical, especially in light of the gross inequities of the burgeoning industrial revolution. Godwin argued for a “fixed and immutable” universal natural law as fundamental to justice. Here, Godwin argued that justice itself was based on fundamental human rights, but that human laws could potentially be fallible and that reason and conscience dictates obedience or disobedience to human law. Godwin, furthermore, rejected all established institutions and all social relations that suggested inequality or the power of one person over another, including marriage.  Influenced by the anarchist tendencies in the social and political philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, William Godwin argued that while government might be considered necessary for the short term, in the long run it would eventually become obsolete when others with their very freedom and autonomy would be secured through the non-interference in others’ lives. Godwin further argued that individuals should act in accordance with their own judgments and that in return others should be allowed the same liberty.

Nineteenth-century European anarchism developed independently from the earlier British version. It grew out of French socialist thought and German Neo-Hegelianism, as fused by Pierre Proudhon who in turn profoundly influenced Marx and his development of anarchist thought, and later theorists such as Michael Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, and Georges Sorel. This form of anarchism sought to eliminate the role of the state and simultaneously uphold the greatest amount of freedom based on three main areas: (1) the use of violence as a means to overthrow authoritarian rule; (2) the establishment and respect for individual liberty and human rights; and (3) the promotion of economic and social institutions that foster individual freedom and the common good. With the exception of anarchists such as Pierre Proudhon, Henry David Thureau, Leo Tolstoy, Robert Tucker, and Mohandas Ghandi, who rejected violence as a form of revolutionary action, most anarchists in the nineteenth century have sought to abolish injustice and establish a socially just society based on the above three categories. Thoreau, Tolstoy, Tucker, and Ghandi urged peaceful nonviolent civil disobedience as an alternative to violent revolutionary action.

Philosophical anarchists argue, within the same basic anarchist tradition (e.g., mutualism, anarcho-syndicalism, collectivism, individualism, pacifism, Wobblies, trade unionism, Marxist Anarchism, left libertarianism) that authoritarian systems are not the only form of state oppression but that the modern democratic state itself has become, fundamentally, an instrument by which elites and special interests in a liberal democracy coerce and even use their power to oppress others. Therefore the state, by virtue of its liberal nature: (1) lacks legitimacy because the state serves elite interests at the expense of individual and collective self-governance; and (2) impedes individual autonomy and self-determination by compelling individuals to obey the state through coercion (rules, regulations, and laws), and even force (police and military action).
Philosophical anarchists thus argue that individuals, according to their conscience, have the moral right not to comply with the state and even the moral obligation to disobey the state in the event that the policies and laws of a particular government violate the conscience of individual citizens. Godwin argued for a radical egalitarian society where each person should take part in the production of necessities and should share their part in the production of necessities with all in need. Here conceived, a society of free land workers and artisans, was the first outline of an anarchist society. This is the “socialist” roots of anarchism trump those of any libertarian element.

In the past other more militant schools of anarchist thought, including those of nineteenth century figures such as Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Marx, argued that it was necessary for the exploited working class to overthrow the state and its controlling capitalist class, violently if necessary. Philosophical anarchists argue that, rather than taking up arms to bring down the state, the optimal situation is to work for gradual change to free individuals from what they perceive to be oppressive laws and social constraints of the modern state and allow all individuals to become self-determining autonomous actors in the world.

While philosophical anarchists oppose the immediate elimination of the state by violent means, they adhere to this primarily out of concern that what might remain in place after a given revolution could very well become the establishment of a more harmful and oppressive state. This is especially true among those anarchists who consider violence and the state as synonymous, or who consider it counterproductive, and where public reaction to violence could result in increased “law enforcement” or the reinforcement of the “police state.” Subsequently, philosophical anarchists reject, for the most part, the urge to violence as a means for eliminating the “illegitimate” state, while at the same time they accept the existence of a minimal state as an unfortunate, but “necessary evil.”

A. John Simmons claims that “philosophical anarchists hold that there are good reasons not to oppose or disrupt at least some kinds of illegitimate states, reasons that outweigh any right or obligation of opposition. The practical stance with respect to the state, the philosophical anarchist maintains, should be one of careful consideration and thoughtful weighing of all the reasons that bear on action in a particular set of circumstances.” And Robert Paul Wolff further states that while philosophical anarchists may not wish to disrupt a particular state, they do not necessarily think anyone has an obligation to obey the state. There can be no such thing as a government that “has a right to command and whose subjects have a binding obligation to obey.”

Postmodern Anarchism

Other forms of anarchism, such as postmodern anarchism, have been developed by theorists such as May, Newman, and Call, who assert that the anarchist writings of Nietzsche, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Freud, Durkheim, Levi-Strauss, Foucault, Baudrillard, and Chomsky, intersect with postmodern critiques of modernism, rationalism, and scientism. Specifically, this theoretical construct, where anarchism and postmodernism meet, moves beyond anarchism’s conventional attacks on capital and the state to criticize those forms of rationality, consciousness, and language that implicitly condition all economic and political power. May, Newman, and Call, argue that postmodernism contemporizes anarchism, making it relevant to the current political culture of the twenty-first century.

The postmodern anarchists draw on the works of several theorists in an attempt to connect anarchism with postmodernism. May, Newman, and Call, use anarchism to critique liberal notions of language, consciousness, and rationality, which are inherent within capitalist state organizations, and use postmodern methods to deconstruct hegemonies of all sorts, predominantly those dominant ideas and beliefs at the heart of capitalist and Marxist ideology. Yet, their sharpest postmodern attack is leveled against bourgeois liberalism and its manifestation in “late capitalism,” or as Veblen describes it, “conspicuous consumption.” Here the postmodern anarchists nevertheless identify classical anarchism as being fundamentally opposed to hierarchical (paternalistic) social relations inherent in capitalist modes of production and state socialist regimes. It therefore rejects state capitalist of state socialist uses of force and the “coercive politics implicit in all state systems. Such anarchism envisions strictly voluntary (and typically small-scale) forms of organization,” devoid of any reliance on modernism’s devotion to rationality as an organizing principle typified by Western culture. In this sense, postmodern anarchists argue that liberal democracies can become, and often do become, oppressive hegemonies controlled by a power-elite precisely “to prevent radical change.”  Postmodern anarchists such as Call, argue that although “liberalism represents an impressive and historically important body of work … [it] imposes a disturbing silence upon radical thinking.” In rejecting Rorty’s liberal principles (and those of other great liberals such as Holms, Rawls, Nozick, Dworkin, etc.), of avoiding harm and cruelty to others, liberalism as applied to a democratic society “functions to defend existing institutions and to prevent radical change.”


Edward Martin is Professor of Public Policy and Administration, Graduate Center for Public Policy and Administration at California State University, Long Beach, and co-author of Savage State: Welfare Capitalism and Inequality; Mateo Pimentel lives on the Mexican-US border, writing for many alternative political newsletters and Web sites. He can be reached at: mateo.pimentel@gmail.com. Read other articles by Edward Martin and Mateo Pimentel.

Why Occupy? Second in a four-part series.



Dissident Voice: a radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justice

Why Occupy?

Second in a four-part series.

In Part One of this series, we argued that anarchy is the solution to the problem of oligarchic control of democratic institutions. This holds true for economic institutions as well. And no better example can be provided than Obama’s sinister Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is designed in neoliberal fashion to financially reward the 1 percent on Wall Street and the 1 percent internationally, because it is all about the international elite, not just the average people in the United States who are expendable under the TPP arrangement. Obama knows this. We argue that it is not just anarchism that will salvage democratic institutions, but also a Marxist economic vision that refuses to allow workers in the United States and international community to be exploited. Marx was correct when he argued that capitalism rests essentially on the exploitation of the working class. The problem remains one of conflict between labor and capital, which people like Paul Krugman the Keynesian and journalists like Chris Matthews the liberal refuse to acknowledge. The TPP is not some Greek tragedy where the actors are blind to their own demise; rather, they know completely what the outcomes are going to be for themselves at the expense of others. Read Development, Democracy and Welfare States: Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe by Stephan Haggard and Robert R. Kaufman (2008)—they saw this coming. This is the motive for Occupy and why the oligarchy has got to go. What this form of globalization accomplishes is simply a reinforcement of neocolonialism and neoimperialism. In the third part of this series, we will pull apart the TPP, which is nothing more than NAFTA on meth. The following is our continuation of why oligarchies are perpetuated in democratic institutions.

Domination and Control of Institutions

Individuals who have ultimate authority in an organization are the ones who have the final decision-making power over the organization’s system of rewards or punishments, its budget and personnel, its policies and property. This means that enforceable authority has the power to exclude others from control over it. Organizational proprietors exercise “ultimate authority” and are invested, not solely by tradition or sentiment, but by state charter with the right to deal with the organization’s incorporated resources. Directors, trustees, and owners exercise power either by occupying the top positions in which ruling decisions are made or by hiring and firing those who do. William Domhoff asserts that:
…control is in the hands of the board of directors, a group of men usually numbering between ten and twenty-five who meet once or twice a month to decide upon the major policies of the company. In addition … the board always includes at least the top two or three officers in charge of day-to-day operations … We consider the boards decisive because, despite the necessity of delegating minor decisions and technical research, they make major decisions, such as those of investment, and select the men who will carry out daily operations. In fact, their power to change management if the performance of the company does not satisfy them is what we … mean by control.
Consequently, Michael Walzer observes that the directors of most organizations:
…preside over what are essentially authoritarian regimes with no internal electoral system, no opposition parties, no free press or open communications network, no established judicial procedures, no channels for rank-and-file participation in decision making. When the state acts to protect their authority, it does so through the property system, that is, it recognizes the corporation as the private property of some determinate group of men and it protects their right to do, within legal limits, what they please with their property. When corporate officials defend themselves, they often involve functional arguments. They claim that the parts they play in society can only be played by such men as they, with their legally confirmed power, their control of resources, their freedom from internal challenge, and their ability to call on the police.
The boards of directors of most business firms do not exercise a “collegial” power except in the formal, legal sense. In other terms, even among themselves directors seldom operate democratically since usually one or two of them enjoy a preponderant influence over the corporation. Bruce Berman notes that private power is exercised both “in the economy and society” through “organizations whose internal political processes are, with few exceptions, authoritarian, oligarchic and devoid of any democratic procedures or controls.” Where the board of directors consists of corporate employees dependent on the president for career advancement, the board simply reaffirms past decisions or presents modest but inconsequential changes. Top corporate managers, themselves board members and large stockholders, are the active power within a firm, selecting new members, exercising a daily influence over decisions, and enjoying a degree of independence. This same scenario can easily be translated into nonprofit institutions, education, churches, government, unions, administration and policy. Furthermore, the institutionally controlled roles are themselves so legitimized by practice and custom, that the coercive element of this oligarchic arrangement is in effect disguised.

It appears evident, at least from what has been discussed, that authority is delegated downward within an organizational system and institutional structure and that it is extended, in anti-democratic fashion, in order to better serve those at elevated levels.  Ralf Dahrendorf states:
For the bureaucrats the supreme social reality is their career that provides, at least in theory, a direct link between every one of them and the top positions which may be described as the ultimate seat of authority. It would be false to say that the bureaucrats are a ruling class, but in any case they are part of it, and one would therefore expect them to act accordingly in industrial, social and political conflicts.
Rousseau refers to people in this elite category as persons “hurried on by blind ambition, and, looking rather below than above them, come to love authority more than independence, and submit to slavery, that they may in turn enslave others.” Interestingly enough, Adam Smith also identifies this anti-egalitarian tendency when he states:
All inferior shepherds and herdsmen feel the security of their own herds and flocks depends upon the security of those of the great shepherd or herdsman; that the maintenance of their lesser authority depends upon that of his greater authority, and that upon their subordination to him depends his power of keeping their inferiors in subordination to them.
The monopolization of privileged positions and scarce resources by the hierarchical elite in an organization is justified by the claim that only experienced persons or trained experts have the expertise to participate in decision-making. However, Francis Rourke and Glen Brooks state the organizations and institutions are “often forced to put on a dramatic show of scientific objectivity in its budgeting process in order to justify its requests for continued support, even though the dramatic props – elaborate formulas, statistical ratios, and so on – may have little to do with the way in which decisions are actively made within the … establishment.” Thus, a modern hierarchical organization with its elaborate stratification of command and fragmentation of tasks may itself be less the outgrowth of technical necessity and more a means whereby the few control the many.  Consequently, Michels argues that the bureaucratic structure within organizations has two main functions: efficiency and class domination. The former is admitted, open and manifest; the later covert, unrecognized (by many) and unadmitted. In this sense, class conflict declines with the growth of bureaucracy, not because bureaucracy’s efficiency and productivity satisfies potential dissenters, but because the structural features of bureaucracy stifle the power resources of potential dissenters. It would therefore be correct to say that bureaucratization is another form of class conflict, a form in which one side wins and the other loses—and which might better be called class domination.

Organizations and Their Enlightened Self-Interest

Most organizations, arguably, are linked by a commonality of class interest. The common misunderstanding is to treat the diversity of organizations as a manifestation of the diffusion of power. Robert Lynd states that, “sheer multiplicity of organizations in society may not be assumed to indicate their discreteness and autonomy …” More often than not, the interaction of power between organizations and institutions is neither voluntary nor equal, since some institutions “occupy positions of established dependence upon other institutions.” This presupposes a distribution of power that some organizations possess more than others. Consequently, the resources of power are not randomly scattered among the population to be used in autonomous ways, but are distributed within a social system, and the way the system is organized has a decisive effect on what resources are available to whom. Any delineation of the resources of power would include property, wealth organization, social prestige, social legitimacy, number of adherents, various kinds of knowledge and leadership skills, access to technology, control of jobs, control of information, manipulation of symbolic expressions, and the ability to apply force and violence. Thus, if organizations and institutions have power as their major interest, and the maintenance of a class dominated society, then it can logically be concluded that there are elements in society that lack power. Lacking accessibility to power resources, certain classes of people will chronically gain a deficient share of necessities. These people, mostly children in the United States, do not participate as decision makers in most of the arrangements directly affecting their lives. They have no lobbies, no voice in the political system, no appeal from the vested interests of certain adults. The elderly, women, handicapped, and people of color, at least those in lower social classes, can be considered among the powerless in society as well.

Every privileged class tends to propagate the notion that the existing social system constitutes the natural order of things. In this way, those elite members of organizations give legitimacy and permanence to their position. These elites, according to Weber, intend “to have their social and economic positions ‘legitimized.’ They wish to see their positions transformed from a purely factual power relation into a cosmos of acquired rights, and to know that they are thus sanctified.” The legitimating myths, or “status-legends” serve not only to bolster the self-esteem and soothe the conscience of the elite within organizations, but reinforce the important function of assigning an almost divine status to class dominance and the rule of elites within organizations. Rousseau captures this same idea when he states that “the strongest is never strong enough to be always master, unless he transforms his strength into right, and obedience into duty.” This can be seen in present day capitalist societies; profit and property are represented as serving not only the owning class but also all citizens. What corporations do for themselves is said to benefit the entire “Free World.” In the German Ideology Marx identified this tendency in which every group seeks to give “its ideas the form of universality and [attempts] to present them as the only rational and universally valid ones.” Both Marx and Engels held that throughout history, and in particular the historical development of capitalism, that government had been controlled by key capitalists and their allies, and thus the state in effect serves as the “executive committee” of the ruling and exploiting class.

In a society based on acquisition and competition, people acting in their self-interest do not readily sacrifice their own class advantages out of regard for the needs of others. Any notion of justice, based on utility maximizing, is not likely to compel “individual actors” to cast aside their own privatized pursuits. The history of class divided societies offers little hope to those who do not share in the relative access of resources in the midst of scarcity. In the absence of its natural defenders the interest of the excluded is always in danger of being overlooked according to both Mill and Marx. Theorists such as Lindblom and Woodhouse state that the common understanding is that, “the fundamentals of the existing system of wealth and privilege ought not be challenged.” Moreover, borrowing from Lenin’s critique of Western imperialism, Martin Luther King in the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” concludes that “history is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.” And Obama has become a team player for the privileged elite because of the TPP treaty.

Thus, the threatened loss of power in organizations, and the tendency toward a more equal distribution of wealth and privilege, is seen not merely as a material loss, but as the cataclysmic undoing of all social order. Operating on the assumption that all distribution must be competitive rather than communal, the elite anticipate – correctly – that more material resources for the marginalized will only mean less for themselves, since a fundamental reordering of social priorities would entail a marked diminution of class privileges for the elite. Within this social and economic setting the reality of conflict is spawned and determined, according to Marx, precisely because “men make their own history; but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given, and transmitted from the past.” Here Rousseau and Marx agree, arguing that the elite of any organization enjoy their status “only in so far as others are destitute of it.  Because, without changing their condition, they would cease to be happy the moment the people ceased to be wretched.” Consequently, Rousseau argues that “we find our advantage in the misfortune of our fellow-creatures, and the loss of one man almost always constitutes the prosperity of another.” Noam Chomsky even goes so far as to state that organizations such as these are “designed to undermine democratic decision making and to safeguard the matters from market discipline. It is the poor and defenseless who are to be instructed in these stern doctrines.”

Oligarchy as the Iron Law              

Weber examines the relationship between democracy and bureaucratic organizations and discovers a paradoxical relationship between the two institutions. Some legal requirements further democracy as well as bureaucracy, such as the principle of “equal justice under the law.” This would also include technical and scientific knowledge rather than arbitrary decisions. Nevertheless, according to Weber, “‘democracy’ as such is opposed to the ‘rule’ of bureaucracy, in spite and perhaps because of its unavoidable yet unintended promotion of bureaucratization.” A major reason for this is that bureaucracy concentrates power in the hands of those in charge of the bureaucratic apparatus and thereby undermines democracy. Robert Michels, in Political Parties, also argues from another perspective, that a number of complex tendencies in organizations oppose the realization of democracy. He postulates that democracy leads to oligarchy and consequently the elite domination of policy outcomes. Michels goes on to state:
It follows that the explanation of the oligarchical phenomenon which thus results … from the consolidation of every disciplined political aggregate … reduced to its most concise expression, the fundamental sociological law of political parties (the term ‘political’ being here used in its most comprehensive significance) may be formulated in the following terms: ‘It is organization which gives birth to the dominion of the elected over the electors, of the manditaries over the mandators, of the delegates over the delegators.  Who says organization says oligarchy.
Michels’ thesis in the “iron law of oligarchy,” challenges Rousseau’s concept of direct popular rule and both Madison and Jefferson’s representative form of democracy. The dysfunctional nature of existing democracy, for Michels, is not simply the result of social and economic underdevelopment and alienation, inadequate education, media control of propaganda advertisements, or the capitalist control of government organizations and institutions. Rather, the problem of democracy is rooted in its organic nature, and according to Michels’ logic, any organization must confront its tendency to be controlled at the top. He states, “The formation of oligarchies within the various forms of democracy is the outcome of organic necessity, and consequently affects every organization.” This phenomenon, for Michels, is an intrinsic dimension of bureaucracy and any large-scale organization or institution. As a result, “Every party organization represents an oligarchical power grounded upon a democratic basis. We find everywhere electors and elected. Also we find everywhere that the power of the elected leaders over the electing masses is almost unlimited. The oligarchical structure of the building suffocates the basic democratic principle.” Thus large-scale social organizations and democracy are incompatible, which is a position similar to Lowi’s notion that elitist interest-group liberalism undermines democracy and Olson’s theory that large groups fail to identify and act on their self-interest, reinforce Michels’ position that the elite emerge from democratic dysfunction to dominate organizations. Michels found that even socialist organizations and trade unions that valued democracy could not pursue their goals, even with strong leadership. From this Michels proposed a general law that “the majority of human beings … are predestined by tragic necessity, to submit to the dominion of a small minority, and must be content to constitute the pedestal of an oligarchy.”

The underlying notion of a liberal democracy is that government organizations and institutions are to be administered in a democratic fashion by majority rule, respect for minority rights, freedom of speech and dissent, based on a constitutional framework. On the other hand, while democratic values and policies are to be implemented, the task must be implemented through the most efficient and effective administrative methods available. Therefore agencies, governed primarily by the principle of efficiency and effectiveness, tend to act in an autocratic fashion. Nevertheless, if Michels’ argument is a sound one, then the implications for government are startling: organizations and their subsequent policies are held captive by an elite clientele. The reality of an elite ruling government agencies, and for that matter, political parties, unions, religious organizations, etc., conveys the idea that popular rule is subverted. This leaves little doubt organizations and institutions by their very nature are predisposed inherently to being co-opted by an elite faction. Thus organizations and institutions are designed to serve the interests of an elite cadre and not its rank and file members.

In summary, the “iron law of oligarchy,” with respect to democratic organizations and policy outcomes, functions in four different capacities. Organizations and policy outcomes: (1) mobilize the forces of indoctrination and formal socialization in the direction of established interests and dominant values; (2) control the means of rewards and punishments based on organizational structures and behavior; (3) preempt competing behavioral forms and thus structure the definition of “reality” to the advantage of the elite; and, (4) reinforce their own existence by preventing any question or ideological challenge to its purpose and mission. Thus Michels believed that any organization or political system, democratic or egalitarian, becomes oligarchic and therefore undemocratic.

• Parts 3 and 4 to follow

Edward Martin is Professor of Public Policy and Administration, Graduate Center for Public Policy and Administration at California State University, Long Beach, and co-author of Savage State: Welfare Capitalism and Inequality; Mateo Pimentel lives on the Mexican-US border, writing for many alternative political newsletters and Web sites. He can be reached at: mateo.pimentel@gmail.com. Read other articles by Edward Martin and Mateo Pimentel.

Why Occupy? First in a four-part series



Dissident Voice: a radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justice

Why Occupy?

First in a four-part series

There is a tendency for democratic self-governing institutions to become oligarchies, specifically because elite interests within these institutions are prioritized over the needs of their members. According to researchers, such as Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page, and conservative theorists, such as Robert Michels, democratic institutions primarily serve elite interests. In “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens”, (in Perspectives on Politics, September 2014 Vol. 12/No. 3, p.564-581), Gilens and Page argue that oligarchies within democratic institutions ultimately undermine their democratic goals, in which the institution is co-opted by elites. And on the other hand, conservatives like Michels (in his book Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Organizational Tendencies of Modern Democracy, 1911) argue, “It is organization which gives birth to the domination of the elected over the electors, of the mandatories over the mandators, of the delegates over the delegators. Who says organization, says oligarchy.” Thus, for Michels, democratic institutions undermine themselves precisely because they are held captive by oligarchs and elites.

So, in order to understand the Occupy Movement, and its rebellion against elite control of democratic institutions and economic organizations, it is important to examine how organizations and institutions become rigid oligarchies in the first place. In light of Michels’ “iron law of oligarchy” and Gilens’ and Page’s research on oligarchies, we urge that anarchist principles, ironically, be examined as a possible counter to oligarchic rule, that is, if democratic institutions are to be salvaged. As such, policy recommendations via anarchic social justice must be discussed in relation to meeting the needs of self-determining people and the challenges awaiting them in the twenty-first century. This is because democratic governance has been thoroughly undermined by elite domination and why the Occupy Movement erupted to demand democratic accountability, not just in governance but in economic matters as well.

Becoming Oligarchy

Michels’ “iron law of oligarchy” refers to organizations and institutions, specifically the left-wing parties of Western Europe in the pre-World War I era, which called for egalitarian reforms through mass democracy and popular governance. Yet, as Michels observed, these same democratically minded organizations and institutions could not resist the tendency to become de facto oligarchies. In spite of their revolutionary identities and democratic structures, the labor parties of Michels’ era were dominated by tightly bound cliques with the intent of perpetuating their own interests rather than the goals of equality and self-rule. The irony, Michels noted, was that in a democratic organization like the German Social-Democratic Party (SPD) to which Michels belonged at the time, only a few people in executive positions actually held power and decision-making privileges. This phenomenon also applied to traditional conservative parties according to Michels. Nevertheless, the “leaders” of the SPD valued their own elite status and social-mobility more than any commitment to the goal of emancipating Germany’s “industrial proletariat,” from exploitation. Inevitably, the SPD’s actual policies became increasingly conservative, often siding with the imperial authorities of Wilhelmian Germany. Eventually, while SPD leaders gained constitutional legislative power and public prestige, they failed to serve the collective will of its mass membership; they were in fact dominating and directing it for their own ends. Research today by Gilens and Page only confirm what took place with Michels’ research a century ago.

Michels concluded that the day-to-day administration of any large-scale, differentiated bureaucratic organization, such as the SPD, by the rank-and-file majority was impossible. Given the “incompetence of the masses,” there was a need for full-time elite professional leadership to manage and direct others in a hierarchical, top-down manner. And the rank and file members were not necessarily opposed to this. In theory, the SPD leaders were subject to control by the rank-and-file through delegate conferences and membership voting; in reality, the elite leadership was firmly in command. The simple organizational need for a division of labor, hierarchy, and specialized leadership roles meant that control over the top functionaries from below was “purely fictitious.” Elected leaders had the experience, skills, and superior knowledge necessary for running the party and controlling all formal means of communication with its membership, including the party press. While proclaiming their devotion to the party program of social democracy, the leaders soon became part of the German political establishment. The mass membership was unable to provide an effective counterweight to this entrenched minority of self-serving party officials who were more committed to internal organizational goals and their own personal interests than to radical social change on behalf of their members. Michels believed that these inevitable oligarchic tendencies were reinforced by a mass predisposition for depending upon, and even glorifying, the party oligarchs. As Michels states, “Though it grumbles occasionally, the majority is really delighted to find persons who will take the trouble to look after its affairs. In the mass, and even in the organized mass of the labor parties, there is an immense need for direction and guidance. This need is accompanied by a genuine cult for the leaders, who are regarded as heroes.” Thus elites maneuver their way into power and the members abdicate their participation in self-governance.

The “iron law of oligarchy” was thus a product of Michels’ own personal experiences as a frustrated idealist and a disillusioned social-democrat. His Political Parties was based upon an empirical study of the SPD and a number of affiliated German trade unions. Michels observed firsthand that the ordinary members of these working-class organizations were practically excluded from any decision-making process within their organizations, either structurally of by their own indifference. Thus Michels argued that the inherent tendency of large and complex organizations – including radical or socialist political parties and labor unions – to develop a mass membership to provide any effective counterweight to a ruling clique of leaders, was doomed. Smaller, less complex organizations also manifested similar tendencies to be controlled by elites as well. Moreover, these inherent organizational tendencies were strengthened by a mass psychology of leadership dependency. This analysis made Michels increasingly skeptical regarding the possibility of democratic governance, precisely as a result of the general frustration he and others, such as Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Mosca, had with democratic organizations. Thus one reason why fascism and “elite theory” became increasingly popular by the twentieth century, and specifically for Michels, was because oligarchy in democratic institutions became increasingly embedded. Some have argued that Michels may have formulated an “iron law of bureaucracy,” mistakenly seeking “democracy in structures, not in interactions,” and thus ignoring the real difference between democracies and non-democracies. Nevertheless, the dissatisfaction of people today with democratic governance, co-opted by economic elites, has led to massive frustration by the public at large and thus the emergence of the Occupy Movement.

The decision of Citizens United by the Supreme Court has only fueled this burning discontent and that the Supreme Court is coopted by elite power as well.

Why Oligarchy?

Here are some reasons why oligarchy is deeply embedded in democratic institutions and organizations.

Reason #1: The classic liberal view of society is based on the perspective that a collection of individuals and groups is in essence a free association in which socially defined identities and roles spontaneously emerge. Throughout the course of a person’s life, one’s actions and choices are shaped by social roles and statuses. In every society, certain characteristics such as age, sex, ethnicity, appearance, division of labor, and social class, have a direct impact on the allocation of individual roles in society. These assigned roles are not a random occurrence; they are the outgrowth of deeply embedded interests and power relations which have been institutionalized. In this way status can be understood as either ascribed or achieved: ascribed, meaning it is assigned by tradition, irrespective of individual initiative; achieved, meaning it is the result of personal accomplishments and talent. This is the case since achievement is itself almost always dependent upon arbitrary and antecedent conditions of custom and class.

Reason #2: The term “organization” implies the mobilization of individuals into roles and statuses committed to the performance of some form of collective behavior. “Organization” also describes the precisely defined structures of group authority which can be found in churches, militaries, schools, corporations, political parties, agencies, and governments. While class structure as an organization is not usually defined as such, it is, nevertheless, the composite of people who differ in wealth and social prestige, who then in turn, are served in a relative fashion by the various institutions. What then connects these institutions is a “functionally integrated system” built around networks of communication, interest, power and social class, which comprise what is known as a “social system” or “social structure.” The process in which individuals become socialized into their milieu is determined for the most part by the organizational and institutional roles which they assume. These roles, generally, are not individually determined, but are shaped instead, by the very organizations and institutions in which they are co-opted. In turn, organizations are determined by their essential interests and minimal requisites of role performance. More specifically, the essential interests of organizations are manipulated by the interests of those who have the most power within the organization to control the outcome to their advantage.

Reason #3: Individuals are socialized to believe that their well-being is to avoid conflict and thus secure a place for themselves within the system based on the system’s own terms. The path to success, according to Ralf Miliband, is found in conforming to “the values, prejudices and modes of thought of the world to which entry is sought.” Those who are skeptical and even question the virtues of the given organization discover, either painfully or at great personal risk, that they must conform and adjust to minimal role demands or suffer adverse consequences. Organizational control, nevertheless, conveys attitudes of obedience disseminating among subordinates in any organizational structure within a society. The social norm then becomes the external and internal force for compliance upon the individual and the pressure to obey comes not only from the superior or elite but from the collectivity of subordinates. In this manner pressure for role fulfillment, then, can be felt vertically from the higher authority that controls the agenda of role performances, but also horizontally from similarly situated subordinates who, having internalized the organizational values of obedience, are as critical as any superior of departures in role performance. Such departures, being seen as an unwillingness to carry one’s share of the burden, is perceived as a violation of essential professional duties, a “letting down” not only of one’s superiors, but of one’s peers, be they ordinary co-workers, professional colleagues, or comrades in arms.

Reason #4: To control the essential structures of role behavior, as is the case with organizations, is to shape social consciousness in ways that rational exercises cannot do. Roles, within organizations, become habit and custom. For persons socialized into institutional roles, most alternative forms of behavior either violate their sense of propriety or escape their imagination altogether. They do not think of themselves as responding to a particular arrangement of social reality but to the only social reality there is. In this regard the absolute nature of this social arrangement is not questioned because, in the words of social theorist J. Peter Euben, “realism becomes an unargued and implicit conservatism,” and as Sanford Levinson also argues “the most subtle form of ‘political education’ is the treating of events and conditions which are in fact amenable to change as though they were natural events. This is not a question of treating what is as what ought to be but rather as what has to be.”

Organizations and social institutions, nonetheless, are those massive monuments of society which capture and confine the vision of people, and an organization’s very existence becomes its own legitimating force. In economic terms it is a case of supply creating demand. The dominant organizations in the social system lend the legitimacy of substance and practice to the established norms which in turn teach and reinforce adherence to the ongoing social system. What should be recognized is that the social norms or values are not self-sustaining, self-adaptive consensual forces; they are mediated through organizations and institutions, and to the extent that organizations and institutions are instruments of power in the service of elitist interests. Thus, social norms themselves are a product of organizational interests and power relations. This is why oligarchies become imbedded in institutions and organizations and preclude democratic governance and popular control of economic resources and accountability.

Basically, a type of dictatorship emerges in which democratic rule and economic security are scuttled by oligarchic rule. But the elites, and their oligarchy, define it as “democratic.” As a result, we get Occupy.

  • Parts 2, 3, and 4 to follow.
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  • Edward Martin is Professor of Public Policy and Administration, Graduate Center for Public Policy and Administration at California State University, Long Beach, and co-author of Savage State: Welfare Capitalism and Inequality; Mateo Pimentel lives on the Mexican-US border, writing for many alternative political newsletters and Web sites. He can be reached at: mateo.pimentel@gmail.com