-Caveat Lector-
Deterring Democracy
Copyright (c) 1991, 1992 by Noam Chomsky.
Published by South End Press
Chapter 12: Force and Opinion
2. The Bewildered Herd and its Shepherds <cont'd>
It is often not appreciated how profound and deeply-rooted
is the contempt for democracy in the elite culture, and the fear
it arouses.
When political life and independent thought revived in the
1960s, the problem arose again, and the reaction was the same.
The Trilateral Commission, bringing together liberal elites from
Europe, Japan, and the United States, warned of an impending
"crisis of democracy" as segments of the public sought to enter
the political arena. This "excess of democracy" was posing a
threat to the unhampered rule of privileged elites -- what is
called "democracy" in political theology. The problem was the
usual one: the rabble were trying to arrange their own affairs,
gaining control over their communities and pressing their
political demands. There were organizing efforts among young
people, ethnic minorities, women, social activists, and others,
encouraged by the struggles of benighted masses elsewhere for
freedom and independence. More "moderation in democracy" would be
required, the Commission concluded, perhaps a return to the days
when "Truman had been able to govern the country with the
cooperation of a relatively small number of Wall Street lawyers
and bankers," as the American rapporteur commented.
Irving Kristol adds that "insignificant nations, like
insignificant people, can quickly experience delusions of
significance." But as a leading neoconservative, he has no time
for the softer means of manufacture of consent, which are, in any
event, not warranted for insignificant people outside the domains
of Western civilization. Hence the delusions of significance must
be driven from their tiny minds by force: "In truth, the days of
`gunboat diplomacy' are never over... Gunboats are as necessary
for international order as police cars are for domestic order."
These ideas bring us to the Reagan administration, which
established a state propaganda agency (the Office of Public
Diplomacy) that was by far the most elaborate in American
history, much to the delight of the advocates of a powerful and
interventionist state who are called "conservatives" in one of
the current corruptions of political discourse. When the program
was exposed, a high official described it as the kind of
operation carried out in "enemy territory" -- an apt phrase,
expressing standard elite attitudes towards the public. In this
case, the enemy was not completely subdued. Popular movements
deepened their roots and spread into new sectors of the
population, and were able to drive the state underground to
clandestine terror instead of the more efficient forms of overt
violence that Presidents Kennedy and Johnson could undertake
before the public had been aroused.
The fears expressed by the men of best quality in the 17th
century have become a major theme of intellectual discourse,
corporate practice, and the academic social sciences. They were
expressed by the influential moralist and foreign affairs adviser
Reinhold Niebuhr, who was revered by George Kennan, the Kennedy
intellectuals, and many others. He wrote that "rationality
belongs to the cool observers" while the common person follows
not reason but faith. The cool observers, he explained, must
recognize "the stupidity of the average man," and must provide
the "necessary illusion" and the "emotionally potent
oversimplifications" that will keep the naive simpletons on
course. As in 1650, it remains necessary to protect the "lunatic
or distracted person," the ignorant rabble, from their own
"depraved and corrupt" judgments, just as one does not allow a
child to cross the street without supervision.
In accordance with the prevailing conceptions, there is no
infringement of democracy if a few corporations control the
information system: in fact, that is the essence of democracy.
The leading figure of the public relations industry, Edward
Bernays, explained that "the very essence of the democratic
process" is "the freedom to persuade and suggest," what he calls
"the engineering of consent." If the freedom to persuade happens
to be concentrated in a few hands, we must recognize that such is
the nature of a free society. From the early 20th century, the
public relations industry has devoted huge resources to
"educating the American people about the economic facts of life"
to ensure a favorable climate for business. Its task is to
control "the public mind," which is "the only serious danger
confronting the company," an AT&T executive observed eighty years
ago. And today, the Wall Street Journal describes with enthusiasm
the "concerted efforts" of corporate America "to change the
attitudes and values of workers" on a vast scale with "New Age
workshops" and other contemporary devices of indoctrination and
stupefaction designed to convert "worker apathy into corporate
allegiance."
The agents of Reverend Moon and Christian evangelicals
employ similar devices to bar the threat of peasant organizing
and to undermine a church that serves the poor in Latin America,
aided by intelligence agencies and the closely-linked
international organizations of the ultra-right.
Bernays expressed the basic point in a public relations
manual of 1928: "The conscious and intelligent manipulation of
the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important
element in democratic society... It is the intelligent minorities
which need to make use of propaganda continuously and
systematically." Given its enormous and decisive power, the
highly class conscious business community of the United States
has been able to put these lessons to effective use. Bernays'
advocacy of propaganda is cited by Thomas McCann, head of public
relations for the United Fruit Company, for which Bernays
provided signal service in preparing the ground for the overthrow
of Guatemalan democracy in 1954, a major triumph of business
propaganda with the willing compliance of the media.
The intelligent minorities have long understood this to be
their function. Walter Lippmann described a "revolution" in "the
practice of democracy" as "the manufacture of consent" has become
"a self-conscious art and a regular organ of popular government."
This is a natural development when public opinion cannot be
trusted: "In the absence of institutions and education by which
the environment is so successfully reported that the realities of
public life stand out very sharply against self-centered opinion,
the common interests very largely elude public opinion entirely,
and can be managed only by a specialized class whose personal
interests reach beyond the locality," and are thus able to
perceive "the realities." These are the men of best quality, who
alone are capable of social and economic management.
It follows that two political roles must be clearly
distinguished, Lippmann goes on to explain. First, there is the
role assigned to the specialized class, the "insiders," the
"responsible men," who have access to information and
understanding. Ideally, they should have a special education for
public office, and should master the criteria for solving the
problems of society; "In the degree to which these criteria can
be made exact and objective, political decision," which is their
domain, "is actually brought into relation with the interests of
men." The "public men" are, furthermore, to "lead opinion" and
take the responsibility for "the formation of a sound public
opinion." "They initiate, they administer, they settle," and
should be protected from "ignorant and meddlesome outsiders," the
general public, who are incapable of dealing "with the substance
of the problem." The criteria we apply to government are success
in satisfying material and cultural wants, not whether "it
vibrates to the self-centered opinions that happen to be floating
in men's minds." Having mastered the criteria for political
decision, the specialized class, protected from pubic meddling,
will serve the public interest -- what is called "the national
interest" in the webs of mystification spun by the academic
social sciences and political commentary.
The second role is "the task of the public," which is much
more limited. It is not for the public, Lippmann observes, to
"pass judgment on the intrinsic merits" of an issue or to offer
analysis or solutions, but merely, on occasion, to place "its
force at the disposal" of one or another group of "responsible
men." The public "does not reason, investigate, invent, persuade,
bargain or settle." Rather, "the public acts only by aligning
itself as the partisan of someone in a position to act
executively," once he has given the matter at hand sober and
disinterested thought. It is for this reason that "the public
must be put in its place." The bewildered herd, trampling and
roaring, "has its function": to be "the interested spectators of
action," not participants. Participation is the duty of "the
responsible man."
These ideas, described by Lippmann's editors as a
progressive "political philosophy for liberal democracy," have an
unmistakeable resemblance to the Leninist concept of a vanguard
party that leads the masses to a better life that they cannot
conceive or construct on their own. In fact, the transition from
one position to the other, from Leninist enthusiasm to
"celebration of America," has proven quite an easy one over the
years. This is not surprising, since the doctrines are similar at
their root. The critical difference lies in an assessment of the
prospects for power: through exploitation of mass popular
struggle, or service to the current masters.
There is, clearly enough, an unspoken assumption behind the
proposals of Lippmann and others: the specialized class are
offered the opportunity to manage public affairs by virtue of
their subordination to those with real power -- in our societies,
dominant business interests -- a crucial fact that is ignored in
the self-praise of the elect.
Lippmann's thinking on these matters dates from shortly
after World War I, when the liberal intellectual community was
much impressed with its success in serving as "the faithful and
helpful interpreters of what seems to be one of the greatest
enterprises ever undertaken by an American president" (New
Republic). The enterprise was Woodrow Wilson's interpretation of
his electoral mandate for "peace without victory" as the occasion
for pursuing victory without peace, with the assistance of the
liberal intellectuals, who later praised themselves for having
"impose[d] their will upon a reluctant or indifferent majority,"
with the aid of propaganda fabrications about Hun atrocities and
other such devices. They were serving, often unwittingly, as
instruments of the British Ministry of Information, which
secretly defined its task as "to direct the thought of most of
the world."
Fifteen years later, the influential political scientist
Harold Lasswell explained in the Encyclopaedia of the Social
Sciences that when elites lack the requisite force to compel
obedience, social managers must turn to "a whole new technique of
control, largely through propaganda." He added the conventional
justification: we must recognize the "ignorance and stupidity
[of]...the masses" and not succumb to "democratic dogmatisms
about men being the best judges of their own interests." They are
not, and we must control them, for their own good. The same
principle guides the business community. Others have developed
similar ideas, and put them into practice in the ideological
institutions: the schools, the universities, the popular media,
the elite journals, and so on. A challenge to these ideas arouses
trepidation, sometimes fury, as when students of the 1960s,
instead of simply bowing to authority, began to ask too many
questions and to explore beyond the bounds established for them.
The pretense of manning the ramparts against the onslaught of the
barbarians, now a popular pose, is scarcely more than comical
fraud.
The doctrines of Lippmann, Lasswell, and others are entirely
natural in any society in which power is narrowly concentrated
but formal mechanisms exist by which ordinary people may, in
theory, play some role in shaping their own affairs -- a threat
that plainly must be barred.
The techniques of manufacture of consent are most finely
honed in the United States, a more advanced business-run society
than its allies and one that is in important ways more free than
elsewhere, so that the ignorant and stupid masses are more
dangerous. But the same concerns arise in Europe, as in the past,
heightened by the fact that the European varieties of state
capitalism have not yet progressed as far as the United States in
eliminating labor unions and other impediments to rule by men
(and occasionally women) of best quality, thus restricting
politics to factions of the business party. The basic problem,
recognized throughout, is that as the state loses the capacity to
control the population by force, privileged sectors must find
other methods to ensure that the rascal multitude is removed from
the public arena. And the insignificant nations must be subjected
to the same practices as the insignificant people. Liberal doves
hold that others should be free and independent, but not free to
choose in ways that we regard as unwise or contrary to our
interests, a close counterpart to the prevailing conception of
democracy at home as a form of population control. At the other
extreme of the spectrum, we find the "conservatives" with their
preference for quick resort to Kristol's methods: gunboats and
police cars.
3. Short of Force
Hume posed his paradox for both despotic and more free
societies. The latter case is by far the more important. As the
social world becomes more free and diverse, the task of inducing
submission becomes more complex and the problem of unraveling the
mechanisms of indoctrination, more challenging. But intellectual
interest aside, the case of free societies has greater human
significance, because here we are talking about ourselves and can
act upon what we learn. It is for just this reason that the
dominant culture will always seek to externalize human concerns,
directing them to the inadequacies and abuses of others.
When U.S. plans go awry in some corner of the Third World,
we devote our attention to the defects and special problems of
these cultures and their social disorders -- not our own. Fame,
fortune, and respect await those who reveal the crimes of
official enemies; those who undertake the vastly more important
task of raising a mirror to their own societies can expect quite
different treatment. George Orwell is famous for "Animal Farm"
and "1984," which focus on the official enemy. Had he addressed
the more interesting and significant question of thought control
in relatively free and democratic societies, it would not have
been appreciated, and instead of wide acclaim, he would have
faced silent dismissal or obloquy. Let us nevertheless turn to
the more important and unacceptable questions.
Keeping to governments that are more free and popular, why
do the governed submit when force is on their side? First, we
have to look at a prior question: to what extent IS force on the
side of the governed? Here some care is necessary. Societies are
considered free and democratic insofar as the power of the state
to coerce is limited. The United States is unusual in this
respect: perhaps more than anywhere else in the world, the
citizen is free from state coercion, at least, the citizen who is
relatively privileged and of the right color, a substantial part
of the population.
But it is a mere truism that the state represents only one
segment of the nexus of power. Control over investment,
production, commerce, finance, conditions of work, and other
crucial aspects of social policy lies in private hands.
Unwillingness to adapt to this structure of authority and
domination carries costs, ranging from state force to the costs
of privation and struggle; even an individual of independent mind
can hardly fail to compare these to the benefits, however meager,
that accrue to submission. Meaningful choices are thus narrowly
limited. Similar factors limit the range of ideas and opinion in
obvious ways. Articulate expression is shaped by the same private
powers that control the economy. It is largely dominated by major
corporations that sell audiences to advertisers and naturally
reflect the interests of the owners and their market. The ability
to articulate and communicate one's views, concerns, and
interests -- or even to discover them -- is thus narrowly
constrained as well.
Denial of these truisms about effective power is at the
heart of the structure of necessary illusion. Thus, a media
critic, reviewing a book on the press in the New York Times,
refers without argument to the "traditional Jeffersonian role" of
the press "as counterbalance to government power." The phrase
encapsulates three crucial assumptions, one historical, one
descriptive, one ideological. The historical claim is that
Jefferson was a committed advocate of freedom of the press, which
is false. The second is that the press in fact functions as a
counterbalance to government rather than as a faithful servant,
presented here as doctrine, thus evading any need to face the
massive array of detailed documentation that refutes this dogma.
The ideological principle is that Jeffersonian libertarianism
(considered abstractly, apart from its realization in practice)
would demand that the press be a counterbalance to GOVERNMENT
power. That is incorrect. The libertarian conception is that the
press should be independent, hence a counterbalance to
centralized power of ANY form. In Jefferson's day, the powers
that loomed large were the state, the church, and feudal
structures. Shortly after, new forms of centralized power emerged
in the world of corporate capitalism. A Jeffersonian would hold,
then, that the press should be a counterbalance to state or
corporate power, and critically, to the state-corporate nexus.
But to raise this point carries us into forbidden ground.
Apart from the general constraints on choice and articulate
opinion inherent in the concentration of private power, it also
sets narrow limits on the actions of government. The United
States has again been unusual in this respect among the
industrial democracies, though convergence toward the U.S.
pattern is evident elsewhere. The United States is near the limit
in its safeguards for freedom from state coercion, and also in
the poverty of its political life. There is essentially one
political party, the business party, with two factions. Shifting
coalitions of investors account for a large part of political
history. Unions, or other popular organizations that might offer
a way for the general public to play some role in influencing
programs and policy choices, scarcely function apart from the
narrowest realm. The ideological system is bounded by the
consensus of the privileged. Elections are largely a ritual form.
In congressional elections, virtually all incumbents are returned
to office, a reflection of the vacuity of the political system
and the choices it offers. There is scarcely a pretense that
substantive issues are at stake in the presidential campaigns.
Articulated programs are hardly more than a device to garner
votes, and candidates adjust their messages to their audiences as
public relations tacticians advise. Political commentators ponder
such questions as whether Reagan will remember his lines, or
whether Mondale looks too gloomy, or whether Dukakis can duck the
slime flung at him by George Bush's speech writers. In the 1984
elections, the two political factions virtually exchanged
traditional policies, the Republicans presenting themselves as
the party of Keynesian growth and state intervention in the
economy, the Democrats as the advocates of fiscal conservatism;
few even noticed. Half the population does not bother to push the
buttons, and those who take the trouble often consciously vote
against their own interest.
The public is granted an opportunity to ratify decisions
made elsewhere, in accord with the prescriptions of Lippmann and
other democratic theorists. It may select among personalities put
forth in a game of symbolic politics that only the most naive
take very seriously. When they do, they are mocked by
sophisticates. Criticism of President Bush's call for "revenue
enhancement" after having won the election by the firm and
eloquent promise not to raise taxes is a "political cheap shot,"
Harvard political scientist and media specialist Marty Linsky
comments under the heading "Campaign pledges -- made to be
broken." When Bush won the election by leading the public in the
"read my lips -- no new taxes" chant, he was merely expressing
his "world view," making "a statement of his hopes." Those who
thought he was promising no new taxes do not understand that
"elections and governing are different ball games, played with
different objectives and rules." "The purpose of elections is to
win," Linsky correctly observes, expressing the cynicism of the
sophisticated; and "the purpose of governing is to do the best
for the country," he adds, parroting the necessary illusions that
respectability demands.
These tendencies were accelerated during the Reagan years.
The population overwhelmingly opposed the policies of his
administration, and even the Reagan voters in 1984, by about 3 to
2, hoped that his legislative program would not be enacted. In
the 1980 elections, 4 percent of the electorate voted for Reagan
because they regarded him as a "real conservative." In 1984, the
percentage dropped to 1 percent. That is what is called "a
landslide victory for conservatism" in political rhetoric.
Furthermore, contrary to much pretense, Reagan's popularity was
never particularly high, and much of the population seemed to
understand that he was a media creation, who had only the
foggiest idea of what government policy might be.
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