Is The US A One-Party State?
Noam Chomsky maintains that the US is a one-party state. The Business Party rules, and maintains the illusion of a two party system through the continual jockeying between its two very similar wings.
Chomsky has company in this view. The Left (think European Left, not "left leaning" Democrats) maintain the same idea. The Business Party is committed to capitalism, free enterprise, the sanctity of private property, the primacy of the oligarchy, and so on. Both are also committed to a social welfare program which provides a sufficient minimum to help maintain compliance among the working and poor classes.
Neither Chomsky nor the very small American Left hold that the American one-party state is remotely like the one-party states like China or Iran, and numerous others.
The American Left has organized socialist, even communist, parties and more informal groups which are free to engage with the public and at no risk of suppression. We are also at no risk of achieving any electoral success. The veins of 'business thinking' run thick and rich throughout American life, now and in the past. Most Americans find any other idea unthinkable.
Do you view the United States as a one-party system, or do you reject this view, in favor of some other description. What might a "real" two party system look like?
DER SPIEGEL (2008): So for you, Republicans and Democrats represent just slight variations of the same political platform?
Chomsky: Of course there are differences, but they are not fundamental. Nobody should have any illusions. The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party.
Chomsky has company in this view. The Left (think European Left, not "left leaning" Democrats) maintain the same idea. The Business Party is committed to capitalism, free enterprise, the sanctity of private property, the primacy of the oligarchy, and so on. Both are also committed to a social welfare program which provides a sufficient minimum to help maintain compliance among the working and poor classes.
Neither Chomsky nor the very small American Left hold that the American one-party state is remotely like the one-party states like China or Iran, and numerous others.
DER SPIEGEL (2008): To conclude, perhaps you can offer a conciliatory word about the state of the nation?
CHOMSKY: The American society has become more civilized, largely as a result of the activism of the 1960s. Our society, and also Europes, became freer, more open, more democratic, and for many quite scary. This generation was condemned for that. But it had an effect.
The American Left has organized socialist, even communist, parties and more informal groups which are free to engage with the public and at no risk of suppression. We are also at no risk of achieving any electoral success. The veins of 'business thinking' run thick and rich throughout American life, now and in the past. Most Americans find any other idea unthinkable.
Do you view the United States as a one-party system, or do you reject this view, in favor of some other description. What might a "real" two party system look like?
Comments (110)
Yes, it's a one-party system: the business party.
A real two-party system is kind of the wrong question, in my view. Ideally there would be either no parties or several parties, including a serious labor party and socialist party.
As a European my knowledge of American politics is limited. I dont know much about what your senate and congress do.
However I do know that theres clearly competition between these two parties to have their chosen candidate elected to office and this election choice is clearly because its a two party system, otherwise wed be dealing in conspiracy.
[quote=Calvin Coolidge, 1925]After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world.[/quote]
i.e. "The Business Party" (Chomsky).
How would a 'no party' system work? Say more about that.
Which we seem to be doing, anyway.
Is it really the case that people here would be willing to close their eyes and vote for whoever they randomly chose even if one of the candidates were Trump?
The two parties also have substantive differences vis-á-vis foreign policy. Clinton era multilateral idealism was not W. Bush's neoconservatism. Trump's isolationist agenda is radically different from either. Right now you have MTG and Tucker Carlson lauding the leaking of information that will benefit Russia in Ukraine, and Trump and Desantis talking about cutting off aid. That is, whatever you think about US involvement in that conflict or NATO, GOP leaders have recommend policy substantially different from the Democrats, who have to date been unified in voting for aid (yes, a small group of progressive Dems did float pushing back on aid, but that lasted all of 48 hours because their constituents blasted them). Obviously it isn't an area of polar opposites since a less vocal majority of Republicans still support aid, but it's a real difference on THE security issue of the day.
The parties also differ substantially on ongoing asylum claims and the status of undocumented immigrants. Given that this population makes up a quite meaningful share of the total population, and that close relatives of undocumented individuals make up an even larger share, this is a huge difference. Amnesty, which would entail access to benefits, and voting rights for this population has huge consequences for millions of residents of the country, as would a push for mass deportations or even just the continued denial of retirement benefits for people who have paid into Federal entitlement programs for decades.
The creation of a large, legally vulnerable underclass definitely effects labor markets in a big way, as does continual high rates of immigration by people with the equivalent of a high school degree or less in education and no trade skills, despite long term slumping demand for that segment of the labor market. Obviously, when migration is proportionately higher for below median and average earnings potential/net worth individuals and people move primarily into higher cost of living areas, it necessarily increases inequality. The parties differ a lot on how best to deal with these society shaping issues.
Really, Chomsky is just doing what demagogues always do, boiling down a complex problem filled with feedback loops, shifting alliances, histories of unintended consequences from reforms, etc. into a simple story of "bad, evil, greedy people make society bad. The truth is that everything is coordinated behind the scenes by a monolithic group. Thus, if we all unite we can replace the evil people with the righteous (us) and all shall be well forever."
It's the same sort of story the far-right spins. "Most of the 'other side' are useful idiots, but some elite clique actually coordinates everything. The scary nuance of the world can be reduced to a manichean struggle in which you are on the side of righteousness. Better still, you get to feel smart about having seen through the smoke screen of apparent nuance too!" They just disagree about who the "useful idiots," are.
He can spin a self-congratulatory narrative safe from having his policy recommendations ever having to deal with the nuances and difficulties of actually becoming reality. It's always easier to be the good guy when you don't need to get your policy voted on and then effectively implemented. You can claim the unpopularity of your positions is simply due to brainwashing, and you never have to deal with anything definite, which is good, since definiteness sullies purity
I don't think this is just an American issue. Those 'small adjustments' for disadvantaged people keep some voters interested and make some differences to lives on the ground.
A secondary issue may be dwarfed in the USA by the Trumpian changes, but here in the UK there has grown a clear division between the interests of financial capital and of business capital. In this sense even the 'Business Party' would not be as monolithic as claimed.
I mean, the median cost for a family health plan (including what employers pony up) is only just over 50% of the median national household income. How much difference could a single-payer option have really meant in people's lives?
One of these is capture. It is far easier to capture two parties than many. In a many partied system, more uncaptured parties can emerge, possibly in response to the capture itself. In a two party system, there is no alternative, and the populace must accept two pseudo alternatives, both of which serve a constituency which is not them.
Another is ideological narrowness. There is a dynamic with two parties that tends towards narrowness, and extremity on one side of the political spectrum. Suppose one party veers to the left or the right. This is seemingly a blunder: the logical response for the other party is to move along with them. After all, the constituents on "their" side of the spectrum have no alternative, while they may acquire new moderate voters who are turned of by the other side's extremity. But then, this moves the ideological spectrum of the whole country towards the direction of the more extreme party, including those contested moderate voters. This leads to ideological narrowness and a veering towards one ideological direction.
Note that nothing explicitly mandates that the US have two parties. It is emergent on the winner takes all electoral system, but that is another topic.
A lot of people don't vote -- and my guess is that there is no barrier preventing them for doing so, EXCEPT they don't see any point to choosing between the party of Tweedledum and Tweedledee (go ask Alice).
There is also the primary system that selects candidates. The primaries occur at different times of year in each state, and often there are multiple primary/preliminary elections in a single year, each for different types of posts. This results in very low turnout, especially when elections are scheduled for non-presidential election years. Many states also only allow official party members to vote in the primary.
The timing and restrictions on primary voting mean that a small share of voters gets to pick the candidates. These are more motivated voters and radicals tend to be more motivated. Primary voters also tend to be wealthier and older.
Then add in the antiquated signature system for getting on the ballot and the role of party horse trading in lower level elections which get almost no media coverage and you get a system where influence with a party (which money can buy) and money itself are huge in determining if you are a viable candidate for many races. There is also the issue of some state and local elected positions being paid too little to live on, so that only the independently wealthy can hold them.
The US primary system is designed in such a way that more radical members tend to get elected. If we did ranked choice voting with 2-4 candidates per party for Congress you'd get representation much closer to the median voter.
But it is this very radicalism that counter intuitively makes people think the parties are identical. Because you can block legislation from passing with a minority in most states and at the federal level, radicalism actually results in less being done. Basically, only stuff that isn't politically salient gets passed (i.e. the "Secret Congress hypothesis."). This isn't because all the legislators secretly agree, it's because anything seen as politically charged gets blocked by radicals and people scared of being challenged by radicals in a primary.
-an independent civil service
-federalism with extremely strong regional government (really unlike any other modern liberal state)
-the common law system
[B]The Civil Service:[/b] On a day to day basis, local, state, and federal government is managed by a relatively independent careerist civil service. Government employees have way more protections then private sector employees (look up "Loudermill Hearings") and are 33% unionized (more at the local level) with even high level supervisors, e.g. police captains and zone fire chiefs commonly being unionized.
This means that, regardless of who takes control, the same people end up enacting policy. This is the true "Deep State."
However, this isn't a bad thing. Political science has identified a professional, independent civil service as a pillar of successful states, right up there with rule of law and a state monopoly on use of force. The independent civil service, and in the US context the strong, independent non-government civil society organizations (e.g. the American Bar Association) are the reason that, contrary to partisan propaganda, the entire country doesn't radically change every time a new party takes the executive. Imagine if the President got to appoint almost all public employees based on ideology...
Such independence can be a barrier on reform, although an adequate level of independence and professionalism is also a prerequisite for effective reform. The civil service can act as a road block for reform when reforms challenge its prerogatives. A civil service that is too strong will actively torpedo the government to coerce it into paying out donatives and grow corrupt (e.g. some police unions).
However, it also acts as a curb on demagogues ripping down the foundations of the state overnight. I've worked in local, state, and federal government. There are plenty of very conservative people and very liberal people in both who buy into cable news narratives... for the most part. But in the area they have substantive policy expertise from their work, they virtually always have had much more nuanced opinions about how to go about reforming the system and the need to avoid super ideological nonsense. That's the plus side of the strong civil service; they know their issues. But you also need checks on them. Plus, a strong esprit de corps goes a long way in stopping corruption; norms matter.
Federalism also makes the parties seem more similar, since the Feds, what most people watch, have only an ancillary involvement in many of the areas of government people care about most. Take out entitlements and defense and state + local makes up a far larger share of government spending than the feds. For most citizens, their biggest involvement with the state is spending most days in a public school from age 3-5 to 18. But in most states schools are largely run at the district/county/municipal level. States have a bit more leverage, and the Feds not much at all. Same goes for police, fire, roads, business permits, and utilities.
The common law system can also act as a curb on change because you face the weight of historical precedent. Lifetime judicial appointments do the same thing because liberals norms tend to advance over time, leaving a liberal from decades ago more towards the center (although the reverse can be true as well).
But that just creates a mirage of lack of difference. It's extremely hard to imagine that if either party for 70 votes in the Senate, a large House majority, and the White House, we wouldn't see massive changes in legislation touching most aspects of life.
I mean, if Donald Trump or Joe Biden got to appoint all government employees (obviously delegating a lot), does anyone doubt the country would be radically different?
People run for office, but without any party label. I know at the start of the US, there was a lot of debate about the usefulness of parties, whether they were good, etc.
How better to extend tyranny than to provide the illusion of freedom?
I know!
Imagine taking a really complex scenario like, say, border conflicts in a ex-Soviet region (just an example), and trying to just boil down all the "feedback loops, shifting alliances, histories of unintended consequences from reforms, etc" into one bad guy who's responsible for it all, and one set of good guys who can do no wrong and will win out in the end just because they're so righteous...
Who'd do such a thing?
... Oh, hang on... https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12469/ukraine-crisis
How does Noam Chomsky get away with saying all those dangerous things? He may deplore the system, but he does not make suggestions about how to blow it up, so to speak. (After a talk he gave I asked him why he did not propose actions that people could take? He said, quite firmly, that that was not his role.)
Opposition to the government of the United States is tolerable as long as one is not organizing its actual overthrow. My opposition to the flag and the republic for which it stands is causing no loss of sleep in Washington. But if I had organized the January 6 attack on Congress, I'd be in solitary confinement in a federal prison. Trump, being the president at the time, has been able to escape a similar fate, so far.
A lot of activities of which particular Republicans and Democrats may personally disapprove are perfectly compatible with business. Somebody's weird lifestyle may be objectionable, but hey -- they're working, paying taxes, paying rent, buying gas, groceries, sex change surgery, hormones, etc. All contributing to the grand bottom line
Exactly.
Quoting Mikie
If we elected an entirely new House, Senate, and President with no party affiliation it would not be long before some sort pf parties formed. Why? Because elected office holders, and the people they represent (assuming this was a system of representation) have interests that are not compatible with everyone else's interests. Eventually the several competing interests would clump together to better gain advantage. Before long, there would be parties.
How do we get around the problem of "interests" which are quite legitimate?
Any examples come to mind? I can only think of China, Russia (and satellites) and Iran, but theyre definitely repressive.
Quoting BC
So far.
I don't think the USA is fundamentally, a one-party state, but I think the notion of a global 'business party,' is a valid one, although it is not, in REALITY, fully organised as such, imo. There are some business based bodies, that are globally organised, such as the world bank, that supports the notion of a global business party, and such a notional party(or REAL organisation such as the world bank,) does have very significant influence, in ALL countries, including Russia, China, Iran, North Korea etc but only because of the existence of money, as the means of exchange and the fact that the nefarious few can still play the money trick via free 'stock market' based economies, with almost no significant restrictions whatsoever, despite previous global economic crashes/disasters.
I think the business party notion Noam refers to, is a notion that 'emerges' from the affects that national and international capitalism has on every human on this planet.
Quoting BC
I would love to discuss this in much more detail. I have many 'historically influenced' idea's on this, and many personal ones.
Yes, fundamentally, every elected person to governance would be an 'independent.' That is the starting point, BUT we then have to reform the basics.
ALL historical political systems and parties should be a main subject taught in schools and should be as high profile as mathematics, language ( I won't be Xenophobic and type English), and general science.
Every local area, would establish a local non-party political branch of a national organisation, dedicated to political debate. Any individual can join and bring their politics with them.
Local, interlocal, intercity, national and international debate 'competitions' would be encouraged and televised. There would also of course be continuous on-line political debate.
When local or national elections are due, the people who stand for election, would be taken from these local political branches, based on member votes.
I could now go into a lot of detail, as to how I think local, national and perhaps even global authority could be formed and how such might function, but that might come later, if there is any interest.
I think I will leave it there for now, and await for my expected dissenters to offer their main complaints against the notions I am suggesting here. If I can't defend my model of a future better way to do politics, against dissenters, then my model does not deserve any credibility.
It's obviously a simplification, but to support the idea that it's "overly" simplistic you'd have to put some measures to those differences. What exactly has been done to improve welfare (or worsen it), what exactly has been done to improve healthcare (or worsen it), etc... And by what margin have improvements been seen.
I think it would be childish to suggest that Chomsky literally meant that the two parties were identical in every way. He was obviously making the point that they weren't significantly different. So a counter-argument has to contain measures of significance, not merely the presence of differences.
They're significantly different on welfare, healthcare, guns, abortion, and LGBT issues.
So the measure of significance is "Michael says so"?
No, I say so because there is a significant difference.
No there isn't.
Great conversation... Really nailing this topic. I expect readers are riveted.
Chomsky: Republican Party 'most dangerous organisation on earth' (2017)
Noam Chomsky: The GOP Is a Gang of Radical Sadists (2021)
Noam Chomsky Says GOP 'Not a Political Party' but a 'Radical Insurgency' (2022)
I suspect he's changed his mind in 14 years.
I think @Count Timothy von Icarus did a good job at outlining some of the major differences:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/802555
If one eats nothing but ice cream for a week, even different flavors of the desert will all seem the same. Arguments of but this ice cream is different! Its ORGANIC CHOCOLATE MOCHA WITH HAZELNUTS! will not persuade.
A few years ago, I started a similar thread with a poll attached. I asked if US politics was a monopoly. There were some questions about that choice of wording. But of the 17 people who voted, only one said the US system was NOT a monopoly.
Not disputing there's differences. The argument was about how significant they are, and I see no one addressing that beyond just declaring them to be.
I behold the chilling vision that, as a result of the Monolithic entity controlling the USA (and its failure to deliver all that it promised), a large number of good and decent citizens will become extremely dissatisfied and restless. Their unrest will become so volcanically overwhelming that they will espouse (to them) a powerful manifesto of facts and beliefs. Neutral commenters may call it mythological. Detractors will label it whole affair pathological delusions. All will agree that the situation is explosive and impossible to ignore.
A leader will emerge who will personify this entire groups anger. He will be a outsider who claims to be above the muck of the United Status Quo. He will lead the way with the Light of Righteousness in one hand, and the Sword of Divine Power in the other. (Or maybe itll just be a light saber in one hand lol).
He will lead an army of holy warriors!
This potentially bloody vision terrifies me. Gosh, it could never really happen in the USA! Right?
You don't see a significant difference between Democrats wanting to codify abortion rights in law and Republicans passing laws against abortion that don't even allow for exceptions for rape or incest, or when it's a pregnant 10 year old?
I wonder if anything more than the illusion is even possible, short of civil war? The US and the UK versions of democracy effectively limit parties to 2. Multi-party systems are available, and may be more 'representative' of the diversity of interests and views. It would clarify the argument if Chomsky could point to, or at least provide criteria for, a non-one-party state.
I think conflict theory is a useful way to look at societies. The assumptions that there are always conflicting opinions, loyalties, and interests in any society to do with issues of class, race, culture, religion, gender, profession, age-group, etc. The recipe for a peaceful society is that these conflicts are internalised within each individual, such that the individual identifies with many different groups according to the particular issue.
Violence becomes more likely when the society becomes polarised. That is when there is a strong correlation between various divisions, for example when one race is overwhelmingly poor, of the same religion, working class, they will form a faction that agrees with itself about everything and opposes a similarly factionalised polar opposite group. When a society is polarised, people live more in an echo-chamber of similar views, and become more intolerant of what they think of as deviant views.
In these terms, to claim that the US is a single party state seems to suggest that it has become polarised and intolerant, and that the same faction controls both parties - in this case white, wealthy, male, Christian, old ... leaving the 'two' parties bickering furiously about which end to open their boiled eggs.
Now that's what I call polarised intolerance. You disagree? you must be insane!
Only intolerable of far-fetched ideas such as the one proposed in the OP, or more outlandish ones such as the Earth is flat, world is run by lizards, theres microchips in vaccine and other such delusional craziness.
Though the two parties may both be equally incompetent or corrupt does not mean the whole thing is a make believe show for the gullible.
Notice any radical changes with the different parties in power? No, neither do I.
Here's the gap between black and white income.
Notice any radical 'Democrat-induced' closing of the gap during the years they were in power? No, neither do I.
Here's absolute poverty over time.
Notice any major ups and downs as political power swings? No, neither do I.
Well, do you have a gradation system in mind, that would satisfy your measure of significance here?Beyond the widely available statistical evidence or personally reported affects, that a particular governmental policy/legislation/initiative has had or is having, on the daily lives/rights/security/well being of citizens
Yes, now you mention it I do see a significant difference. The latter are some actual laws and the former are, as yet, empty promises.
See above.
Hey Forum members! Its time to play Name That Fallacy! :nerd:
The winner will receive a years supply of Turtle Wax. (And a supermodel of your choice to apply it every day).
They're not empty promises.
Blue states have been preparing to become abortion safe havens
Democrats are doing what they can to protect abortion rights, but where they don't have enough votes the Republicans' anti-abortion policy is a roadblock.
What are you on about ? Whats your belief
IMHO if you really believe the US are living under a one party system then youre prone to believing in conspiracy
Ive read that, seems you allude to it being husband and wife running the house.
Can you make your views a bit more explicit as the analogy doesnt fully describe US two party politics
Yeah, but the stats you highlight are globally true, yet despite your chosen charts, we also have indicators of the hard work done by all humanists/socialists etc worldwide such as Steven Pinker's chart below:
Agreed.
Doing "what they can" with the votes they can muster in half the states (with little chance of achieving any stability, or consistency), and all of which overturned as easily as Roe was, at the drop of a hat, is not what I call "significant"
Fuck all on climate change, fuck all on poverty, fuck all on inequality... I really do feel for those poor women who find themselves in need of an abortion in Republican states (or God forbid, a Republican presidency), but their plight, no matter how much we might sympathise with it on a personal level, is a pin-prick compared to the haemorrhage of climate change, rising inequality, militarism, Israeli occupation, modern slavery, drug crises, fuel monopolies... none of which show the slightest sign of being addressed by either party.
Abortion policy is a complete irrelevance when it comes to the major issues civilisation faces.
Quoting Michael
No, but I'm not disputing the differences. I'm disputing the significance of them.
Quoting universeness
Exactly. Further proving the point that it makes fuck all difference which party is in power.
Quoting universeness
No we don't. We have a statistic. Absolutely nowhere do we even have a correlation with any causative factors, let alone proof of the significance or fit of that correlation. It might, for all we know, be a result of the earth warming, or just the gradual growth of the economy.
Analogies and metaphors are not meant to fully describe anything.
Quoting 0 thru 9
This should sum up my views enough for the careful reader. This is in a nutshell. I will post in this thread my full manifesto concerning this issue as soon as humanly possible.
Still none the wiser as to whether you believe that the two party system in US is just a façade or that its an actual reality of stateside politics.
You can state your conviction in a few words not weird analogies, thanks.
Well that's a very selfish outlook.
You just seem to be arguing that because the differences between Republicans and Democrats don't affect you then they're not significant. I disagree.
But that was all YOU offered, statistics!
Quoting Isaac
That's a rather large stretch you are attempting. Would you not agree that since the days of the ancients, the level of global poverty has significantly reduced for a large portion of the global population and that this has been hard fought for?
None of the issues I mentioned affect me. I'm perfectly well off financially, I'm white, and I'll be dead before climate change has any effect.
It's not selfishness. It's an objective assessment of the number of people affected.
No, it wasn't all I offered. Parties change, the measures I gave haven't. It's easy to demonstrate a lack of effect. It's just hard to demonstrate the presence of one.
Quoting universeness
Depends when the "days of the ancients" were, and how you want to measure poverty.
Quoting universeness
Sure. But that tells us nothing about which policies worked and which were entirely incidental, or even hampered progress.
You've just said that more people are affected by X than by Y. There's no "objective measure" for how many people must be affected by something for that thing to matter. I say it matters that Republicans are restricting abortion rights, and this policy is one area in which there is a significant difference between Republicans and Democrats.
Thus a demonstration that the belief that the US is operating a one party system to be unfounded on reality and hence bullshit.
I will try my best, Noble Cæsar. Oh wait... my quote in the previous post had zero analogies. Hmm, how about that? Well, I will delay you no longer. Fly onwards and upwards!
Exactly.
So Chomsky's not wrong to say that there's no significant difference is he? Since there's no objective measure of significance against which you could argue.
What is wrong would be taking Chomsky's really important point (about the lack of progress on some really important issues), expressed rhetorically as a homogeneity of parties, and undermine it with mediocritac pedantry about local abortion laws.
If you dont want to clarify your position then why keep posting ?
He didn't say that. He said that there's no fundamental difference. And on that I think his recent remarks on the Republican party suggest that he's changed his mind.
Sure, the democratic party supported slavery in the US before the American civil war.
Lincoln was a republican president. I would have voted for Lincoln and his republican party.
As far as monarchies are concerned, I AM a republican, but the current American republican party is a right wing horror. So yeah, political parties do change. I am for getting rid of all of them, BUT the money measures you gave DO conflict with the overall historical evidence highlighted on the Steven Pinker chart I posted.
Quoting Isaac
The Greek/Roman/Mayan/Egyptian civilisations would suffice for my purposes.
The how, would be the economic power of your average citizen at the time and the level of governmental protection they had regarding their legal status, their educational opportunities and their personal well-being.
Quoting Isaac
Depends who you are labelling 'us!'
I can tell you, with a very high personal credence level, what policies I think work and what efforts created the improvements many people NOW have in our world, that they did not have in earlier times. But you may not agree, perhaps because 'you' are part of the 'us' you refer to. Subjectivity, is forever present in threads such as this one.
https://www.brookings.edu/multi-chapter-report/vital-statistics-on-congress/amp/#datatables
Its a two-party system, the Ins and the Outs. Those who are in and want to stay in; those who are out but want to get in. Bipartisanship is the problem.
https://words.bighugelabs.com/significant Seventh synonym, first line.
I agree with the sentiment. We live underneath the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. And the ballot box won't change that.
What parties are good at is producing identities for people which motivate them to vote for the right side, and then pushing those identities they created aside when it comes to actually governing. They facilitate the democratic dance so that the government can continue to claim legitimacy even though it's clear to anyone whose looking that money, followed by a support for the military, is what matters when it comes to politics.
They can't 'conflict'. They're both true.
Quoting universeness
Well then no. I don't agree. The 'economic power' of your average citizen hasn't changed all that much, if anything it's probably got worse. Taking into account that the majority of the world's population are in the developing world, I don't think those people now have more 'economic power' than they had prior to colonialism. Legal status I'd agree with in the timescales you specify (though I've no idea why you've decided to start at some random point thousands of years after the beginnings of human civilisation). Educational opportunities I'd say were very mixed - popular modern curricula are easier to access for most, but traditional skills have become harder to train in. Personal well-being is mixed. suicide rates are rising, as are rates of mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. Most subjective measures of well-being show a mixed picture at best.
Quoting universeness
Indeed.
Gravity is considered true, as is quantum physics but they do conflict.
Two truths can certainly conflict based on perspective.
An observer may experience a different, but equally valid truth but their reference frame may result in conflict when they are compared.
Quoting Isaac
Well, I have little interest (and I assume you feel the same,) in exchanging example and counter-example with you, which compares a historical 'day in the life of' with a modern 'day in the life of,' a typical Roman pleb (for example) and a current working class Scot, American, Russian etc.
Steven Pinker's 75 charts and graphs have been described as:
Pinkers book is stocked with seventy-five charts and graphs that provide incontrovertible evidence for centuries of progress on many fronts that should matter to all of us: an inexorable decline in violence of all sorts along with equally impressive increases in health, longevity, education, and human rights.
and:
In Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, published earlier this year, Steven Pinker argues that the human race has never had it so good as a result of values he attributes to the European Enlightenment of the 18th century. He berates those who focus on what is wrong with the worlds current condition as pessimists who only help to incite regressive reactionaries. Instead, he glorifies the dominant neoliberal, technocratic approach to solving the worlds problems as the only one that has worked in the past and will continue to lead humanity on its current triumphant path.
I don't think all is as good as Mr Pinker's graphs and charts would suggest, but I certainly disagree with the second quote I used above, from you.
more than :grin: but not quite :rofl:
Today the Republicans are the wicked ones. Some of us are old enough to remember when the Democrats were the party of segregation now and integration never. The southern wing of the Democratic Party forced rules into various areas of national policy that are on-going malignancies. The Republicans may be degrading voter access to the ballot, but they are following a well-trod path established by southern Democrats. Corrupt Republicans? What about the Democratic machine in Chicago and other cities?
The thing is, (to over-simplify) there are many Americans who have always disliked progressive politics, and have over time shifted to the more regressive party. Once it was the Democrats, now it is the Republicans. Yes, party propaganda has an effect on the electorate, but the electorate also has an effect on the parties.
It's also the case that the parties can be out of step with a diverse electorate.
"It was observed long ago that the U.S. is basically a one-party state: the business party, with two factions, Democrats and Republicans. Now there is one faction: the Democrats. The Republicans hardly qualify as an authentic parliamentary party. Thats fairly explicit under McConnells rule. When Obama took office, McConnell made it clear that his primary goal was to ensure that Obama could achieve virtually nothing, so that Republicans could return to power. When Biden was elected, McConnell reiterated that position even more strongly. And hes lived up to it. On virtually every issue, the GOP is 100 percent opposed, even when they know that the legislation is popular and would be very valuable for the population. With a handful of right-wing Democrats joining the uniform GOP opposition, Bidens platform has been cut down very sharply. Perhaps he could have done more, but hes being unfairly blamed, I think, for the failure of what would have been constructive programs, badly needed. That includes Bidens climate program, inadequate but far better than anything that preceded it, and if enacted, a stepping stone for going further."
https://truthout.org/articles/chomsky-maintaining-class-inequality-at-any-cost-is-gops-guiding-mission/
There is a multi-generational stratum in American politics which never liked the passage of social security, unemployment insurance, a minimum wage law, medicare, medicaid, civil rights legislation, fair housing, 1973 Roe vs Wade, gay rights, and so on down the line. They are basically a selfish lot that fear and loathe the idea of the downtrodden getting any kind of help from the government.
Some of these twisted bastards have in the past been democrats (dixie-crats particularly). sometimes they have been republicans, and sometimes they have been something else.
These are just two sets of raw data, not theories. It's a fact that measures of wealth inequality and absolute poverty are largely unaffected by the changes in political persuasion in the executive and legislature. It's the same pattern seen throughout the rest of the world too.
Quoting universeness
Yes. It's also been described as embarrassing and feeble (John Gray), "a dogmatic book that offers an oversimplified, excessively optimistic vision of human history (David Bell), poor scholarship and motivated reasoning that insults the Enlightenment principles he claims to defend. (George Monbiot), and "dangerously erroneous" (Jeremy Lent)
Survival's Stephen Corry said
Notwithstanding which, I'm not sure what the fact that some people liked the book has to do with anything we're discussing.
No one?
If there are no examples of this, then the cynic in me is inclined to say US politics is little more than an inflammatory clownshow for the peasantry to squabble over, while the fat cats strike up the big bucks.
That's true, but I think what's going on these days is not really progressivism. The reason why there's no movement on poverty is because there's no policies designed to address it, it's all identity politics and window dressing. As Norman Finkelstein put it...
Exactly.
That was from a book I was just reading by Ben Ansell which seems relevant to whats being debated here. The book is called Why Politics Fails, that was from page 35
So why not start to explain what initial steps YOU think are essential, towards creating a better political system. I am not suggesting that voicing dissent is pointless, it's still very important to voice dissent but what are YOUR suggestions for improving things. Are we just big wide empty vessels making loud noises?
Yes, good one. Which in itself might not be a problem, trying to get traction or influence. Its part of evolution. The flower turns toward the sun etc. The sticking point is what is required to get elected, stay elected, and have sway while in office. Money is the gas, the goal, and the god. Any problem with politics amplifies our problems with money.
Radically different better? Or worse? Or... ?
I think I could make a case for this:
[quote=Google]Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States.[/quote]
Quoting universeness
Assuming for the moment that the point @Tzeentch makes about the power structures remaining unchanged despite elections is generally accurate. And that the promises of change are mere adverts. And that the vilification of the opposition that is essential to polarized politics is like starting a fire in a dry California forest. (ie a step away from civil war and chaos).
Basically, anything that gets us citizens to stop wasting time, energy, and lives fighting against each other is a helpful and huge step. First things first. We have been divided and conquered. We each have our team colors (red or blue) and we are trained (ie brainwashed) to be fierce warriors to do battle with our foe. Trumpers and socialists have more in common with each other, than with the power brokers.
If a significant percentage of people (not even a majority perhaps) were united in the general vision of a just and free society (despite other differences and disagreements), then real change and improvement could be at least theoretically possible.
Maybe. Maybe not. But we have nothing to lose, and much to gain, from freeing ourselves from the toxic and pervasive propaganda.
Not sure what you're referring to. The last thing I wrote ITT was a rejection of the idea that one state somehow controls global economic production. I pointed out that global issues tend to be emergent phenomena with inherit collective action problems that reduce actors' degrees of freedom in action, see: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/801612 .
Absolutely.
It's also the case that the elite effectively throttles any meaningful move toward income redistribution through progressive (rather than regressive) taxation or UBI.
I honestly have no clue what a GOP dominated US would look like. They had their best showing in over a century in 2016 and the major legislative achievement during their small window controlling all branches of government was just another round of Reagan style tax cuts. They didn't hold a single vote on migration, which was the Trump issue or repeal Obamacare, another core issue they spent a decade on.
The party failed to even publish a platform in 2020. It needs a new set of leaders to try to right the ship and come up with some sort of a coherent vision of what the ideal state looks like.
I mean, given there is a 50% chance that they will be in control each term, it'd be nice to see a return to sanity and an ability to govern at the national level. At least with the Dems, even if you don't like their policy, it is easy to articulate what it would be.
The comment wasn't aimed directly at you, just at the conflict your post highlighted between a willingness, in this thread, to accept the gritty reality of the US, whilst Ukraine is treated like a Disney film with nothing like the same level of pragmatic realism. The hypocrisy I was alluding to was that of the moderate left in general who support an completely unwinnable war with no hint of realpolitik in Ukraine, but think that supporting Bernie Sanders in America is 'naive' because he can't win.
The comment quoted by EricH does show Chomsky qualifying his general framework to acknowledge the transgressive inversion of the political institutions practiced by the GOP.
The general framework restricting the development of a more participatory democracy are a convergence of the structure built at the founding of the republic with the growth of corporations with legal rights and the 'virtual' senate created through international production and exchange:
A politics that would take on this infrastructure would be a major change in our way of life.
A rape victim being forced to carry her rapist's child to term is not quantifiable in the degree to which "the poor would be poorer and the rich richer." Neither is more people ending up in prisons for drug offenses. Being able to open your own business without losing access to healthcare also has an effect on personal freedom that cannot be quantified in dollar figures. Likewise, people getting to become citizens in the country in which they have made their homes grants them more than merely financially quantifiable benefits.
I suppose if your only unit of analysis is household net worth, this above is true. But that seems more like a problem in picking your unit of analysis than a real reduction. This was always the problem I had with neo-Marxist analysis: "everything comes down to social class, I can prove it by giving an analysis where everything in analyzed only in terms of class," or the newly popular version of doing the same thing with race; it's just a complex form of petitio principii.
I think the goal of the state is to promote freedom. Wealth inequality and overall levels of wealth are certainly a determinant of freedom, but they are far from the only one. For example, a strong sense of national identify that citizens buy into and feel included in is not quantifiable in economic terms. It is, however, essential for freedom for the simple reason that:
1. For a state to be successful requires that citizens are willing to make sacrifices for the state and for the common welfare, and;
2. Citizens will not freely choose to make those sacrifices unless they identify with the state and derive happiness from promoting its greater good.
If citizens do not choose to support the state, but only do so out of coercion, it is on shakey ground. And certainly, with the advent of Trump, I would say that the Republican party has embraced a new vision of freedom that is defined overwhelmingly as negative freedom, i.e., freedom from constraint, particularly government constraint. This view of freedom is, at its core, philosophically anathema to a successful state, though thankfully not all traces of a consideration of reflexive or social freedom has been purged from the GOP, just the "Trumpist" component.
Unless it's drag shows or transgender health care or abortion or critical race theory.
Exactly.
At least the concerns about "indoctrination," in public schools has some basis in a concern for reflexive freedom and self-determination...
Unfortunately, the way this is being addressed is patently absurd, finding indoctrination where there is none, and trying to simply legislate into place their preferred form of indoctrination.
It's absurd that I'm forced to lament the old days of corny Toby Keith songs blaring in the supermarket: "and I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free. And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me," uncritical chest thumping, because what came next was "tear down all the institutions, you're only free when nothing constrains you!"
I can understand now why Hegel turned on the sans culottes (that and the whole mass executions thing...).
Thanks for the video clip. The idea of a "virtual senate" protecting property interests globally is new to me, but the agile mobility of global capital is not.
Its true, I believe. On the whole of it, the liberal tradition of negative freedom has hardly made any inroads into the public domain until relatively recently.
Rather, it was the republican tradition of freedom as a mix of the rule of law and the independence from arbitrary will that has always been the core of it, from Madison and Jefferson and Adams on downward. This view makes the state central to the achievement of individual freedom, perhaps ironically.
The Business Party is not challenged by the focus on culture wars as long as property laws are enforced and debts are paid. A lot of the changes frightening the 'replacement theory' crowd have come about because of the expansion of corporate power and the weakening of local forces in relation to larger ones.
Let's all gather at a Target parking lot to stop them from selling butt plugs! Don't forget to bring your guns in case antifa shows up too.
There are two factions of the business party. That's undeniably true. But that doesn't mean there's not differences. In a powerful state like the US, even small differences can have a big impact. So they still matter.
I think with the Bernie campaign, Trump, and the GOP going so extreme as to not even be considered a political party anymore -- that's changed things a bit. The differences are now stark. Not just the ones @Michael mentions, but also on climate change -- which, in my opinion, eclipses even the others.
I don't see anyone saying both parties are the same, though. That they're both beholden to special interests who finance their campaigns, usually have ivy league educations, are generally wealthy or have become wealthy, etc. -- yeah, that's a commonality throughout -- whether it's Nancy Pelosi or Ted Cruz. In that sense they're both the business party. But even the business world isn't a monolith. Fossil fuel interests are different than teachers unions and tech companies.
And the GOP is increasingly under the sway of Christian nationalism (which is arguably neither authentically Christian nor truly national). Goodness knows what laws they would enact if they had complete control. Citizens might be required to memorize Bible passages and look like Amish people (no offense to them).
All that aside for the moment (and its a lot), the two parties seem to be playing good cop, bad cop on a large scale. The Democrats usually play the sensitive and caring good cop. Except when it comes to taxes lol. Yes, taxes are too high. And the taxes are often mis-spent, when not completely stolen. Even those on the Left can see that. But its becoming increasingly clear that the two parties would rather take their lumps from each other, if it guarantees them the penthouse.
It seems that this thread shows the relevance of this question in general, and as something to ask Prof. Chomsky when he visits here. And asking related questions, like what do Progressives have to do to make an impact?
Also, consider this set of facts that go against the unitary "business party argument."
-Republicans, who have been feuding with big tech, particularly social media companies over what they consider to be inappropriate censorship, have advocated for huge legal changes that would dramatically affect these companies liability to law suits and ability to generate profit. They have also pushed wholly breaking up these companies as monopolies, which is just about the biggest step the government can take against a company and its shareholders outside of dissolving the corporation wholesale, nationalizing it, or fining it into bankruptcy (which is essentially seizing its assets).
-Many of Democrats laws would dramatically effect big agra's ability to generate profits by enforcing pollution based taxes on products. Dems have also entertained the idea of breaking up meat packing companies as 85% of all meat is now controlled by 4 companies and 60% of the value of the average grocery cart goes to 5 major conglomerates.
- GOP state secretaries have stepped in to find companies that move away from carbon based power. These companies are doing so as part of a business plan and the GOP is using policy to overrule business decisions on the grounds that the coal sector is declining due to unjust "woke" agendas.
- Democrats almost universally advocate for an equal rights amendment that would radically shift law suits over discrimination in favor of workers. Currently, in most states, it is completely legal to fire someone for being homosexual or transgender. Arguments over company's rights to deny service based on identity also divide the parties.
That is, they are in no way unitary vis-á-vis businesses and one party getting a super majority would generate major winners and losers in the market.
For example, the Democrats absolutely massive package for green technology obviously has a real impact on the amount of revenue electricity producers generate, not to mention that Dems have generally been far more in favor of having the state take over utilities historically (this is no longer the case, the government doesn't want to own utilities anymore because it often ends up being a political nightmare, but that's another issue).
Texas's deregulation of its energy grid had very real consequences for the lives of Texans for example. The state parties differed as to support for that even though it was a pro-buisness move.
Nationalizing healthcare generates tons of winners. For low wage employees, the employer share of their health care can be greater than 50% of their compensation. Businesses that employ a lot of low wage workers and small businesses stand to gain massively from national health insurance. Health insurance companies would be wiped out and providers would likely see wages dip. Given this is 1/5th of GDP and majority private, it's hard to see his a huge difference in this front can mean the same thing for businesses.
The only unit of analysis is cash in a capitalist system, which is what the one party will support at any cost. The cultural discussions about abortion, transgenderism, race, wokeness etc. are irrelevant distractions. While some of this nonsense has profound, tragic effects on the lives of individuals, from a socio-economic perspective it should be ignored. The only one that I think is a meaningful difference is universal healthcare. All the rest gets a lot of voters very pumped up but at the end of the day has really very little relevance to how people live their lives on a day to day basis.
Especially when you consider, in the USA at least, how much these issues are pushed to the side. Consider, for instance, Roe v. Wade. Who won on that one?
EDIT: I think the reply might be something like universal healthcare -- but, in terms of capital, who won on that one?
The Amendment:
Is that true in all cases? If we took away access to birth control entirely and began allowing child marriages, wealth would still be the only thing that mattered so long as the system remained capitalist?
What if we have a capitalist system but allow slavery for one class of people? Would emancipation be only relevant in economic terms?
If someone loses their job for being gay, doesn't it effect their socioeconomic status? Jim Crow had dramatic effects on the socioeconomic status of 13+% of the population and was a similar issue. That seems quite relevant.
I don't agree that differences between the parties on cultural issues are irrelevant, but I find that more understandable than the claim that in a capitalist system rights are essentially irrelevant if that's what you're saying.