Contrary Notions

by Michael Parenti

  Marx himself grasped the special role played by the executive in the maintenance of state power and class supremacy. He noted that the president of the Second Republic in France represented the entire nation rather than a particular district. The National Assembly exhibits in its individual representatives “the manifold aspects of society,” but it is the president who is “the elect of the nation,” an embodiment of the nation-state.11

  Marx is often misquoted as having said that the state is the executive committee of the bourgeoisie. Actually, in The Communist Manifesto, he and Engels wrote that “the executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.” Thus they recognized the systemic class function of the executive. They also implicitly acknowledged that bourgeois government in toto is not a solid unit. Parts of it can become an arena of struggle. This is true even within the executive branch itself. Thus, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Housing and Urban Development usually deal with constituencies and interests that differ from those components of the executive represented by the Department of Defense, or the Departments of Treasury and Commerce.

  Nesting within the executive is that most virulent purveyor of state power: the national security state, an informal configuration that usually includes the Executive Office of the White House, special White House planning committees, the sixteen intelligence agencies, the Pentagon, Joint Chiefs of Staff, director of national intelligence, National Security Council, and other such units engaged in surveillance, suppression, covert action, and forceful interventions abroad and at home. The president operates effectively as head of the national security state as long as he stays within the parameters of its primary dedication—which is to advance the interests of corporate investors and protect the overall global capital accumulation process.

  In 1977, President Carter tried to appoint Theodore Sorenson as director of the CIA. Sorenson, a high-profile liberal, had been a conscientious objector and had filed affidavits defending Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo for their role in releasing the Pentagon Papers. Conservative Republicans on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, along with Democrats like chairperson Daniel Inouye, opposed Sorenson. They said his association with a law firm that dealt with countries in which the CIA had a great deal of influence might cause a “conflict of interest.” They questioned his use of classified documents when writing a book and raised a number of other rather unconvincing complaints. It was later reported that the real concern of some senators was that “the CIA director should be a more hardline conservative figure than Mr. Sorenson.”12 Officials in the CIA itself quietly made known their opposition and Sorenson’s candidacy was withdrawn.

  After John Kennedy assumed presidential office in 1961, CIA director Allen Dulles regularly withheld information from the White House regarding various covert operations. When Kennedy replaced Dulles with John McCone, the agency began withholding information from McCone. Placed at the head of the CIA in order to help control it, McCone was never able to penetrate to the deeper operations of the agency.

  This does not mean that the CIA is a power unto itself. It is an instrument that serves the enduring interests of the plutocracy. (“Plutocracy” refers to rule by the wealthy or to rulers who favor wealthy interests.) In 2004 this became clear when the White House under Bush Jr. stripped the top leadership of the CIA, blamed it for the administration’s own misjudgments about Iraq and appointed a National Director of Intelligence to preside over all the various intelligence agencies. Having been thoroughly drubbed by the White House, a number of top members of the CIA meekly left office in quick succession. Ultimate power does not rest with the CIA but with the class for which it works.

  When the presidency is controlled by a liberal who might depart from the prime path of global corporate supremacy, the CIA can be expected to oppose and even sabotage the administration. When the presidency is controlled by the ascendant ultra-conservative elements of the plutocratic class as in the Bush Jr. administration, then the CIA’s role is still the same, to serve the interests of global corporate supremacy, even if it must fall on its sword to do so.

  A president working closely with the national security state and unequivocally for corporate hegemony usually can operate outside the laws of democratic governance with impunity. Thus President Reagan violated international law by engaging in an unprovoked war of aggression against Grenada. He violated the U.S. Constitution when he refused to spend monies allocated by Congress for various human services. He and other members of his administration refused to hand over information when specific actions of theirs were investigated by Congress. By presidential order, he overruled statutory restrictions on the CIA’s surveillance of domestic organizations and activities—even though a presidential order does not supersede an act of Congress. His intervention against Nicaragua was ruled by the World Court, in a 13-to-1 decision, to be a violation of international law, but Congress did nothing to call him to account. He was up to his ears in the Iran-Contra conspiracy but was never called before any investigative committee while in office. One could build a similar record with just about every other president in recent decades. In its unpunished, illegal acts, the executive demonstrates the autocratic nature of the state.

  With enough agitation and publicity, government sometimes is able to put the state under public scrutiny and rein it in—a bit. During the late seventies, House and Senate committees investigated some of the CIA’s unsavory operations, and laid down restrictive guidelines for the FBI. But the Iran-Contra hearings of 1987 reveal the damage-control function of most official inquiries. As representatives of popular sovereignty, the Joint Select Committee of Congress investigating the Iran-Contra conspiracy had to reassure the public that these unlawful, unconstitutional doings would be exposed and punished. However, the process of legitimation through rectification is a two-edged sword. It must go far enough to demonstrate that the system is self-cleansing, but not so far as to destabilize the executive power. So the same congressional investigators who professed a determination to get to the bottom of Iran-Contra were also repeatedly reminding us that “this country needs a successful presidency,” meaning that after the scandals of Watergate and President Nixon’s downfall, they had better not uncover too much and risk further damage to executive legitimacy.

  In sum, the Iran-Contra investigation was both an exposé and a cover-up, unearthing wrongdoing at the subordinate level—to show that the system is self-correcting—while leaving President Reagan and the immense powers of his office largely untouched.

  Congressional intelligence committees are usually occupied by members of both parties who identify closely with the needs of the national security state. The Bush Sr. administration was reportedly stunned by the appointment of five liberals to the House Intelligence Committee (of twenty or so members) by a Democratically controlled House. By registering its disapproval, the administration was saying in effect that the committee has a distinctive relationship to the state and that there should be a special ideological test for its members.

  Lawmakers who fail the state’s ideological test but who occupy key legislative positions run certain risks. When Jim Wright (DTX), became Speaker of the House of Representatives, he began raising critical questions about CIA covert actions against Nicaragua. Because the Speaker of the House was not someone who could easily be ignored, his charges received press coverage. Indeed, he was taken seriously enough to be attacked editorially by the Washington Post and the New York Times for his comments on Nicaragua. At the time, I began to wonder aloud if Wright might have a mysterious fatal accident or just die suddenly of natural causes. But nowadays there sometimes is a neater way of getting rid of troublesome officeholders. The Republican-controlled Justice Department did a thorough background check on Wright and found questionable financial dealings—not too difficult to do in regard to most politicians who are ever in need of campaign funds. He allegedly had accepted impr
oper financial gifts from a Texas developer and a publisher. Wright quickly resigned.

  Next in line to be Speaker was Tom Foley of Washington State, who could be counted on never to raise troublesome questions about the doings of the national security state. Critics of the national security state are a minority within Congress. Generally, congressional leaders are complicit with the state and with their own disempowerment. Members serving on intelligence committees rarely fulfill their oversight function. They do not ask too many questions about secret operations and dirty tricks.

  During the Iran-Contra hearings, Rep. Jack Brooks (D-TX), taking his investigative functions seriously, asked Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North if there was any truth to the story that he had helped draft a secret plan, code-named, to suspend the Constitution and impose martial law in the United States “in the event of emergency.” A stunned expression appeared on North’s face and the committee chair, the predictable Senator Daniel Inouye, stopped Brooks in his tracks, declaring in stern tones “I believe the question touches upon a highly sensitive and classified area. So may I request that you not touch upon that, sir.” Brooks attempted to continue but Inouye again cut him off. It was a tense moment. The chair was making it clear that the state was not to be too closely policed.

  The national security state has largely succeeded in removing much of its activities from democratic oversight. Intelligence agencies have secret budgets that are explicitly in violation of Article I, Section 9, which reads in part: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law. And a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.” There are no published statements of expenditures for the intelligence community, guessed to be between $35 billion and $50 billion a year. Its appropriations are hidden in other parts of the budget and are unknown even to most members of Congress who vote on the funds.

  Sometimes the state’s determination to set itself above and outside the Constitution is not done secretly but expressed overtly, as on the eve of war during the 1990–1991 Gulf crisis when Secretary of State James Baker publicly stated, “We feel no obligation to go to Congress for a declaration of war,” and President Bush Sr. announced he would commit troops to combat even if he got not a single supporting vote in Congress. Rather than being censored for such a lawless declaration and for acting as if the army were his personal force, Bush was hailed in the media for his “strong leadership.”

  One is reminded of Teddy Roosevelt’s boast almost a century ago regarding his imperialist intervention in Panama: “I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate.” The danger of the executive is that it executes. Unlike the legislature or the courts it has its hands on the daily levers of command and enforceable action.

  Having said that the national security state is removed from the democratic process, I do not wish to imply that it is removed from our lives. In fact, it reaches deeply into various areas of society. Consider organized labor. In collaboration with the national security state, the AFL-CIO leadership has sponsored organizations like the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD) in Latin America, along with similar ones in Africa and Asia, dedicated to building collaborationist, anticommunist unions that undermine the more militant leftist ones.

  The national security state exercises an influence over the corporate media. The CIA owns numerous news organizations, publishing houses, and wire services abroad, which produce disinformation that makes its way back to the states. In the United States, the CIA has actively trained “Red squads” of local police in methods of surveillance and infiltration. The narcotics traffic has been supported in part by elements in the CIA and various local police forces with the inevitable effect, and probably actual intent, of disorganizing and demoralizing the inner-city masses and discouraging militant community movements from emerging.13

  Executive usurpation is visible also in Eastern Europe, where the people of former communist nations now are able to savor the draconian joys of the capitalist paradise. The political democracy that had been used to overthrow communism soon became something of a hindrance for capitalist restoration. So democracy itself needed to be diluted or circumvented in order that the “democratic reforms”—that is, the transition to free-market capitalism—be fully effected. Not surprisingly the presidents of various Eastern European states such as Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Russia, have repeatedly chosen state over government, calling for the right to rule by executive ukase. In Russia, President Boris Yeltsin used force and violence to tear up the constitution, suppress the democratically elected parliament and provincial councils, monopolize the media, kill over a thousand people and arrest thousands more—all in the name of saving democracy.14 The new government instituted by Yeltsin granted sweeping powers to the executive.

  The U.S. Constitution contains provisions that apply directly to state functions, for instance, the power to organize and arm the militia and call it forth to “suppress Insurrections.” Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution says that the writ of habeas corpus, intended to defend individuals from arbitrary arrest, can be suspended during national emergencies and insurrections. A presidential edict is sufficient for that purpose. In effect, the Constitution provides for its own suspension on behalf of executive-state absolutism. In recent years Congress has proven most accommodating in that endeavor, passing all sorts of repressive laws, from the Patriot Act to the Military Commissions Act, giving the executive state a host of undemocratic and unconstitutional powers.

  When capitalism is in crisis, the capitalist state escalates its repression, from attacking the people’s standard of living to attacking the democratic rights that might allow them to defend that standard of living. Democracy uneasily rides the tiger of capitalism. People with immense wealth and overweening power will resort to every conceivable means to secure their interests—the state being the most important weapon in their furious undertaking.

  23 DEMOCRACY VS. CAPITALISM

  It will disappoint some people to hear this, but in fact there is no one grand, secret, power elite governing this country. But there are numerous coteries of corporate and governmental elites who communicate and coordinate across various policy realms. And behind their special interests are the common overall interests of the moneyed class. Many of the stronger corporate groups tend to predominate in their particular spheres of interest, more or less unmolested by other elites, which is not to say that disputes never arise between plutocratic interests.

  Business exerts an overall influence as a system of social power, a way of organizing capital, employment, and large-scale production. Because big business controls much of the nation’s economy, government perforce enters into a uniquely intimate relationship with it. The health of the economy is treated by policymakers as a necessary condition for the health of the nation, and since it happens that the economy is mostly in the hands of large corporate interests, then presumably government’s service to the public is best accomplished by service to those interests. The goals of business (high profits, cheap labor, expanding markets, and easy access to natural resources) become the goals of government. The “national interest” becomes identified with the systemic needs of corporate capitalism at home and abroad. In order to keep the peace, business may occasionally accept reforms and regulations it does not like, but ultimately government cannot ignore business’s own raison d’être, which is the limitless accumulation of wealth.

  Wealth, in turn, is the most crucial power resource in public life. It creates a pervasive political advantage, and affords ready access to other resources such as organization, skilled personnel, mass visibility, media ownership, outreach capacity, and the like. So wealth is used to attain power, and power is applied to secure and increase wealth.

  Government involvement in the U.S. economy represents not socialism (as that term is normally understood by socialists) but state-supported capitalism, not the communization o
f private wealth but the privatization of the commonwealth. This development has brought a great deal of government involvement, but of a kind that revolves largely around bolstering the profit system, not limiting or replacing it.

  In capitalist countries, government generally (a) nationalizes sick and unprofitable industries (“lemon socialism”) and (b) privatizes profitable public ones—in both cases for the benefit of big corporate investors.

  Examples of (a): In 1986, in what amounted to a bailout of private investors, the social democratic government in Spain nationalized vast private holdings to avert their collapse. After bringing them back to health with generous nourishment from the public treasury, they were sold back to private companies at bargain prices. The same was done with Conrail in the United States: run into insolvency by private profiteers, brought back to health by generous infusions of public funds, only to be sold off again to private investors.

  Some examples of (b), the privatization of prosperous state enterprises: A conservative Greek government privatized publicly-owned companies such as the telecommunications system, which had been reporting continuous profits for several years. In similar fashion, any number of industries in the United States were developed and capitalized by the government at great public expense, then handed over to private companies to be marketed for private profit.