The stagnant European economies are refusing to respond to any classic capitalist panacea. All means ranging from democracy to the rule of technocracy, from staggering bailouts to horrible social cuts have been tried but the ‘cat which has climbed the tree’ refuses to come down. The Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz has already cited the reason for failure. According to him, “There is no good economic theory that explains why the cat is still up the tree.” Europe is in deep recession and the existing economic system has become a fetter in the process of progress. For the people the states have become an instrument of coercion, mere ‘executive councils’ of big business!
Let us reflect upon the other side of this coin as well. Choosing not to vote, Francis Fukuyama states, “…reflects the democratic choice that population makes. They want consumers’ sovereignty.” Akin to the ‘end of history’, this too is an equally absurd premise. Giving credence to this logic would mean inflicting further mayhem on the people alienated not only from a system of plunder but from its mode of expression as well. Will it not be a public confession that the system, and its expression, has lost relevance? For this fuzzy, nebulous gravitas, capital nurtures these ‘intellectuals’. To suit their class interests, twisting reason in a dastardly manner to make it appear benign is the art they excel in. This is what social scientists call the ‘cunning of reason’. It is not a mere alienation from reality but a reality alienated from its real self, symbolising an alienated existence, a behaviour that must submit to absolute power. It is an attempt to reconcile opposites, which is quite characteristic of bourgeois intellectuals, wherein the facts and fiction are intermingled; hence the tension between substance and attribute tends to fizzle away. The recognition of fact, which is in fact the critique of fact, becomes impossible. Democracy without voters, abstinence from franchise as a free choice and similar jargon not only help in reconciling the opposites, they also consciously mutilate/veil the facts. What is the essence of democracy if not the participation of the masses in affairs that shape their destiny? If people wilfully opt to abstain, would this sham still be named a real democracy, or else be rephrased as the democracy of a dominant class? “A pigeon hole,” as Max Horkheimer describes it, “into which men and women are shoved” without their sham consent and that probably will circumscribe their fate.
To impose the aesthetics of this democratic unfreedom, a new Orwellian language was required and hence created. To the listener this language offers meanings that are distorted and abridged. The development of the content is deliberately blocked. Contradictions are not explicit but are swept under the carpet. For example, the French capitalist wears the cloak of socialism. Rigged elections are presented as ‘fair’, international wars are fought in the best ‘interests’ of the people, a ‘father’ of the nuclear bomb is created and pampered as a national hero without asking what relations a father can have with an instrument of devastation. This is how the opposites are united. People are forced to accept what is offered to them. Through propaganda an image is created and established, which not only sticks in the mind but to the product as well. This helps to sell the commodity. Ideas too are commercialised and sold in similar fashion. Rather than concepts, democracy, peace and freedom become mere images. This is how fixated, structured meanings are attached to them. Propaganda creates a state of hypnosis. The media becomes a mediator between the rulers and the ruled. People too start reacting in a fixated specific manner. The slogans of ‘your democracy’, ‘your premier’, ‘your elected representative’, ‘your power’ and ‘your toothpaste’ are commonly heard. These superimposed images are presented to the people as if they actually belong to them. In this vein, the genuine development of meanings is stifled. Opposing thoughts such as class struggle, command economy, socialism, are deleted from memory, especially of posterity as if they never existed. This is how a human being is separated from his own history. Language turns itself into an instrument of control. According to Theodor W Adorno, “The spectre of man without memory…is necessarily linked with the principle of progress in bourgeois society.” The success of this method does not suggest what exists is real and rational. It only points to the control of society and dominance of those who create impediments in the realisation of these higher objectives.
The democracy promoted by the western intellectuals does not offer freedom from want, alienated labour and uncertainty. Leaving instinctual demands such as food, health, education and Eros aside, one can discuss democracy as a liberating order on two conditions only. First and foremost, the people must articulate their opinion without prior indoctrination. Second, there must not be any manipulation during and immediately after this process — at least electoral process. But on both accounts, one finds it guilty as charged. If an autonomous electorate is not available and the majority does not know the implications of its ‘choice’, or the indoctrination and manipulation has reached a point where results can be prejudged, this whole process then becomes an exercise in futility. Reason loses its character of rationality. The justification to carry out such a process falls prey to its own negation. Self-defeat ensues. In history the imponderable happened when in 1933 Germans voted the fascists into power. How else could Herr Hitler have assumed the high office of Chancellor unless he was backed by the media, bank tycoons and Wall Street? Democracy effectively became a tool of savagery. Since then the world is watching the re-emergence of fascism in the shape of Golden Dawn in Greece, National Party in Britain and the gangs of fascist terrorists in Germany who like other neo-Nazi parties had recently bludgeoned the working class with the connivance of the local police. These aforementioned groups are no more outlaws. Some of them have become mainstream parties having serious backing from the disgruntled middle class. The names of Bush and Obama can only be deleted from this list of post-industrial fascists with considerable hypocritical effort. In the elections of 2000, the Republicans did not win, the Democrats voluntarily lost. The unelected and most unpopular Trojan Horse walked into the White House. The war and terror that resumed soon after are unabated even today while the ‘language of power’ has become the ‘language of truth’. Ever since, the functions and content of thought are being redefined. Clichés such as ‘Axis of Evil’ are in vogue, which precludes the possibility of genuine development of meanings. People are endowed with jargon and abstractions such as human rights without keeping any premium on human life. Do the people want a war? No one cares to ask, not even during democratic elections.
Choice does not necessarily promise quality. In the US, people are offered two choices, to choose between the Right and the far Right. A well entrenched social system does not allow the indoctrinated people to question the facts. The land of opportunity does not provide the basic opportunity to question the integrity of consent, which is no more than a manipulated one. The indoctrinated people give manipulated consent without demanding any change in the social system. Can this farce be called a democracy? Popular control can only be assumed through popular sovereignty. This is the historical demand of the people for which they have fought till now.
In the era of its worst recession, capitalism is finding democracy incompatible with its advancement, a fetter that it desperately wants to break off from. In Italy, in recent times, Mario Monti, himself an appointed senator, did not have a single elected representative in his cabinet. As Rosa Luxemburg predicted, there will be moments when the workers shall have to defend democracy against the capitalists. The moment of truth has arrived. Democracy has to be rescued, but not without altering the property relations that are forestalling the real ‘government by the people’. The ghastly alternative between wolf and fox as stated by Malcolm X is fast vanishing.
(Concluded)
The writer is based in Australia and has authored books on socialism and history. He can be reached at [email protected]