The US claims to be a “democratic” society but in policy in the US trend tends to suggest otherwise. This blog is an examination of the roots of our democratic theory. This is a look into the thinking of philosophers, political scientists, politicians, and others that have shaped the image of the US democratic society as we see it today. It is an image of society in which a “minority of the opulent” or “responsible men”, as they call themselves, decide the direction in which society is going to go because they know what is best for the rest of us. The elite tend to think that they have the right to dictate policy because we, as a population, do not have the ability to govern and choose for ourselves. This examination starts with the idea that a democratic society should be based on the principle of “consent of the governed.” We will see how leaders have historically manipulated the meaning of consent to further their own interest, which they claim morally and intellectually superior.
David Hume, the 18th century Scottish philosopher, historian, and economist is one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy. Hume was very intrigued by “the easiness with which the many are governed by the few, the implicit submission which men resign” their livelihood and fate to their leaders. Hume was surprised by this tendency because he believed that “force is always on the side of the governed” and if people would realize that, they could rise up and overthrow corrupt leaders with relative ease. This assessment may not be as simple today with modern weaponry and the huge institutions in place to repress the masses but it is still true. Hume decided that government’s foundation of control laid in its ability to dictate public opinion. He believed that the more “free and popular” a government was going to be, the more it needed to control public opinion in order to ensure that the population submits to its wills. He observed that in a democracy, the population has a right to consent, but nothing more than that. He said that the governed could be “spectators,” but not “participants.” He also emphasized that the population needed to be especially excluded from the economic arena, because that is where society is largely controlled.
The first real modern democratic upsurge was witnessed in 17th century England. A conflict arose between the King and the Parliament on who was to govern the population. But a large part of the population did not want to be governed by either of the two, they wanted to be governed by “countrymen like ourselves, that know our wants.” These are wishes that we can all relate to today. These revolutionary ideas greatly threatened “the men of best quality”, as they called themselves or “responsible men”, as they refer to themselves today. These “men of best quality” were prepared to give the population some rights but within limits because they felt that they were a better quality of person, more capable of making decisions for the incompetent people.
One of Hume’s greatest influences was a Scottish philosopher and a founding father of the Scottish Enlightenment named Francis Hutcheson. Just a few years before Hume wrote of his ideas about a democratic society, Hutcheson came up with a variation of “consent of the governed.” His writings would be emphasized later by American sociologist and economist, Franklin Henry Giddings. Hutcheson and subsequently Giddings argued that the principle of “consent of the governed” is not violated when the rulers impose decisions on the dissenting public, if later the “stupid” and “prejudiced” masses “well heartily consent” to what they have decided.
There are hundreds of examples of this if you look at US foreign policy. The government does something that the people don’t agree with and claims that it is in their or our best interest, we just don’t realize it yet. But let’s look at the example of the Philippine-American war which lasted from 1899 to 1902. In the normal US quest for oversees empire, the US forces killed anywhere from 250,000 to 500,000 Filipinos. The US government argued that they were liberating the Filipino people. In the US press it said that they were “slaughtering the natives in English fashion” so that “the misguided creatures” who are resisting will at least “respect our arms” and later come to realize that we are trying to “liberate” them. You know, the usual rhetoric. This became a form of “consent by the governed.” Giddings put it as this, “if in later years, the conquered people see and admit that the disputed relation was for the highest interest, it may be reasonably held that authority has been imposed with the consent of the governed.” This is obviously a very dangerous way of thinking. But it is historically rooted in US political thought.
The people were now required to submit to the wishes of their leaders without really giving any consent. The thoughts of 17th century Englishmen had migrated to the colonies of North America. And you can see that the founding fathers of this nation had some of the same ideas that the British “men of best quality” did. Alexander Hamilton called the people a “great beast” that must be tamed. His colleague John Randolf said, “when I mention the public, I mean to include only the rational part of it. The ignorant and vulgar are as unfit to judge of the modes of government, as they are unable to manage its reins.” Again, the common person was not going to be represented by people like themselves, but by elites, gentlemen, lawyers, and other “responsible men”. Essentially, men that could be trusted to maintain the power structure. John Jay, the President of the Continental Congress and first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court said that “the people who own the country ought to govern it.”
The “Father of the Constitution” and fourth president of the US, James Madison held similar views. He argued that if elections in England “were open to all classes of people, the property of the landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place.” He obviously didn’t feel that people without land had a right to it. Madison spoke and wrote of the rights of minorities but specifically what he called the “minority of the opulent.” He believed that there were rights of property but not rights to property. The Madisonian principle became the idea that government must protect the rights of people generally, but it must provide extra and special support for the rights of property owners.
Madison believed this threat to “democracy” was only going to get worse because of the increasing “proportion of those who will labor under all the hardships of life, and secretly sigh for a more equal distribution of its blessing.” He was concerned by what he called the “symptoms of leveling spirit.” Madison stated that the people “without property, or the hope of acquiring it, cannot be expected to sympathize sufficiently with its rights.” He would draw on the old ideas of England and ensure that the political power was kept in the hands of people who “come from and represent the wealth of the nation,” what he called the “more capable set of men”.
But let me rewind for just a second because I think that this short account of Madison is unfair in one crucial area. Madison was from the precapitalist era, and he was very anticapitalist at heart. When referring to these opulent men, he believed they would be “enlightened Statesmen” and “philosophers”. Men, with superior wisdom, that could determine the country’s interests for the population. Elitist, yes but an elitist with good intentions. He argued that these men would “refine” and “enlarge” the “public views” while guarding the true interests of the country. I don’t think he imagined the capitalism take-off that we have witnessed. But unfortunately Madison had to face the reality of what had happened because of this elitist way of thinking. Madison found that Adam Smith was dead on when he warned of the “vile maxim” of leaders. The vile maxim is the idea of “all for ourselves, and nothing for other people.” Madison warned in 1792 that this newly developing capitalist state was “substituting the motive and private interest in place of public duty,” leading to “a real domination of the few under an apparent liberty of the many.”
John Dewey, an American philosopher would describe this phenomenon by emphasizing that society will lose its democratic content when big business rules the “means of production, exchange, publicity, transportation and communications, reinforced by command of the press, press agents and other means of publicity and propaganda.” Madison’s warning rings even louder today with the establishment of enormous private tyrannies, corporations. Theories were devised to justify these “collectivist legal entities,” or corporations. But the ideas of those theories are based on the ideas that also underlie fascism. These entities now have almost complete control over the domestic and international economy as well as the information and education systems, which was another one of Madison’s concerns.
From this an enormous public relations industry formed. Edward Bernays was an Austrian-American public relations and propaganda guru in the 20th century. He believed that “the conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.” This was viewed by the ruling elite as an essential task. According to Bernays, “the intelligent minorities must make use of propaganda continuously and systematically” because only they “understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses.” The elite had given themselves justification to garner consent without consent and now created a massive device in order to manipulate the minds of the population. Bernays said that propaganda gave leadership a way “to mold the mind of the masses” so that “they will throw their newly gained strength in the desired direction.” He believed leadership could “regiment the public mind every bit as much as an army regiments the bodies of its soldiers.” And that this process of creating “consent” was the “essence of the democratic process.”
This propaganda machine is a way of avoiding what liberal elites call “the crisis of democracy”. This is when the disconnected and passive population decides to become organized and enters the political arena to pursue their own interests, which threatens “stability” and “order.” So the elite decided to develop new machines “to mold the mind of the masses.” Institutions like Woodrow Wilson’s Committee on Public Information was the first US state propaganda agency, which Edward Bernays developed his reputation with. Wilson had his own views about the “minority of the opulent.” He believed that the elite had “elevated ideals” that were “needed to preserve stability and righteousness”.
It is this intelligent minority of “responsible men” who must be in control of decision making. Another product of Wilson’s propaganda committee was Walter Lippmann. He was probably the most respected US journalist for half of a century. He described the intelligent minority as a “specialized class” who were given the responsibility for “the formation of a sound public opinion.” He believed that the population were “ignorant and meddlesome outsiders.” Lippmann believed that the public must “be put in its place,” their “function” was to be the “spectators of action” and not to actually participate in decision making. Howard Lasswell, one of the founders of modern political science said that the intelligent minority must be aware of the “ignorance and stupidity of the masses” and must not give in to “democratic dogmatism about men being the best judges of their own interests.” These men believed that the masses must be controlled for their own good. And when these men couldn’t use force, there needed to be social managers to use propaganda to control the masses.
The Civil Rights Movement and the “hippie” movements of the 60s showed that the ignorant population wanted to participate in decision making. This created fear in the “minority of the opulent.” In 1973, David Rockefeller founded the Trilateral Commission. The commission did its first major study on this “crisis of democracy.” The commission described the phenomenon of the 60s as “excessive democracy,” and hoped to go back 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.” Of the utmost concern to the commission was institutional failure “for the indoctrination of the young.” The commission set out to change the schools, universities, and churches in order to put the masses in their place. The commission wanted to restore discipline and wanted the public to return to obedience. The Commission was made up of international sectors of power and intellectual life from the US, Europe, and Japan. President Jimmy Carter’s administration was taken almost entirely from this commission.
It can be seen every day in America that the business agenda precedes the wishes of the people. The agenda of the business world continues to be implemented. The effects of this on the public are the normal, cut social spending and increase the budget of the Pentagon. The reasons for the increases in Pentagon spending are easy to understand when we realize that the domestic role of the Pentagon is to transfer funds from the people to the business world. This is observed in massive subsidies and Pentagon contracts to big corporations. Also if we take a look at marketing expenses which are largely tax-deductible and the US spends almost 1/5 of GDP on marketing alone. The people are paying for their attitudes and beliefs to be manipulated.
Two months after Bill Clinton took office, the front page of the Wall Street Journal read “on issue after issue, Mr. Clinton and his administration come down on the same side as corporate America” as if this is a good thing. Cheers came from corporate CEOs and Wall Street but also surprisingly the public because they re-elected him to a second term. And we all know about Bush’s ties to big business. No need to mention that. And the trend continues with Obama. Will we wake up this time or continue to let these elite rule this country into devastation.
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