__SUBTITLE__
Traditions
USSR ACADEMY OK SCIENCES
INSTITUTE OK US AND CANADIAN STUDIES
Progress Publishers
Moscow
[1]Translated from the Russian Designed by Hisimitdinov
General Editors: Yu. A. Zamoshkin, E. Ya. Batalov
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[2] CONTENTS Introduction ............................................................................................ 5 Chapter One. The Dialectic of American Society's Development and Problems of Research into the Political Consciousness of the USA .................................................................. 11 1. Politics and Political Consciousness ............................... 11 2. "American Exceptionalism" and the Dialectic of the Formation of Political Ideology in the USA .................... 21 3. Problems of Methodology in Investigating the Mass Political Consciousness of Modern American Society ...... 30 Chapter Two. The Liberal Tradition and Contemporary Liberal Political Consciousness ......................................................... 43 1. The Liberal Tradition in American Political Consciousness and the Crisis of Traditional Liberalism ........ 43 2. Liberal-Technocratic Consciousness ............................... 58 3. Liberal-Reformist Consciousness .................................... 77 Chapter Three. The Conservative Tradition and Conservative Political Consciousness of Today ............................................ 91 1. The Conservative Tradition in American Political Consciousness ........................................................................ 91 2. Libertarian Consciousness ............................................... 109 3. Traditionalist Consciousness ........................................... 122 4. Neoconservative Consciousness ...................................... 134 Chapter Four. Right-Wing Radical Traditions and Contemporary Right-Wing Radical Political Consciousness ....................... 146 1. Right-Wing Radical Traditions in American Political Consciousness ........................................................................ 146 2. Radical-Propertarian Consciousness ............................... 167 3. Radical-Racist Consciousness .......................................... 179 4. Right-Populist Consciousness .......................................... 191 3 Chapter Five. The Left-Radical Tradition and the Present-Day Left-Radical Political Consciousness ................................... 206 1. The Left-Radical Tradition in US Political Consciousness ............................................................................... 2. Radical-Democratic Consciousness ................................. 224 3. Radical-Rebellious Consciousness ................................... 242 4. Radical-Romantic Consciousness .................................... 254 5. Radical-Socialist Consciousness ....................................... 262 Chapter Six. The Socio-Psychological Mechanisms Behind the Historical Evolution of the Political Consciousness in the United States ........................................................................271 1. The Socio-Psychological Origins and Traditional Types of the Political Consciousness in the USA ............ 276 2. The Socio-Psychological Mechanisms Behind the Evolution and Inversion of the Traditional Types of the Political Consciousness .................................................. 281 3. The State of Affairs in the '70s and Early '80s ......... 307 Conclusion ................................................................................................ Name Index ...........................................................................................332 [4] __ALPHA_LVL1__ INTRODUCTIONThis hook is devoted to the analysis of present-day mass political consciousness in the United States of America, which has a great importance in the country's intellectual and political life.
In the '60s and '70s the USA encountered a number of gravedifficulties that not only damaged traditional social and political mechanisms and made American society more ungovernable but also brought about significant changes in consciousness and culture. Bourgeois sociologists, as well as Marxists, have noted this; Daniel Bell, for example, writes that the USA is facing "deep structural crises, political and cultural, that may prove more intractable to solution than the domestic economic problems".^^1^^
The ideological and political crisis of American society in the '60s and '70s tended to restructure the entire spectrum of non-Marxist political opinion. Old configurations crumbled as new ones arose, and the dividing lines established in the three previous decades between ``liberals'', ``conservatives'', and ``radicals'' became confused, which led to a breakdown of the customary schemes used in political identification and self-identification. Over the past few years, discussions of such questions as who should be considered the ``left'' today and who the ``right'', what is a ``liberal'' and who a ``conservative'', and whether the " center of gravity" has shifted to the right in the existing political consciousness have come to be popular in academic and literary circles in the USA (and in certain WestEuropean countries as well).^^2^^
An investigation of the changes taking place in the mass political consciousness of America is the more interesting because of the influence these processes exert both on domestic American and on international politics; such an investigation is also helpful in understanding and appreciating the main types of political orientation and perception to be found among Americans. It is for this reason that the study of American society's political consciousness is deeply and firmly rooted in the literature of Marxism---indeed the tradition goes back to Marx and Engels themselves.
The founders of Marxism showed an unflagging interest in the United States, its history, political life, and social _-_-_
~^^1^^ "The Knd of American Kxceptionalism'', The Public Interest, No. 41, Fall 1975, p. 107.
~^^2^^ "What Is a Liheral---Who Is a Conservative? A Symposium'', Commentary, September 1976; "Is America Moving Right? Ought It? A Conversation with Irving Kristol and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.'', Public Opinion, Vol. 1, No. 4, September/October 197H.
5 consciousness. They not only laid out their views of various events and processes in the life of American society but also left us a methodological key to the analysis of modern phenomena in the realm of politics and social consciousness. Among the works involved are a cycle analyzing the American Civil War, articles and notes on the development of the labor movement in the USA, letters to their American correspondents (notably, to Hermann Schluter and Friedrich Sorge), and, finally, Capital, which not only incorporated American materials but also dealt in equal measure with the dialectical development of American and European capitalism.Marx and Engels saw the political processes unfolding in the USA (and their reflection in consciousness) in close connection with the specific features of America, whose history was not burdened with a feudal past like Europe's. The United States originated as a bourgeois society, and this was the main line of its development from the verybeginning. The founders of Marxism regarded this circumstance as especially significant. In a letter to President Lincoln, Marx described the United States as the country "where hardly a century ago the idea of one great Democratic Republic had first sprung up, whence the first Declaration of the Rights of Man was issued, and the first impulse given to the European revolution of the eighteenth century".^^1^^
Engels remarked several times that American society was in essence bourgeois from the start. In his article "The Labour Movement in America" he spoke of "the more favored soil of America, where no mediaeval ruins bar the way, where history begins with the elements of modern bourgeois society as evolved in the seventeenth century".^^2^^ The same idea finds expression in his letters to Friedrich Sorge (31 December 1892) and to N. F. Danielson (17 October 1893), as well as elsewhere in his writings. The assessments made by Engels point the way for the Marxist student of political consciousness in present-day America, in particular of its conservative forms and the genesis of American liberalism.
The specific features of class development in America at the end of the 19th century and the social makeup of the Democratic and Republican parties were characterized by Engels in these words: "The divergence of interests even in the same class stratum is so great in that tremendous area that wholly different strata and interests are _-_-_
~^^1^^ "To Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America'', in Marx and Engels, On the United States, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1979, p. 168.
~^^2^^ "The Labour Movement in America'', in Marx and Engels, On the United States, p. 284.
6 represented in each oi the two big parties, depending on the locality, and to a very large extent each of the two parties contains representatives of nearly every particular section of the possessing class.''^^1^^ Although the class structure of American society has undergone changes since the time this was written, Engels' observations have on the whole retained their importance. They provide a guider to understanding the overlapping distinctions among classes, political parties, and types of political consciousness.In analyzing the development of social consciousness (and of political consciousness, which is part of the former), Marx and Engels invariably related it to the development of material life, to important events in national and world history. Noting "a certain backwardness of thought" among Americans, they found its roots in the social realities of America and saw the way out of it as lying through the changing of those realities. "Just because their future is so great,'' Engels wrote of the American people in 1892, "their present must be occupied mainly with preparatory work for that future, and this work, as in every young country, is of a predominantly material nature and involves a certain backwardness of thought, a clinging to the. traditions connected with the foundation of the new nationality. The Anglo-Saxon race---these damned Schleswig-- Holsteiners, as Marx always called them---is slow-witted anyhow, and its history, both in Europe and America (economic success and predominantly peaceful political development), has encouraged this still more. Only great events can be of assistance in such cases... It is the revolutionising of all traditional relations by industry as it develops that also revolutionises people's minds.''^^2^^
It must not be forgotten that Marx and Engels, in calling attention to the specific features of the USA, nonetheless regarded that country as subject to the general laws of the development of capitalism and sharing in the overall fate of the latter. This is evident- in their evaluations of the prospects for the labor and socialist movement in the USA, of the way class conflicts unfolded, etc. "~When the time is ripe things will move there with enormous speed and energy, but it may take a little while till that point is reached. Miracles don't happen anywhere.''^^3^^. The dialectic between the particular and the general is fundamental to _-_-_
~^^1^^ Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge in Hoboken, London, January 6, 1892. in Marx and Engels, On the United States, p. 327.
~^^2^^ Engels to Kriedrich Adolph Sorge in Hoboken, London, December 31, 1892, Marx and Engels, On the United States, p. 329.
^^3^^ Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge in Hoboken, London, October 24, 1891, in Marx and Engels, On the United Stale*, p. 326.
7 research into the political consciousness of the USA, which bears a number of purely national traits and at the same time comes under the general laws of the development of social consciousness.Scientific: inquiry into political process and social consciousness in the USA was carried further in certain of Lenin's works, such as "The Results and Significance of the U.S. Presidential Elections'', "Letter to American Workers'', and "In America''. Lenin agreed completely with the views of Marx and Engels concerning the development of the USA and of American political consciousness. He investigated the dialectics of capitalist society in the era of imperialism (the general principles of which are applicable to the United States), revealed the uneveimess of capitalist development (vividly exemplified in the USA), and set forth a theory explaining that unevenness. Lenin stressed that changes in capitalism would necessarily affect the material life, culture, and social consciousness of America.
Noting that "the American people have a revolutionary tradition'',~^^1^^ he linked the further development of that tradition not only with the evolution of American capitalism but also with the unfolding of the world revolutionary process and with a general shift in the balance of forces between capitalism and socialism which had recently emerged onto the world arena.
A number of works by Soviet philosophers and historians are devoted to the analysis of political consciousness in America. These deal mainly with theoretical (ideological) questions or with ideological and theoretical trends, such as ``liberalism'' (or ``neoliberalism''), ``conservatism'' (or ``neoconservatism''), and the radicalism of the left and the right.^^2^^ Questions of ideology are examined in a number of works analyzing mass movements and the political behavior of social groups.^^3^^ The aim of the present work is to analyze _-_-_
~^^1^^ "Letter to American Workers''. Collected Works, Vol. 28, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, p. 69.
~^^2^^ Contemporary Bourgeois Ideology in the USA: Some Social and Ideological Problems, Moscow, 1967; A. V. Valyuzhenich, American Liberalism: Illusions and Realities, Moscow, 1976; V. M. Leybin, The Philosophy of Social Criticism in the USA, Moscow, 1976 (all in Russian).
^^3^^ See for example: Political Life in the LLSA, Moscow, 1966; Sociopolitical Movements in the USA (the '60s and Early '70s), Moscow, 1974; The USA: Students and Politics, Moscow, 1974; M. I. Novinskaya, Students in the USA: A Socio-Psyihological Portrait. Moscow, 1977; Mass Movements of Social Protest in the USA, Moscow, 1978; American Public Opinion and Politics, Moscow, 1978; N. S. Yulina, Kourgeois Ideological Trends in the USA: Problems and Contradictions of "American Consciousness'', Moscow, 1971 (all in Russian); G. Arbatov, The War oj Ideas in Contemporary International Relations. The Imperialist Doctrine. Methods and Organization of Foreign Political Propaganda, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1973.
8 the political consciousness of American society on the mass (practical) level, treating it as an integral dynamic system whose elements have complex interconnections.Of course, the many-sidedness and dynamism 'of political consciousness, especially in a country such as the USA, makes the task of analyzing it systematically a highly complex one, which can only be accomplished stage by stage. At the present stage it is clearly of prime importance to answer the following questions as accurately as possible: What is the overall makeup of the spectrum of non-Marxist political consciousness? What types are included in that spectrum? What is the principal direction of the further evolution of that consciousness, and how is such evolution connected with the traditions of national political culture that have been formed over the two hundred years of America's history?
Systematic investigation of political consciousness of the masses is impossible unless an appropriate methodology has been worked out. First and foremost, the general principles of research must be concretely applied to the particular object. This cone retization is no mere technical task, to be handled on an ad hoc basis. On the contrary, the methodology to be used in analyzing the political'consciousness of society is in itself a question that merits study. The present monograph deals with it in a special chapter, where the dialectic of political process in the contemporary USA is considered alongside methods of systems approach to political consciousness, particularly with regard to typological procedure.
Different methods and procedures can be used in analyzing political consciousness. The choice among them will depend on the task at hand. The focus of attention may be the content of political consciousness, or its subject (the individual, the group, the class) considered as the bearer of one or more definite types of consciousness. In the latter case the content of political consciousness may be studied in direct connection with the personality characteristics of the subject, and the evolution of consciousness then appears in conversion from one type to another.
The authors of the present work have tried to show how the ideological and political crisis of capitalism manifested itself in the political consciousness of American society in the '60s and '70s, and in so doing critically analyze the spectrum of non-Marxist forms of political consciousness. To achieve this, an effort has been made to combine the two approaches described above: the content of political consciousness has been emphasized in those sections which deal with the concrete elements of the spectrum, while in 9 the last chapter the chief aim is to see the subject of the political process in action and evolution, thus tying together all the types of consciousness examined.
A dialectical-materialist analysis of political consciousness in society must be based on a conception of politics as a distinct type of activity whose content, scope, and functions are ultimately conditioned by material relations in that society and thus undergo changes in the course of historical development.
Modern authors of Marxist investigations into political questions rely on Lenin's interpretation of the material basis of politics (``Politics is a concentrated expression of economics.''^^1^^) and of its scope (Politics "is the sphere of relationships of all classes and strata to the state and the government, the sphere of the interrelations between all classes".^^2^^). Despite the concrete differences in the definitions of politics they put forward, these authors all put power relations at the center. "Politics is a form of interrelation between classes, social groups, and nations that is tied directly or indirectly with manifestations of power and the act of governing" (F. Burlatski and A. Galkin).^^3^^
Politics as a social phenomenon comprising power relations arose at the time when society broke down into classes and the state system was established. Until the rise of a government of laws politics is neither an independent form of mass activity nor a distinct area of social relations. This continues to be true even today in a number of countries, where there are no firm boundaries between the different areas of social activity---political, economic, legal, _-_-_
~^^1^^ "Once Again on the Trade Unions, the Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Bukharin'', Collected Worts, Vol. 32, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, p. 83.
~^^2^^ "What Is to Be Done?'', Vol. 5, 1977, p. 422.
~^^3^^ F. Burlatski and A. Galkin, Sociology. Politics. International Relations, Moscow, 1974, p. 15 (in Russian).
11 religious, etc. Here the great majority of citizens are not only alienated from power in practice but also uninvolved in formal "participation in affairs of government'', and so in fact there is no public political life. Social consciousness under such conditions is syncretic: the political elements within it are not yet independent, remaining closely bound up with religious, moral, legal, and other elements of social consciousness.The emergence of capitalism and the concomitant rise of the modern government of laws with its bourgeois-democratic apparatus create the material base for the politic ization of public life: politics becomes aii independent sphere of. mass activity. As the capitalism of free competition develops and is consequently transformed into state-monopoly capitalism, a broader section of the masses tends to be drawn into the political process and to constitute its subject. This historical trend corresponds directly to the conclusion reached by Marx and Engels: "Together with the thoroughness of the historical action, the size of the mass whose action it is will ... increase.''^^1^^ This is brought about both by classes opposed to the bourgeoisie, most importantly the industrial proletariat and its political vanguard, and by the bourgeoisie itself, which makes increasingly active use of political mechanisms to strengthen its own position in society and also draws certain strata of the working people into the political process, intending to make them its allies.
For many years after the United States came into existence, the country's political apparatus did not play an essential role in the life of American society. The mass of ordinary Americans did not show an interest in politics; it was hoped that the free market, as the universal regulator of social relations, would resolve the problems of the day. The government, in turn, did not seek to broaden its powers and to draw the people into political activity.
National capitalism developed, and the USA became involved in international life. State-monopoly capitalism emerged and economic levers proved inadequate as guarantees of the functioning and development of society. As a result of all three processes, and especially of the last, the part played by politics increased and its influence broadened, partially through politicizing the' economy and culture. This does not mean, of course, that the laws of political life were extended into other social spheres; rather, different aspects of public life were subordinated _-_-_
~^^1^^ "The Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Criticism'', Collfi'led Works, Vol. 4, Progress Publishers. Moscow, 1975, p. 82.
12 to the interests of the political struggle, and the economy and culture were turned into an arena for political competition, overt or covert. Private, as well as public life became an object of practical interest for politics and politicians, since public and private life alike' became more closely connected with the exercise of power, and thus a political ``concern''.Daniel Bell speaks in his book The Cultural ( Contradictions o] (Capitalism (N.Y., 1976) of a "disjunction of realms" in modern capitalist society. He maintains that "the political order increasingly becomes autonomous, and the management of the tech no-economic order, or the democratic planning, or the management of the economy, becomes ever more independent of capitalism" (pp. 14--15). Generally speaking, the various sectors of capitalist society that Bell mentions have always moved at different speeds and had a degree ol autonomy. What we observe today is only an acceleration of this process: the political order, without in the least sacrificing its autonomy, is seeking to appropriate the dominant role that once belonged to another autonomous sector, economics.
The existence in bourgeois society of public political life in which working people participate does not, of course, imply that the masses of the citizenry have real access to power. But the very fact that citizens can participate directly in activities having to do with the exercise of power (elections, referenda, the work of political parties and trade unions, etc.) becomes a significant element in the social and political experience of the masses and an active factor in the formation of mass political consciousness.
__NOTE__ Stray: areDuring the general crisis of capitalism, as bourgeois democracy suffers through fierce convulsions' (fascist regimes e classic example), public political life may take on a false character. Certain bourgeois philosophers, in particular Max Weber and Karl Jaspers, are not unaware of this. Jaspers makes a distinction between ``true'' and ``false'' politics, saying that the former is possible "only if influence is exerted by convincing others through argument and counter-argument, whereby social consciousness is formed in a free contest of intelligence".^^1^^
Involving the masses of the citizenry in the political process and broadening the field of politics as a specific domain of social relations are both linked historically with a broadening of bourgeois government's domain and functions. Government takes on an economic function and _-_-_
^^1^^ Karl Jaspers, Wrrk mill Wirkitng, Munich. 19(i:i, p. <S2.
13 subsequently an ideological one, neither of which it possessed in the early stages of capitalism's development.Of course, there were clashes between the political interests of different classes and groups in questions of economics and ideology before too, but these spheres were not the object of direct, systematic, and purposeful government action. Although in a bourgeois democracy such action is not total, and does not always lead to the desired effect, it exerts a significant influence on the political process.
The breakdown of syncretic social consciousness and its differentiation is the first of the natural consequences resulting from the emergence of politics as a separate field of endeavor and the politicization of public life. In this process political consciousness becomes established as an independent form, it develops and is enriched by integrating into itself elements of other forms---legal, moral, and religious.
In essence, political consciousness represents reflection by the subject of the political process on the process itself and his own part in it. As soon as it arises, it becomes an important component link and a genuine factor in the exercise of political power, ensuring the functioning of the socio-political system. This role of political consciousness, whatever its actual content, is the result of the social functions it performs. As for the content of political consciousness, its various manifestations may differ fundamentally depending on the social status of the subject, the character of the times, and the concrete historical conditions. It should be kept in view, moreover, that the political consciousness of a society, class, or group changes in content more rapidly, as a rule, than its religion, morality, esthetic views, and philosophy, because class and party values are naturally expressed more fully, consistently, and clearly in it than in any other form of consciousness.
As the spheres of political interests of opposing social forces grow broader, and political questions become enmeshed with moral, religious, and philosophical questions in the practice of public life, a change takes place in the object of political consciousness. It comes to include not only matters directly related to the exercise of power (that is, to "participation in government affairs": administration, property, income distribution, social equality, etc.) but also matters which at first glance seem to be only tangential to the world of politics, having to do with the individual's private life, religion, and morality. On the whole it may be said that today almost any side of public 14 or private life may be an object of political consciousness.
It is natural that as the content and object of political consciousness change a corresponding change takes place in its structure, although the latter is relatively independent and less dynamic than the other two.
Different goals in research, and also the nature of political consciousness as an ideal (mental) formation lacking clear internal divisions, make it possible to adopt various approaches to its analysis and, consequently, various theoretical models of its structure.
What is an adequate model of mass political consciousness as the real, practical consciousness of the mass subject of the political process? Can it be wholly equated with ideology or social psychology? Is it to be treated as theoretical or empirical, scientific or everyday consciousness?
It should be noted that although "everyday consciousness" and "empirical consciousness" partly overlap they are not identical. This is sometimes forgotten by investigators. "Empirical consciousness" (to be related to "theoretical consciousness'') is an abstraction that fixes the form and level of cognition, while "everyday consciousness" (to be related to "scientific cognition" as a part of "theoretical consciousness'', which also takes in ``ideology'') fixes the limits of the field within which social consciousness is formed and exists (``everyday experience''). From this point of view, everyday consciousness is to a significant degree empirical consciousness, but it also includes theoretical (ideological) elements.
A number of investigators, proceeding from the idea that the moods and sentiments of a society are the most widespread form of mass consciousness, interpret it as either everyday consciousness, or empirical consciousness, or social psychology. But attempts at a sufficiently thorough analysis using this approach usually result in an unjustifiably broad definition of everyday or empirical consciousness, or of social psychology, which thus lose their qualitative distinctiveness and create a distorted conception of the phenomenon being investigated.
There are also, however, serious objections against identifying mass political consciousness with political ideology. To ``purify'' political consciousness of the society's moods and sentiments, of ``empiricism'', is to deny that the mass subject of the political process is endowed with a truly existent and practically functioning consciousness. It may be added that ideology is the product of purposeful, specialized activity carried out by theoreticians ( fulfilling the ``demand'' of a class), while mass political 15 consciousness is shaped and functions spontaneously, in the everyday socio-political practice of the masses. The latter does, indeed, have its ``system'', but this is not at all the result of purposeful activity by the mass subject of the political process, but rather an expression of the logic (or illogic) of the masses' spontaneous activity.
In our opinion, the true relation between mass political consciousness and the political consciousness of society as an integral form of social consciousness has been successfully formulated by B. (irushin. Mass consciousness, according to (irushin, is "a sort of focus where all the existing sections of social consciousness come together. Thus it is the most general summary expression, so to speak, of the level or condition of social consciousness at a particular time, taken as a whole and passed through prisms with very different angles of refraction, which break it apart according to class considerations, the depth of the reality it expresses, the sphere of its action, and so on.''^^1^^ In othe words, mass consciousness cannot be reduced to any one element (level) of social consciousness; it is a distinctive expression of the latter in its entirety.
The basic element or ``core'' of the structure of mass political consciousness is conviction, a subjective form of synthesis between ideology (theory) and social psychology within the consciousness of the mass individuum. Conviction comprises three basic elements: 1) information---- knowledge about the world as a whole or about some section of reality, socio-political reality, for example; 2) confidence in the truth of that information; 3) a readiness to act accordingly.^^2^^
G. Diligenski defines mass political consciousness as "a combination of conceptions formed externally (in the sphere of specialized ideological and political activity) and conclusions reached by the individual or group as a result of independent analysis of socio-political activity. Conceptions assimilated ready-made may be regarded as stereotypes: they are marked by uniformity and a high degree of stability, and are not necessarily grounded rationally.'' Conceptions (including those which are highly stereotyped), socio-political values (ideas), and "conclusions reached as a result of independent analysis" all exist in the consciousness of the mass individuum in the form of convictions, and the system of convictions ultimately determines _-_-_
~^^1^^ B. A. Cirushin, Opinions <>j the World and the World of Opinion, Moscow, 1967, p. 61 (in Russian).
^^2^^ See, for example, A. P. Noskov and R. (.-. Yanovski, 7`u'o Levels o ('.onsciousness and 1'olitictil ('otn^ttions, Novosibii sk, 1974 (in Russian).
16 political orientation, "a normative understanding among people of the political goals towards which they arc' striving and of the means they can use to attain these ends''.^^1^^The extent to which mass political consciousness is " ideologi/ed" varies at different stages in its development and in its different aspects, but ideolog} is always a significant factor in forming it, especially since the vanguards of social classes seek to instill their ideology into the consciousness not only of their own class but also of society as a whole. Ideolog} in mass consciousness takes the form of convictions and serves as its theoretical .substratum. Moreover, one and the same ideology can foster different types of consciousness and, conversely, one and the same type of consciousness can arise out of different ideologies.
It should be made clear that in speaking of political ideology we mean a system of social and political ideas that expresses in theoretical form the consciousness of a particular class or group, and gives a theoretical justification of its political interests.
Political ideology can appear under different forms. In some cases (especially where circumstances make it necessary to officially sanction established theoretical constructs, or ones created expressly for this purpose) ii constitutes an independent superstructure to political theories shaped in the historical development of society, or versions of such theories adopted by political parties. In other cases such special structures may not arise; ideological (unctions are then assumed by the political theories (``doctrines'') existing in society. Within the framework of political theory, of course, scientific and ideological constructs are mote or less distinct in lorm, content, and function. At the same time, ideolog} constitutes an essential part of any political doctrine. It would be absurd to suppose that a political doctrine could be ideologically neutral or, more precisely, free of ideology. The ideological and the scientific (objectively true generali/ations about the laws governing political phenomena) interact and organically complement one another in political theory.
How do things stand in the USA? There is no need to show yet again that American society was born as and has always remained a socieu of antagonistic classes, or that the reproduction of culture in the USA has always been subject to the general laws of capitalist reproduction. Let us note only that the political doctrines shaped during the formation of that society, to which American political leaders, _-_-_
~^^1^^ (i. d. Dili^enski, "Mass 1'olilual Consc ionsness under ihe (jmdilions of Modern Capitalism''. 'o/mnv litosufn. No. 9. 1971. p. ."> 1 (in Rnssian)-
__PRINTERS_P_17_COMMENT__ 2---34 17 parties, groups, etc., have constantly appealed, always expressed (more or less overtly) the interest of some party and were suited to the ideological demands of the time and place. The American bourgeoisie succeeded in presenting its own interests as the interests of society thus giving the existing social and political doctrines t heappearance of neutrality, but this in no way affected the class character of American society or the party character of the political theory it produced.It must be added that the ideological function can be served not only by social and political theories but also by non-political forms of social consciousness, i.e., elements of national culture, in particular by social Utopias and myths which gradually become entrenched in tradition and are often used by different classes for contrary purposes.
This was the part played in the United States by the socalled American dream, which has remained an important factor in mass political consciousness for more than two hundred years. "As a state of mind and a dream,'' wrote Gilbert Chinard, "America had existed long before its discovery. Ever since the early days of Western civilization, peoples had dreamed of a lost Paradise, of a Golden Age... With the first accounts of the New World, it was felt that these dreams and yearnings had become a fact, a geographical reality fraught with unlimited possibilities.''^^1^^ Indeed, "the American dream had become part of the cultural tradition of Europe".^^2^^ But the dream also became part of the cultural tradition of America itself: Americans wanted their country to be an "earthly paradise" for them to inhabit in blessedness. Of course, the content of this mythical formula was different in the consciousness of different strata within American society, but all of them sawin it an embodiment of their faith in the chance to `` succeed'' which the New World supposedly gave to everyone who was ready to act energetically, to take risks, and to heenterprising.
The integration of ideology into mass political consciousness and its transformation into convictions is a complex process that takes place in the framework of the social and political practice of the subject of mass consciousness.
Practice acts as a corrective to the imperatives of ideology and simultaneously as a channel for the transmission of tradition, which gives certain parameters to the _-_-_
~^^1^^ "The- American Dream'', in Literary History o] Ike i'nileil States. Ed. by Robert K. Spiller ft al., N.Y., 1953, p. "192
^^2^^ Ibid., p. 215.
18 consciousness being formed. In the personal experience of the subject, however, the corrective effect of practice on ( Inoperative ideology may be insignificant. Empirical research has shown that the subject of mass consciousness can assimilate ideological conceptions and stereotypes controverted by his own experience and not in accord with his spontaneous behavior. As a result, mass consciousness is often fragmented: conflicting (not to say mutually exclusive) conceptions and values coexist within it.Lloyd A. Free and Hadley Cantril note that even among those Americans who know from their own experience that the cause of poverty and unemployment is often `` circumstances'' rather than a "lack of effort'', many continue to hold to the traditional, individualistic belief that poor people and the unemployed are largely responsible for their own misfortunes. Free and Cantril come to the general conclusion that "Americans at the ideological level continue to pay lip service to an amazing degreeto stereotypes and shibboleths inherited from the past. The abstract ideas they tend to hold about the nature and functioning of our socio-economic system still seem to stem more from the underlying assumptions of a laissezfaire philosophy than from the operating assumptions of the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier, or the Great Society.'' It remains true to this day that the "abstract ideas that make up the American political ideology'', which have been assimilated by the mass subject, do not correspond to the social and political experience of the subject.^^1^^
An analysis of mass political consciousness can be carried out in various ways, depending both on the characteristics of such consciousness itself and on the immediate tasks before the investigator. It may concentrate on the sociopsychological mechanism through which political consciousness is formed; this approach makes it possible to understand why, for example, the growth of social and political conflicts in modern capitalist society has so far not led to a radical shift in the balance of political forces. The analysis may also focus on the concrete structure of mass political consciousness. Finally, the immediate object of analysis may be the content of such consciousness; here the investigator will have a right to turn aside from the subject of consciousness (its psyche and motivation) and study the spread in society of convictions and political orientations, which can only be related post factum to the existing _-_-_
~^^1^^ I.. A. Five and H. Cantril. The Political Reliefs <>/ Americans: A Study oj Public Opinion, New Brunswick. N. (., 19<i7, pp. 28. 30, 24.
19 social groups, their psychology, values, and conceptions.Research into the political consciousness of modern American society may be concluded in each of these ways. I he authors of the present work, while analy/ing the content of tins consciousness, place the main emphasis on the ideological (theoretical) basis of convictions and political orientations. This is more than political ideology; it might be called political ideology in action. In this respect it is an essential element of mass political consciousness.
The aim of the investigation determines its empirical basis. It is an established tradition in American sociology to look at mass consciousness through the prism of public opinion. The mechanisms by which mass political consciousness is formed, its structure, content, and dynamics are investigated mainly on the' basis of empirical data obtained through surveys. This approach can be effective to the extent that public opinion is mass consciousness in action, and that its actual state can be ascertained.
Public opinion, however, does not account for the whole content of mass political consciousness. As one study pointed out, "the concept of public opinion denotes the actual state of social consciousness as expressed in overt or covert attitudes towards concrete events and facts of social reality and towards various problems affecting the interests of different classes and of sufficiently representative groups and strata of the population".^^1^^ Conviction is deeper and richer than opinion, which is inevitably confined to a concrete question, often very narrow, the answer to which is only a partial expression of conviction and, in the last analysis, of political orientation. It must be added that even the most technically perfect and objectively conceived survey necessarily- distorts the actual convictions of the' subject to some extent.
Thus, research into mass political consciousness must take' in every sphere, practical or theoretical, in which the masses are active: the social and political, religious, esthetic, legal, etc. It is in action, not always corresponding to public opinion, that political convictions and orientations find adequate expression. Hence the necessity lor broadening the empirical base of research into mass political consciousness to include, alongside data obtained bv surveys, materials that directly charactcri/e the behavior of social classes and groups and also the products of their theoretical activitv.
_-_-_^^1^^ inrrirnii I'nhlii Ofi/ninn innl I'nlilii., Moscow. HI7i~>, |>. ! (in Russian).
20 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. "AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM" AND THE DIALECTICThere is a widespread conception in American political literature that the L'SA, unlike the European countries, has never had a political ideology. This view has been expressed in one form or another at various time's by Daniel Bell, Seymour M. Lipset, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., /bigniew Br/ c/inski, and others. "On the whole,'' write Br/cvinski and Huntington, "Americans avoid using it /the term ideology/ when referring to their own political preference's or individual political beliefs. Similarly, the' two major American political parties never refer to their programs as ideological declarations. The President never speaks of the ideology of his Administration. In the discussions concerning the need for a more conscious sense of national purpose, the dominant viewpoint by far was that there is no American ideology and that it would be harmful to try to invent one.''
Br/.e/.inski and Huntington explain that by ``ideology'' they mean "a set of political ideas that are overt, systematic', dogmatic, and embodied in a set of institutions''. They maintain that nothing of tjie kind exists in the L'SA: "American political ideas" are complex, but not systematic and explicit, an ``amalgam'' that "lacks the' coherence and the' concreteness to qualify as an ideology".^^1^^
American society has never had an official ideology sanctioned by the authority of the government, a church, or a part) and supported by a national political tradition, as was the case in a number of European countries. It has never known ideological monism based on political or religious intolerance or the sort of pluralism in which a concrete' ideology is strictly bound to a particular social group and expresses its interests through political organi/ation. As has been noted by Soviet scholars, American ideological consciousness has always seen it as more important to present a collection of separate moral values than to develop an extensive and integrated social theory. This does not at all mean that Br/e/.inski and Huntington are right, however, in saying that political ideology is wholly nonexistent in the USA as an expression of the selfawareness of a class and a mechanism for defending its political interests, or that mass political consciousness there is formed on a nonideologic al basis.
American bourgeois authors who deny that ideologv exists _-_-_
^^1^^ iniew Hi/r/mski and Samuel P. I lunlin^ion. I'ottliial /'m<ri: I ,S/--- N.V., lOTli. pp. 17, HI, L'O.
21 in the USA proceed not only from a one-sided interpretation of ideology hut also from the notion that American society, unlike the societies of Europe, was from the very beginning purely ``liberal'', and that this made it an ``exception''. The noted historian Louis Hart/ began his book on the liberal tradition in America with these words: "The analysis which this book contains is based on what might he called the storybook truth about American history: that America was settled by men who fled from the feudal and clerical oppressions of the Old World. If there is anything in this view, as old as the national folklore itself, then the outstanding thing about the American community in Western history ought to be the nonexistence of those oppressions, or since the reaction against them was in the broadest sense liberal, that the American community is a liberal community.''^^1^^That American society has been bourgeois since its beginnings has also been noted in Marxist literature. Engels wrote that America is "purely bourgeois, without any feudal past'',^^2^^ and that "the U.S. are modern, bourgeois, from the very origin; ... they were founded by petits bourgeois and peasants who ran away from European feudalism in order to establish a purely bourgeois society".^^3^^
The history of American society gives grounds for speaking of its originally bourgeois nature in the sense that feudalism was never the dominant system of social relations there, as it was in Europe, that the rise of capitalism in the North American colonies began practically at the moment of their founding, and, lastly, that in the USA there was less resistance from the forces of feudalism to the development of capitalism than there was in Europe.
All this does not mean, however, that feudal tendencies were altogether absent in the North American colonies, that the economic relations which sprang up in the new American state were devoid of feudal elements, or that from the very outset there were no obstacles in American capitalism's path of development. In other words, it does not mean that the USA was a unique instance of capitalist development in its ``pure'' form. As the Soviet historian A. Yefimov puts it: "Two tendencies can be noted from the very beginning of the colonization of North America. The ruling, land owning class of the European countries strove to implant in America _-_-_
~^^1^^ Louis Hart/, The Liberal Tradition in America. An Interpretation of American 1'olitical Thought Since the Revolution, N.Y., 19;">5, p. 3.
^^2^^ Engels to Fried rich Aclolph Sorgo in Hobokc'n, London, February 8, 1890; in Marx and Engels, On the United Staler. Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1979, p. 324.
^^3^^ Engels to Nikolai Krantsevuh Danielson in St. Petersburg, London, October 17, 1893, in Marx and Engels, On the United Stales, p. 332.
22 feudal relations, including the monopoly on land, relations which had already been greatly undermined in a number of European countries. Farmer-colonists strove to found a bourgeois society on the principles of free land and ' equality for all' (in the bourgeois sense) before the law.''^^1^^The War of Independence and its outcome, the formation of the United States of America, weakened the feudal tendency and stengthened the bourgeois one, opening up the way for capitalist development in the country. This political and social revolution, which was bourgeois in character, predetermined the general form American society was to take.
This in turn created an objective social and historical base for the rise and growth of differing political ideologies, and for conflicts among them. Their forms and scale were different, however, than in European countries, such as France or even Germany, where the working people became conscious of themselves as a class more quickly than in America, and where the possibilities for economic regulation of social contradictions were more limited.
American political ideology has its roots in the political philosophy of Europe, and particularly of England, in the 17th and 18th centuries. Not all the elements and traditions of this philosophy were equally attractive for the new American republic. It should be noted right away, though, that the notion that America rejected the political philosophy of conservatism and borrowed only liberal ideas is as one-sided as the notion that feudal tendencies were lacking in America from the very beginning. Also to be avoided, of course, is the opposite extreme: regarding the two tendencies---feudal and bourgeois---as equally important in the history of the United States. Nonetheless, conservatism has its history as a political ideology in the USA, although its fate there was different from its fate in England, for example.
The emotional thrust of conservative ideology, regardless of its concrete political content, is in support for the existing social, political, and economic order and protection of what has been attained against radicalism, real or imagined. English conservatism, which upheld harmony among social classes on the basis of pietism, absolutism, and elitism, and which ultimately corresponded to the interests of the feudal aristocracy, could have no broad or secure economic and social base in North America. The majority of the colonists, and especially of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ A. V. Yefimov, The USA: Paths of the Development of Capitalism, Moscow, 1969, p. 330 (in Russian).
23 __ERROR__ Try scanning with darker setting. Too many OCR errors. immigrants vho (aine Hooding into America, followed a wa of life that would not fit inside the conservative framework. As for domestic American conservatism, it took some time to appear: certain boundaries had to be reached before the struggle was mounted to defend them against those who wanted to go taster and further.Nevertheless, European (and especially English) conservative ideology was not without influence in the political and intellectual life of American society in the 18th and 19th centuries. By and large, the same thing happened to European conservatism as to many other ideologies that have fallen onto American soil in the two hundred years of the USA's existence: almost without fail, if in different degrees, they found followers among one or more strata in American society: as a rule, they exerted a certain influence on national politics and culture. None of them, however, became so widespread OT influential as liberalism, which best of all met the needs of a bourgeois society.
Conservatism in its classic form, as presented by Edmund Burke, was naturally unable to satisfy the young American bourgeoisie. Even so, a number of conservative ideas and principles found expression in the consciousness and actions not only of the slave-owning planters in the South who constituted the social base of conservatism in the 18th century and the first half of the 19th, but also of certain of the Founding Fathers. Conservative tendencies, primarily oriented towards the limitation of democracy, were already clearly manifest at the time of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia (1787). The convention did not adopt the suggestion, made by several delegates, that a monarchy be instituted; it did, however, frame the Constitution and thereby establish a separation of powers which did discourage the unchecked concentration of political might, but also complicated and limited control "from below" over the exercise of power. As the American historian Irving Horowit/. notes, "conservative strength is reflected in the character of the United States Constitution, in the division of government into three separate and equal branches, in the nature of who voted, and in monetary requirements for voting. It is reflected in the division of the legislative branch into two houses, one based on unequal representation, in the strict constructionism of the Supreme Court, and in the strong Hamiltonian money and banking policies.''^^1^^
As the trading and industrial bourgeoisie of the North _-_-_
~^^1^^ Irving Louis Horowily. Ideology tnul L'toftm in the
!(>'>(>- 1 tira. London. Oxford, New York, 1!'"7, p. LV1.
I nilrtl Stair:
The establishment of liberalism in the United States did not mean that the ideas of English or Continental liberalism were automatically transferred to the New World and disseminated there. What is usually called the "American libera tradition" is an aggregate of ideological layers built up during the historical development of American society and united by common underlying views on the individual, society, and the state.
The foundation of American liberalism was and continues to be "|effersonian democracy'', directly embodied in the Declaration of Independence, which sets forth a number of political and legal principles and in particular reinterprets the "natural rights of man.'' Jefferson, the author of the Declaration, altered Locke's formula about man's right to "life, liberty, and property''; he substituted for the last "the pursuit of happiness.'' It is not difficult to see that by ``property'' Locke meant not merely possessions (or the right of possession) but rather a form of prohibition against the arbitral) alienation of the individual's possessions or even his life, and also a form of protest against unjustified limitations on the individual's freedom, that is, a reaction against phenomena typical of feudalism. Only by defending the right to property can the "equal opportunities" needed for the development of capitalism be brought about. In this sense, Locke's formula was internally balanced and historically progressive. Had Locke proclaimed the "right to happiness" rather than the "right to property'', his attack on feudalism would have been blunted.
In America, on the contrary, the formulation of the " natural rights of man" necessarily had to contain a promise, albeit vague and ambiguous, that the equally vague hopes and aspirations to ``happiness'' with which "superfluous people" from all over the world had crossed the ocean would be satisfied. This right, first proclaimed by the liberalism 25 of "Jeffersonian democracy'', was upheld not only by all subsequent adherents of liberalism but also by other, competing ideological systems, each of which gave it a different interpretation. The "right to happiness" has been used to defend capitalism and likewise to criticize it.
Another fundamental principle of American liberalism set forth in the Declaration of Independence is popular sovereignty, according to which the people have the right "to alter or to abolish" any "form of government" that is incompatible with the goals of securing the "unalienable rights" of man. This principle, originally intended to defend the foundations of American capitalism, subsequently became one of the formal bases for criticizing it while remaining a most important part of the liberal credo.
With the development of capitalism came changes in the immediate goals of liberalism and the means of realizing its basic demands (liberty, equality, individualism, private property, the dominance of the uncontrolled market as the natural regulator of social processes, limitation of government functions, etc.). American liberalism was forced more and more often to resort to ``nonliberal'' means, originally alien to itself, which sooner or later inevitably became its own. The result of the contradictions that consequently arose in liberal ideology was the establishment of new ideological constructs which, from the point of view of their social functions, eventually went beyond the bounds of the liberal tradition. It was on the basis of liberalism that national forms of conservatism came into being. The foremost of these is known as libertarianism; it emerged as a direct consequence of the state's growing influence over American society, which reached its height during the New Deal" and was thus reflected and authorized by liberal ideology. Attempts to find a way out of the Great Depression ended in a split within the liberal camp. One group continued to uphold the traditional values of liberalism based on the primacy of the free market, and opposed an increase in the regulatory role of government. Once the split had become evident, the other group called still more decisively for limiting the domain of market mechanisms, believing that under the new conditions the strategic interests of the ruling class could be protected only by broadening the functions of bourgeois government and curbing entrepreneurial individualism. A paradox resulted: the defenders of the traditional liberal values of the marketplace became conservatives, and the ``revisionists'' ultimately inherited the liberal tradition.
To judge by certain appearances, this process is being repeated at present. It looks as if the development of 26 American conservatism through splits within the liberal camp and the gemmation of the old liberal ideology as the basis for a new conservative construct is becoming an established mechanism in the ideological development of the USA.
The ``neoconservatives'' of today are the liberals of yesterday. It is not that they have broken with the principles of liberalism and gone over to the conservative side; rather, they are alarmed by the continuing populist evolution of liberalism and by the socialization of production and the etatization of public life, which will ultimately create the new material conditions necessary for socialism. Thus it is that the "new conservatives" seek to limit the functions of government, to subordinate democratic mechanisms to the tasks of ensuring "law and order'', and so on.
The future will show how this new split within the liberal camp will affect the political life of the United States. For the time being these conflicts are being kept within the family, as Peter Berger puts it; they have not produced any sharp upset in the political balance of power, and consensus has been maintained on the overall rules of the political game and the bourgeois foundations of the social order existing in the country. In various historical periods the zone of consensus has broadened and narrowed, but never disappeared. Likewise, it has always been the common view of the bourgeoisie that the institution of private property must be preserved and defended at any cost; there has been disagreement only concerning prices and scales.
The notion that the USA has neither a "genuinely revolutionary" tradition nor a ``reactionary'' one has become quite firmly rooted in American political literature. In the words of Louis Hartz, who subscribes to this notion, "America, which has uniquely lacked a feudal tradition, has uniquely lacked also a socialist tradition. The hidden origin of socialist thought everywhere in the West is to be found in the feudal ethos.''^^1^^
It is true that the USA did not inherit Europe's revolutionary traditions in the form of historical experience amassed in the course of many peasant uprisings and wars and afterwards in the first actions of the newly formed urban proletariat, or in the form of a culture of revolutionary action, or, finally, in the form of socio-- psychological attitudes constituting a basis for conceiving the norms of the political process. But the absence of inherited revolutionary traditions (and of the structure of social relations from which they directly arise) does not necessarily _-_-_
~^^1^^ I.ouis Han/, op. cit.. p. 6.
27 imply the absence of conditions which can bring into being revolutionary political fortes and ideology. What sets the United States apart is not immunity in principle- to revolution and counter revolution, but rather the means and rate (and to some extent, sources) of the formation and practical reali/ation of revolutionary ideology, which are closely bound up with the means and rate of the emergence of capitalist relations in the USA and the appearance of their inherent contradictions. It was these contradictions, whose everyday expression is a gulf between reality and the expectations of certain individuals and groups, that ultimately conditioned American society's need for a political ideology capable of social criticism.This need appeared quite early on. It was felt by a wickvariety of social forces (the working class, the farmers, the urban middle strata, and a certain part of the bourgeoisie) which were thrust out to the periphery of capitalist society by the contradictions unfolding within it---in a word, by all those who had (or thought they had) reason to believe that the actual state of things, or an observable trend was seriously out of line with the precepts of the Founding Fathers and the spirit of the "American dream'', and who wanted to rectify matters.
The conception of America as a "melting pot" conceals the segmentation of American society. The divisions immanent in the capitalist mode of production were not spared theUnited States, which developed its own class structure including a bourgeoisie, a petty bourgeoisie, and a working class. These class distinctions were overlayed with racial and ethnic distinctions, which have been important in the USA's political life throughout the country's history.
There have always been social and political forces in America (although at times their numbers were few) that sought to change the dominant social order radically; they have interpreted the "American dream" in the spirit of socialism and have seen anticapitalist revolution as the way to socialism. Socialist ideology, which gained currency in the USA in the 19th century, and first of all scientific socialism, is the fullest and most coherent expression of this view.
At the same time, the bourgeois order of the USA has been subjected to criticism by social groups in America that wanted to limit or even revise radically the principles of bourgeois democracy, that is, by the forces of political counterrevolution. Such sentiments have never had broad support among the American public, but neither have they died out completely. They have grown into a separate, 28 right-radical tradition and never fail to make themselves felt during crises.
Contrariwise, there have been concerted efforts at every stage- in America's development to protect the ideals of the American revolution as set forth in the Declaration of Independence and to correct deviations, both in political practice and in ideology, from the democratic principles proclaimed by the Founding Fathers. Out of these efforts grew the left-radical tradition in American political ideology.
Strictly speaking, American radicalism, whether right or left, has never had an ideology of its own. Faced with a need to rationali/e their values and priorities (what is usually termed "radical ideology''), they generally turn to sources which are not actually radical or at least are not considered to be so. Those investigators who see left radicalism as a "radical version" of liberalism are on solid ground: as has been noted already, it is essentially an embodiment of the desire to carry out systematically the principles set forth in the basic documents of the American revolution. And if on occasion left radicals have spoken ol using revolutionary means to overcome the gulf between the spirit underlying American democracy and the actual state of things in society, this has been in full accordance with the popular sovereignty proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence.
Right radicals do not, as a rule, conceal their hostility to liberalism and to ``excessive'' democracy. In some cases, however, they have been forced to appeal to document and principles which constitute the political and theoretical foundation of American liberalism. Robert Welch, the founder of the- John Birch Society, wrote: "We believe that a Constitutional Republic, such as our Founding Fathers gave as, is probably the- best of all forms of government.''^^1^^
Thus even a very cursory and general survey of the scheme of development of American political ideology (taken as an internally contradictory whole, i.e., an aggregate of ideologies) shows that it contains both specific traits (`` exc eptioiialism'') and general ones that place America in thesame rank with other capitalist countries; these two have conditioned both the specific and the general traits of the formation o( mass political consciousness in the- USA.
_-_-_~^^1^^ "`I'lii' Bflicls and Principles of (hi John Bin h Society" in Social Min`t'ini'iil: A Ri`titli'i <ind Sonnc Hook. Kcl. l> Robe-it K. Kvans, Chicago,
29 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. PROBLEMS OF METHODOLOGY IN INVESTIGATING THE MASSVarious methodological principles may be used in an investigation of mass political consciousness, based on a systems approach. First, the object investigated (the political consciousness of society) is itself of systems character, although this character is at first grasped only intuitively, only as the result of comparing the complex, contradictory, and at the same time interconnected qualities and characteristics of the object. Second, the demands of social and political practice, and in particular predicting the political behavior of large and small groups, make it necessary to describe and analyze such consciousness in all the multiplicity of the interrelations of its component elements.
In analyzing mass political consciousness as an integrated dynamic system, the investigator has a right to look at it from the point of view of its internal structure. To accomplish this (that is, to discover the functional elements of the given system, the character of the connections among them, and the mechanism linking one to another), the typological method must be used. Under this method, political consciousness in a society is seen as a comparatively stable spectrum of types which complement one another and under certain conditions even merge. What is meant here by a type of political consciousness is a logically organized system of political values, orientations, and priorities that register certain essential and recurrent characteristics of a certain group of historically formed structures of political consciousness.
It is obvious that a type of consciousness, so interpreted, must be an abstraction, that is, an ideal (in the logical sense) type. This is true whether we follow Max Weber in calling it an "ideal type" (or "pure type'') or give it some other name: "logical type'', "theoretical type'', etc.
None of the real shapes of consciousness can be wholly covered by any theoretical type. The types are an instrument for the cognition of real consciousness, a model of it, they are a sort of tool mediating between the investigator and his object. A theoretical type gives an idea of the boundaries and basic features of the genus to which an individual consciousness belongs, and is thus a key to the concrete analysis of the latter. Long before the works of Max Weber appeared, the practical value of the method of theoretical types had won it a firm place in the system of cognitive procedures for the study of social phenomena.
Moreover, models of theoretical types may differ not only 30 in their structure and functions but also in their relation to social reality and in their abstrac tness. In principle, two approaches are possible to the defining of types in a multitude of phenomena under study. Under one, the investigator first introduces the conception of certain classes of phenomena and then relates the phenomena themselves to these. Under the other, the actual, natural grouping of phenomena is studied. This second approach might be called natural typology.
At any stage in its development, the political consciousness of a society is multi-dimensional. Therefore, a concrete theoretical projection of it should also be multidimensional. Hence the need to model such consciousness in a diverse system of coordinates, i.e., to simultaneously construct several complementary typologies that make it possible to illuminate from different angles the consciousness being modeled, and thus build up a relief model.
Which of the concrete dimensions of the political consciousness of society the researcher will choose to model, and which of the empirically devised criteria he will adopt as a basis for modeling a given dimension (or system of dimensions) will depend both on the nature and degree of development of the consciousness to be investigated and on the tasks before the researcher.
All existing typologies of consciousness can, in principle, be divided into specialized and general. Specialized typologies model one dimension; they record the attitudes existing in a society towards some question or a complex of similar questions. It is possible, for example, to construct typologies based on attitudes towards questions of war and peace, or the racial question, or the question of structural changes in society.
Specialized typologies can be built up by using surveys conducted by public information services, the results of voting in the US Congress on related questions, and the data of empirical research.
A distinct variety of specialized typology is based on empirically determined facts of political consciousness which are rigorously linked with concrete social groups: class, ethnic, age, religious, political, regional, occupational, and so on.
This is the approach behind the numerous attempts to typologize the consciousness of young people, blacks, farmers, workers, etc., and to systematize the political consciousness of capitalist countries according to "class types": bourgeois, petty-bourgeois, working class, etc. This specialized approach has been especially productive in constructing complementary typologies making it possible 31 to correlate ``revolutionary'', ``reformist'', and `` conservative'' consciousness with the consciousness of students, young people, and blacks, or of workers and farmers, as a number of investigators are now attempting to do.
General typology occupies a special place in the hierarchy of typologies. It models not one dimension (characteristic) but several correlated ones and serves as a sort of synthesis of specialized typologies.
Since the '3()s a general typology of mass political consciousness based on two types, liberal and conservative, has spread to almost every level of American society---from newspaper columnists to the doyeris of sociology. 'The subjective element in the definitions and evaluations this classification uses is very great, since the conceptions of ``conservatism'', ``liberalism'', and ``radicalism'' current among different groups in American society do not coincide--- not to speak of the images of "the conservative'', etc. In 1970 a Harris survey asked Americans to decide whether ten ``positions'' it had formulated were liberal or conservative. (Examples: a tougher attitude towards crime, help for blacks in achieving equality immediately, and more spending for protection of the environment.) Opinion was divided---in some cases almost equally---on every position. Equally telling are the differences in Americans' ideas about the platform and political philosophy of their different leaders. Often one and the same political figure is regarded at the same time by various groups as a ``liberal'', a `` conservative'', and a ``centrist''.
This typology is clearly limited and one-sided. Although it takes into account that the liberal and conservative ideologies have played a decisive role in forming the USA's national political consciousness throughout its history, a division of citizens into ``liberals'', ``conservatives'', and ``radicals'' obscures the inner antagonism and heterogeneity of American political consciousness, whose patterns do not fit into the traditional schema. It overlooks, for instance, the socialist tradition in American political ideology, which is more than a century old, and also the socialist trends in mass political consciousness. This, of course, impoverishes and distorts the picture of the USA's ideological, political, and cultural development. In a certain sense the traditional typology is a mechanism of checks and balances for ideology, as the two-party system is for politics.
The search for new typological structures and the critical attitude towards the classical "liberal---conservative---- radical" schema does not mean, however, that the latter should simply be cast aside. It must not be forgotten, particularly 32 if we want to trace the connections between the present state of political consciousness and its traditions, that the old typology is an essential element in the political culture of American society and is firmly established among the accepted rules and symbols of the political game, which the investigator must take into account. The traditional typology is a form of political identification and selfidentification existing within mass consciousness. It is obviously meaningful to Americans, who perceive it, within the national context, as a peculiar sort of code, each symbol of which evokes an unartic ulated series of political associations from personal experience and from the assimilated values of the national culture.
A number of American sociologists have become aware of the one-sidedness of this typology. One radical attempt to break with tradition is the celebrated concept of Charles A. Reich, formulated in The Careening of America (N.Y., 1970). According to Reich, there are three basic types of consciousness in the modern USA: "One was formed in the nineteenth century, the second in the first half of this century, the third is just emerging. Consciousness I is the traditional outlook of the American farmer, small businessman, and worker who is trying to get ahead. Consciousness II represents the values of an organizational society. Consciousness III is the new generation" (p. 16.) Reich describes each type in detail, and in so doing records several changes that have taken place in the political life of American society. But his schema does not present a unified conception of the existing spectrum of political consciousness, because the types he posits are constructed on dissimilar logical bases. Indeed, Reich himself acknowledges that his categories "are. of course, highly impressionistic'', (p. 16). Despite all its weaknesses, Reich's typology captures the discrepancy between the realities of society in the USA and Americans' beliefs about them (p. 12) and uncovers (even if unsystematically) new sides of American political consciousness in the second half of the 20th century, most of which remain beyond the grasp of the traditional model.
Public opinion in Western Europe has not been educated in the traditions of the liberal-conservative dichotomy to the extent it has in America, although in many European countries there have long been parties and other political organizations of liberals and conservatives, the left and the right---and not in name alone, but also in their ideological and political platforms. In Western Europe, each of the opposing ideological and political trends is mainly associated with a definite social group (or groups), which __PRINTERS_P_33_COMMENT__ 3---34 33 often has a mass political organization that more or less adequately expresses and actively defends its interests. Thus the boundaries between the existing ideological and political trends roughly coincide with those between social groups and political parties.
In the USA, neither the liberals nor the conservatives, neither the leftists nor the rightists have their own mass party, and as a rule no one social class stands behind any of these orientations. And so the boundaries between ideological and political trends, social groups, and political parties do not fall together in the USA as they do in Europe. This means there is reason to take into account the conventional distinction between the ``liberal'' and `` conservative'' traditions in typologizing mass political consciousness in America.
The only problem lies in constructing a general typology that reflects the types of value orientations, conceptions, and convictions existing in modern mass consciousness more accurately than the traditional one, and yet not breaking completely with the traditional types used in identification and self-identification. This can clearly be accomplished by looking into the different, and sometimes contradictory, trends within the liberal and conservative (and also left- and right-radical) traditions, and into the boundaries between them.
Thus we take as the basis of the spectrum of types to be modeled the mass individuum's attitudes on a certain range of questions having to do with fundamental political problems in the USA.
First among these are questions that reflect the primary division between liberalism and conservatism in America, which came about in the first half of the 2()th century and retains its significance up to the present. The leading question here is the domain and functions of government and the free market in regulating public life and exercising political power. Differences on this question were predetermined by the different conceptions held by liberals and conservatives about man (his nature and destiny), the functioning and development of society as a whole, and fundamental values such as freedom, equality, and justice. All other differences between liberals and conservatives, whether concerned with domestic or foreign politics, are derivative.
Second are questions posed by the modern development of the USA, which have been the object of confrontation not only between liberals and conservatives, and within each of those two camps, but also between them and the outsiders. Of particular interest from this point of view are the 34 problems that were at the center of discussion in the '60s and '70s---during the Vietnam war, the unrest among blacks and students, and Watergate---and also afterwards, when the need arose to comprehend and assimilate the contradictoryexperience of the past years and when forces trying to turn the country to the right began to exert a perceptible influence. It is an examination of these questions that will uncover new tendencies in the development of social and political thought and in mass political consciousness that do not fit into the traditional typology. These questions concern many aspects of the life of modern American society. Among them are:
---the way the letter and spirit of the fundamental principles of American democracy, formulated by the Founding Fathers, are to be realized in political practice (``Is America a democratic country?'');
---the identification of political power (``Who has real political power in America?'');
---government economic and social policies (especially programs for building a "welfare state'') and questions of equality;
---the working of government in carrying out repressive functions and in observing the rights guaranteed by the Constitution;
---morals and ``lifestyle'';
---ethnic and racial relations (``Is America a racist country?'');
---foreign-policy orientation;
---war and peace;
---ways and forms for bringing about needed changes in the country.
Finally, there is another group of questions that ought to be included in the matrix of American society's political consciousness in the '60s and '70s. Here liberals and conservatives basically agree, but there are differences between various groups within American society. They concern:
---attitude towards the institution of property;
---prospects for a socialist transformation of America;
---means for effecting radical changes in the country.
Thus the matrix of modern American society's political consciousness should include questions regarding the appraisal of the existing social and political system, the social ideal, the institution of private property, the machinery of political power, the two-party system, the rights of man, the domain and functions of government, the domain and functions of the free market, corporations and their place in the life of society, the basic directions 35 and principles of foreign policy, and the means for bringing about social change and who should initiate it.
If necessary, these central questions can be decoded and broken down by the investigator. In studying the question of the machinery of political power, for instance, the attitude of the mass subject may be examined not only as regards the actual principle of the "three branches" and its realization in modern political practice but also as regards the functions and social role of the bureaucracy (or technobureaucracy) in present-day American society. Similarly, in considering the question of the domain and functions of bourgeois government it is possible to single out a whole series of its aspects (for example, government policy in economic regulation, government social policy, and the carrying out of repressive functions) and to analyze existing attitudes on each of them. The list of questions given could, if needed, be expanded by a detailed analysis of foreign policy (policies towards the Western allies, the developing countries, and the socialist countries), or a closer analysis of the strategy and tactics to be used in making political and economic changes within the country---and so on, depending on which questions become pressing and can be used for differentiation.
The attitudes of the mass subject, systematized according to the suggested matrix and the ``classical'' tradition, ultimately give us the following set of types of mass political consciousness in modern American society:
1) liberal-technocratic, 2) liberal-reformist, 3) libertarian, 4) traditionalist, 5) neoconservative, 6) radicalpropertarian, 7) radical-racist, 8) right-populist, 9) radical-democratic, 10) radical-rebellious, 11) radicalromantic, 12) radical-socialist. The names given to the types are provisional; they were chosen to indicate both ties to tradition and departures from it.
These types differ from one another in content, in the degree of their consolidation and stability, in their prevalence, and in their prospects for further development; in doing so they reflect the internal contradictions of nonMarxist consciousness within American society. Nonetheless, each of these types represents actually existing trends of development in the political life of the USA and, taken together, they form an adequately representative and integral system. An analysis of this system will make it possible to understand both the political consciousness of America in the '70s and the underlying logic according to which political consciousness functions and develops in American society. But first it is necessary to correlate the various types that make up the system, in other words, 36 to consider them as social and political trends operative' within that particular period. Moreover, these trends are to be considered as functions ot the basic mechanisms of social regulation, which under the conditions of capitalism, are the market and the slate.
The self-regulating market, which occupies the dominant position in a free-enterprise' system, not only shapes economic relations but also brings about political structures, a political and cultural climate, and, finally, a certain type of personality and consciousness. This also holds true for a state which, in addition to exerting direct political pressure, performs a number of other functions to guarantee the supremacy of the bourgeoisie.
Although the market and the state have coexisted throughout the history of capitalist society, they have played different roles at different times, and in the final analysis this has affected existing systems of political consciousness as well. When the free market predominates over the state, types of consciousness with market characteristics (most simply termed market consciousness) are prevalent in capitalist society. But as the state assumes the leading role, subordinating the market to itself, there is a gradual shift from market consciousness to a type in which etatist characteristics (etatist consciousness) prevail.
The development of capitalism (as a formation) can be seen as a movement within the confines of a system defined by the market and the etatist poles. Consequently, the evolution of political consciousness in bourgeois society can also be seen as taking place within the same continuum, whose two poles represent abstract systems of general traits that characterize (to one degree or another) the existing types of consciousness, which in turn are shaped by the market and the state. Thus each concrete type corresponds to a specific: stage along the path from one pole to the other.
In other words, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois consciousness can be either of the market or the etatist order, and consequently be marked by significantly different characteristics. And thus liberalism and conservatism alike may be either market or etatist, and undergo all the resulting modifications.
Market consciousness is an economic: consciousness; it ties the solution of basic social problems, including the exercise of power, to the operation of self-regulating economic mechanisms. Market consciousness regards competition, without any external (administrative) limitations, as a universal principle in the functioning and development of the social organism. Its outlook is individualistic; 37 individual (personal) existence is taken as the highest value and goal. (The state, society, and God---concepts which are suprapersonal by their very nature---are apprehended and evaluated through the prism of personal experience and private interests.) Market consciousness is antibureaueratic in the sense that it believes all social functions, including the political function, should be accomplished spontaneously, without control or mediation. It gives preference to morality, rather than law, as a mechanism for regulating the behavior of individuals, groups, and society as a whole.
Etatist consciousness is a political (administrative) consciousness; it ties the solution of basic social problems, including the functioning of the market, to the operation of the mechanisms of political (state) control. Etatist consciousness is oriented towards the limitation of competition and the purposeful regulation of social conflicts. Its outlook is suprapersonal; the interests of the whole (of the state, in particular, or of the corporation or some other organization) are taken to be higher than individual (private) interests, and individualism is either replaced by corporate collectivism or subordinated to it. Etatist consciousness is rationalistic: in that it looks to organi/ation and bureaucratic:, ``scientific'' management relying on the precise planning and the principle of expediency. It gives preference to legal mechanisms, rather than morality, in regulating the behavior of individuals, groups, and society as a whole.
What does the American system of types of mass political consciousness represent, viewed in terms of the market-- etatist dichotomy? In what direction is the evolution of that system moving?
The history of Europe (or at least of that continent's more developed countries) from the emergence of capitalism to the beginning of the 20(h century may be conceived as a movement away from an etatist system of social relations (feudalism) and towards a market system (free-- enterprise capitalism); this movement was reflected, too, in the realm of political consciousness. As Europe moved from free-enterprise capitalism to imperialism and statc-moiiopolv capitalism came into being, the role of government in the' life of society grew steadilv. At the- same' lime, European political consciousness returned, as ii were. Irom the market system to the etatist one'---in a far more' developed and complex lorm, oi course'.
Unlike Europe, the United Stales (as a consequence of thehistorical peculiarities outlined earlier) never knew developed precapitalist etatism. I he free market has played the 38 decisive role- in the life of American society ever since the beginning of the nation's history. But although market tendencies were stronger and purer in America than in Europe, they have weakened perceptibly wilh the USA's entry into the era of imperialism, and especially since the time of the New Deal. In the more than forty years since, the trend towards etatization e>f the USA's social and political life, and particularly of its economy, has grown steadily stronger, aided in no little measure by the USA's participation in the World War II, and afterwards in the cold war. At the end of the '60s and beginning of the '70s, this trend reached its highest point in American history. In the assessment of Soviet economists, "state-monopolist regulation of the US economy attained an essentially new level in the '60s. It is characterized by a concentration of financial resources in the hands of government hitherto unprecedented in contemporary capitalism, by wide-scale and purposeful government intervention in the process of production, and by the development and diversification of the arsenal of methods for economic regulation.''^^1^^ In addition to strengthening the government's economic role, the trend towards etatization also gave it a cultural and ideological function, which was a relative innovation. The inevitable consequence of this two-fold process was a growth of the government apparatus, which showed a tendency to make its activity into an end in itself, and also to generalize the specific forms of that activity. Ultimately,this also helped to break down the individualoriented personality formed under the dominance of market consciousness.
The development of etatist processes in the USA's public life necessarily evoked a corresponding transformation of non-Marxist political consciousness: there was a gradual shift in the center of gravity from the market pole to the etatist one. This tendency (and also the accompanying reaction towards the market pole) finds expression in the suggested model of the system of consciousness. Within the spectrum modeled, it is liberal-technocratic consciousness that reflects etatist consciousness most fully and consistently. But even those types that gravitate to the market pole (which is embodied in libertarian consciousness) and take part in the reaction of market consciousness to etalization (neoconservative consciousness) show a more or less e:lear imprint of etatism in granting to government a number of functions it did not possess earlier---functions it has _-_-_
~^^1^^ The I'SA:
Russian).
Ihe Stale anil the Kcnnomy, Moscow, 1076, pp. 11, 12 (in
It may be supposed that the trend to etati/ation in the political consciousness of the L'SA will persist, inasmuch as many phenomena in national and international life indicate that the functions of bourgeois government will be extended to more and more areas of public and private life: the monopolistic concentration of production continues, complicating the system of connections within the economy; the scientific and technological revolution accelerates and its consequences are increasingly felt; the militaryindustrial complex plays an ever more important role; and world socialism, which stands opposed to world capitalism (with the USA at its head), continues to fortify its position. The intensification of internal social conflicts has been, and still is, a strong factor working for etatization. As history has shown, acute conflicts can sometimes bring to power advocates of extreme forms of government intervention; but even aside from such critical situations, the role of arbiter and regulator in social conflicts, which modern bourgeois government is assuming with ever greater frequency, is of exceptional political significance. Finally, there is one more factor working for the etati/ ation of American society (and of bourgeois society in general) that ought to be mentioned: the "acceleration effect'', as it might be called. In carrying out measures aimed at regulating the economy, stimulating scientific and technological progress, and drawing up prognoses and programs, government inevitably brings about new conflicts by its very interference, and these in turn can be resolved only by extending the role of government still further.
But however intensive the etatization of public life and political consciousness in the USA, it cannot nullify the operation of market mechanisms and destroy the bipolar system of political consciousness as such. No matter how concentrated and centralized capital becomes, no matter how far the government's regulatory function is strengthened in the economy, capitalism remains a market system by nature, and the reproduction of market consciousness is still a necessary condition for its existence. To put it another way, as long as capitalism exisls market consciousness will continue to function (although its scale and forms may change significantly in the course of lime). The tradition 40 of individualism should also be taken into account; it is still very strong in the USA, and has reacted vigorously lo the process of etati/ation. In principle, individualism (as a broad complex of orientations and priorities, not reducible to entrepreneurial initiative) might also arisein an etatisi culture. Within the American tradition, however, it has been directly tied to the dominance of the marketplace, and thus each wave of the individualist renaissance (hat accompanies etatization serves to regenerate market consciousness. This is what happened, for example, at the threshold of the 'XOs, when the Reagan Administration came to power.
Thus, although it appears most likely that in the overall view etatist tendencies will predominate in American political consciousness, its evolution will evidently not represent a linear growth of etatist tendencies and an automatic weakening of market ones, but rather a continuation of the struggle between the two, in which zigzags and reversions are possible. Indeed, thai struggle may give rise to novel and unforeseen constellations of political consciousness that will overthrow the existing typologies and demand the construction of new models.
And finally, the question of the social base of the types of political consciousness comprised by the modeled spectrum must be considered. American political consciousness, like the consciousness of any other bourgeois society, has a class character. It is permeated with conflicting social and political tendencies that express the interests and strategic goals of different classes within American society, among them the bourgeoisie and the working class, whose relations are antagonistic. In this, America is no different from other capitalist countries, such as France or Italy. The specific character of the USA (as regards national political consciousness) manifests itself in the ability of the dominant class, making use of the peculiar historical development of the USA (especially in the formation and evolution of classes), to create in social consciousness a "zone of common interest" broader than any that exists in other capitalist societies. A concrete example is the mythical "American dream'', which to one degree or another influences the consciousness of all classes in American society. This community of interests cannot resolve class differences---the more so in that it often proves itself to be imaginary---but nonetheless it erodes to some extent the demarcations between the positions and orientations of the various classes, which in any case have never been hard and firm. As a result, it not infrequently happens that a political orientation cannot be assigned a specific social 41 localization and, conversely, that disparate social and political tendencies develop within the consciousness of one and the same class.
Thus, each of the types of political consciousness to be found in American society is, as it were, ``floating''. The individual types do not each represent a fixed and straightforward expression of the consciousness of a definite social class, and cannot always be identified unambiguously with the position of a concrete political party or interest group. What each of the types of political consciousness considered here is tied to is a definite type of social existence shaped by the course of history. An analysis of these latter types will open the way to modeling and analyzing the typology of political consciousness.
[42] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Two __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE LIBERAL TRADITION ANDIn the Western political tradition (including that of the USA) the emergence of liberalism is linked to the genesis and development of bourgeois society and coincides chronologically with the 17th-18th-century bourgeois revolutions. The ideology of early (traditional) liberalism represented that stage in the development of bourgeois social thought which occurred when the bourgeoisie, the leader of the fight against feudalism, was a progressive class. The place of liberalism in the battle of ideas in the 17th-18th centuries was determined by the fact that it was the first to formulate the basic principles of the bourgeois social order which replaced the old economic, political and judicial institutions. Karl Marx wrote about the ideas of physiocrats, who laid down the foundation of economic liberalism: "It is in fact the first system which analyses capitalist production, and presents the conditions within which capital is produced, and within which capital produces, as eternal natural laws of production.''^^1^^
The physiocrats and, later, Adam Smith criticized the feudal regimentation of economic life and supported the laissez-faire policy advanced by contemporary commercial and manufacturing circles which demanded the abolition of guild regimentation, of restrictions on foreign trade, etc. Adam Smith's "system of natural freedom" proposed to give plenty of scope to individual initiative, set economic activity free from state control and encourage free enterprise and commerce.
In the early stages of capitalist development, the laissez-faire philosophy was a powerful ideological weapon against the restrictions imposed on economic life by the feudal state. The liberals believed that the "invisible hand" of the capitalist market would effectively replace feudal etatism.
_-_-_^^1^^ n Snrl>lii.-'(iliii'. Pan I, Progress Publishers. Moscow,
43A strong impel us to liberalism was provided by the English Revolution of 164H, whose ideologists, particularly John Locke, made a major contribution to the advancement and popularization of the basic tenets of liberalism. Their ideas were instrumental in shaping the liberal tradition in the USA immediately before the American War of Independence.
However, despite ideological continuity between European and American liberalism, the latter was much more than merely an American variant of the former. The formation of liberal ideology in the United States was not a simple mechanical transplantation and dissemination of English or Continental ideas on American soil. In a lengthy and contradictory process, they were adapted to the specifically American experience, acquiring new traits determined by the features characteristic of American capitalist development and absent in the European tradition.
Whereas in Europe the bourgeois-liberal principles came up against vigorous opposition from feudal aristocratic reactionary circles and had to battle their way forward, in the United States thier progress was much smoother.
European liberalism, which represented the interests of the new class made up of the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie and the middle strata, waged a battle against absolutism within the traditional feudal institutions. At the same time, it endeavored to hold back both any largescale revolutionary action by the peasantry and the urban lower strata and also any far-reaching democratic reforms, and it opposed petty-bourgeois radicalism. The European bourgeoisie, trying to reconcile its own interests with the interests of old landed aristocracy, was faced with the need to fight against both the conservatism of feudal reaction and radical democratic movements; all of this made its policy contradictory, its goals limited, and all led to a class compromise between the bourgeoisie and the ``new'' gentry. This considerably restricted the social grounds of European liberalism, alienating this initially antifeudal movement from the more radical advocates of bourgeois-democratic reforms. As a result, mass antifeudal action by the urban and country poor produced independent ideological and political trends (Diggers, Levellers, revolutionary Jacobinism, etc.). Later the initiative was to pass to the more radical socialists, socialdemocrats and left radicals, who enjoyed broader social support. They took it upon themselves to implement the goals of the bourgeois revolution, such as the agrarian reforms, universal suffrage and the basic constitutional rights of citizens, and managed to partially crowd the liberals out of the European political arena.
44In the United States, the dynamics of class struggle were different: on the eve of 1776, the political interests of the American commercial and manufacturing bourgeoisie and those of the farmers basically coincided, and they formed a united I rout against British rule.
In the 18th century, and especially its third quarter, American capitalism advanced rapidly, bringing about the socio-economic consolidation of the North American colonies. However, its progress was checked by a system of semi-feudal institutions and regulations that had their origins in the colonial status of the North American States. The economic policy of the colonial administration was particularly detrimental to farmers, the country's numerically largest social group which at the time comprised 90 to 95 per cent of the population. The farmers especially resented the harassment of squatters, the introduction of taxes in favor of Crown, and the distribution of large land grants to Loyalists. This policy was also injurious to American commerce and manufacturing bourgeoisie, which voiced its dissatisfaction with the harsh protectionist measures of the British government.
This alignment of political forces favored the broad dissemination of liberal ideas, and at the same time caused their i actualization.
A major feature of American liberalism was a radical capitalist approach to the agrarian question. It involved expropriation of Crown lands and those belonging to the Loyalists, setting up a large public stock of land with a view to distributing or selling it to farmers, legalization of the status of squatters, etc. This radical approach to the agrarian issue won American liberalism broad social support, primarily among farmers.
The egalitarian tendencies, clearly detectible at the roots of American liberalism, also revealed themselves in its agrarian policy. They are discernible in the criticism of the excessive concentration of property but never went as far as demanding egalitarian redistribution of wealth. The reason for this lies in the dual character of American liberalism, where the egalitarian trend has always been subordinated to the proprietary trend, which stresses property rights. Moreover, the constant land hunger of American farmers could be appeased, without resorting to an egalitarian reallotment of the available stock, through external sources, chiefly the conquest of Western territories. The huge tracts of unsettled lands belonging to the state were cleverly used to smooth over the contradictions inherent in capitalism (here, the contradiction between big and petty proprietors), a safety valve that served to 45 prevent a dangerous polarization of class forces and impede the growth of class consciousness.
Later, the egalitarian sentiment frequently cropped up in mass movements of protest---the antitrust movement, the populist movement, the movement for state control over the railways, for universal and free primary education, for civil rights for blacks, for the right to organise labor unions, for subsidies for farmers, for legislation on working hours and minimum wages, for women's rights and, finally, for social security. These egalitarian ideas have prompted some American historians and politologists to talk about the``radical'' and ``aggressive'' character of liberal reformism in the USA as compared with ``conservative'' European liberalism (see, for instance, I.. Hart/, The Liberal Tradition in America, N.Y., 1955, p. 260).
The existence of vast undeveloped territories and resources, which made possible the expansion of capitalism while curbing the contradictions inevitable during its development, conditioned the strategy of expansion intrinsic to early American liberalism which regarded it as a way of settling the economic and social problems facing the United States. With the passage of time, expansion as a means of coping with the difficulties accompanying the growth of capitalism came to be viewed by liberalism as a standard proposition and became the key element in both its domestic and foreign policy strategy.
The expansion of American capitalism was, of course, unable to remove the deeply rooted contradictions between the egalitarian and the proprietary trends in the American liberal tradition. However, it temporarily reduced the tension in liberal consciousness by stressing free enterprise, which determined the development of liberalism in the first half of the 19th century. The idea of equality advanced by the American Revolution was interpreted by liberalism---both as regards production relations and the legal norms of capitalist society---as equality of opportunity.
Capitalism could develop and function normally only if its economic agents working towards individual success were absolutely autonomous and if each of them, no matter which property group he belonged to, saw himself as an equal (before the anonymous forces of the "free market'') private entrepreneur whose prosperity depended entirely on his business energy, diligence, initiative, etc. In other words, American capitalism required that the model of entrepreneurial consciousness (reflecting the normal illusions of an average agent of capitalist commodity production) be given ideological substantiation and become firmly fixed in mass consciousness. In this, liberalism also had a part to play.
46Without this substantiation the mechanism of capitalist relations could not have functioned smoothly. Marx wrote about the categories of bourgeois political economy which gave an ideological substantiation of such views: "They are forms of thought expressing with social validity the conditions and relations of a definite, historically determined mode of production, vi/., the production of commodities.''^^1^^
Throughout the 19th century, liberalism advocated the idea of a social system under which socio-economic relations would be regulated spontaneously by an ``impersonal'', and therefore just, free market mechanism that would allow every independent individual producer to be guided by his own interests, with the final result being the advancement of the public weal. Liberalism, therefore, demanded unlimited freedom for private enterprise. It was assumed that the principles of "free enterprise" would lead to a social order characterized by a reasonably just and comprehensive distribution of wealth, with everyone offering goods for sale having to produce them first. The liberal model envisaged, in effect, a commonwealth of independent producers.
The key role in the ideology of 19th-century American liberalism was played by the concept of noninterference by the state in economic and social relations, and the concept of a self-regulating social system made possible by the free market mechanism. Historically, these two closely connected concepts met the objective demands of the developing production relations of that period, which were based on free competition and the existence of numerous small and medium ``family'' enterprises. The head of each enterprise, who was both its owner and manager, acted at his own discretion and at his own risk and responsibility. Interaction among the numerous economic agents took place on the basis of a self-regulating market mechanism; a developed system of state restrictions and control over them was almost nonexistent.
The principal function of the state as understood by liberalism was to protect the property of citizens and to establish the general bounds of free competition between individual producers. Apart from this, free, independent and equal individuals had only themselves to rely on and were supposed to establish their relations through private reciprocal agreements in economic, political and other fields.
The capitalist market, with its laws of free play, was thus considered a universal regulator of all aspects of the overall social process, and not just the economic matters. _-_-_
~^^1^^ C.iipilnl. Vol. I, 1'iogress Publishers, Moscow, 1974. p. 80.
47 The role of the state was reduced to that of a night watchman who had to ensure the smooth functioning of the capitalist system. The state was to embody and safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity and to protect and further expand the territory of free enterprise (the war against the American Indians, the annexation of California, Louisiana and Texas, the purchase of Alaska, etc.). It was also the responsibility of the state to regulate relations with the world outside, especially foreign trade, in the interests of its entrepreneur citi/ens. The internal function of the state was chiefly to introduce laws governing the appropriation of new territories and their distribution to private owners, and to watch over the legislative aspect of competitive relations between individuals. As for these relations themselves based on the free market interaction of economic agents, interference in them by the state was to be checked as detrimental to economic efficiency and social stability.Liberalism saw the advantages of market regulation in the fact that the market mechanism, with its ``unbiassed'' system of punitive sanctions and rewards founded on equivalent exchange, met the demands of objective suprapersonal justice and equality, while intervention by the state in economic processes threatened to undermine the ``natural' foundations of the social order. However, at different stages ol capitalist development in the USA, the market had differing social and class significance. When bourgeois society was just emerging, the reliance on the market played a progressive role, for it was turned against the economic claims of privileged groups that used the levers of state regulation to further their own interests (as was the case in the feudal state). Later, the situation changed completely. In the 19th century, the mechanism of equivalent exchangewas referred to in order to prove the moral acceptability and legitimacy of the social inequality engendered by the capitalist system, and to protect the privileges gained as a result of competition. Conditioned by market fetishism, mass consciousness assimilated the idea that exploitation, inequality and injustice in relations between social groups and individuals were impossible under the laws of equivalent exchange, provided the exchange itself was carried out according to market rules. Illusions of this sort were uprooted much later, when the contradictions of capitalist commodity production became apparent.
However, as long as capitalism in America rested on free enterprise, remaining in its premonopoly stage with petty proprietor's forming its social basis, it continued to feed the belief in a society of equal opportunity and in the 48 principles and values proclaimed by early liberalism, now firmly entrenched in mass consciousness.
In the second half of the 19th century, the field of operation of free competition was considerably decreasing; the basis of free enterprise---the mass character of the private ownership of the means of production---was being undermined by the concentration of property. It became apparent that, far from automatically ensuring public weal, the free play of market forces brought about numerous bankruptcies and growing social inequality. The more freedom and less control over the economy, the less stable the position of innumerable small and meclium-si/ed enterprises which formed the basis of the free-enterprise system on the preservation of which traditional liberalism placed its hopes for the maintenance of a viable society.
In such a situation, it was difficult to cling to the view of capitalism as a society of equal opportunity, where success was more or less directly proportionate to individual talents and zeal, and where a certain level of prosperity and economic independence was, in principle, within everyone's reach. A contradiction gradually became perceptible between the advertised principles of freedom and equal opportunity and the facts of capitalist society, where the interaction of independent producers proved to be not a peaceful contest but a fight of all against all, with the big tycoon rather than the most hard-working, energetic: and persistent person coming out the winner. That contradiction caused a profound crisis of values in liberal consciousness.
In the late 19th century domination of the economic magnates stirred up the opposition of the petty bourgeoisie and the middle class. However, the power of the new oligarchy could have been sapped only by shattering the very foundations of capitalist society, and the bourgeoisie was not prepared to do this. Its stand was therefore highly contradictory.
In the 188()s-90s, the dissatisfaction of the petty bourgeoisie and the middle class with the consequences of noninterference by the state found an outlet in mass movements such as populism and the movement for antitrust legislation, whose ideologists though advancing liberal slogans, severely criticized the noninterference policy as, contrary to expectations, undermining the basis of free enterprise and in fact helping those who happened to be "more equal'', thanks to inherited or acquired wealth, than their less fortunate rivals.
The ideologists of these movements were convinced that private property could not but remain the basis of the __PRINTERS_P_49_COMMENT__ 4---34 49 social system, but at the same time advocated state interference in the mechanism of the capitalist market with a view to preventing the negative consequences of its operation. Populists and the antitrust movement and later Progressives believed that the basically just principles of the market mechanism need not be replaced but only modified, so that the mechanism itself could not be upset by those market agents who had acquired excessive power and, consequently, control over the market, which they used to their own advantage.
Thus in the late 19th century American faith in the beneficial regulating capacities of the state, which would prevent social polarization and take care of the middleclass, began to grow. The impact on mass consciousness of the etatist tendency became pronounced; sooner or later, it was destined to considerably modify liberal ideology.
As for big American bourgeoisie, it had reason enough to remain faithful to laisse/-faire principles, which implanted into mass consciousness an image of the economic system that masked the actual power of the economic magnates and nourished illusions advantageous to them, allowing them to conceal their supremacy behind a smoke-screen of "great principles''.
In the period when capitalism was still only emerging and fighting feudalism laisse/.-faire principles played a progressive role, but as the social antagonisms of bourgeois society intensified, they came to represent the claims of those economically and politically powerful sections of the bourgeoisie which demanded complete and unlimited freedom in exploiting hired labor and concentrating capital in their hands, i.e., assumed a conservative function.
Therefore, already in the late 19th century, differing social and political interests in the United States began to clash with increasing frequency over the role of the state in the life of society. As American capitalism grew, the mechanism of market regulation proved irrational, and this made the more far-sighted representatives of the American bourgeoisie appreciate its destructive role in the economic, if not the social, sphere. This in turn stimulated the evolution of the liberal tradition; support of the free market gave way to a recognition of the need for more slate interference in economic and social processes. This re-orientation was later sealed by the reforms of the NewDeal and substantiated by the ideology of new liberalism.
The transition to state-monopoly regulation and restriction of market mechanisms were at first regarded by the American bourgeoisie as a total rejection of the liberalindividualist tradition in favor of etatism and dangerous 50 socialist impulses. An important comment should be made at this point. The loyalty of big business to laissez-faire principles did not prevent it from welcoming those actions of the state which promoted its prosperity. Ben Seligman, an American economist, wrote that "there was a curious contradiction in the thinking of the businessman: protective tariffs and land grants were received with a certain graciousness, but aid to farmers or regulation of business or social welfare measures were outright violations of the law of nature implicit in laissez-faire".^^1^^ Pledging allegiance to the laissez-faire policy, big business in fact accepted only that part of it which could beturned to its advantage. However, the situation began to change gradually as American capitalism entered, in the early 20th century, its imperialist stage, accompanied by an increase in the range of duties and the field of action of the bourgeois state, which acquired new functions deriving from the objective demands of production:
---to acquire new markets for the mass-produced goods and services. The reforms, which drew a greater number of people into consumption, were necessary to lubricate the capitalist machine. Otherwise goods would not sell and their production would bring in no profits. Stimulation of mass consumption by boosting the purchasing power of the population became a major condition of economic growth and social stability;
---to reduce the social and political tension generated by the increasing radicalism of the working classes. The pressure from trade unions, farmers' associations and other politically active groups who wanted change had forced the ruling elite to compromise;
---to find a bourgeois alternative to a socialist transformation of society.
From supporting big business, the bourgeois state moved on to active and comprehensive intervention in economic and social process, which resulted in the emergence, in the 2()th century, of a complex system of state-monopoly regulation. Its foundations were laid in the late 19th century by the introduction of laws controlling the activities of the trusts, and it was further developed during the First World War, when economic reserves had to be mobilized to meet the needs of the army and when state control over production and distribution had to be organized. But a much more powerful stimulant was the economic crisis of 1929--33 and the stagnation that followed it.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Sc'ligmun, I he Potentates: Business anil Rusinessrnen in American History, N.V., 1971. p. 20.'!.
51For the first time in conditions of peace, the Great Depression compelled the state to establish direct control over the economic process as a whole, and not only with a view to stimulating the economy to get it over the unprecedented recession (which put an end to faith in the stabilizing influence of the free market mechanism). Urgent measures were also required to avoid social cataclysm.
The Great Depression confirmed the suspicions of the more realistically minded members of the ruling elite that capitalism by itself did not guarantee stability. 1 he failure of the market mechanisms to ensure the prosperity of the capitalist economy led to attempts to find a third way between uncontrollable capitalism and totalitarian planning (as in Nazi Germany), the latter threatening to do away with traditional liberal freedoms. This middle way called for interference by the state in the socio-economic: field. The market was subject to control, and property was no longer considered inviolable if it stood in the way of social stability.
Attempts to overcome consequences of the Great Depression ended in a split in the US ruling class. One part of it still advocated the traditional idea of an ``optimal'' social order based on self-regulating market processes, while the other insisted on restricting the market in a changed situation in which only state interference could protect the long-term interests of the ruling class. The recognition of the^ vital importance of state control for the stability of the capitalist system was a turning point on the road of liberalism leading to the so-called "new liberalism'', which stressed the role of the state and advocated socio-economic reforms.
Yet there were profound contradictions inherent in the new course. It consolidated capitalism, but at the same time engendered new problems which aggravated the tension within the ruling class and brought into question a whole set of traditional values based on the principles of the inviolability of private property and free enterprise. On the one hand, state-monopoly regulation was deliberately introduced by the bourgeoisie, but on the other, it was viewed as a dangerous step towards socialism.
It is a fact that the New Deal, the foundation of the American political and economic system, was at one time given a hostile reception by entrepreneurial associations, who resented state intervention and took a consistently antietatist stand.
The attitude of the American bourgeoisie towards statemonopoly reforms remains contradictory, which is reflected by political groups adopting different ideological positions 52 and differing in their appraisal of various aspects of state-monopoly regulation.
For one thing, big business is afraid that a state which is too powerful may become uncontrollable. These fears are not groundless. Soviet researchers in the field have repeatedly noted a tendency towards increased independence on the part of the bourgeois state and therefore its exposure to pressure from the working people and the political forces representing them. The bourgeoisie strives to keep this process under control and prevent the powers and prerogatives of the state from getting beyond its influence.
On the one hand, the bourgeoisie still wants to be able to exercise unlimited authority over its property, enterprises and workers, and resists any encroachment by the state on this authority if this is not dictated by an extreme and obvious necessity.
On the other hand, an increasingly large section of the ruling class realizes that today it can function successfully only in close cooperation with the state. The desire to channel the economic and social policies of the state to suit its convenience impels big capital and its pressure groups to strengthen its links with the state. To be able to operate, any modern enterprise has to settle the questions of sales, subsidies, taxation, credits, state contracts and orders, and tariff rates, and this is impossible without stably operating contacts with the state.
The situation described above has caused an important shift in the ideological and political position of American big business.
In his book The New American Ideology, George G. Lodge, who shares the views of a large and influential section of big business, states that today individualism of the old variety is outdated and that the old ideology no longer corresponds to the changed political and economic situation.^^1^^ According to Lodge, modern America, a country of corporations and not of petty tradesmen, has outgrown the ideology traditionally used to legitimize business and the very economic system of the United States. Today, when practically every aspect of the activity of the big bourgeoisie depends on state decisions, a new concept of American ideology is called for. Big business can adapt itself to the changed situation only by rejecting the traditional market patterns, and there are indications "that the separation of economic activity from its political and social context is an aberration from the norm''.^^2^^ The significance _-_-_
~^^1^^ Lodge, I he Ncir American Ideology, N.Y., 1975, p. (i.
^^2^^ Ibid., p. 86.
53 of the political factor, with its growing influence on the economic process in the conditions of contemporary social development, should be reappraised.Indeed, with the advance of state-monopoly capitalism, the economic and political spheres become closely interwoven, so that the industrialists come to depend more and more on state decisions; at the same time, the economy itself is becoming a factor determining the political course of the state, with the state-monopoly institutions regulating the whole process. In the meantime, industrialists are becoming increasingly aware of the fact that their participation in the political struggle is inevitable if they want to be able to protect their individual, group and class interests at the political level. Therefore, support of etatist tendencies by the big American bourgeoisie in fact signifies its reaction to the expansion of economic functions assumed by the state, and originates in its desire to adapt to the imperatives of state-monopoly organization and to consolidate its influence on the power mechanism.
The research by George C. Lodge, who advocates the theory of the transformation of big business ideology, has shown that there has been a radical change in its basic concepts and values. Traditionally, its central tenets were individualism, private property, competition and noninterference by the state in business affairs. These ``natural'' principles, which found their support in the protestant work ethic, formed the basis of industrialist consciousness. However, in the America of today, these ideals retain validity in the eyes of the petty bourgeoisie and the middle class. As for the big bourgeoisie, it continues to pay them lip-service, but in fact has long been guided by other ideological and political rules. In Lodge's opinion, contemporary businessmen have accepted the role of the state as a planner and regulator.
As opposed to traditional American ideology based on individualism, property rights, free competition, and the concept of "the limited state'', the features of the new American ideology are Communitarianism, which recognizes that individual development is possible only in the community; stress on society's needs and also on the rights of the individual as a member of the community, those rights determined according to the concept of justice accepted by the community (for instance, the idea that the income of each member should not fall below a certain level); recognition of the state as a planning and coordinating body; and, finally, pronounced integrationalist tendencies characteristic of contemporary society, and an emphasis on ``wholism''.
In the opinion of Edwin Epstein, "At a time when, as we 54 have seen, virtually every aspect ol corporate activity is vitally affected by decisions made at all levels of government, business managers fear that corporate abstinence from political involvement would subject business firms to the hazards of lambs dwelling in a meadow also inhabited bywolves.''^^1^^
Traditionally, the businessman was motivated only by a desire to obtain maximum profit, whereas a modern manager has to think out a more complex economic strategy and make decisions determining the corporation's long-term policies and affecting the interests of diverse social groups: shareholders, employees, consumers, people living in the vicinity of the industrial enterprises belonging to the corporation, etc. If---and it is not improbable---any of these groups is opposed to the decision, it can block its implementation at a point when considerable resources have already been invested. Since the 19B()s-70s, American business has had to cope with opposition from a number of new social and political movements: consumers', ecologists', etc., which proclaim themselves defenders of public interests and, without striving for any fundamental alterations of the system itself, are nevertheless a barrier to entrepreneurial arbitrariness. The manager cannot but realize that the problems confronting his corporation can be dealt with only in the broader context of the problems facing American society as a whole.
The transformation of entrepreneurial consciousness, the adaptation of the bourgeoisie to the new situation, and the elaboration of a new system of ideological and political values are processes occurring variously in different groups and strata of this class. Despite agreement on such matters of principle as the inviolability of private property and noninterference by the state in questions of profits and wages, dissimilar political trends sometimes emerge, the political consciousness of American business circles is being formed by a whole range of factors.
Big business began to depart from the philosophy of noninterference as several industries came to rely partially or entirely on the state for marketing, while others, although still leaning towards the free market, were compelled to recogni/e the new role of the state as a stabilizing influence on the national market.
Sociological research in the USA has shown that the latter become especially adamant in their support of the classical principles of industrialist ideology (free enterprise, selfregulating market, maximization of profits, etc.) when _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ethvin M. Epstein, 1 he (<orpnrtition ui Amprnan /Wi/io, Knglowood Cliffs, N.J., 1969, p. 133.
55 threatened with state control over prices, profits and wages. Meanwhile, the industries looking for state orders and subsidies are obviously less concerned about free enterprise.^^1^^Typically, big business reacted to the changes that have taken place over the last decades by attempting to adapt itself to the imperatives of state-monopoly organization. For ordinary Americans, who had learned the lessons of the Great Depression, state interference as embodied in the New Deal meant, above all, an attempt to overcome the crisis, to cut down unemployment and help the needy. For them the concept of state interference acquired a democratic and egalitarian significance. This created the basis for a certain degree of consensus among vastly divergent political groups on the new role of the state in the regulation of economic and social processes, even though these groups pursued different and sometimes conflicting goals.
As a result of this consensus, a new etatist variety of the liberal tradition gathered force at the time of Roosevelt's New Deal as a counter-balance to traditional liberal laissez-faire. However, this new trend was not devoid of contradictions either. That is not surprising since it was the product of a complex evolutionary process, in the course of which liberalism was obliged to adapt to the political and economic interests and ideologies of different social groups that pinned their various hopes on the increasing state regulation in the economic and social fields.
One of the most emphatic features of American liberalism is that it is not uniform, that it is marked by a clash of political and ideological trends within it. This accounts for the contradictory character of liberal consciousness, while also enabling liberal ideology to cater to different political forces and the institutions behind them and to act as a theoretical substratum for various ideological and political tendencies.
Let us now look at two different trends within the liberal tradition. One is the liberal-technocratic, which, in the main, expresses the interests of the establishment, i.e., the state-monopoly elite; the other is the socially heterogeneous liberal-reformist, which expresses the oppositional, antimonopoly attitudes of a large cross-section of American society.
Although these two trends (and therefore the respective types of political consciousness) interact, complement each _-_-_
~^^1^^ Maynard S. Solder, "American Big Business Ideology: a Content Analysis of Executive Speeches'', American Sociological Review, Vol. 39, No. 6, 1974, pp. 802--15.
56 other and sometimes even overlap, their social base and functions, and the prospects they open before American society are different. Each advocates its own variant of the interventionist strategy.Liberal-technocrats aim at furthering social and economic stability and the interests of those proprietors (mostly belonging to the new state-monopoly bourgeoisie) who champion cooperation between business quarters and the state in order to encourage economic growth and the expansion of American capital in the world arena. In domestic policy, liberal-technocrats avoid anything that does not meet the requirements of economic efficiency and may weaken the stimuli of the capitalist market. Their social policy is moderate and stresses reward according to merits and achievements interpreted in the ``meritocratic'' spirit typical of this trend.
Liberal-reformists, in contrast, concentrate on issues of social equality. Their domestic political strategy rests on the concept of transforming capitalism into a welfare state whose aim is not only to guarantee a certain living minimum for every citizen but also to secure equality of living conditions for all by introducing social insurance and social security in health care, education, child care, etc. In this way, they hope to remove major aspects of social life from the influence of the laws of capitalist market economy, and thus to humanize capitalism. The advocates of the welfare state do not limit their aims merely to the distribution of certain material goods and benefits among the more needy but also seek to involve every group of the population in the formulation of socio-economic policy, which affects them all. Their final goal is a more extensive involvement of ordinary citizens in decision-making at every level.
These trends represent two contradicting concepts within contemporary liberal consciousness: eulogistic and reformist. Michael Harrington, a noted American public figure and journalist, wrote in this connection that "one of the hopeful aspects of American liberalism is its contradictory character".^^1^^ Objectively, liberal-technocratic consciousness acts as a stabilizer of existing state-monopoly institutions and an obstacle in the way of social protest, as it represents the interests of those social groups which want to consolidate these institutions as they exist today, without any serious modification. Liberal-reformist consciousness, on the other hand, which stresses democracy and social _-_-_
~^^1^^ M. Harrington, "What Socialists Would Do in America---If They Could'', Dissent, Kail 1978, p. 445.
57 equality, is markedly critical, aniimonopolist and egalitarian. Liberal-reformists even welcome interference by the state in property relations, within certain limits, if this promotes "equality of opportunity''. The liberal-reformist trend represents those social fortes which clearly want contemporary capitalist society altered, and yet remain within the existing system of relations and propose reforms via legal political mechanisms.With this last comment in mind, it is still possible to maintain that the difference between the two trends is not limited to a few individual points; liberal-reformism constitutes a system in itself, and, moreover, a relatively complete and logical system. In the US political spectrum, these two trends of liberal consciousness are like two different shades on the scale. The liberal-technocratic trend stands for the Centrist bloc of political forces, while liberal-reformism represents the Center Left. In contrast to the liberal establishment, liberal-reformists prefer to call themselves ``Progressives'', "left liberals'', and even "moderate radicals''. In the USA, liberal-reformism plays the role of legal left opposition whose political function closely resembles that of social-reformism in Western Europe.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. LIBERAL-TECHNOCRATIC CONSCIOUSNESSGeneral characteristics and genesis. Liberal-technocratic consciousness is that type of practical political consciousness which would appear to be the most consistent and definite in representing the tendency of modern statemonopoly capitalism towards a centralized regulation of economic and social processes on the basis of "technocratic governance''. This iswhat determines its genesis and social foundation, its role in American society and its contradictions.
Liberal-technocratic consciousness emerged when a number of new political and social phenomena and tendencies accompanying the growth of state-monopoly capitalism received their own ideological interpretation.
As production became increasingly socialized, the necessary material prerequisites were created for state control over production and distribution, and this in its turn brought to the forefront the problems of organization and management involved in running the growing American bureaucratic machine. In the first postwar decades, state regulation of the economy was fairly successful: economic progress was indisputable, there were no more crises like the one of the 1930s, a far-flung network of state welfare 58 institutions was set up, etc., all of which appeared to prove the efficiency of state-monopoly organization. As a result, etatist and bourgeois-collectivist tendencies (now sanctioned by the ruling class) won general popularity, and the state itself came to be regarded as a regulating body. Administrative activities were now simply viewed as a major function of contemporary industrial society, as scientifically and technologically justified interference by the state in the realm of economic and social relations, irrespective of the motives behind political behavior, moral values or the ideological and political orientation.
This concept rested on the assumption that under modern capitalism, where market self-regulation with no coordination from the single center has been replaced by planned control and management of economic and social processes, the introduction of the principles of scientific social management becomes the chief condition of social development, with the state taking this task upon itself.
In addition, the state was regarded as a "neutral administrative mechanism''. This thesis was formulated back at the time of the New Deal, when certain sections of the Roosevelt Administration put forward the idea that political governance was a question of managerial ability, not ideology. In the late 1950s, this thesis was revived during discussions on the end of ideology: the champions of the new style of administration "free from ideology and politics" insisted that to solve the more acute social, economic and political problems, the United States required only to improve its managerial mechanism, and that political and ideological battles would only stand in the way of an early solution.
The most clear-cut definition of this concept was given by John Kennedy, who wrote: "What is at stake in our economic decisions today is not some grand warfare of rival ideologies ... but the practical management of a modern economy. What we need are not labels afid cliches but more basic discussion of the sophisticated and technical questions involved in keeping a great economic machinery moving ahead.'' He maintained that "technical answers---not political answers---must be provided".^^1^^
The tendency of the new technocratic style of management is towards replacing political problems by administrative ones and hiding political activity behind the phenomenon of management. Technocratic management implies more than the introduction of scientific and technological principles--- it in fact reduces all social problems to technical and _-_-_
^^1^^ The New York Times, June 12, 1962, p. 20.
59 organizational ones. The technocratic approach is marked by a desire to ``rationalize'' everything and turn it into an object of administrative control, and to neutralize the ``irrational'' political environment. The main element the technocrat seeks to control in this political environment is social conflict.When faced with spontaneous manifestations of political struggle, (such as exacerbation of labor conflicts or an outbreak of popular activity during social upheavals) technocrats regard them only as an annoying encumbrance to the integration strategy and an unforeseen violation of the established order, not as political self-expression of the social forces that are there and seek to alter this order.
This doctrine, and it is essentially a political one no matter what its supporters may declare, represents the views of that part of the US ruling class whose growth has been prompted by postwar state-monopoly reorganization. This category includes, first and foremost, influential functionaries in the administrative apparatus who moved upwards when centralization and bureaucratization created new managerial jobs, and who are now occupying key positions in corporations and state agencies. These are directors of enterprises fulfilling big government orders, business executives, experts and financial advisers employed by government agencies responsible for distributing state orders and subsidies and financing social and economic projects, and top union leaders.
A separate group of the bearers of technocratic consciousness embraces that influential section of society, mainly heads of bigger corporations, whose job is to accommodate state-monopoly capitalism to the swift changes brought about by the scientific and technological revolution. They have at their disposal the means necessary to reconstruct the economy, both the enterprises themselves and the system of production as a whole, on the basis of the latest scientific data. Naturally, the ones who have gained the most from this reconstruction are the corporations that have used their production capacities to serve the war industry, and in particular to produce the latest weapons. When modernizing their enterprises to meet the requirements of the scientific and technological revolution, they have had their bills payed by the state.
A group profiting from the postwar state-monopoly reforms was also that composed of the scientists who set up and headed new research centers and whole branches of science dealing with the theory of economic growth under the new conditions. Having turned into top government officials or heads of scientific institutions lavishly subsidized by both 60 the state and large corporations, they have drastically changed their social status. A partial but significant merger has taken place between capitalists and the top scientific-technocratic stratum which has been integrated into the ruling class.
To assert its right to influence and privileges, the new executive elite had to overcome the opposition of the old bourgeoisie of the traditional entrepreneurial type, i.e., those who owed their place in the economy and management to inherited wealth and contacts in the world of big business. Therefore, the former tends to stress the exceptional value of knowledge and personal achievements. For technocrats, the only point of reference is "objective science''; their social function as they see it is introduction of scientific methods. This tendency is in complete accord with the concept of "the end of ideology'', or to be more precise, the emergence, under the impact of the scientific and technological revolution in modern industrial society, of a new ideology devoid of politics. Technocratic consciousness leans towards positivism and scientism, which became the prevailing principles of the Weltanschauung in the first post-war decades. Social progress, it seemed, could and had to be ensured by the simple application of scientific knowledge to technology.
Claiming to be the only group capable of doing this, technocrats seek to justify their claim to a privileged position in society by pointing to the growing labor productivity and economic progress, which, according to them, guarantee higher living standards for all. But it is this function of technocracy, which may seem to have nothing to do with party or class affiliation, that reveals the class character of everything it is doing. Technocrats claim to represent the "objective demands" of society, the rational requirements of scientific and technological progress, etc., but society itself is a representation of a certain structure of production relations, and it consequently expresses the will of the dominant class forces, trends and interests. Therefore, technocracy is unable to suggest anything but the advance of technology along lines guaranteeing the self-preservation of state-monopoly capitalism and the dominant economic and political forces.
However, despite its significance as to the essence, this statement does not mean that liberal-technocrats have been unable to introduce innovations into their political strategy. One such innovation was to appeal to a broader section of the population than that addressed by the bourgeoisie. Liberal-technocrats formulate their goals in a way that enables not only the bourgeoisie but other strata of the 61 population as well to expect to gain from their implementation. An equally important feature of their strategy is the policy of constantly ``correcting'' capitalism. To keep up faith in its viability, liberal-technocrats endeavor to represent it as capable of changing, ridding itself of its more odious vices and meeting the demands of the public at large.
Problems of domestic and foreign policy. Liberal-- technocrats suggest three principal ways of smoothing over (or at least softening) the innate contradictions of capitalism: constant economic growth; expansionism; moderate social reforms.
The three complement each other and are, in fact, component parts of a single liberal-technocratic strategy in domestic and foreign policy, a strategy that corresponds to the socio-protectiomst tendency of liberal-technocrats. Analyzing these elements separately, we should always bear in mind their deeply rooted interrelation.
The chief condition for economic growth as seen by liberal-technocracy is "the existence or technology, with its promise of rising productivity".^^1^^ The value of technology in the eyes of liberal-technocracy was to a great extent determined by the specific features of the country's postwar development.
The economic boom produced the highest rates of economic growth in the whole history of the United States. The level of employment was high, society seemed to stabilize, and incomes gradually increased. To many Americans, who had not yet forgotten the prewar crisis, the prospects seemed excellent; economic growth came to be viewed as "a good in itself''. It was assumed that the stable rates of growth stimulated by the economic expansion of American capitalism abroad would almost automatically do away with poverty and social inequality. As Daniel Bell put it, "economic growth has become the secular religion of advancing industrial societies''. Bell, stressing the importance of the economic growth strategy for alleviating the internal contradictions of American society, asserts: "Abundance, too, was the American surrogate for socialism.''^^2^^
This is the key to understanding the liberal-technocratic domestic political strategy. They regard economic: growth as highly important not only economically but politically as well, for it provides a way of abolishing need not by a redistribution of the national income but through its _-_-_
~^^1^^ D. Bell, The Coming oj Post-Industrial Society, N.Y., 107:5, p. 30.'!.
^^2^^ D. Bell, The Cultural Contradictions oj Capitalism, N.Y., 1976. pp. 237, 251.
62 conslant absolute growth, i.e., by redistributing the surplus of economic expansion without doing anything about material and social inequality, and leaving intact the socio-economic and political foundations of the existing system. "Implicit in this position is the notion that resolving the tensions between different classes requires no fundamental redistribution of the social product, only its continued growth,'' wrote Benjamin S. Kleinberg. "Growth of the national product is viewed as a good in itself... To the extent that individuals can satisfy their desires for a material improvement of living standards, they lose interest ideology and even in politics itself.''^^1^^The second element in the liberal-technocratic strategy of reintegration of capitalism is expansionism.
Expansionism can be defined as a policy pursued by the exploiting classes and their states aimed at spreading their sphere of influence and at the economic exploitation of other peoples. The general denominator in all cases of expansionism has always been the desire of the dominant classes to appropriate, at the cost of other countries, the means necessary to reinforce the economic foundation of their rule.
Today, when the crisis of capitalism has grown ever more acute, expansionism also helps to resolve inner contradictions of capitalism at the expense of other, usually less developed countries, and serves as a means of ideological and political integration of the population in attempts by the ruling quarters to blunt the conflict between labor and capital c:aused by the unequal distribution of the national product.
Expansionism is deeply rooted in the American liberal tradition. The Founding Fathers of the country used it more than once as a safety valve. However, up to the 20th century, it was limited to annexing frontier territories in the West. It was only at the turn of the century that US expansionism overstepped the boundaries of the continent. James O'Connor writes, "American overseas expansionism began in earnest with the closing of the frontier and the Open Door policy of the 1 89()s. The roots of the modern American economic empire are many and varied (and also somewhat tangled). But one decisive factor was the alliance between conservative labor leaders and corporate chieftains. Both sides agreed to throw their political support to the economic expansionists in order to expand and control foreign markets and thus increase the absolute size of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ li. KU'inbcrg, American Society in the I'ostin/luslnal Age. 'Technocracy, I'ower. and the End of Ideology, Columbus, Ohio, 1973. p. 37.
63 national income pie. They expected (correctly) that the effect would be to soften or mute labor-capital struggles over the distribution of income. At the same time, other interests joined or helped forge the expansionist consensus: importers and exporters, shipping and insurance companies, raw material processors, bankers and farmers. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s ... the basic goals of US foreign policy and diplomacy were to expand exports and maintain American hegemony... And the corporate liberal-imperialist consensus flourished in the 1950s and 1960s under the banner of 'bipartisan foreign policy'.''^^1^^The liberal-technocrat fully shares the basic ideas of expansionism. In practical politics, he invariably acts "in the name of the American nation" proclaiming himself a defender of national interests. This position enables him to ignore the question of the socio-economic character and the final goal of expansionism, and to present the interests of the ruling elite as the interests of the nation as a whole. Of course, liberal-technocrats prefer not to mention that they see the overriding purpose of an energetic foreign policy to be the maintenance of the supremacy of American monopoly capital in the world. Yet it is this purpose that determines the principles of liberal-technocratic consciousness in the realm of foreign policy. The purpose, though not proclaimed openly, is clearly discernible. This is revealed, for instance, in the role assigned by liberaltechnocrats to multinational corporations as the prototype of the future international economic structure, and in their consistent advocacy of the idea that today only such cor porations (with American capitalism playing the key part in them) possess the technology, managerial experience and capital required to resolve global economic and social problems.
Support of expansionism does not mean, however, that liberal-technocrats champion the use of crude pressure in international politics. Rather, it is the other way around: they realize that today military intervention is seldom effective while investing capital in developing countries is profitable, i.e., they prefer veiled forms of economic exploitation. More specifically, in relations with these countries they rely on various forms of ``partnership'' and ``aid'' rather than on power politics. Therefore they advocate US participation in programs of aid to foreign countries and in organizations financing their long-term development projects, such as the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Development _-_-_
~^^1^^ J. O'Connor, The I-'iscnl Crisis of the Slate. N.Y., 197:1, p. Ifi.'i.
64 Association. Clearly perceptible in this stand is the desire on the part of liberal-technocracy to exert an influence on the economics and thus the politics of other countries by granting them loans, credits, subsidies, etc.A new feature of the liberal-technocratic expansionist policy is a strong tendency towards integration, which is a result of increasing international interdependence observed in the world today. Liberal-technocrats view this as a historical necessity. To be sure, they cannot always give a clear definition of the conception "interdependent world" and are uncertain about the degree and forms of integration (free trade, a new economic order that includes regulation of international trade, or something else). However, the idea of integrating the economies of capitalist countries into a world capitalist economy and furthering the international capitalist division of labor is firmly entrenched in contemporary liberal-technocratic consciousness.
Liberal-technocrats subscribe to the opinion that the notion of national sovereignty has become outdated. In this, they come out not only as integrationalists but as expansionists, too, well aware of the fact that, if national barriers were abolished, the United States would be the first to profit by it as the most powerful capitalist state.
At the same time they realize that the destiny of the USA and the capitalist world as a whole depends on how successfully the West meets the challenge of socialism and stems anticapitalist trends at home. Here, integration is of particular importance for them. The internationalization of both production and circulation of capital will, in their opinion, increase the rates of economic growth and reinforce internal stability of capitalism, while also restricting independent national policies and, thereby, diminishing the chances of success for any anticapitalist and antimonopolist reforms they might introduce. Liberal-technocrats believe that under such conditions a government or parliamentary majority planning such reforms will encounter greater difficulties than if capital were confined within state boundaries. An anticapitalist government would always be opposed by the absolute majority of the pro-capitalist governments operating within the framework of the international capitalist system, and therefore it would, in effect, be deprived of support from other countries, international organizations and institutions. For that reason, liberaltechnocrats support the activities of international bodies working towards integrating the world capitalist market.
Problems of political strategy and tactics. In order to ensure economic growth in the USA, encourage international integration and thus help stabilize capitalism, liberal-- __PRINTERS_P_65_COMMENT__ 5---34 65 technocrats seek to ward off social and political conflicts both within the country and abroad. We have already discussed their foreign policy. Let us now look at how they propose to ensure peace within the United States.
It has been already mentioned that their domestic political strategy rests oil moderate reforms. The concept ol welfare state is the most popular and well-known variant in this respect. The practical implementation of this concept is left to the state, which is expected to provide public assistance for the least privileged strata, take steps to reduce unemployment, regulate industrial relations and create favorable conditions for economic activity in order to attain a higher level of employment and enhance consumer demand. These measures are regarded as a means of overcoming the most acute contradictions of modern capitalism, as well as an alternative to socialism.
In the USA, the concept of welfare state, which reflected the changing views of the role and functions of the state (whereby the state must assume responsibility for the wellbeing of its citizens with a view to establishing a more just social order), was introduced in the 1930s. It emerged as a response to the demand by less privileged social groups---farmers, small businessmen, unorganized workers, pensioners, etc.---that the state protect them from the disastrous effects of the Great Depression. It was then that the welfare system was set up in the USA.
Though this system has become a part of state-monopoly regulation mechanism, different political forces react very differently to the very idea of welfare. This is produced by different interpretations of the principle of equality (equality of opportunity---equality of results), individual rights of citizens (the right to work, to social security, etc.), and different attitudes towards traditional American values (individual initiative, success, self-discipline, reasonable claims on the state, etc.).
Support for or rejection of the welfare state principles by individuals or social groups depends on their goals and their values system. The idea of the state's responsibility for the wellbeing of its citizens in essence contradicts the idea of the free market system which is supposed to giveeach his deserts. In this sense, economic individualism can he regarded as the ideology of counteraction, and etatism as the ideology of support for state activity in the field of social assistance to the needy.
The characteristic qualities of the contemporary American economic structure, of which the principal one is the coexistence of the state-monopoly sector with the tree market, are such that they promote both the idea of the welfare 66 state and the traditional ``market'' values. For instance, the ideology of success, i.e., the conviction that everyone has an equal chance to get a better job, that a person is morally obliged to use all his talents and that his failureis at least partly his own fault, has become deeply rooted in the United States. In a country which sets great store by business energy and enterprise, it has until recently been considered degrading to go on welfare. Even now, many Americans are convinced that those who do, simply prefer a lazy, untroubled existence.
The conflicting trends in mass consciousness have laid the socio-psychological foundations for different types of attitudes towards the idea of welfare, from its total rejection by conservatives to the demand by some of its most staunch champions that a living minimum be guaranteed for every citizen.
As distinct from the right wing and conservatives, who oppose any form of welfare, since, in their opinion, the reasons for poverty are not economic but moral, psychological, racial and ethnic, liberal-technocrats advocate a moderate development of the welfare system. Unwilling to reject individualist values totally, they refuse to support the demand of the more radically minded for a minimum level of income, nourishment, medical care, housing and education, which would be guaranteed to every citizen as his political right irrespective of his social status and the work he is doing (if any). Instead, they advance the concept of a welfare system which emphasizes social insurance programs.
These programs envisage voluntary contributions to specially established private and state funds which in their turn would take it upon themselves to provide social services to their contributors: old-age pensions, medical insurance, unemployment benefits, etc. In the opinion of liberal-technocrats, another merit of social insurance is that it links the life of an employee with ``his'' enterprise, and thus the state as a whole. Since contributions to the social insurance fund are to be made regularly, the system is also supposed to encourage attempts to get a permanent job.
The social strategy of liberal-technocrats clearly avoids anything that could contradict economic efficiency and undermine the specific-ally capitalist incentives of labor. Hence their emphasis on the traditional elements of labor ethics: self-control, discipline, calculation, etc. According to liberal-technocrats, these principles alone are able to ensure the successful functioning of the economic: system. Hence the conclusion that the market mechanism of reward and stimulus should be given more scope; the idea behind it 67 is to remove from the state the responsibility for social inequality, poverty, racial discrimination, etc., existing in America.
From this viewpoint, to shift the burden of social security for all strata of the population to the state means to weaken the capitalist incentives and encourage parasitical tendencies. Therefore, liberal-technocrats deem it necessary that, whenever possible, the state should limit its assistance to the needy in order to teach them to rely more on their own strength and abilities. This, in their opinion, would encourage business instincts, which remain the basis of personal wellbeing and success in life.
Apart from stressing the market mechanisms of social control, liberal-technocrats propose to promote individual consumption as the principal condition of economic growth. This proposition, which identifies economic progress with an increase in demand, explains their support of the principles and values of consumerism. In this, the liberaltechnocratic trend reflects one of the most typical aspects of bourgeois consciousness, the excessive emphasis on consumption characteristic of Western ideologies at the present stage of capitalist development.
Consumerism evolved when the positions of "organized capitalism" consolidated, the state became more active in stimulating demand, and the consumer values of the American way of life, with its emphasis on material success, had become firmly established. Consumerist philosophy acted as the ideological substantiation of the measures to regulate and stimulate consumer demand carried out in the United States in the postwar period.
As advocates of consumerism, liberal-technocrats support measures intended to increase individual consumption. In their opinion this will guarantee stability of the existing socio-economic system---on the condition, naturally, that the state shapes its policy in a way that would keep the " economic appetites" of certain interest groups within the boundaries set by their economic potential. This was supposed to be made practicable by the postwar consensus on the new role of the state, which was to balance and restrict the* claims of certain social groups and ward off conflicts at all structural levels of the capitalist system. A political and administrative mechanism was to be set up which would both use the latest managerial techniques and be authoritative enough to keep socio-economic conflicts within institutionalized bounds.
Institutionalization of conflicts as an antithesis to class struggle is, according to liberal-technocrats, one of the key problems confronting modern industrial society. They 68 believe that as institutionali/ed mechanisms develop (i.e., when procedures are worked out for balancing and .subduing conflicting ambitions, when arbitration bodies have been set up, etc.), social conflicts will lose their edge (and at the same time their ideological class content), so that, thanks lo the new ``intellectual'' technology, settling them will become a matter of technique. This idea was formulated by Zbigniew Brzezinski when he wrote that "the increasing ability to reduce social conflicts to quantifiable and measurable dimensions reinforces the trend toward a more pragmatic approach to social problems''.^^1^^
The ``institutional'' approach towards social conflicts reveals a major aspect of liberal-technocratic consciousness in that it justifies every action of the ruling class aimed at compulsory integration with a view to strengthen society's political and economic stability. A case in point is the position of liberal-technocrats on the relations between the employer and the union: they believe that obtaining tendencies of social development have made state interference into this relationship inevitable, and therefore insist that labor conflicts, unavoidable as they are, should be foreseen and allowed for as part of the work of the economic mechanism, and that the emphasis should be shifted from mass action to top-level bargaining.
This is exactly what institutionali/ation of labor conflicts is supposed to achieve. The resulting consensus, which is presented as a concession to the working people, is attainable only because it does not challenge those institutions, principles, and regulations which ensure the power and most of the privileges of the ruling class.
Liberal-technocrats admit the existence of class and other social conflicts and even consider them an element in the normal functioning of the social system, but fear that with the division of labor, specialization, and interaction of separate social spheres being as advanced as they are today, any conflict, if it assumes political or ideological character, may threaten the system itself. (According to Zbigniew Brzezinski, political and ideological struggle is an anachronism.---Between 'Two Ages, p. 264.) First, politicization of conflicts polarizes social forces and enhances hostility and irreconcilability, making society ungovernable; second, participants in the conflict do not possess either the adequate information or the professional skills necessary lor reaching a coordinated decision; third, in assessing _-_-_
~^^1^^ Z. Br/e/inski, Between Two Aqes. Ainerii'n's
Middlesex, 1978, p. 12.
Role in lf(hiit'lr<tiii( Era,
From the liberal-technocratic point of view, under modern conditions, when decision-making depends more and more on the amassing and processing of incoming information, rational political leadership needs not so much the approval of society, which consists mostly of incompetent individuals, as a developed network of specialized expert services capable of dealing with the more vital issues of state policy. Therefore a more rational social organization can be attained only by expanding the sphere of business competence in state control institutions and improving the decisionmaking procedure.
Liberal-technocrats do not support the demand for more democracy, which would ensure more extensive participation by the rank and file in policy-making. In their opinion, advocates of more democracy cannot even imagine the destabilizing effect the enhanced activity of the masses may have on the functioning of the state mechanism. Democracy, says the liberal-technocrat, is all very well up to a certain point, beyond which it turns into its opposite and leads to conflicts, reduced efficiency in government, and diminished stability. The latter must be paid for by rejecting the demand for mass participation in political decisionmaking, accepting the imperatives of "state necessity'', and restricting the economic claims of certain social groups. Hence the firm conviction of liberal-technocracy that decision-making should remain the function of the bureaucratic elite, for it alone possesses the necessary experience and technical knowledge. This also explains why liberal-- technocrats disapprove of the idea of participatory democracy. They insist that recent discussions on the subject are farfetched and serve only to mask the ambitions of small radical groups, and that broader participation would not only render government ineffective but also split society into groups whose hostilities would threaten democracy itself.
From this point of view, the effective functioning of a democratic political system implies a certain degree of apathy and passivity, i.e., nonparticipation by the majority of the population in politics. But, over recent decades the United States has become the scene of increased political activity by different strata of the population; the only antidote to these potentially destructive tendencies is supposed to be moderation and reserve on the part of those who participate in the democratic process.
To sum up, one can say that the political strategy of liberal-technocrats rests on superimposed integration. The ideological foundation includes the thesis about the new 70 role ol science and technology, which excludes practical political issues from public discussion and calls for depolitic i/ation of the population, i.e., muting class consciousness and interest in politics and prospects of transforming capitalist society drastically.
The goal ol the liberal-technocratic strategy is primarily to perfect the mechanism of state- control and integrate depopulation within the framework of modern state-monopoly organization. Characteristically, it almost completely ignores the public institutions of state power through which active political forces exercise their will, and seeks to obstruct any independent and spontaneous political action by the people. Liberal-technocrats want to deprive the lower strata of the population (the needy, underprivileged minorities, etc.) of political goals and political leadership, to turn them into a toy in the hands of state bureaucracy in the belief that only such strategy can safeguard the stability of the existing system.
A major condition of this stability is a strong state. As the state acquires new soc io-ec»onomic functions the role of the federal government and the institutions of presidential power has also increased, and this has changed the correlation between the executive (the President) and the legislative (the Congress) branches. In forming their attitude towards these two basic institutions of power, liberal-technocrats proceed from the assumption that the principles of ``rational'' political governance can be implemented only if economic and political power is further concentrated in the hands of the President and his administration. Opposition from Congress is considered an undesirable hindrance to the immanent tendency of modern society towards integration around a single center of political power. Liberal-technocrats see Congress, with its system of lobbying, representation of interests, political deals, etc., as an irrational sphere of particular interests pursued by separate social groups. The guiding principle of Congress---- political bargaining---is believed to go against the demand for rationalization, optimization and efficiency expected from modern political leadership.
The contradiction between the principles guiding the executive body and the traditional political methods employed by Congress is regarded by liberal-technocrats as a " conflict between technocratic rationality and political bargaining".^^1^^ In their opinion, further consolidation of Presidential power vis-a-vis Congress is not only inevitable _-_-_
~^^1^^ I). Bc-11, "Notes on
Spring 19()7, p. 108.
I lit- I'nst-Imliistriiil Soiiclv''.
Liberal-technocrats invariably seek to introduce changes into the traditional political system which, they insist, is unable to cope with the new conditions, its basic iaults being:
---pluralism of political forces and pressure groups, which constantly threatens to upset the existing socio-political consensus;
---a pluralistic organization, which does not have a regulating mechanism for political decision-making (to be more precise, a mechanism does exist---collective bargaining between competing groups; but decisions based on a compromise fail to meet the requirements of rationality and efficiency).
Liberal-technocrats advocate a political organization of the society under which centralized technocratic government would supplant the traditional pluralistic decision-making mechanisms, ensuring effective functioning of the political system and enabling it to act in the interests of "society as a whole''.
Characteristically, liberal-technocrats' emphasis on the role of bureaucratic elite, which threatens . to alienate social management from society itself and bring about rigid hierarchical stratification, today encounters opposition even within the ranks of liberal-technocracy. The advocates of ``rationalization'' are charged with merely declaring the general principles of effective functioning while disregarding the need to analyze the political prerequisites and institutions which should serve to implement these principles.
According to Benjamin Kleinberg, a more realistic research should take into account "the realities of the political situation... The limits to rational policy making are a function not merely of the imaginativeness of the social technician, but also of the general nature of the political culture in which he works... In the case of the American political economy, Dahl and Lindblom identify the capitalist competitive price system, bureaucratic administration (`hierarchy'), democratic controls (`polyarchy') and interest bargaining.''^^1^^ Kleinberg also says: "Pluralism, even if somewhat lopsided, is still alive; no longer the simple pluralism of the past, contemporary pluralism consists of well-organized interests competing for the support and favors of an increasingly powerful, increasingly active, central government.''^^2^^ This is a biassed and yet more _-_-_
~^^1^^ B. Kleinberg, op. (it., p. 130.
^^2^^ Ibid., p. 35.
72 accurate portrayal of the structure of the organizations and institutions which make up the contemporary bourgeoisdemocratic system. By emphasizing political aspects of social management under capitalism (and its political limits, since the state has to adapt its actions to spontaneous capitalist self-regulation), this interpretation shows the groundlessness of the hopes for an efficient overall social management in the light of realities which account for the ungovernability of capitalist society. D. Bell, pointing out that contemporary American society is dominated by "group egoism" and "corporate feudalism'', which create havoc in setting national goals and determining the ways to attain them, has been forced to admit that "in the end, however, the technocratic mind-view necessarily falls before politics. The hopes of rationality ... necessarily fade.'' (The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, p. 365.)Soviet authors have repeatedly noted and analyzed liberaltechnocracy's tendency to accept conservative values, which has made itself felt since the early 1970s.^^1^^ They have pointed out, for instance, that some prominent liberals of the 1960s, such as D. Bell, Z. Brzezinski, D. Moynichan and P. Drucker, attempt to explain their swing to the right by disappointment in the institutions of bourgeois democracy, which are said to aggravate the conflict of incompatible interests of principal social groups and institutions in capitalist society.
Hence the search for ways to suppress the many just demands of the people, including also the instrument of "strong power''. Hence the view of contemporary society as a complex and unmanageable body, popular and even fashionable among the former authors of technocratic Utopias, and the stress on the limits of social policy, the idea that implies that political possibilities of transforming a concrete social structure are fairly limited. The reformist zeal typical of social policies in the late '60s and early '70s has been supplanted by a conviction that social realities are resilient and not subject to any serious change. The most extreme champions of this thesis even insisted that the only way to safeguard stability and efficiency in a bourgeois social system is to abandon all attempts to manage it as a whole.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Yn. Zamoshkin and A. Melvil, "Between Neo-Liberalism and Neo-- Conservatism'', Voprosy Filosofii, 1976, No. 11; A. Galkin, "The New ' Conservative Wave' as a Product of the Ideological Crisis of Capitalism'', Voprosy Filosofii, 1977, No. 12; A. Shchelkin, "The Genesis of Technocratic Conservatism" . Voprosy Filosofii, 1979, No. 5; Contemporary American Political Consciousness: Traditions and Evolution, Chapters 2 and 3 (all in Russian).
73The other (rend among the liberal-technocrats, rejecting the idea of global regulation, has turned to more moderate and gradual methods of social management. Ibis trend has come to be known as inc rementalism, and its influence has been growing steadily. Unlike the advocates of overall social management, incrementalists maintain that only incremental (i.e., minor) reforms, which would hardly alter society as it exists today, are permissible.
Incrementalism is actually regarded as an alternative to a comprehensive and goal-oriented approach to social problems. It places its hopes on correction. By minimi/ing the risk inherent in socio-political innovations, this strategy is better able, or so its champions insist, to live up to the standards set for political management.
A characteristic feature of incrementalism is that in rejecting the ambitious goals of national planning it proposes to use the available tested forms of cooperation between the state and the private sector. Incrementalists seek to promote this partnership, in which the state figures as the chief purchaser of commodities and services supplied by the private sector. In this way,the potential of the latter is used to resolve social problems. Incrementalists also suggest that the already available experience of partnership be used, chiefly that with the military-industrial and the space complex. The administrative and economic mechanism of the military-industrial complex (with big government purchases as its basis and government contracts as its key element) is considered a model for a future administrative system that would combine the latest managerial techniques and the advantages of centralized regulation, and for a socio-industrial complex that would be able to deal successfully with such national problems as urban reconstruction, and development of new urban complexes and an up-to-date network of public transport.
The initiative in setting up that socio-industrial complex is supposed to belong to the state, since, as they say, the potential of big business can be put to use in tackling social problems only if the government provides a market for socially desirable commodities and services.
In a situation when the democratic forces continue to press the government for social legislation, vocational training, protection of the environment, protection oi consumers' interests, etc., liberal-technocrats suggest that corporations enter into a closer cooperation with the statein solving acute social problems and take other measures intended to retain their position in society, even if they have to forego a share of their profits and privileges. They look to self-socialization of big business as an antithesis 74 to democratic control over the activity of big corporations. This calls for changes in the operation of the corporations that would open the way towards coordinating the interests of the owners with those of the employees on the one hand and of consumers on the other. The thesis of the public responsibility of business urges corporations to put more effort into the solution of national problems, such as the development of systems of general education and retraining, the overall development of backward areas, housing, larger contributions to the social security fund and protection of the environment.
The question of the social role and social responsibility of big corporations has recently come to the fore owing to the deteriorating social situation in the USA, which threatens to upset the stability of the system of private enterprise. To ward off this danger, liberal-technocrats suggest that corporations should urgently take precautions, pointing out that socially responsible behavior will pay in the long run, e.g., improve their public image, prevent direct government intervention into the affairs of the private sector, and, finally, may bring in profits.
The liberal-technocrats' desire to reform modern monopoly capitalism in the USA does not go beyond appeals for more responsible behavior. On the whole, they remain apologists oi the corporation; in their opinion only large corporations possessing sufficient capital and other resources can be relied upon for performance, i.e., growing labor productivity and, consequently, cheaper goods and increased consumption.
__*_*_*__In shaping its strategy in the first post-war decades, American bourgeois reformismcountedomontinuingeconomic growth, which temporarily smoothed over the internal social problems, and on the stability of American economic position in the world attained by an expansionist foreign policy. In the '5()s and '60s, the distinctively technocratic ideological and political direction of liberalism rested on the conviction that the comparative economic stability of capitalism in developed Western countries was a lasting factor and that therefore for a long time the working people would have no cause for dissatisfaction. Postwar capitalism was expected to counteract the threat of crises and mass unemployment, thus stopping the class struggle and averting serious social conflicts.
Conditions were favorable for an active and successful reformist policy made practicable by the increased 75 imporlance of the state. This promoted economic growth and the material wellheing of the people. An optimistic estimate of the economic situation and its social consequences was enhanced by the belief that American economic superiority was going to last. Regarding temporary achievements as permanent, the liberals were unanimous in their high opinion of what monopoly had done for the economy and of the concentration of production both on the national and the international scale. Prominent liberals were convinced that only the monopolies were able to guarantee growth of labor productivity, sufficient capital investments, and the ability of American goods to compete successfully in the world market, all of which was required to increase production and the economic prosperity of the country as a whole.
However, in the second half of the 1960s, although economic progress was still being made, its negative consequences became apparent, such as artificial stimulation of increased individual consumption to the detriment of social consumption, the expenditure of public means to further private interests, and serious deterioration of the environment. It was now clear that the economic progress spurred by the quest for maximum profits did not have the expected positive social effect but, on the contrary, led to conflicts.
In the early 1970s, when the rates of economic growth in the USA began to drop and the country's international position weakened, the technocratic variant of bourgeois reformism began to loose its appeal: freedom for social maneuvering and opportunities for buying public assent became limited, and this undermined the ability of liberals to impede social protest. Technocratic optimism tried to adapt itself to the new conditions, but its attractions waned considerably.
,
The ideological and organizational crisis of the technocratic strategy based on reforms regulated from above manifested itself in a weakening of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party of the USA, which is regarded as the political basis of bourgeois reformism in the country.
The decline of technocratic reformism also brought into being new ideological and political trends and caused a regrouping of forces within the liberal camp. Within its left wing, which embraces the majority of democratic forces campaigning for further reform, a left-liberal alternative to the policy of liberal establishment began to evolve in the late 1960s. It envisaged democratization of politics, restriction of the privileges of monopolies, and rejection of militarism and interventionism in foreign polity. Driven 76 by a desire to adjust to the changed situation, certain members of the Democratic Party made an attempt to form a new Left of Center coalition (as became apparent in George McGovern's election campaign in 1972).
Their effort has inevitably failed to give liberalism as a whole a new political and ideological direction. However, it speeded up the ideological split in the liberal camp and the emergence within liberalism of a new type of political consciousness, liberal-reformist consciousness.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. LIBERAL-REFORMIST CONSCIOUSNESSGeneral characteristics and genesis. As distinct from liberal-technocrats, liberal-reformists stress social equality and democratization of social life in the USA. Blaming the state-monopoly establishment for a departure from traditional American ideals of democracy and equality of opportunity, they consider it their mission to revive and realize these "fundamental American values'', and, first and foremost, to build a democratic society that would implement the principle of the equality of opportunity.
The liberal-reformist interpretation of this principle differs substantially from the liberal-technocratic one. According to the former, technocrats understand the concepts of equal opportunity and equality too narrowly, setting the principle of freedom against the principle of equality. However, in this case freedom means the right of the ruling classes to retain their privileges, primarily the economic ones, and nonencroachment upon them by society.
In contrast, liberal-reformists interpret freedom as absence of such privileges, i.e., understand it in an egalitarian way, which means granting all citizens equal rights and opportunities.
In the opinion of the ideologists of liberal-reformism, the American political tradition has always had a tendency to interpret freedom abstractly by applying this concept to political rights but not social relations; in the latter case there would have arisen the problem: the unequal position of different social groups, and of opportunities for their social mobility. To deal with this problem successfully, it is essential to attain a greater equality of living conditions for all citizens, and this can be done only by perfecting and expanding the programs and institutions of the welfare state. Therefore, liberal-reformists seek to enhance the social functions of the state: only the state, which alone possesses the necessary means of influencing social relations, "can improve the functioning of a 77 capitalist economy; ... and---to a lesser extent---social insurance can redress the distributional inequity produced by unregulated markets".^^1^^
Problems of domestic and foreign policy. Basically, liberal-reformists admit the importance of "state interventionism'', but their appraisal of certain aspects of statemonopoly regulation differs from that of liberal-- technocrats. This divergence of opinions is the result of different ideas about the purpose and reasons for state interference into economic and social processes.
Liberal-reformists insist that one should draw a distinction between 1) interference with a view to promoting economic and political, stability and the interests of proprietors. (It is this type of interference that lies at the root of the technocratic strategy of corporation-oriented "positive state''), and 2) interference with a view to achieving greater economic and social equality and participation of citizens in policy-making.^^2^^
According to Harold Wilensky, an American researcher, the welfare state strategy provides for a minimum level of income, nourishment, medical care, housing, and education guaranteed to every citizen irrespective of his social status and income. Since this implies a redistribution of the national income, the welfare state will have a tendency towards egalitarianism. (The Welfare State and Equality, Berkeley, 1975.)
Only states that have adopted the second type of `` interventionist'' strategy can be considered potential welfare states, and only this strategy can transform capitalism into a welfare state.
The liberal-reformists believe that the welfare state strategy can win popular support since it fits in to a considerable degree with the wish of the people for more equality and democracy. It also responds to the growing concern with preservation of the environment and improving the quality of life, which requires "an active government operating on an advanced conception of human welfare" (Furniss and Tilton, p. 49), as opposed to the standards of consumer society.
Liberal-technocrats abhor egalitarianism, believing that the chasm separating the incomes of different social groups gives a powerful impetus to social development. Liberalreformists, by contrast, maintain that welfare state should lead to equality, freedom, democracy and socioeconomic rights. Gravitation towards these values points _-_-_
~^^1^^ N. Furniss, T.Tillon, The Case for the We/jure Stale, London, 1'.I77, p. XI.
^^2^^ Ibid.. Chapter 1.
78 at a certain kinship between liberal-reformism and the socialist tradition (Furniss and Tilton, p. 28), yet the former allows a greater difference in income, wealth and status, and, most important, intends to attain its goals by different means.In an attempt to remain within the law, liberal-reformists proceed from the assumption that they can succeed by operating within the framework of existing institutions and on the basis of principles prevailing in capitalist society. They believe that the ``system'' is basically capable of carrying out the necessary reforms. They emphasize that "the social-welfare statist strategy is not a revolutionary one, but relies primarily on nonviolent and parliamentary means... It rests on the assumption that conflict among social classes is less than total, that some grounds for political compromise exist, and that consequently terror and revolution are not needed to alter capitalist society... This preference for relatively peaceful reform does not mean that the social-welfare statist underestimates the power and intransigence of established interests or the costs of gradual social change. He is well aware that entrenched capitalists seldom yield on matters of substance without compulsion.''^^1^^
What are the conditions and ways of implementing reform in modern society? Liberal-reformists maintain that all public institutions and organizations (including those traditionally relied upon to carry out reforms in America, the state in the first place) lean towards conservatism and tend to shift their goals, i.e., replace the socially essential activities intended as the official function of a given organization with activities pursuing a different set of goals and satisfying the interests behind them. According to liberal-reformists, this is a typical feature of the modern state.
Advocates of reform believe that the present crisis of liberalism is tiot a result of market excesses, as was the case in the early 20th century, but rather of the excesses of etatism: liberalism has had to rebuff conservative attacks against state interference since the turn of the century, and this has impaired its ability to view the activities of the state with a critical eye.
The liberal-technocratic policy of encouraging the growth of the private sector, regarded as the principal condition of rapid economic progress, and the partnership (``for the common good'') between the state and monopoly capital has reinforced, as liberal-reformists stress, the positions of
_-_-_^^1^^ Ibid., pp. 47-4H.
79 a handful of the larger monopolies and enriched them (with the state's aid) at society's expense. This refers above all to large corporations supplying commodities for the state market. The chief target of liberal-reformist criticism in this respect is the military-industrial complex, which has produced a complete symbiosis (as Galbraith put it) of the interests of a section of state bureaucracy and the largest monopolies engaged in military production.As a result, the liberal-reformist says, from an instrument of a progressive social policy the state has turned into a technocratic administrative apparatus with stabilization of the existing social system as its chief function.
Liberal-reformists point out that the so-called totalitarian planning, odious to many Americans because of its threat to free competition, already exists in the symbiotic relationship between the state and the corporate sector, the "planning system" where the incentive to planning is provided not by the state but by the big corporation which pursues its own interests.
It is obvious that liberal-reformists are not too enthusiastic about the corporations and the state acting in concert with them. While the liberal-technocrat views the state and its institutions as a neutral administrative mechanism, the liberal-reformist sees it as a tool of big corporations. However, as has already been indicated, criticism of the state by the latter does not imply a rejection of basic etatist principles as such. Liberal-reformists believe that in a certain situation the power of the state can be turned against the interests of big capital and made to act as a transforming factor rather than a stabilizing one. The expediency of state interference is therefore beyond doubt; the only question is who stands behind it and whose interests it furthers. Liberal-reformists are of the opinion that the old argument between the advocates of etatism and the advocates of noninterference has become meaningless. As Norman Birnbaum wrote, "economically, it makes no sense to speak of conservative and liberal positions. The conservative effort to depict our economy as free of politics is an absurdity: capitalism's most faithful servitors in the state expend large quanta of energy to maintain and extend the political conditions which favor profitability. Liberals, then, cannot be characterized by their penchant for intervention in the economy: what is at issue is what sort of intervention, for whom?''^^1^^
Liberal-reformists realize, that the chief difficulty they _-_-_
~^^1^^ "What Is a Liberal---Who Is a Conservative:'" A Symposium, Commentary, September 1976, p. 46.)
80 are likely to encounter in trying to breathe new life into reformism is the problem of the state, which not only should be an instrument of reform, but itself stands in need of alteration. According to Galbraith, what is required is emancipation of the state so that it can stop being the mouthpiece of the "planning system" before it becomes an instrument of reform.It would be impossible to map out a new reformist strategy without first denning the social essence of the system to be reformed, so it is referred to not simply as capitalism but as corporate capitalism, which according to liberalreformists has two distinctive features.
On the one hand, in a situation when the country's economy is dominated by the big corporations, the markets become monopolized and the former market mechanisms of regulation lose their effectiveness. At the present level of economic concentration and centralization, the markets become increasingly subordinated to the corporation instead of exercising control over big business. Market mechanisms necessarily change as the bigger companies get more chance to carry out a long-term economic strategy, and oligopolists seek to coordinate their activities and ``program'' the markets in order to enhance their stability.
On the other hand, attempts by the state to check monojpoli/.ation and concentration are seldom effective: "Thus far, this process of collectivization within capitalism has been dominated by corporate priorities, even when the collectivizers have been liberals, trade unionists, or socialists.''
``This last trend,'' wrote Michael Harrington, "is not the result of a conspiracy on the right or of betrayals on the left... The economic and political health of the government thus becomes dependent on investment decisions made in private boardrooms. Those decisions are critical determinants of the Gross National Product, the level of employment, and indeed of the government's own revenues. The rulers of the welfare state therefore must adapt themselves to corporate priorities---'win business confidence' ... The nonowning manager has a much more sophisticated calculus and, corporate collectivist that he is, takes political and even social factors into account. Yet even in this new guise capitalism remains dangerously and fundametanlly antisocial.''^^1^^
The conflict between the private interests of large corporations and public interests gives rise to various reformist ideas as to how to make the corporation assume more social responsibility. Projects are being mooted proposing to introduce stricter state control over the activities of _-_-_
~^^1^^ M. Harrington, op. (it., p. 141.
__PRINTERS_P_81_COMMENT__ 6---34 81 the private sector, to demand better and fuller accounts, to split up particularly gigantic monopolies, etc.Harrington considers this a mere palliative. Corporations are perfectly capable of absorbing this sort of reform and adjusting to the new regulations, and yet remain outside an effective system of social control. In his opinion, nationalization would not help either, at least until the state ceases to be an instrument of the "planning system''; it would not only set the nationalized enterprises free from market stimulation, hut also, most likely, place them under the political protection of the state, thus rendering them inaccessible to effective criticism and alteration. The "social status" of the corporation remains therefore one of the knottiest theoretical and practical problems facing liberal-reformism.
Its ideologists insist that a large corporation whose activities affect the stability of the country's economy as a whole must not be allowed to go bankrupt or cease to exist. Therefore, the reformist policy should find a way of subordinating its activities to the interests of society gradually. It recommends, for instance, a revision of the system of priorities as far as the expenditure of state funds is concerned, the introduction of more rigid control over the production and consumption of commodities injurious to people's health, the environment, etc., closing down the shop, if necessary, and also the use of every lever of state influence on the economy to encourage the production of "socially desirable" commodities in keeping with a high quality of life.
Liberal-reformists believe that in the immediate future the state-business relationship will be shaped by the following factors: restricted resources, the enormous damagedone to the environment by the economic activities of corporations, and an increased demand for ``public'' goods and services. To cope with these problems, it is essential to have a much more developed system of state planning than exists today. Planning becomes vital not only for a normal functioning of the economy (i.e., coordination of its activities and solution of routine problems engendered by the increasingly complex economic system), but also preserving life on earth and keeping the human society going. Planning, the liberal-reformist maintains, has been made necessary by the critical nature of modern economic processes: large-scale consumption of resources and the discharge of waste products which damage the environment, especially given the wasteful production and extravagant consumption characteristic of our times. This also explains the deterioration in the quality of life in the USA, which in the 82 long run is the result not of economic expansion as such but of the fact that it is dominated by the profit motive.
In these circumstances planning, according to the liberalreformists, is not the antithesis of freedom but an essential condition of the transition to consciously regulated economic growth with a minimum of political restrictions. Nationwide planning will require that the power of the corporations be limited, (although, according to liberalreformists, profit-oriented, private enterprise will continue). The planning body (and this can only be the state) will take measures to reconcile the drive for higher profits with the obvious need to restrict the activities of private enterprise in some spheres while encouraging them in others.
A system of restrictions and stimulation must be introduced for yet another reason, namely, the tendency of private enterprise to satisfy individual needs and ignore the needs of society. Meanwhile, recent years have shown that the demand for public commodities and services---education, health, public transport, urban redevelopment and slum clearance---has outstripped the demand for commodities and services intended for individual consumption. This calls for an overall revision of the existing regulating system.
Liberal-reformists see the principal shortcoming of the present system in that it seeks to increase individual consumption. To remedy this, it is necessary to alter the relevant institutions and, as an essential condition of such an alteration, to change social psychology. It is still dominated by the stereotypes of market consciousness and has difficulty in absorbing the logic of the new political economy of the United States, with its irreversible trend towards increasing public consumption.
As the theoretical substantiation of the decision-making process and state-financed programs in education, health care and environmental protection, liberal-reformists advance the doctrine of "public economics" and "public household'', which envisages a more detailed elaboration of such concepts as public needs and public interest.
The "public household" does not abolish the market economy but restricts its functions, which are discharged more efficiently as a result of an overall distribution of economic resources with the customers' interests taken into account. However, liberal-reformists maintain, the market economy today requires public regulation to provide collective services and ensure a more equitable distribution of wealth and income. Therefore the state should control the private sector, combining competition and regulation in what is known as mixed economy. Within it the public sector, the "public household'', will gradually gain in importance.
__PRINTERS_P_83_COMMENT__ 6* 83As has already been said, the principal purpose of the public household doctrine is to furnish a theoretical basis for the decision-making process in the public sector aimed at achieving a more effective distribution of national resources according to public needs and public priorities. The latter are to be worked out and formulated by a democratic political process through which "society would consider its basic options" (M. Harrington, op. cit., p. 442). The main condition of this democratic process is publicity and openness in politics the latter being the principal sphere determining the prospects for the country's social development.
(lidded by these principles, liberal-reformists advocate a revision of national priorities: they suggest that social problems be solved by reducing military expenditure, increasing taxation of the private sector and closing the loopholes in tax legislation. They believe that more money should go into public aid programs and that the rate oi investment in this field should outstrip the rate of growth of the national income.
As opposed to liberal-technocrats, who regard economic growth and the economic expansion of the United States as the main source for financing social programs, liberalreformists believe that economic growth should not be separated from distribution, and that it is better to have a smaller "national pie" but divide it more justly. Pointing out that the establishment continues to view economic expansion abroad as an essential condition of prosperity and wellbeing at home, liberal-reformists conclude that an expansionist foreign policy is a functional characteristic of American corporate capitalism. Critic i/.ing the liberal establishment tor its expansionist policy, James O'Connor wrote: "The left must begin to demonstrate the relationship between foreign and domestic spending, which, we have seen, public opinion radically separates.... F.ven on the left, it is sometimes not appreciated that foreign economic expansion and imperialism are required to maintain corporate liberalism by expanding national income and material wealth, thus muting domestic capital-labor struggles over the distribution of income and wealth.''^^1^^
Liberal-reformists insist that the policy of open doors and tree play ot market lories m un_ iv..iiv. ,,,,k.^, .,...... the United State's advocates in its economic expansion, and its adherence to laisse/.-faire in foreign policy, contradiet the etatist direction of American domestic policy. _-_-_
~^^1^^ (ami's O'Connor, I lit' Corporations an/I tin' Stale, f.v«v* in (he T/ii'orv ('/ ('.tipltaliuii and Imperialism. . Y.. 197-1. |>. 14'').
84 This contradiction is explained by the fact that, in the world of today, freedom of trade is freedom for the wealthy, i.e., a means for big corporations to consolidate their positions in the world economy.However, say liberal-reformists, due to the new spirit of equality and the demand lor a just economic older advanced by the developing countries, the laisse/.-faire policy can no longer be considered acceptable in international trade. The glaring inequality in the economic development of different regions is not only unfair but is fraught with global conflicts. Therefore, the poverty of certain areas is an international problem which should be solved by bridging the gap between the pool and the rich nations, restructuring the existing international relations and, in particular, rejecting the laisse/-faire principle.
Liberal-reformists are as yet unsure as to how these problems should be resolved in practice. Their suggestions remain the subject of heated discussions which, however, rarely yield results other than pious wishes and appeals for the establishment of a just social order. However, the ideas of the new economic order, however Utopian many of them are, represent a considerable shift from the concept of "pax Americana" which imposes the American model as the prototype of a new order for the world.
The problem of equality, in the opinion liberal of reformreformists, is just as acute inside the United States itself. While recogni/ing that large-scale property and inherited wealth are the chief source of inequality in the economic status, and, consequently, a social inequality as well, liberal-reformists, nevertheless, reject revolutionary abolition of injustice by confiscation of big property: in their opinion, the ideals of social justice are incompatible with production efficiency, for the latter is stimulated solely by the incentives of private enterprise. They see the way out in the development and improvement of social legislation on the basis of welfare state institutions.
Liberal-reformists distinguish between equality of civil rights and social equality in the broad sense. The former implies the right of the individual to take part in politics while the latter is the right to education, a certain standard of living, income and prestige. These two kinds of equality overlap: a certain level of social (and economic) equality is essential to ensure real, not merely formal, equality of civil rights. Social equality should guarantee an equal start in life and equal opportunities for individual success. "In the 'human rights' sense, equality is defined in terms of the actual social and economic circumstances of people's lives, not just in terms of the right 85 to take part in public affairs or the opportunity to compete in the economy.''^^1^^ Therefore, supporting the traditional liberal principle of equality of opportunity, liberalreformists insist that equality should be real for all, in fact meaning equality of social and economic circumstances.
Even a most superficial analysis of the basic domestic and foreign political trends of contemporary liberalreformism shows that, in one way or another, they reflect the goals of American progressive forces---democratization of the political system, reduction of military expenditures, a reform of tax legislation, development and expansion of social security, protection of the environment, and a revision of public expenditure.
Problems of political strategy and tactics. What are the ways towards these goals? Here, liberal-reformists are faced with a dilemma: either they must call for a rapid solution from above, impossible without relying on the strong arm of the state which has the power required to introduce the necessary changes, and thereby they would promote a further bureaucratization of society, or else they search for other means.
Since the main disadvantage of the first method is that the institutions controlled by the elite are very seldom willing to carry out reforms, liberal-reformists feel that the impetus must come from outside, from parallel institutions (counter-institutions, alternative institutions).
The contemporary liberal-reformist interpretation of counter-institutions reflects the two opposite approaches to the strategy and tactics of political reform.
The first approach can be described as pluralistic. Its advocates believe that the necessary changes can be brought about by pressure from competing forces counterbalancing the power of the ruling elite. They usually refer to the works of Joseph Schumpeter, an American pohtologist of German extraction, the author of the market theory of politics, and John Galbraith's concept of counterbalancing forces. Supporters of this trend maintain that the essence and the basic principle of liberalism consists in relying on the pressure by competing economic and political groups in order to attain reform. An economic prime mover, competition also becomes the dynamic principle of political transformations. The institutionalization of the interests of competing groups within the framework of bourgeois democratic institutions, political pluralism, majority rule, regular elections---all this, in the opinion of liberal-reformists, is _-_-_
~^^1^^ Kenneth and Patricia Dolbeare, American Ideologies. The Competing Political Beliefs of the 1970s, Chicago, 1971, p. 88.
86 necessary not only to keep the political process public but to make reformist endeavors successful.A characteristic quality of the pluralistic approach is that its supporters usually oppose more extensive participation by the population in the political process, limiting it to elections and party activities.
Champions of the second approach believe that the existing forms of public: participation in politics are inadequate, and that the mechanism evolved by the Founding Fathers to control and balance the interests of different social groups, today malfunctions. A number of ``neglected'' organs of power have been turned into the instruments of competing interest groups and political cliques whose activities are prejudicial to the public interest. To prevent the negative consequences of such activities, it is necessary to introduce more public control over the political process. Therefore, the underlying principle of the strategy and tactics in achieving political change should be participatory democracy.
Participatory democracy implies broader public participation in politics at every level, from local government bodies, political parties and public organizations to the top of the government echelon, with a view to controlling the activities of the establishment at all levels of the socio-economic organization of American society.
Champions of participatory democracy reject the technocratic doctrine of changes directed and controlled from above, with its ideal of a politically and ideologically consolidated society watched over by a strong state. They are sceptical about the consequences of stronger presidential power and stress democratic control over the federal government. They are particularly concerned about the tendency to extend the prerogatives of the nonelective bodies of executive power which are virtually uncontrollable owing to the absence of clear legal norms.
Liberal-reformists advocating participatory democracy do not question the role of the federal government with its levers of social management, as the instrument of reform, but maintain that the sphere of its uncontrolled activity should be restricted. What is involved is not merely restoring the balance between presidential and legislative power or Congress controlling the White House. Liberalreformists advocate more open governance and an overall democratization of public management, including all executive and legislative bodies, with extensive political participation as a means towards this end.
In recent years, political life in the United States has been marked by increased activity at grassroots level, 87 engendering a number of public interest movements. It is on such movements that supporters of participatory democracy are now pinning their hopes.
Although the programs advanced by these movements reflect their socially contradictory character, still they are united by a common search for new organizational forms of democratic political action that would complement participatory democracy by "direct democracy" which again implies more extensive and active public participation in politics on all levels.
Another feature of the grassroots movements is the fact that in a number of regions they are led by former activists of the civil rights, antiwar and the New Left movements. The mass national campaigns of the 1960s have produced a whole generation of "direct action" supporters who are now leading campaigns for consumer protection and conservation of the environment, and have become members of civil action groups and organizations of Common Cause type, whose aim is a healthier public life.
Participants in and organizers of grassroots movements naturally see their principal goal in protecting the interests of the local population. However, the liberal-- reformist ideologists among them do not reject more far-- reaching goals. In their opinion, changes on the national scale can be expected only when a sufficient number of local groups form a coalition working to attain national goals (as a model they propose the mass consumer protection movement led by Ralph Nader). For the time being, the grassroots groups try to work out local practical programs of socioeconomic changes which could subsequently be used as models for nation-wide reforms.
Participants in the local movements are calling for the expansion of self-government and public control over the economic development of a given region; democratic supervision of decisions taken by the private sector concerning the siting, expansion or curtailment of production; consideration for the needs of the local population in government decisions on capital investment in a given region; the introduction and strict observance of measures to protect the environment; the stabilization of prices in the local market; an increase in local spending on education; and lower communal service charges for the aged and needy.
A characteristic feature of modern grassroots liberalreformism is its demand for guaranteed social and economic rights, its support of federal and state employees and unorganized workers in their attempts to build unions and its endeavors to establish contacts between local unions and minority movements.
88Liberal-reformists emphasi/e local self-organization among the less privileged strata of society since this part of the population does not usually belong to unions, political organizations, or parties, i.e., remains outside the contemporary American pluralistic system (the system of group representation of interests) and is therefore totally unable to protect its interests. Liberal-reformists welcome the creation of welfare groups among the needy and the minorities with a view to protecting their right to government aid, both federal and local.
It should be stressed that although liberal-reformists demand social changes their ideal of social system is vague and contradictory, and their protest against the bureaucratization of public life and state-monopoly organization inconsistent, bearing as it does the mark of the customs and prejudices engendered by the individualistic stereotypes of bourgeois consciousness. These customs and prejudices stand in the way of a politically organized nation-wide democratic movement, producing instead a host of small-scale and disconnected campaigns pursuing individual goals and interests. A characteristic feature of liberal-reformism noted by many researchers is that it "accompanies a very critical and near-fundamental critique of American problems, practices, and values with a quite orthodox, self-limiting set of withinthe-system prescriptions" (K. and P. Dolbeare, op. cit., p. 238).
The difficulties involved in developing an adequate system of political guidelines which could serve as the ideological basis of a mass democratic movement are further aggravated by the absence in the US political arena of a mass political party championing at least a reformist variant of socialism. In such a situation, the modern liberal-reformist tendency towards radicalization and convergence with social-- reformism acquires particular importance. It is manifested, for instance, in the wide use of socialistic terminology in certain liberal-reformist quarters, where for over a decade such questions have been debated as whether American liberal-reformism should shape its domestic political strategy along the lines of the welfare state (the Swedish model being the most frequently mentioned) or be guided by the ideas of "democratic socialism''; which economic strategy of socialist reforms to call for---nationalization of property, or cooperation of independent, self-governing enterprises within the framework of a mixed economy, or something else; which domestic political strategy to choose: to support the Democratic Party or to come out independently in elections, etc.
89The socialistic: trend within liberal-reformism is still unstable and immature. However, when estimating the inner dynamics and prospects for the development of liberal consciousness, it is nonetheless an important factor, and in the near future it is likely to exert an increasing influence on American liberalism.
The shift of liberal-reformism to the left and its gravitation towards social-reformism reflect the consolidation of critical, antimonopolist tendencies in American mass political consciousness. In the USA, a country where such tendencies have far greater difficulty expressing themselves in political consciousness and behavior than in Western Europe, a joint effort by all democratic forces and the merger of the movement for progressive social reform with the labor movement are particularly important. Such a merger provides the necessary conditions for the formation in the United States of a mass antimonopoly coalition which would work towards democratization and the progressive socio-economic transformation of the existing system.
``There is in the United States today,'' Michael Harrington wrote, "a class political movement of workers which seeks to democratize many of the specific economic powers of capital but does not denounce capitalism itself.'' ( Socialism, N. Y., 1972, p. 251). In his opinion, the .ideological and political direction of the American working class is determined by the fact that it is only beginning to pass from action against the purely material manifestations of capitalist exploitation to a protest against the social system itself. To speed this process up, a merger of the movement for reform with the labor movement is required.
With this end in view, Michael Harrington has set up the Democratic Socialist Organizational Committee (DSOC), which includes both prominent liberal-reformists leaning towards socialism and progressive leaders of some major independent unions. DSOC supporters concentrate on increasing the political influence of American social-democracy. Harrington believes that while democratic socialists remain a relatively insignificant political force it would be wisernot to attempt an independent election campaign but support the Democratic Party and especially those items on its program which promote the interests of the working class, the black population, the minorities, the needy, etc., who constitute the majority of the Democratic Party supporters. Such tactics, according to Harrington, will eventually transform the Democratic Party into a majority New Left Party.
[90] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Three __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE CONSERVATIVE TRADITIONAlmost the first obstacle encountered in a study of the conservative tradition in American political consciousness is the uncertainty of its ideological status and its relationship to the ideological and political nature and history of American society. American political literature has offered various, even opposite, solutions to this question, in its way a thesis and antithesis.
According to the thesis, American society is out and out liberal, and conservatism, which arose from the particular circumstances of European history, is a notion entirely inapplicable to American realities. A classical expression of this view is contained in Louis Hartz' The Liberal Tradition in America. According to Hartz, since opposition to feudalism was mainly bourgeois and liberal, American society, which never had a feudal past, is ab initio liberal. The arguments of Hartz boil down to the assertion that since America was devoid of developed feudal forms, the tradition of bourgeois revolutions, characteristic of Europe, failed to develop, and consequently, there was no conservative reaction against them. In other words, "lacking Robespierre it lacks Maistre".^^1^^
From this point of view, the United States has always been free of the ideological polarization of consciousness and the struggle of opposed ideologies and Weltanschauungs characteristic of Europe. Moreover, that America was free from European traditions and was eternally dependent on the liberal consensus affecting all spheres of political consciousness is in what lies "American exceptionahsm''.
According to the antithesis, the ideological and political tradition of America is fundamentally conservative. "America celebrates itself as a nation of the liberal _-_-_
~^^1^^ Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America. An Interpretation of American Political Thought Since the Revolution, N.Y., 1955, p. 5.
91 tradition, yet that tradition has, in fact, a strong conservative base.''^^1^^ The arguments of the adherents of this point of view boil down to the following: first, they deny the existence of any gap between the conservative traditions on both sides of the Atlantic:. According to them, there exists a continuity of ``eternal'' moral and political values which make up the "tradition of dvili/ation" (the Great Tradition), to which America belongs, irrespective of whether the tradition is feudal or bourgeois. For the adherents of this view the West European political culture, whose roots stretch back to the ancient world and the Christian Middle Ages, has its successor in the American South, which is characterized by the "Southern Conservatism" of Virginia plantation owner John Randolph of Roanoke, regarded as the "American Burke''.Second, they maintain that the American conservative tradition was embodied not only in the dominant political thinking, but in the basic national political institutions and patterns, and primarily in constitutionalism, which succeeded the British Magna Carta, as well as in the status of Congress that purportedly reflects the will of the "conservative majority" of the country. All this is complemented by the specific conservative interpretation of the American Revolution of 1776, regarded as a struggle to preserve the American political and economic system which was threatened by an overseas regime. In short, according to the adherents of this view, although Americans prayed to a liberal gospel, they in fact supported conservativeprinciples.
The inversion of the historical definitions of American liberalism and conservatism has caused some difficulties in understanding the American conservative tradition. For instance, many of the positions held by classical liberals--- demand for a free market and limitation of government intervention---are today regarded as conservative. And, conversely, strong, centralized government authority which was earlier advocated by conservative federalists has now become a core demand of American liberals.
Moreover, neither among those who believe in the existence of a liberal consensus nor among their critics is there a consensus on what constitutes American conservatism and when it arose.
In one case it is thought that the differences between liberalism and conservatism manifested themselves at the time of the 1787 Philadelphia Constitutional Convention; in _-_-_
~^^1^^ American Conservative Thought in the Twentieth Century. Kcl. by William F. Buckley, Jr., N.Y. 1970, p. IX.
92 another that they appeared at a later time, during Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. Some authors regard as conservative those who advocate free market and free trade, while others consider conservative those who believe in the traditional moral and religious values and the organic: theory of society that belongs to the classical European conservative tradition. Finally, neoliberals who shifted to the right during the 1970s have recently been labeled as conservative.Many of these differences and contradictions (real or imaginary) in fact can be explained by the heterogeneity of American conservative political thought, in the framework of which several types coexist, and by the primordial heterogeneity of their ideological substratum. The central feature uniting these various types of political thought is that they all are employed to justify and stabilize historically outdated social structures.
It must be mentioned that initially the word `` conservatism'' was employed in philosophical and political lexicon to designate the feudal and aristocratic reaction against the French bourgeois revolution. In Europe this reaction voiced the concerns of principally the landed aristocracy and the large commercial bourgeoisie; it sought to uphold the social order swetJt away by the revolution and criticized the Enlightenment from the right.
The prebourgeois tradition became the ideological basis on which conservatism arose during the time of the bourgeois-democratic' movements. However, in distinction from prebourgeois ideology, conservative ideology emphasized the right of private property, regarding it as a stable moral principle and an absolute good and also strengthening a repressive element in the understanding of human rights and duties.
As a result the conservative ideology of the feudal-- aristocratic reaction was based on prebourgeois social, philosophical, moral and religious ideas. The internal difference between prebourgeois ideology and feudal conservatism was ultimately caused by the changed social position of the adherents, aristocrats, in the first place, who found themselves in a situation where the customary way of life underwent revolutionary transformations.
In the 20th century several essentially new features appeared in conservative ideology. Conservative ideology of the present tends to serve those bourgeois quarters that in principle accept the capitalist development of Western society but are opposed to some of its modern forms---above all they fear the growth in the social and political activity of popular masses. As a consequence of the changes that look place in the social basis of conservatism, its 93 present adherents hold views and beliefs which earlier were the primary object of criticism by their precursors, namely, they defend early-bourgeois market principles in the face of the advance of state-monopoly, ``regulated'' capitalism.
Thus, conservatism as a type of ideology and consciousness embodies the political thinkings of those segments of society whose position in it is threatened by new trends of social development and who fear social progress.
Conservative consciousness of these segments consists in their refusal to admit the irreversibility of social changes which call into question their social position. The conservatives interpret the struggle of social forces as the result of meddling of an ``alien'' radicalism, which undermines a social system from without, and not as the dialectics of development of reality. Therefore, conservatism in its classical form is an ideology fused with a given social structure, identical with it. In other words, conservatism is primarily the consciousness supporting the status quo, but the status quo which is threatened by progressive social reforms, one whose adherents have not only to defend it, but often to win back already lost. social positions.
At the same time the adherence of conservatism to the status quo is rather its logical limit and ideal form. As for real historical situations, since adherents of conservatism are often stripped of their former privileged and dominant positions they find themselves alienated from the status quo and begin to look for certain social changes. In such a case they have not only to defend, but to try to win back the lost social space.
Whatever the case may be, the concept of "status quo" (or at least the return to it by overcoming the present situation) is what distinguishes conservatism from right radicalism. In its ideal form conservatism aims to preserve the stability of the given social and class structure by promoting class harmony and smoothing over social contradictions, recognizing their inevitability and putting up with them.
The above allows us to distinguish two ideological currents in the structure of conservative political consciousness, one of which is aimed at stabilizing and perpetuating antiquated social structure and the other at eliminating opposing social forces and trends and restoring the former social order. As the balance between these two currents is determined by a specific historical situation, conservative consciousness, determined by the evolution of corresponding social formations, goes through various phases. In a case where the stability of a certain social structure has not yet been unsettled by the opposition of other social 94 trends (or if the latter are not sufficiently developed), conservative consciousness will exist in a theoretically passive form, a sort of protective political reflex. But if a social structure or a certain socio-economic phase has changed completely, then the attempts to reconstruct it will be not so much conservatory as politically reactionary. The evolution of conservative consciousness within the bounds of these two phases reveals the nature of conservatism as a phenomenon most characteristic of periods of sharp opposition of social trends, when the old has not fully disappeared from the historical arena and continues to oppose the new.
Conservative consciousness avoids analyzing social development from a historical perspective. It prefers a moralistic and didactic approach to social phenomena built on the statement of absolute truths unchangeable in a historical perspective. It is not predisposed to theoretical reflection. Its theoretical reflection is impelled from without, by forces of the social opposition who begin to call into question the social status of its adherents and who compel the latter to justify the social status quo.
In this sense conservative consciousness is always a derivative from some other forms of consciousness and ideology which it assimilates only after these forms have completed their initial social functions. The subordinate nature of conservatism is clearly manifest in that, as distinguished from some other forms of political consciousness (for example, liberal), it lacks a single substantial ideological base. Like radicalism, conservatism represents a certain type of attitudes to social development trends; specifically, it is a type of attitudes aiming to preserve historically outdated social structures.
In analyzing the specific features of the ideological substratum of conservative types of political consciousness, we must mention that an outdated ideology which assumes a conservative function undergoes an irreversible deformation and engulfs certain general and permanent structural elements, ideological principles and notions about the nature of man and society. Among them the following can be singled out: the universe is subject to a general moral law; human nature and reason are imperfect and evil; men are born unequal; existing and time-tested social institutions are preferable to radical social reform; strict social differentiation is necessary for the harmonious interaction of classes and social groups; protection of private property is the ultimate moral purpose of society, and so forth.
Here we can distinguish two sufficiently stable mechanisms by means of which ideology acquires a conservative 95 function and which can he called ``assimilation'' and `` inversion''. In the first case ideological elements of an earlier form of conservative ideology are inherited and reproduced, in the second the social function of an ideology undergoes change in a new social setting.
The similarity of different types of conservative political consciousness consists in that historically they all support the interests of classes and groups about to leave the social arena or subjected to strong pressure from emergent strata. Because conservatism has welded itself to historically outdated social systems, it lacks a time frame directed into the future. It is a specific feature of conservatism that it is orientated to the past. It has but one type of social and historical dependence---its tie to the past.
Because of its one-sicled approach to the social time frame, conservatism spawns within itself an internal contradiction which ultimately destroys it. On the one hand, conservatism proclaims a social Utopia and rejects the very possibility of the intervention of a subject in the course of the socio-historical process. On the other, it arbitrarily introduces the past in all its historical extent into the present, thus creating a specific: conservative Utopia. As a result, social time in conservative consciousness is ambivalent: it pulls the past into the present but is remarkably intransigent as soon as radical social reforms projected into the future are formulated.
Thus, the specific features of conservative types of political consciousness are determined not by the immanent conservative political tradition, but by a uniform situation which periodically recurs in the course of the historical process. And if we have a right to talk about the " conservative tradition'', it is primarily in the sense of the periodic recurrence of stable uniform mechanisms which shape conservative consciousness.
An adequate understanding of the genesis of conservative types of political consciousness in the United States must rest on a specific historical, social and class analysis of the internal patterns and objective stages of evolution of the bourgeois structure. Western political literatureoffers two opposing theories in this respect. According to the first, conservatism is interpreted only as the feudalaristocratic reaction against the French bourgeois revolution. The second theory gives conservatism a much wider interpretation, making it a stabilizing element of any social structure, whatever the role and significance of the structure in the social and historical process. Both of these theories are one-sided. In actuality the very 96 evolution of social forms and the alteration of the socio-- cognitive functions of the types of political consciousness corresponding to them represent a universal law of the social and historical process. Conservatism, therefore, cannot be considered as descending from any one ideology or type of consciousness or be confined to a specific period. In analyzing the specific features of the different types of conservative consciousness, one must proceed from methodological principles of the historical and materialistic approach to political consciousness and from the principle of the irreversibility of both the individual stages of the social process and the socio-cognitive functions of corresponding types of thinking. When productive forces outgrow the framework of the given production relations, then a change in the socio-cognitive functions is not only possible, but necessary. Yet as the initial stage of analysis a contextual understanding of conservatism requires the subsequent introduction of an objective criterion for appraising various ideological and political phenomena in accordance with the principles of the irreversibility of social progress.
Inasmuch as the adoption of the conservative function by a particular type of consciousness is conditioned by the rivalry of different social tendencies, some of which exhibit elements of social progress, while others mirror the resistance of forces of the past, the key stages of America's socio-historical development also prove to be landmarks in the formation of the ideological substratum of conservative consciousness. Various mechanisms are revealed in this process, by means of which various layers are crystallized within a given ideological substratum and which determine the specific features of corresponding types of consciousness.
The first such mechanism is the reproduction of a complex of ideological elements borrowed from the prebourgeois conservative tradition.
Although capitalism in America progressed with giant strides under especially favorable conditions where, as Engels put it, "no mediaeval ruins bar the way'',^^1^^ the growth of bourgeois social relations did not occur in a void, as the adherents of the liberal consensus idea would have it, but struggled against the real and significant remnants of feudalism, which existed foremostly in the form of English colonialism. In critisizing the statement of N. N. Gimmer that the United States is a "country which _-_-_
~^^1^^ "The Labour Movement in America'', Marx and Engels, On the United States, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1979, p. 284.
__PRINTERS_P_97_COMMENT__ 7---34 97 has never known feudalism'', Lenin stressed that this statement "is the very opposite of the truth, for the eamomic survivals of slavery are not in any way distinguishable from those of feudalism, and in the former slave-owning South of the U.S.A. these survivals are still very puwerjul ''.^^1^^ The feudal elements transferred to America ( landownership in the form of manors and royal grants, fixed rent, primogeniture, attempts at forming guilds and other forms of feudal coercion, and the very colonial and slaveowning system with a colonial elite and segments of the population judicially deprived of basic rights) were a conservative starting point in a system of social relations shaping on the whole on a bourgeois basis.To a certain extent the contention of feudal and bourgeois trends in the process of forming American society reproduced a classical situation of the emergence of European conservatism as a feudal-aristocratic: reaction against progressive bourgeois development. The important social aspect of the feudal production and law relations that were artificially transplanted to the American colonies was that the developed bourgeois mother country used them to suppress the bourgeois development of the colonies. Thus the bourgeois privileges of the mother country were protected politically and economically by implanting elements of feudal regulation of social and economic life in the colonies.
The American colonies' war for independence from the English mother country, which was actually achieving the tasks of the bourgeois revolution, undermined the economic and socio-political position of the feudal tendency in America as a conservative factor in the developing social system and, on the whole, removed the obstacles for a progressive development of the capitalist formation in the New World. The triumph of a free capitalist market on a country-wide scale promoted the eradication of the independent ideological and legal structures of feudalism and further strengthened the sway of bourgeois-market forms of consciousness which corresponded to the age of the rising bourgeois structure and the flourishing capitalist free enterprise and competition, and whose ideological sourcecould be traced back to the classical European liberal tradition.
Nevertheless, significant features of the feudal-- conservative ideology were preserved in America after the winning of independence, but now these features began to serve _-_-_
~^^1^^ ``Nc'v Data on the Laws Governing Dt`vt'lopmrnt ol C. apilalisin in Agrii ullnic'', Collected U'or/c.v, Vol. ^2, 19(i4, p. '24.
98 other social forces supporting conservative positions. Gradually a stratum of bourgeois conservative ideology was formed on this basis which became a substratum of conservative types of political consciousness.For one thing, the elements of the feudal-conservative ideology comprised the fundamental beliefs of the Southern plantation and slaveowning aristocracy. Its ideologists, John Randolph, John Calhaun, Nathaniel Tucker, and others, contrasted the idyll of the patriarchal slaveholding plantation against the capitalist relations developing in the North and repudiated the individualistic principles of classical American liberalism in the name of the ideally ``organic'' social structure of the South. Already in the second half of the 19th century, under conditions of capitalist industrialization and the decline of natural economy in agriculture, these ideas began to an increasing degree reflect the attitudes of the Southern aristocracy who recollected with nostalgia the patriarchal order of village life and who repudiated the ``vulgar'' power of money, banks, and plutocrats. These aristocrats regarded themselves as a tragic anachronism and sunk into romantic conservatism (like the brothers Henry and Brooks Adams), idealization of the Middle Ages, and an apology of religious mysticism.
Secondly, many of the elements of the feudal-conservative ideology (moral-religious rigorism, class and socio-cultural elitism, the presumption of the moral and legal legitimacy of existing social institutions, communal and corporate ethics, the lack of formal stipulation of human rights and duties, and others) were preserved in the bourgeois-- traditionalist belief at the end of the 19th and the first three decades of the 2()th centuries. This time those groups of private bourgeois proprietors who could not adapt themselves to the intensive industrialization and monopolization of the capitalist system in the United States turned to these ideas. They were lured to the past as an era of social stability, a stable hierarchy and indisputable moral authority. To be sure, although they devised apologies for the spiritual aristocracy and launched antidemocratic criticisms at the ``crowd'' and "mass society'', condemning the industrialmonopolistic order and rejecting progress itself, the ideologists of these groups were never formally united. Some of them were representatives of the so-called New Humanism (Irving Babbitt, Paul Elmer More); others belonged to the Southern Agrarians (Donald Davidson, John Renson, Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren), who to the greatest degree embraced conservatism and aristocrat ism of the Southern tradition; and finally there were solitary types such as G. Menken. Yet the differences among them 99 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1984/PCUSA333/20071201/199.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.12.02) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ were only in some details and did not efface the objective identity of both the conservative social positions they held and the ideological arguments they employed.
Thirdly, from the 1930s to the 1940s, against the backdrop of a specific conservative reaction to the New Deal on behalf of mainly peripheral political forces (who had the rug pulled out from under them and who lost their privileged positions as a result of government centralization) the tradition picked up a new feature, free market motives, which resulted in the formation of a new conservative type in American political consciousness, traditionalism, which exists to this day. This consciousness has been theorized in the works of Russell Kirk, Eric Voegelin, Richard Weaver, Francis G. Wilson, Peter Viereck, Peter Witonski, Clinton Rossiter, Leo Strauss, Jeffrey Hart, Stephen Tonsor, Will Herberg, et al.
Thus, the transformed tradition of classical European conservatism turns out to be an important section in a heterogeneous substratum of American conservative political consciousness, and the assimilation of this tradition represents a mechanism for forming the ideological substratum of a corresponding type of consciousness, i.e., traditionalism.
Yet in the last third of the 19th century the contours of a second ideological section and a second ideological mechanism were already distinctly noticeable, which formed a different type of conservative political consciousness in America. This process was associated with the internal evolution of American liberalism and the inversion of the functions of the classical liberal idea of free market in the period of transition to state-monopoly capitalism.
The ideological principles of classical liberalism, formulated in an abstract form, could be interpreted variously, and, as it turned out, could serve various social forces, the differences in opinion among which made their appearance after the victory of the American Revolution. The inherent ambivalence in American classical liberalism was caused by the incompatibility of the development of the principles of bourgeois democracy, which had their heritage in the Enlightenment, and the ideals of capitalist property inherited from Locke. For a while, that internal contradiction was not all that obvious. As Irving Kristol writes: "The United States is the capitalist nation par excellence. That is to say, it is not merely the case that capitalism has flourished here more vigorously than, for instance, in the nations of Western Europe. The point is, rather, that the Founding Fathers intended this nation to be capitalist and regarded it as the only set of economic 100 arrangements consistent with the liberal democracy they had established.''^^1^^ The gradual decay of classical liberalism, however, led to the inevitable reappraisal of the idea of the link between bourgeois democracy and capitalist property. "Though capitalism and democracy historically have arisen together, and have been commonly justified by philosophical liberalism, there is nothing which makes it either theoretically or practically necessary for the two to be yoked.''^^2^^
One of the important consequences of the rapid industrial development of America after the Civil Wai' was the reevaluation of the ideological and political arguments supporting capitalist property. By the time of the Golden Age American capitalism attained the stage where government protectionism was no longer required and the interests of capitalist property aspiring to unrestrained expansion became most fully realized in laissez-faire, a program formerly alien to them and rooted in Jefferson's agrarian liberalism. Under these new socio-economic conditions the concept of free market acquired a new historical function: while in the period of the struggle against feudalism and the development of the capitalist structure laissez-faire bore a progressive social potential, later, as the social antagonisms of bourgeois society matured, it began to incorporate the demands of the most conservative bourgeois circles for "full economic freedom'', that is, for the freedom to exploit wage labor and concentrate capital with no restrictions by the state. In such a way the classical liberal concept of market capitalism acquired a conservative function. "The great principle of laissez faire, that had proved so useful in the earlier struggle against aristocratic paternalisms,'' V. L. Parrington wrote, "has become a shield and buckler for the plutocracy that was rising from the freedoms of a let-alone policy.''^^3^^
The mutation of the concept of free market, called by Clinton Rossiter "the Great Train Robbery of American Intellectual History'', was caused by the monopolization of the capitalist economic and social structure in America and by the opposition of big business to government intervention in relations between labor and capital. The social ideal of laissez-faire acquired a conservative function earlier unadaptable to it, and, as a result, a specific American type of market conservatism was formed. The adherents _-_-_
~^^1^^ Irving Kristol, "On Corporate Capitalism in America'', The Public Interest, No. 41, Fall 1975, p. 124.
~^^2^^ Daniel Bell, The (Cultural Contradiction* o] Capitalism, N. Y., 1976, p. 14.
~^^3^^ Vernon Louis Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought, Vol..'!. The Beginning* uj Critical Realism in America, 1860--1920, N. Y., 1930, p. '282.
101 of this new type of conservatism (William Graham Sumner, Stephen Field, Andrew Carnegie, et al.) saw man as solely an "economic individual" possessed by the mania of free enterprise, innately a bourgeois money-grubber and egoist. They declared equality to be the ideal of backward peoples, while freedom of capitalist enterprise is the ideal of the advanced nations taking the path of progress, which, in its turn, is identical to bourgeois accumulation. The concept of a "natural aristocracy" of these bourgeois parvenu occupied an important place in the ideology of market conservatism. Social Darwinism, in tune with these ideas, appeared in the ideology of market conservatism in the form of the concept of natural capitalist selection.^^1^^It must be added that in the given case the transformed ideology of classical liberalism was combined with some traditionalist conservative elements. For instance, in their support of industrial expansion, the adherents of market conservatism at the same time rejected any kind of radical social changes, seeing in them a threat to the existing order. The captains of industry regarded themselves as the bearers of the absolute moral Truth, which included the recognition of the inevitability of the hierarchical stratification of society, the ``natural'' inequality of people, the necessity of elites, the unreasonableness of the popular masses, etc. The conservative, protective character of this system of market beliefs was directed against the democratic agrarian movements in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries which demanded that the government regulate market elements and curb the tyranny of capitalist big business.
Thus, at the end of the 19th century, the various social and political interests in the USA came to be increasingly concentrated on the question about the role and functions of the government in society, the various answers to which were a watershed between the conservatives and the new liberals. As American capitalism developed and the mechanisms of market regulation revealed their irrational side (economic crises, etc.), many of the more provident among the American bourgeoisie began to see the economic, if not social, destructiveness of the free market mechanisms. This foresight in turn stimulated an evolutionary process within the liberal tradition---defense of the free market yielded to the recognition of the need for government regulation. This transformation was put into effect by the reforms of Roosevelt's New Deal and became the basis of a new _-_-_
~^^1^^ Richard Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1H60-I915, Philadelphia, 1945.
102 liberal ideology, the' liberalism of government intervention.In the context of the inevitable evolution of American political thought from market forms to that of etatism the free market concept inevitably acquires a conservative social function and becomes a means lor the ideological nonrecognition of the objective evolution of society in the direction of monopolization and state regulation; recognition of this process by the market type of consciousness would be equivalent to self-destruction. The adherents of market conservatism interpret the changes taking place in America, connected with the transition to state-monopoly regulation and the curtailing of the market mechanism, as a radical departure from the American liberal-individualistic tradition towards etatism and collectivist liberalism. "The most important event in the history of the last hundred years is the displacement of liberalism by etatism. Etatism appears in two forms: socialism and interventionism. Both have in common the goal of subordinating the individual unconditionally to the state, the social apparatus of compulsion and coercion.'' (Ludwig von Mises).^^1^^
This conservative reaction of certain bourgeois circles in the United States was engendered by the very logic of the development of free-competition capitalism into statemonopoly capitalism (which assumes the intervention of the state in ecoi,;>mic and social policies), the circumstances not all bourgeois private owners are able to adapt to.
Therefore, beginning in the 1930s, a new type of conservative consciousness, which exists to this very day, was formed, being based on the ideology of market conservatism which makes up the second layer in the ideological substratum of American conservative political consciousness. This type, having been called libertarianism, reflects the thinking of business circles who are not active in the state sector and who reject any kind of encroachment of the government on their traditional sovereignty and are opposed to the widening of workers' rights, referring to them as ``collectivist'' and ``socialist'' actions which undermine American individualism. This type of consciousness in a theorized form is contained in the works of Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, John Hospers, Jerome Tuccille, Milton Friedman, David Friedman, Murray Rothbard, Roger L. MacBride, Robert Nozick, et al. There is an essential functional difference between libertarianism and the market conservatism of the late 19th and the early 20th century. It consists in that, during the 1930s and 1940s, the _-_-_
~^^1^^ /7(c Wisdom of (^oust`n't
New Rodu-llf, N. Y.. 1971, p.
In IVtiT Witonski, Vol.
Each of these types in its logical development produces certain deviations, i.e., radical and one-sided varieties which resemble classical European liberal and conservative traditions artificially transplanted to American society in all their ideological purity. Yet conservative political consciousness as a whole, as a specific phenomenon of modern American ideological and political life, combines both traditionalist and libertarian elements. The combining of libertarianism and traditionalism becomes possible because of the specific ideological deformation of ideological borrowings within the system of conservative political consciousness.
This can serve as the starting point for the concept of fusionism (F. Mayer, M. Stanton Evans, William F. Buckley, Jr., et al.) which attempts to treat the differences between libertarianism and traditionalism as mere frictions within the framework of a general consensus and calls for their removal in the context of a wider problematic field of American conservatism. Yet the absence of positive bases for the merging of libertarians and traditionalists and their ultimate incompatibility proves to be the greatest difficulty for the doctrine of fusionism.
Until most recently libertarianism and traditionalism held sway in the framework of American conservative political consciousness. The main differentiation between their adherents and the liberals was linked with the question of what role and functions the government should assume: the new liberals insisted on government regulation of the economy and of some social relations, whereas the libertarians and traditionalists (although for different reasons) continued to call for nonintervention of the government in market relations. But at the beginning of the 1970s they began to talk about the so-called neoconservatism in America as a new type of conservative consciousness. This type of consciousness in a theorized form is contained in the works of Irving Kristol, Daniel Bell, Daniel Moynichan, Norman Podhoretz, Samuel Huntington, Seymour Lipset, Robert Nisbet, Edward Banfield, Roger Staar, Martin Diamond, Peter L. Berger, et al.
The new type of conservative political consciousness in the United States originated in a new social, political and economic situation which took shape in the 1970s as a result of the further development of state-monopoly capitalism and the worsening of its contradictions. This process brought about some changes in the criteria for 104 distinguishing conservatism and liberalism and introduced some corrections in the watershed concerning the attitude towards government intervention, which had formed between them by the beginning of the New Deal.
By the 1970s the active regulating role of the government in economic and social life became a permanent factor of American reality; as a result the government began to be regarded as a "neutral administrative tool"^^1^^ which in itself is neither liberal nor conservative.
Accordingly, the criterion in distinguishing the various political and socio-economic positions became not so much whether or not the mechanisms of government regulation were employed, but rather in whose interest and how they should be employed.
A number of factors contributed to the formation of a new type of conservative consciousness. Among these were the disillusionment of Americans in the optimistic social programs and social policies of the liberals of the 1960s. The serious complication of the problems of postindustrialism, the complexity of the entire modern social system, and the obvious inability of the neoliberal technocratic recipes to provide solutions (plus the increasing trend towards radical social reforms which these recipes objectively stimulated), have brought about a reverse reaction of growing interest in the traditional social schemes of conservatism within the idea of the "limits of politics''. These social schemes purportedly reflect the ``eternal'' principles of a stable social structure. Another factor that contributed to the formation of a new type of conservatism was that liberalism in America developed along contradictory paths, which led to a sharp demarcation between them during the 1970s. The representatives of the liberal-reformist trend, convinced that affluent society had really been born in America as a result of unlimited economic growth, continued to advocate a social welfare system, greater emphasis on the problems of the minorities, and a greater orientation on the principle of "equal results''. Opposition to this reformist trend, initially made up of liberals who had moved to the right, acquired the name of neoconservatism. Many of the present-day neoconservatives were most recently liberals and some of them occupied important posts in government agencies. Today, glancing back at the 1960s, they criticize the liberals for the very same mistakes they made.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Robert Lekachman, "Liberal Government and Ec'onomic Polity'', in The Liberal Tradition in Crisis. Ed. by Jerome M. Mileur, Lexington, 1974, p. 135.
105At the same time, it should be noted that the appearance of neoconservatism has certain quite real reasons behind it, since neoconservatism focuses on the vulnerable indeed features of the neoliberal approach to the socio-economic and political problems of present-day America. In other words, neoconservatism is functional in that it actually points out the crisis phenomena in the economic and socio-political system of American capitalism today, focusing on the most acute of the economic and socio-political problems in American society today that cannot be solved by the traditional liberal or neoliberal methods. The rise of neoconservatism is thus an indicator of sorts of the crisis of neoliberalism and the general malfunctioning of the present-day American socio-political system.
There were many causes of these new crisis phenomena. Paramount among them are those associated with the qualitatively new problems brought about by the changing social and political realities within the country and abroad, by the complication of existing problems and the growing difficulties in running the American political system.
The international developments involved have to do with the changes in America's position in the world arena. With the increased power of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries, the advancement of developing countries, troubled relations with its allies, and, finally, the international economic and energy crises, the United States saw its position noticeably change during the 1970s. The problems which arose on an international scale were serious and often represented a stumbling block for American foreign policy.
In domestic developments, the growing political instability of American society at the end of the 1960s and the economic: difficulties of the 1970s led to failures in the functioning of the American social and political system. Moreover, the increasing regulatory role of the bourgeois state and the extension of its functions, an objective process in modern capitalism, leads to the overloading of basic social mechanisms and institutions and reveals the government's inability to fulfill all its tasks and to satisfy all the demands made upon it.
The appearance of new areas of government responsibility which is reflected in part in the expansion of the number of federal programs in social areas means a further restriction of the field of activity of self-regulating market mechanisms and the diminishing of their social functions. As a result the government acquires a self-contained, bureaucratic character and becomes increasingly ineffective. The number of conflicts subject to government arbitration 106 grows. A government which fails to solve certain problems gets caught up in a tidal wave of others (for instance, poverty, racial inequality, and youth problems which were acute during the 1960s have remained unsolved to this day and alongside new problems which arose during the 1970s, such as environmental protection, the women's movement, consumers' movement, etc.).
The inevitable politici/ation (owing to government participation) of social and economic problems and conflicts earlier solved by the market mechanism leads to a growth of demands, at times incompatible, by various social groups. Unreali/ed expectations, especially those growing out of optimistic liberal rhetoric and promises, in turn cause further disillusionment and despair and ultimately overload the system even more. In the end, the increased number of social problems and their acuteness significantly diminish the government's possibilities to cope with the new problems, let alone the old (like unemployment), and lead to a decline of its authority, a credibility gap. It must be said that these are organic and structural problems of the present-day American socio-political system which are unsolvable by either traditional liberal or conservative approaches.
From here the second set of factors connected with the growing overloading and stumbling of the American sociopolitical system lends itself to examination. These factors are caused by the tact that traditional liberal and conservative approaches are at variance with the new realities of domestic and foreign policies. Domestically this implies the ineffectiveness of both the liberal-Keynesian tradition in solving arising problems and the traditional conservative market methods in solving new problems (for example, energy-related). And in international developments, America has relapsed into hegemony and interventionism (whether it be the use of military force, which appeals to many conservatives, or by ideological pressure, which is supported by the majority of liberals). In both cases the traditional liberal and conservative ideological and political approaches are no longer in line with the changing domestic and international realities.
This incompatibility is reflected in the present state of political consciousness in the United States and in the changes taking place within it. The various conflicting opinions among Americans about what kind of government to have and what its functions should be, about social problems and morals and the role that America should play in the world arena, all this witnesses to the fact that not a single one of the traditional political ideologies---neither 107 liberalism nor conservatism---is satisfactory for Americans. They themselves attempt to sort out and put together that medley of ideological and political propositions which in their view best fits the new political realities. The differences in these propositions are essentially caused by the very contradictions of social realities.
Neoconservatism represents a quest for a new type of conservative consciousness which borrows some elements from the liberal tradition. What is specific about neoconservatism is that it differs in several respects both from the former conservative types of political consciousness, libertarianism and traditionalism, and from neoliberalism. It differs from the former two in its recognition of the active role of the government in economic anal social life; from the latter, in its desire to limit this role by strict bounds so as to curb unrestrained liberal reformism, and in its greater accent on the use of market mechanisms for solving social problems. Thus, the ideological substratum of neoconservatism is distinguished by its eclecticism: it not only includes corresponding ideological strata of libertarianism and traditionalism, but a new stratum taken from new liberalism, too. A mixture of ideological mechanisms comes into play in the formation of neoconservative political consciousness: first, several ideological elements are borrowed from libertarianism and traditionalism; second, as a means for the conservative deformation of the ideology of new liberalism, which, as is known, tries to minimize market regulation, elements of market mechanism are introduced. The "old middle class'', who were not amenable to state-monopoly forms of capitalist reproduction, formed the backbone of libertarianism and traditionalism, while neoconservatism incorporates other social groups, mainly those whose demands were met by the New Deal all the way up to the period of economic stability at the start of the 1960s, but who were threatened by the loss of their gains owing to the basic trends of the social policy of neoliberals during the second half of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s. Forms of right radicalism appear as ofshoots of conservatism on the basis of similar conservative reaction of social strata affected by economic and sociopolitical changes in the American bourgeois system.
Every type of conservative reaction tends to give birth to a conservative proper and a corresponding right-radical types of political consciousness which are united by common ideological foundations. For instance, libertarianism and American radical-libertarian consciousness share a similar model of the free market and criticize statemonopoly regulation, that criticism in its right-radical 108 interpretation advancing the theory of ``conspiracy''. Traditionalism and radical etatism in a similar manner worry about the "crisis of Western civilization" and display interest in the problems of morals and Weltanschauung, looking for ways to build (reconstruct) the moral and religious unity of the nation. Finally, neoconservatism and right populism take similar views of the basic antagonism which exists between the liberal elite (new class) and the productive classes.
Thus, three basic types of conservatism can be singled out within the body of present-day American political consciousness: libertarianism, traditionalism and neoconservatism. All three of these types possess common characteristics which indicate an identical social situation taking shape, when the social status of various segments of the population is threatened by the irreversible march of social and historical development.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. LIBERTARIAN CONSCIOUSNESSGeneral characteristics and genesis. Libertarian consciousness declares itself to be the heir to the classical liberal tradition and the sole genuine liberalism of the present. According to its adherents, it is quite undeservedly labeled as a form of conservatism. "I am an Adam Smith liberal, or, in contemporary American terminology, a Goldwater conservative,"^^1^^ libertarian David Friedman announces.
Indeed, against the background of slogans and declarations which defend the principles of laissez-faire and the freedom of economic individualism, libertarianism bears a resemblance to classical liberalism. And this resemblance is not accidental. As a form of ideological apology for free enterprise and market capitalism free from government interference, libertarianism was formed on the basis of liberal ideology which had historically developed in America, or, rather, on its ossified and therefore deformed fragments, which, by virtue of the incongruity of its ideological and political propositions with the changing realities of the bourgeois economic system, obtained a conservative function that was earlier uncharacteristic of it.
Essentially, however, libertarianism and classical liberalism are types of political consciousness which have different functions, are concerned about different problems _-_-_
~^^1^^ David Friedman, ^he Machinery of Freedom. Guide to a Radical Capitalism, N.Y., 1973, p. XI.
109 and set forth different tasks. Libertarianism is but an external representation of the free market opposed to government intervention, an idea inherent in classical liberalism. However, the genuine socio-political and economic intent of this opposition is reversed in the present case, for today the alternative to the free market is not the feudal-bureaucratic regulation of production, but statemonopoly capitalism on the one side and socialism on the other. Under these conditions the characteristic libertarian penchant for using the free market as a mechanism lot regulating socio-economic relations obtains a conservative character.Conservatism is generally inclined to find universal, simplified recipes for solving all social problems. The very rise of conservatism can be regarded as a specific reaction against the many complex and insurmountable problems of present-day life in the West. Hence the tendency to remove these problems from the limelight, to refuse to recogni/e their existence, to ignore them, which, perhaps, is what most distinctly characteri/es libertarianism. Libertarians regard themselves as being beyond of the catastrophic social changes, although they retain some optimism and hope that it is still not too late to return to tested and morally sound conditions of social life, i.e., to dispose of government regulation and allow free play of market forces. In this respect the libertarians close their eyes to the irreversible character of the changes faking place in thestructure of American society and advocate an obviously unrealizable Utopian program which is entirely a reversion to the past. Utopianism as a consequence of a search for simplified and universal solutions is to a varying degree characteristic of all types of conservative thought. It is manifest in libertarianism in its refusal to recogni/e as historically inevitable and necessary the processes of economic development within the bourgeois structure that have caused the transition to state regulation of economic production, and in its deeming possible the reconstruction of a historically outmoded economic structure.
It must be said that the libertarian attitude to the socio-economic and political processes taking place in American society bears a distinctive stamp of eschatology combined with moralism, which, incidentally, in one way or another is characteristic of all types of conservative consciousness. All the phenomena of American life are tied in with the state of world civili/ation, whose central values, it is maintained, are threatened. It is further maintained that neoliberals, by betraying the classical heritage ol economic individualism and free trade, "are betraying 110 civili/atiou itself. They are lending a hand in the destruction ol its basic values, promoting a return march in every phase of human progress.''^^1^^
The moralistic orientation of libertarian consciousness divides the world into good and evil, true and false in their absolute opposition. By absolutizing moral and ethical norms in their body of political beliefs, libertarians have a tendency to simplify social problems and seek simplified solutions to them. The same is evident in their attitude towards the general socio-economic: and political situation in America: libertarians, for example, predict a complete national collapse within the next ten years.
Libertarians use their postulations and moral values to substantiate their own social ideal---the market mechanism of free enterprise regarded as the only suitable for human nature. Here, Utopianism is manifest in that this market social ideal is viewed as a normative ideal whose realization today in principle is fully possible. The evolutionary processes within the bourgeois structure that have manifested themselves in the transition from a self-regulating market to state regulation of the economy by means of political mechanisms are regarded by libertarian consciousness as a radical change, an indisputable social and moral regression of mankind, a transition from freedom to tyranny. This transition itself is perceived by libertarianism as neither inevitable nor irreversible. Libertarian thought preserves an internal tenseness in it, a feeling that a choice is still not late to make in order to turn things back to ``freedom''.
Libertarian consciousness refuses to understand that in reality this choice just does not exist, since the transition from market to state mechanisms of regulating the socio-economic process represents the logical development of the capitalist structure. The recognition of this logic, however, would be self-destructive for this type of political consciousness. In their attachment to a historically past phase of bourgeois development libertarians interpret this transition as none other than the distortion of a morally stable "natural order" that is in keeping with the highest moral principles and human nature itself. They invoke some of Adam Smith's ideas about the natural character of the bourgeois market structure and use them in an entirely different ideological and political context---as an argument against the American system of state-monopoly capitalism.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Max Kasitnan, ``Frci'dom and llic Planned Economy'
iiu`ri'iiiive 'Thought in the 'Twentieth Century, p. 198.
Americtin
Libertarian interpretation of American history is an important factor in our analysis of the general characteristics and genesis of this type of consciousness. While traditionalist conservatives allege the existence of a conservative foundation of American society, the influence of the ideological components that libertarianism borrowed from classical liberalism results in the accentuation of the opposite features. While traditionalist thought sees federalism as the American source of conservative ideas, libertarianism worships Jefferson and Paine and deems the war of the American colonies for independence as "the American libertarian revolution" which destroyed the sway of English absolutism in the New World and established a free bourgeois market order. Giving a generally apologetic interpretation to American history right up to the New Deal, the libertarians regard the latter as the critical boundary after which America went astray. Therefore, they regard the formation of libertarianism as a necessary correction that can return American society to the path laid by the Founding Fathers.
Problems of domestic policy. Libertarian perception of domestic policy problems is determined by the general understanding or the correlation between politics and economics. Libertarians' appeal to a purely economic mechanism of market regulation and its criticism of state regulation of the economy through politics calls into question the status of politics as an independent sphere of the social process.
In distinction from traditionalism, where politics comes under moral and religious concepts, libertarian consciousness permeates politics with a vulgar economic content which leaves its imprint on all its domestic political concepts. For instance, although libertarianism recognizes and accepts the basic institutions of American democracy and, like traditionalism, is formed within the framework of an initial ideological and political consensus, it nevertheless stands in a sharply negative position in respect to the federal government. The libertarian notion about the optimal mechanism for exercising political power, too, boils down to the reduction of political relations to the economic relations of a free market exchange. Yet libertarian consciousness gives mush more regard to the specific problems of American domestic politics and attempts to define its own political position in relation to them. Libertarian consciousness to a much greater degree than other types of conservatism has a tendency to rely on specific politically organized structures. Having initially been formed on the extreme right wing of the Republican 112 Parly, the libertarian political group soon left the bounds of the two-party system and formed the so-called Libertarian Party in 1971.
Libertarian consciousness reproduces the Smithian fetish of exchange regarded as the natural means for the self-- revelation of human nature: "The only way by which man can do this is by use of his mind and energy to transform resources (`production') and to exchange these products for products created by others.''^^1^^ Thus, the actual social relations between exploited wage labor and the owners of the means of capitalist production are hidden behind the semblance of equitable exchange of products. The libertarian idea of a natural character of market capitalism is based on a specific image of man, his nature and predestination, which in appearance resembles the position of classical liberalism, but which in actuality introduces essential modifications meeting the demands of the day. In libertarian consciousness, man is but an economic individual engendered by free enterprise. Corresponding to this capitalist free enterprise, as a mystical fetish, is regarded as the supreme form of human activity that accumulates all the natural faculties of an individual and gives him adequate space to apply them.
This notion of man carries to the limit the individualistic intentions of classical liberalism. In libertarian consciousness, "individuals are the only human reality. All groups are fictions ... they exist only in the abstract."^^2^^ Therefore, the libertarian idea of the structure of presentday American society can be defined as socio-political nominalism. In effect, the social structure as a specific hierarchy is entirely nonexistent for libertarianism, for what does exist is but separate human individuals. This, by the way, does not rule out the presence in libertarian consciousness of a certain elitist impulse entailing factors ol the moral and social superiority of those individuals who are successful in business activities.
In the libertarian view, the nature of man is realized in voluntary business activities and in acts of individual economic: choice as a measure of freedom inherent to an individual. The limit of individual freedom is damage (mainly physical) to another person. Libertarian consciousness, moreover, treats coercion in an extremely simplified way---basically as direct physical constraint coming above _-_-_
^^1^^ Murray N. Rolhbard, "1 IK- Anatomy of the Slate'', in The Libertarian Alternative. f.'.wry.s in Sutinl unit I'olitiail /`/K'/O.SO/J/IV. Kcl. by Tibor R. Marhan, Chicago, HI7-1, p. 70.
^^2^^ Roger I.. MacBricii, A .Vnr Dnwn for America: The Libertarian Challenge, Ottawa, 1!)7(>, p. L'.
__PRINTERS_P_113_COMMENT__ 8---34 113 all from the state. Libertarian consciousness bases this understanding of freedom on the notion of inalienable "natural rights" that include the classical Lockean triad of life, liberty and property. The right of property in this notion of rights is superior to the rest.From here we can already see how libertarian consciousness revises the ideological heritage of the American revolution. By substituting in Jeffersonian wording the Lockean principle of property for the "pursuit of happiness'', libertarian consciousness, in fact, discards the humanitarian impulse contained in the Declaration of Independence.
Libertarianism advocates private property as the basis of civilization. However, the classical liberal schemes it invokes pursue other aims and fulfill other functions: they are opposed not to the feudal-bureaucratic tyranny, but to the demands to restrain the tyranny of private property the exploited masses make on the state.
The ideas of libertarian consciousness concerning the nature of society and the state stem from the conception of the free market as the guarantee and means of exercising freedom. Libertarianism perceives society as the voluntary union of private owners who possess equal freedom. Society is not identical to the state; the latter is the product of an agreement among individuals, and does not acquire any kind of special individual rights as a result of this agreement. Since "the rights possessed by the state are already possessed by each individual in a state of nature"^^1^^, the state does not possess the right of coercion in respect to its citizens. The contract theory of the origin of the state is combined in libertarian consciousness with an a priori negative attitude to the state as the source of constraint over an individual, which reveals itself above all in the attempts at establishing control over market relationships.
In general the position of libertarian consciousness on the question of what kind of role and function the state should have in social life cannot be characterized as other than paradoxical. Somewhere in the depths of this consciousness lies the understanding of the fact that under capitalist conditions the state is nevertheless necessary---and precisely in order to protect private property. It is necessary within the bounds of "minimum functions'', by which is meant the defense of the class interests of bourgeois private owners from the exploited majority. Therefore, it must be borne in mind that as a rule the verbal abuse of libertarianism against the state is not so much directed _-_-_
~^^1^^ Robert No/.ick, Anarchy. Slate, and Vlopia. N. Y., 1974. p.
114 against a state as such, but against a specific type of state, the welfare state, which proposes a certain redistribution of property. It is this notion that is the focus of libertarian criticism.Libertarian consciousness employs the principle of a social contract as a criterion to morally justify this or that form of state order. Proceeding from the ideal of noninterference by the state in the free market process, libertarians build a hierarchy of types of a state. The ultraminirnal type protects private property and other rights of citizens, but grants its protection only to those who voluntarily make compensation for the services to private organizations which have taken upon themselves state functions in accord with the market principles of supply and demand. Strictly speaking, the state in this case is still nonexistent, as are nonexistent its elements, in particular, taxes. The minimal type is essentially a "night watchman'', as classical liberal tradition paints it. It possesses all the features of a state structure, yet its functions go no farther than ensuring the domestic and foreign security of private owners and the existence of the free market. Any kind of wider span of state functions and, the more so, state interference in the economy, cannot, from the libertarian point of view, be morally or practically justified.
However, even being aware of the need of the state as a mechanism for defending property interests, libertarians are not able to get rid of the feeling of an internal protest even against an ultraminimal state. This protest is brought to light in the form of an anarcho-capitalist tendency characteristic of extreme forms of libertarian consciousness. The social ideal of anarcho-capitalism is libertarian anarchy, which can be realized only by putting into practice the programs of selling off the state, the restoration of the absolute freedom of market relations and the deetatization of society. According to this logic, absolutely everything is subject to the transition to private property---the schools and universities, cities and streets, rivers and oceans, and even the police, judges and law.
It is easy to see that this program, if consistently realized, would lead inevitably to the denial of the very basic principles of libeitarianism. Indeed, to sell off the state, i.e., to transfer the institutions and functions of state power to private property, would apparently require a strong authoritative regime, i.e., a most excessively able state power, the kind which libertarians oppose. Deetatization is thus turned into denationalization which 115 serves the interests of the reactionary quarters of the' bourgeoisie, and, as history witnesses, requires for its realization the establishment of dictatorial regimes. Apparently, it was no mere coincidence that the program of denationalization implemented by the Pinochet regime in Chile was devised by American economists, specially solicited for this purpose, Milton Friedman and E. Herberger who support libertarian positions.
Libertarians, however, in defending the anarcho-- capitalist ideal, fail to see the contradiction that the absolutepredominance of the principles of the free market has a tendency towards their self-destruction. In principle a situation may be presumed in which someone will buy himself the right to abolish the free market---if, of course, the price is sufficiently high. Since, according to libertarian consciousness, the economy not only exists independently of politics but rules over it, political laws, legal procedures and in general the entire political superstructure are liable to be bought and sold in the free market. In this case all is decided not by voting of referendum or the free play of parliamentary forces, as is suggested by classical liberalism, but by a proposed market price.
The social ideals of libertarian consciousness are permeated by a nostalgic: spirit: "The route back to prosperity and economic sanity is the road away from collectivism and toward freedom. Not only is a free market economy liberated from government intervention the only moral solution tor America and the rest of the world; it is also the only practical way of restoring economic health and prosperity."^^1^^ Special emphasis must be made that the ``market'' about which libertarians speak, is a long way from the real market mechanisms of economic regulation which existed before the New Deal and which in varying degrees are preserved in the framework of the American mixed economy. Libertarian consciousness makes a fetish of the market, spiritualizes it and endows it with magical properties and abilities for solving the socio-economic problems of present-day America. For classical liberalism the laissez-faire principle meant the struggle for the rights and freedoms for the third estate, whereas libertarianism---and here lies the core difference between them---interprets it as defense of the privileges and private property interests against the demands for democratic reform initiated from below.
The Utopian character of the libertarian market ideal is distinctly evident in its interpretation of the problem of the formation of a monopoly, a key problem for this type _-_-_
^^1^^ R. MacBridc, op. p. 23.
116 of consciousness. On the- whole, libertarian consciousness cuts two paths in its approach to the institution of the monopoly. On the one hand, it sees the inevitable trend of the market towards monopolization; on the other, it condemns all state interference in the economic market element, whether in the form of the creation of a statemonopoly or in the form of antitrust legislation. The criticism of state-monopoly capitalism in libertarian consciousness calls forth a similarly negative attitude to big business tied up with the state apparatus. This feature of libertarianism is caused by its socio-class orientation of the conservative layers of petty and middle bourgeoisie who are not connected with the state sector and therefore regard all state interference as the encroachment on their own private ownership interests.Libertarian theoreticians distinguish ``voluntary'' ( private) and ``forced'' (state) monopoly. In other cases, monopolies are more broadly differentiated, which reflects, on the one hand, the realization that the monopoly is an inevitable product of market development, and, on the other, its interpretation as a threat and a factor which limits free market competition. The first type, the natural monopoly, is the specific reaction of the market itself in such instances when the optimal size of a firm in a certain sphere of production is so large that there is only room for one such firm within this sphere. The second type is the artificial monopoly. While the natural monopoly in principle does not pose a threat to the market since it preserves potential competition, the artificial monopoly consciously seeks control over the free market in order to receive monopoly profits in places where there are no objective conditions for a natural monopoly to emerge.
By thus relying on two criteria to explain the origin of monopolies---objective conditions (the reaction of the market itself) and subjective cdnditions (the desire to make superprofits)---libertarian consciousness intends to overcome the initially contradictory nature of its treatment of the problem of monopoly. Since in reality the main motive of the market, the attaining of maximum profit, is its objective law which is realized through the subjective activity of private owners seeking profit and organizing a monopoly for this purpose, the libertarian classification of monopolies is intended to formally reconcile its initial abstract postulates with the realities of capitalist production.
Finally, the third type of monopoly, which libertarian consciousness views as the maximum evil, is state monopoly. It occurs when the state deliberately, with use of 117 political (i.e., noneconomic) interdictions and regulations hinders free market competition in its own interests. In supporting the free market, regarded as something like an ideal formation that removes and conciliates conflicts, tense situations and contradictions, libertarianism follows the road of an abstract, metaphysical counterposing of the market and the government mechanisms.
In essence, it is this counterposing that turns out to be the quintessence of the domestic policy notions of libertarianism. Moreover, it is an end in itself, since libertarian consciousness rejects even such kind of state interference which is aimed at preserving free market competition, i.e., it rejects antitrust legislation: "To end the 'monopoly problem' in America, end all governmental involvement in economic affairs, including antitrust."^^1^^ At the same time this very opposition lies at the base of foreign policy notions of libertarian consciousness, too.
Libertarian consciousness gives far less attention to the problems of foreign policy than to domestic ones. This kind of priority is generally typical of American conservatism. On the whole, foreign policy attitudes of various types of conservative consciousness are determined by the ways the corresponding questions of domestic policy are solved. This is also fully characteristic of libertarianism, which is aimed at the ideal of a tariff-free international market as a universal model of international relations.
In its principal foreign policy orientation libertarianism has a penchant for isolationism: "We libertarians propose ... return to a strict policy of neutrality in other countries' affairs, of non-intervention in other peoples' wars, of free trade and travel throughout the world.''^^2^^
In categorically rejecting any kind of interventionism in foreign policy (diplomatic, military or other), libertarian consciousness traces the sources of the present-day faulty, in its opinion, foreign policy course of the United States to the decision of Woodrow Wilson to enter the First World War, which meant a deviation from the tradition of Jefferson and Washington. In the late 1960s and early 1970s libertarians sharply criticized the military intervention of the United States in Southeast Asia, which to a certain degree helped popularize libertarianism, especially among the young generation.
_-_-_~^^1^^ D.I. Arnientano, "C Capitalism and the Antitrust Laws'', in I he Libertarian Alternative, p. 175.
^^2^^ R. MacBrkle, op. dt., p. 60.
118It must be said that traditionalist conservatives and the American right often accuse libertarians of conciliatory attitude towards the Soviet Union and world communism. Indeed, libertarians reject the idea of messianic, militant anticommunism and oppose the whipping up of anti-Soviet histeria in the United States, campaigns concerning a "Soviet threat'', the misuse of secret agencies, etc. Along with this, when a question concerning their attitude towards communism is raised on an abstract level, libertarians will proclaim in no uncertain terms: " All libertarians are anti-Communists, since libertarianism is the antithesis of Communism".^^1^^ The main argument against communism and socialism, in the eyes of the libertarians, is that neither supports the principle of the free market.
In exactly the same way the libertarian criticism of the aggressive foreign policy course of the United States in principle has purely pragmatic basis, in particular, its concern about the reduction of the unproductive expenditure connected with military intervention. Proceeding from these considerations and also fearing the spread of socialism, libertarians insist on America's withdrawal from all international organizations and the halting of all forms of government aid to other countries (including allies): "Now government-to-government aid rests on socialistic assumptions and promotes socialism and stagnation, whereas private foreign investment rests on capitalistic assumptions and promotes private enterprise and maximum economic growth.''^^2^^ As can be seen from this very characteristic thesis, "absolute isolationism" is applied only to the international activity of a state; it not only represents no impediment to expansionism by private enterprise but serves as an apology for it.
Interpretation of the political process through a prism of the demands of the market, fundamental in libertarianism, is also manifest in its predilection for international economic relations regulated by free market principles over any foreign policy ties through government channels. Diplomacy, according to this view, is a costly excess that would best be abolished, like the very government.
Libertarians, of course, would not mind seeing America in the role of world leader, and in the depths of their soul they consider that the United States deserves this role more than anyone else. However, purely formally they are _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ralph Raico, "Conservatism on the Run'', The Libertarian Review, Vol. 9, No. 1, January 198(1, p. 35.
~^^2^^ Henry Hazlitt, "The Fallacy of Foreign Aid'', in The Libertarian Alternative, p. 316.
119 prepared to recogni/e the basic equality ot all nations and states and the right of each of them to determine their own path of development.The libertarian attitude to the problem of relaxing international tensions and to the socialist countries is also twofold. On the one hand, libertarians, falling back on their moralistic ideals, see in the socio-economic and political structure of socialism the embodiment of evil, but, on the other, the awareness of the advantages that international trade may bring compels libertarian consciousness to forget about its moralistic principles and recogni/e the necessity for normalizing relations between East and West.
Problems of political strategy and tactics. How do the adherents of libertarian political consciousness behave in the socio-political world of present-day America? What is the relationship between their behavior and the fundamental ideological postulates of libertarianism? And, finally, how are the ideals held by them, in particular the program of ``deetatization'' of society, incorporated in specific political actions? All of these questions which inevitably arise in the process of political practice force libertarians in one way or other to define their own position in relation to the problems of political strategy and tactics.
In principle libertarians do not deny the right of the people to revolution, which is embodied in the Declaration of Independence, stressing in this context the desirability of a nonviolent revolution. However, in practice libertarians consider this right as purely formal, not connecting it with any kind of expectations. They give much greater accent to a program of education, upbringing and change of mentality.
All types of conservative political consciousness in the United States are characterized by some form of educational program. The distinctive feature of the libertarian program is associated with the fact that this type of consciousness formally recognizes that man is naturally reasonable. In this connection, his education (or reeducation) in accord with the ideals of libertarianism is supposed to be reali/ed with the help of rational influence. In this respect libertarianism is much less elitist than traditionalist consciousness and exactly for this reason is opposed to the traditionalist slogan of law and order.
The Libertarian Party has the national and local part) committees, assembles at yearly conventions and participates in election campaigns. Locally, libertarians advocate the limitation of power of both the Democratic and the Republican administrations and demand the abolishing of social 120 welfare programs and the transfer of authority into the hands of local self-rule. The libertarian ranks are joined by Democrats and Republicans disappointed in the policies of their parties, the former blaming the Democratic Party for ignoring the issue of the political freedom of the individual, the latter disagreeing with the fusion of the Republican Party with the state apparatus. The fundamental abstractness of libertarian slogans is conducive to a certain coalescence of these heterogeneous groups. Besides, it must be said that, though achieving no substantial success in elections, libertarians, even with a small percentage of the votes, can still influence policymaking at a local level, for which they form ad hoc coalitions with either Republicans or Democrats.
Libertarians pin their hopes for the future ultimately on the creation of a specific conservative counterculture, i.e., on the formation of alternative social institutions as the foundation of anarcho-capitalism in the framework of the existing social structure of the United States. The anarchistic inclinations of libertarian consciousness to a certain extent contributed to the formation of blocs, in several cases, between libertarian groups and some radical left organizations in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In this connection, libertarian theoreticians, Jerome Tuccille one of them, advocated a program of creating a ``light-left'' libertarian coalition on the basis of anarchism and "radical decentralization" of society, the idea supported by some left radicals. At the turn of the 1970s, libertarian and left-radical groups participated jointly in several political protests (mainly against the war in Indochina). Soon after, however, conflicts arising from the dissimilarity of their ideological and political positions destroyed their temporary unity based on the external similarity of targets of criticism, and the right-left libertarian coalition never materialized.
In appraising libertarian consciousness as a whole the conclusion is inevitable that under conditions of statemonopoly capitalism in the United States this type of conservative consciousness is in many ways a political and ideological anachronism. Yet at the same time there exist objective reasons and socio-psychological conditions deeply rooted in American life for the periodical recurrence of libertarian consciousness (or at least its elements) on a more or less large scale. Since America has a mixed economic system and since monopoly does not abolish the elements of market competition, market types of consciousness are inevitably reproduced as specific building material further to be remoulded into etatist types of 121 consciousness. The market type of consciousness in its libertarian form, like traditionalism, is inherent in capitalism at all stages of its development. Libertarian consciousness fulfills the function of ideological substantiation and justification of the interests of the conservative private-owner bourgeoisie which aggressively opposes any kind of government reforms and stubbornly clutches at the old privileges.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. TRADITIONALIST CONSCIOUSNESSGeneral characteristics and genesis. Ideologically, the traditionalist type of American conservative political consciousness looks very much like traditional European conservatism of the 18th and 19th centuries transplanted to American soil, like the feudal opposition to the emerging bourgeois structure. The external similarity is so striking that traditionalism is sometimes described as conservatism of traditional European type.
Meanwhile, in its essence, traditionalism is a specifically American type of political consciousness with no twins in Europe.
Here, the ideological substratum of consciousness includes components inherent in classical European conservatism that, first, are subjected to a specific revision in accord with new value orientations and, second, are used to solve different problems and to serve different social groups. Traditionalist consciousness preserves the conservative social function of European conservative ideology, but its social and class orientation is changed. In distinction from libertarianism traditionalist consciousness preserves the social function of its ideological substratum, but applies it to conserve a different social form.
The specific features of traditionalism as a purely American type of consciousness cause a substantial deformation of the internal value structure of the ideological components borrowed from European conservatism. This deformation displays itself in the conceptual structure of traditionalist consciousness, which combines the categories of a feudal ideology with the bourgeois understanding of freedom. "Liberty, both political and economic, is paramount to American conservatism. The defense of private property, and, later, the spirit of capitalism, have always played a central role in the thinking of American conservatives... Among the things conservatives sought to conservewas the American free-enterprise system, the cornerstone of our greatness; and in so doing they did and 122 said things quite differently from their European counterparts.'' (P. Witonski)^^1^^
However, on the surface of traditionalist consciousness an economic model of the free market is little visible; it is displaced by a clearly dominating interest to the problems of world outlook, religion and morals. As A. James Reichley writes, "Conservative critics of capitalism = / reference to traditionalists---Author/, = like some socialists, have argued that the market, by pitting the individual against other members of his society and promoting material indulgence, tends to undermine social cohesion and to loosen attention to spiritual values."^^2^^ On the whole, traditionalist consciousness harbors a deep enmity to the vulgar power of money and is inclined to regard economic and political problems as having a moral and religious basis. What distinguishes traditionalist consciousness is that it puts in the limelight aristocratic class components and leaves bourgeois-market ideological elements in the dark as vulgar and material.
This feature of traditionalism is distinctly manifest in its treatment of the problem of the so-called Southern tradition, which it regards as the starting point of its own genesis in the New World. From this point of view the Southern tradition even after the Civil War continued to preserve basic conservative values. In accord with this the aristocratic ideal of the American South projects itself within the framework of traditionalist consciousness on the entire history of America, which is interpreted in the spirit of the essential continuity of basic principles and patterns that in turn are traced back to the tradition of European civilization and give witness to the "continuity of the political tradition of the West''.
Meanwhile, the great tradition of the ancient world and the Christian Middle Ages, to which traditionalist consciousness appeals finding in it the ideological and political roots of American society, is far from being identical in its content to the feudal-aristocratic tradition lauded by European conservatives. Stressing the principles of constitutionalism, traditionalist consciousness shows in so doing an internal resistance both to the idea of widening mass democratic rights and to the principle of monarchic tyranny. The social ideal of traditionalism is the power of private-owner oligarchy in union with the _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Wisdom oj Conservatism. Ed. by Peter Witonski, Vol. 1, New Roihelle, N. Y., 1971, p. 35.
^^2^^ A. James Reifhley, Conservatives in an Age of Change. The Nixon and Ford Administration, Washington, 1981, p. 230.
123 spiritual aristocracy, the stability of which is maintained with the help ot ideological arguments of classical conservatism.The combining of such, it would seem, mutually exclusive elements as the demand for the noninterference of the government in the economy, on the one hand, and the call for strong governmental authority in the- spirit of European conservatism, on the other, is ensured in the framework of traditionalist consciousness by means of divorcing economics and politics as if they were two isolated areas of human activity. While lihertarianism actually rejects the existence of politics as an autonomous process with its own internal laws, viewing it merely as determined by the action of economic mechanisms, traditionalism divorces politics from economics as functionally unconnected spheres.
Both the libertarian and the traditionalist positions on the relationship between politics and economics reflect, each in its own way, the reluctance common for present-day American conservatism to recognize the interrelation between the economic and political processes and the need to elaborate political mechanisms of economic regulation under state-monopoly capitalism. It is this structural feature of conservative political consciousness that explains the ability of traditionalism to incorporate both classical conservative and liberal ideological components.
On the whole, traditionalist consciousness (just like the other types of conservative political consciousness as distinct from their right-radical analogues) is formed in the framework of a fundamental ideological consensus on the basic principles of American political life. This position of traditionalism is graphically expressed by Russell Kirk: "By and large, the conservative will accept American institutions as they exist today.''^^1^^ Yet, in accepting the American socio-political system in principle, traditionalism attempts to give it its own interpretation.
The classical notion of Edmund Burke about the fluency and continuity of the cultural-historical process which excludes any kind of radical social changes and cataclysms, when assimilated by traditionalist consciousness makes for a special interpretation of the early stages of American history, particularly the American Revolution of 1776. The latter is viewed by the traditionalists not as a radical break with the past (in particular, with the feudal sociohistorical tendency in the development of American society), but as the desire to conserve this past. _-_-_
^^1^^ Russt'll Kirk. ,-\ 1'roi^rntn jur
cago.
In general, the theistic component occupies a substantial place in the structure of traditionalism. To a significant degree it is reflected in the form of moral teleology, which alone, according to traditionalists, imparts meaning to human existence vis-a-vis eternity. This teleology, as a fundamentally predetermined subordination of individual freedom (dangerous in its potential arbitrariness) to the moral absolutism of "natural law'', influences substantially the notion of the historical process itself, which as a result gains in traditionalism a religious character. The idea of the existence of natural moral law obtains the character of idealistic histoi icism, since it is used to substantiate the objective necessity of an intermediate link between the natural law of supreme morals and the subjective voluntary action of the individual. The law of history, the principle of organic historical development, plays the role of that intermediate link.
Traditionalist consciousness gives the feeling of a kind of ontological catastrophe, of the rtiinousness of the customary, age-old and tested human relations and moral norms, of social pessimism. Yet in distinction from libertarianism, which sees the sources of the social tragedy of the present exclusively in the evil and selfish will of the new liberals, who forcibly impose it on the rest of mankind, traditionalism searches for the roots of the catastrophe in human nature itself, which has suddenly lost its restraining mechanisms. The traditionalist view of the world acquires global-pessimistic and eschatological outlines, typical of classical conservatism and indicating no more nor less than the decay of the West.
Problems of domestic policy. In traditionalist consciousness the interpretation of the basic problems of I he domestic politics in the United States, just like the evaluation of the general state of American society, is determined on the whole by its general world view and is refracted through the prism of its basic moral-religious postulates. 125 A whole series of political categories are therefore nonexistent for traditionalist consciousness---they are sort of dissolved in the corresponding moral and religious ideas, and the fundamental domestic: policy notions are deeply permeated with moral-religious teleologism.
This trait of traditionalism is manifest, among other things, in its thesis that only virtuous people can be free and use the benefits of democracy: "In this sense democracy is more than a political experiment; it is a spiritual and moral enterprise.''^^1^^ Such an important category of domestic politics as democracy obtains a class, elitist and autocratic coloration in traditionalist consciousness. What is meant by democracy here is rather the equality of members of the same estate or social stratum. For traditionalism, the most important moral component of the democratic social structure is the coexistence and functional cooperation of the elite and the masses on the basis of the voluntary recognition of the moral superiority of the former by the latter. The masses, according to this view, require a "democratic elite" capable to direct their individualistic and selfish desires in a socially acceptable channel.
The key concept of traditionalist consciousness is the category of justice, which is interpreted as concern for a higher, suprapersonal, objective world of Truth, for an ontological system of morals justifying the occurrence of social phenomena. As a fundamental sign of social justice, traditionalism singles out the sway of private property; it is "a conviction that justice, properly defined, means 'to each the things that go with his own nature', not a levelling equality; and joined with this is a correspondent respect for private property of every sort''. (R. Kirk, A Program for Conservatives, p. 42). Traditionalists are on the side of small and middle-size private property, opposing large corporate property as ungovernable and dangerous for society. Nevertheless, they support the inheritance of private property (which gives their stance an aristocratic shading) and inequality of distribution as corresponding to the idea of justice, "the unequal distribution of wealth and the correlation of unequal function with unequal reward as a principle of distributive or social justice".^^2^^
Such an understanding of justice, this supreme moral law, predetermines the way traditionalists correlate the principles of freedom and equality, a problem which is the _-_-_
~^^1^^ John Courtney Murray, "E Pluribus Ununi: The American CConsensus'', in American Conservative `I'hought in the Twentieth Century, p. 45.
~^^2^^ Francis G. Wilson, "The Anatomy of Conservatives'', in Political 'Thought Since World War II. Ed. by W. J. Siankiewic/, London, 1964, p. ,'142.
126 focus of all types of conservative consciousness. Traditionalism not only rejects equality, but also mistrusts political freedom. For traditionalists, only that kind of freedom is just which is based on the internal moral realization and the willful subordination of the individual to law and tradition. In proving the antithesis of justice and equality, traditionalism reproduces the classical conservative argument which allows the equality of people only in the highest moral relations---before God, but never on Earth, since people possess different abilities and a uniform attitude to them would be unjust.The absolutization of the idea of inequality alters the bourgeois market ideological component borrowed by traditionalism. Classical liberalism and, correspondingly, libertarianism stress the formal equality of opportunity of those who compete in the free market and therefore in a certain sense incorporate the ideological thrust of possible social mobility. As regards traditionalism, it rejects even this abstract understanding of equality. Traditionalist consciousness is reluctant to recognize any possibility, however formal and practically unrealizable, of any kind of social mobility even remotely capable of destroying the stability and hierarchy of a given social system. Traditionalism is in this respect the consciousness of the gained privilege, the inviolability of the latter is justified by the ideas of the intrinsic social and moral superiority of the once and forever arisen elite.
Traditionalist interpretation of justice as the remuneration according to services reveals a specific socio-- political orientation with regard to the problem of the regulation of the economic process. Traditionalism sees the advantage of market regulation in its spontaneity and uncontrollability, i.e., what new liberals oppose. The market mechanism is regarded as the embodiment and materialization of objective impersonal justice, the same as government regulation is regarded as subjective, partial, and unjust. Any deviation from the purely economic mechanisms of market regulation means, according to this view, the repudiation of ``objective'' criteria of distributive justice, and regulation through politics leads to these criteria being substituted by the subjective claims of separate social groups and individuals.
Like libertarianism, traditionalist consciousness views the reforms of the New Deal as a social cataclysm that brought into question the fate of all human civilization (which, in turn, is identified with market capitalism), although certain differences exist within the conservative camp concerning the interpretation of this phenomenon. For 127 libertarians, the transition to government regulation and etatism is regarded as some single political and juridical act embodying the evil will of a small group of politicians who by chance came to power. But for traditionalists, this looks more like the culmination of a long-ripened tendency which embodies the eternal struggle of the demonic forces of evil in human nature with the traditions and patterns of civilization.
The dominance of moralistic overtones in traditionalist consciousness reflects the concern of peripheral political groups over the erosion of the habitual system of social hierarchy under conditions of the eentrali/ation ol political and economic power in the country and the fight of the working people to expand their rights. 1'raditionalist consciousness does not bother to analy/.e specifically the mechanism of functioning, nor to evaluate the effectiveness of the American two-party system and stays out of political discussions on particular issues of domestic politics. Traditionalists are more concerned with general moral problems and world outlook than, for instance, the determining of their own party affinities, for it is in deciding these questions that they find the essence of the political process.
The problem of man and society is prominent among the problems of the general moral and Weltanschauung significance bearing on traditionalist attitudes in domestic politics. In a number of aspects, traditionalism borrows the Burkean notion of man, which, contrary to the optimistic liberal-individualistic notion of man as moral and political entity valuable in itself, sees man's essence merely in the projection of social relationships which in totality determine his internal personal identity. In this respect traditionalist consciousness accepts entirely Biblical doctrine of original sin. The principle of evil here acts as a sort of the world element providing an environment where personality undergoes a moral and religious test. In surviving this test the personality repudiates its own individualistic ``arrogance'' and gets the feeling of religious ``humility'' before the past, nature and the rest of mankind. In this sense traditionalism is orientated towards a "return to the Middle Ages'', a theocentric, not a homocentric, culture.
The duality of this position ol traditionalism is displayed in the attempt to binominally divide man into a ``body'' which is subjected to earthly laws and which therefore exists in a world of economic individualism and competition, and a ``soul'' which, participating in the higher world of justice, receives an indulgence for the sinful acts of the corporal half. As a result, traditionalist consciousness 128 reconciles its liberal-individualistic components with the conservative thesis about the subordination of the personality to a supreme normative dimension where the social fragmentation of the personality and its individualistic detachment from the community are supposed to disappear.
The traditionalist notion about the fundamental inequality of people and their evil and selfish nature necessarily gives rise to the idea about the danger of social chaos and violence if people are fully left to their own devices, something which the classical liberals insist on. Since for traditionalist consciousness the "natural harmony" of individual and social interests is unthinkable, society is necessitated to elaborate artificial restraining mechanisms of an objective and impersonal character. Traditionalist consciousness finds these mechanisms, whose purpose it is to check the evil of human nature, in the traditions, habits, practices and customs which have been confirmed by the experience of past generations.
All social structures grow out of the past traditions. Society, thus, is perceived as an archaic system of interrelated traditions, precedents, customs and habits; it is not a tabula rasa as adherents of radical social transformations suggest. On the contrary, it is a sensitive and balanced system based on the division of functions, it is a highly sensitive living organism which should not be subjected to experiments in accord with subjective wishes and abstract social ideals. Traditionalists, therefore, consider ``order'' and ``peace'' the optimal mechanisms for all social functions. "Order, in society, is the harmonious arrangement of classes and functions which guards justice and gives willing consent to law and ensures that we all shall be safe together.''^^1^^
But ``order'' in traditionalist consciousness is by no means identical to ``authority''. What is meant by ``order'' is not any institutionalized ``authority'', but only the kind which has moral-religious roots and accords with the national political tradition. Thereby the concept of ``order'' obtains a concrete internal political aspect: in the American sociopolitical system it is expressed, first, in the decentralization of power, and second, in the system of checks and balances as conceived by the Founding Fathers. Besides, for traditionalism, the concept of ``order'' is embodied in the proper balance between the principles of individualism and collectivism, the optimal degree of which is the principle of community understood as the type of "relationships among individuals that are characterized by a high degree _-_-_
^^1^^ R. Kirk, op. dt., p. 227.
__PRINTERS_P_129_COMMENT__ 9---34 129 of personal intimacy, of social cohesion or moral commitment, and of continuity in time".^^1^^ In traditionalist consciousness community plays the role of a certain intermediate organic social association (family, church parish, guild, class, neighborhood, etc.) which removes the extremes in individualism and collectivism. Traditionalism, moreover, maintains that the origins of today's decay of the system of community are to be found in the emergence of bourgeois-individualistic consciousness, i.e., in the spread of ``false'' ideas. Thus the formation of the bourgeois economic: basis is isolated from processes occuring in moral and spiritual areas.Consecrated by tradition, the moral bonds of the individual with society he belongs to are perceived by traditionalism as a rigid normative system which dictates a certain manner of behavior as a "natural law" morally binding on the individual. The opposition of "natural law" and "natural rights" within traditionalist political consciousness reflects the countcrposing of the Great Tradition of classical political thought (from Cicero to Aquinas) to the Hobbesian individualistic moral nihilism. Finally, it must be said that the most characteristic feature of these general moralreligious notions of traditionalist consciousness has been its interpretation of the "stormy decade'of the 1960s. In this case, the elitist-proprietary position of traditionalism is spotlighted in its charges that the mass protest movements of the period escalated disorder, violated the habitual social bonds and patterns and emphasized the rights of individuals to the cletriment of their duties.
Problems of foreign policy. By and large, traditionalist consciousness (like other types of conservative political consciousness in the United States) does not pay significant interest to foreign policy problems. Yet several elements within it in one way or another call for a certain stance on at least some of the foreign policy issues.
Since the entire world is perceived by traditionalist consciousness as an arena for the struggle of the forces of good and evil, this is inevitably reflected in its approach to world politics. The embodiment of evil on the world arena is literally all that opposes the "free world'', whose boundary, in turn, is reduced to the traditional market structure. F.vil is defined as any destabili/ing force, irrespective of whose side it acts on and what kind of specific interests and tendencies it incorporates. Nazism was unacceptable for traditionalist consciousness, and _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ruben Nisbt't, llir Social I'h in Western Thought, N.Y.. 197.'!. p. 1.
130 therefore it was inclined to repudiate isolationism and more or less actively opposed it, but only through use of traditional diplomatic levers. The formation of the anti-Hitler coalition encountered the sharp opposition of traditionalism. During the postwar period the image of "world evil" in traditionalist consciousness began increasingly to obtain the contour of a "Communist threat''. Many of the adherents of traditionalism took an active part in the fanning of anticommunist hysteria and helped promote the cold war during the 1950s in America (James Burnham, Will Herberg, Whittaker Chambers, Willmoore Kendall, et al.). Yet a number of prominent American traditionalists continued to adhere to isolationist ideas and condemned the rampage of McCarthyism from positions of the spiritual elite (Peter Viereck, Robert Nisbet).As a whole the foreign policy notions of traditionalist consciousness have a paradoxical character. On the one hand, there is always a certain readiness to take resolute actions and resort to extreme methods which receive moral and religious sanction. Yet fanaticism is basically alien to traditionalism's value orientations. Traditionalism also straddles the line on foreign policy positions in regard to what role and functions the state should assume in society. On the one hand, traditionalists agree that an all-out strengthening of the positions and development of the functions of a bourgeois state in the international arena is required in order to achieve their proclaimed moralistic ideals; yet, on the other, they are unable to unconditionally accept such a perspective, since they harbor a deeply felt distrust of any kind of strengthening of government authority or the state-bureaucratic apparatus.
Traditionalist consciousness judges the current international position of the United States with pessimism. It perceives the strengthening positions of world socialism and the developing countries as a symptom of the deepening of the ``disease'' of world civilization and treats the policy of relaxing international tensions as mere pragmatism and the obliteration of supreme moral principles of Western political culture.
The qmestions of political strategy and tactics which are raised within traditionalist consciousness on the whole reflect the attitudes of elitist enlightenment of American conservatism that are radically different from those of right radicals. To a degree, it is this idiosyncrasy of conservative types of American political consciousness that explains the limitations of many of traditionalism's political notions, their immersion in moral-religious categories.
131In this respect an important circumstance is that traditionalists sense their isolation from the main currents of present-day social development, and this gives rise to a nostalgic element in this consciousness and brings forth its criticism of the present. According to traditionalists, the entire 20th century has been marked by a spiritual crisis, i.e., a general, mass-scale bent towards material and sensual satisfaction at the expense of moral aims. Characteristically, traditionalists trace the causes of this spiritual crisis in the internal logic of the development of American capitalist civilization. These themes indirectly reflect the aforementioned opposition of peripheral bourgeois layers to the main tendencies of social dynamics of the capitalist structure in the United States---rapid industrialization, urbanization, the concentration of production, etc. The awareness of the inevitability of these processes makes traditionalism a deeply tragic type of mentality.
Yet the sensation of moral tragedy obtains a fully specific socio-class direction within traditionalist consciousness and is realized in the form of a principal antiproletarian orientation. In this connection it should be recalled that the social base of traditionalism includes fairly wide peripheral layers of private owners and also those social groups whose material status or prestige to various degrees is threatened primarily by democratic movements. For traditionalism "the distinguishing feature of proletarian status is the lack of roots and of principles. The proletarian is a practical nihilist.''^^1^^ Moreover, traditionalism does not refer to the proletarian and the worker identically. The concept of the working class in its ideal includes the possession of petty private property and suggests the social harmony or class interests on the basis of general moral standards shared by all classes. Meanwhile, the proletarian is viewed as the product of the "moral degradation" of the worker, i.e., a representative of the working class who repudiates the illusion of class harmony and participates in a struggle for his own class rights. According to traditionalist consciousness, all manifestations of the proletarianization of the workers (i.e., their struggle to uphold their interests against exploitation) must be ruthlessly dealt with, since they represent a threat to the social stability of a system based on the principles of private property.
Traditionalists especially fear a "world proletarianization" and as an alternative advance their program of " _-_-_
^^1^^ R. Kirk, op. dt., p. 115.
132 deproletarianization" of the world community by means of reviving the principles of social responsibility and hierarchy, religious belief and respect for private property.The contradictory position of traditionalist consciousness on this issue is a result of orientation towards stabilizing a social system, on the one hand, and on the other, of the need for certain reforms within the present-day American social structure and for the ``cleansing'' of its imperishable base from subsidiary distorting layers.
Traditionalist notions about the essence of political strategy are thus contradictory. They include a penchant for both the preservation of the status quo and for sociopolitical reforms. As regards political tactics, traditionalists pin their hopes on the spread of an appropriate set of values, not on carrying out some kind of social reforms. Above all they propose preserving social stability by `` disintegrating'' the class consciousness of the proletariat through purposeful moral-ideological coercion. Traditionalists see the solution of the social problems of present-day America in the moral-religious ``reconstruction'' of the human spirit through proper education and upbringing. This feature of traditionalist consciousness is a result of its historical idealism, its regarding the history of society mainly as intellectual history, the history of the struggle of truth and lies, and historical errors as intellectual errors that can be accordingly overcome by moral-spiritual efforts. Yet traditionalism's historical idealism and the educational methods it recommends are to a certain extent the symptoms of its political impotence in practical matters, nothing more than attempts to compensate for its actual lack of political perspective and for its peripheral position in the political fife of present-day America.
On the whole, the educational orientation of traditionalist consciousness fulfills a protective function. Traditionalists perceive science as a "false messiah" capable merely to confuse the rising generation and engender in it moral and religious scepticism and relativism. Traditionalists are reluctant to assign individual reason even the role of the servant of theology. They believe the main purpose of the education and socialization of an individual to be the discovery and penetration of the objectively existing moral Truth, and not the self-development of the personality. Thus, the focal point in the historical process for traditionalists is the enlightened elite able to fulfill the function of the normative education of the mass.
Finally, it should be noted that the socio-psychological 133 mechanisms of the formation of the traditionalist attitudes are in a certain sense inherent in all stages of development of the bourgeois social structure, with the disruption of established social bonds, stereotypes and notions inevitably accompanying it. The very internal dynamics of bourgeois social relations inevitably engender a conflict between the forces of tradition ana the desire for self-development which is characteristic of capitalism. In this sense traditionalist political consciousness is a necessary by-product of the development of American bourgeois society.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. NEOCONSERVATIVE CONSCIOUSNESSGeneral characteristics and genesis. Two principal value orientations lie at the basis of neoconservative political consciousness: first, recognition of the fact that in the present-day socio-economic: system of American capitalism state-monopoly regulation of the economy is in principle the sole possible and objectively necessary mechanism; second, the obvious wide-scale dissatisfaction over the excessive dimensions and disappointment over the little effectiveness of the state-monopoly regulation of the American economy and the federal programs in social areas. The mixing of these rather contradictory components determines the ideological style of the present-day neoconservative attitudes and political consciousness.
In accordance with this, two components, genetically linked with the positions of liberals and conservatives of the New Deal period, distinctly stand out in the ideological substratum of neoconservative pojitical consciousness. It is characteristic that the component of the ideology of neoliberalism revealed here makes up, in the final count, a new layer in the general ideological substratum of conservative types of American political consciousness.
In distinction from traditionalism and libertarianism, neoconservatism recognizes the legitimacy of the idea of the welfare state, and the necessity of government interference in the economy and its assuming of a whole series of social functions. Yet as compared with neoliberals, neoconservatives give particularly heavy weight to market mechanisms for solving the social problems of present-day America.
The combining of such mutually exclusive ideological components within one type of consciousness essentially distinguishes neoconservatism from its predecessors---- traditionalism and libertarianism. In this connection American scholars justly note that "the new conservatives are not 134 New Deal conservatives. Rather, they are New Deal liberals who have come to emphasize a 'limits of polities' approach as a result of being seared by public failures of the past decade.''^^1^^
According to the definition of Irving Kristol, one of the most prominent representatives of the trend, neoconservatism:
---is an ideological current born by the disappointment in modern liberalism;
---rejects political utopianism and romanticism;
---has its philosophical loots in classical political philosophy;
---treats bourgeois society and the bourgeois life style with restrained sympathy;
---considers the necessary condition for the existence of liberal society to be the market economy;
---is convinced that economic growth is necessary for maintaining economic and political stability;
---believes in the free market, but not to the same degree as libertarianism; rather, neoconservatism supports " conservative welfare state'';
---sees the family and religion as the necessary basis of society.~^^2^^
It can be said that neoconservatism reflects those sentiments of the American people which became widely popular and distinctly pronounced in the 1970s. On [he one hand, presently, most Americans in principle approve of federal aid to the poor, the needy and the aged and recognize the need for health service programs, environmental protection, and other kinds of activities of the welfare state proposed by the new liberals. But, on the other, those very same Americans do not want taxes to be raised in order to finance these programs and demand that they cost less and at the same time be more effective, i.e., they repeat the charge of the conservatives against the welfare state. Writes Newsweek magazine: "Clearly, Americans want it both ways---lower taxes, but more services, less interference from Washington, but more help with their problems.'' (November 7,'' 1977, p. 28.)
However, the neoconservative type of political consciousness, in whose ideological basis lies the very same contradictory attitude towards the role and functions of the state, should not be identified with the aforementioned _-_-_
~^^1^^ E. Ladcl. )i'., "Liberalism Upside Down: the Inversion of the New Deal Order'', Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 91, No. 4, Winter 1976--1977, p. 589.
^^2^^ Irving Kristol, "Confession so faTrue.Self-Confessed---Perhaps! heOnly--- `Neoconservative''', I'libln Opinion, Vol. 2, No. 5. October-November 1979.
135 attitudes of Americans. Neoconservative consciousness draws upon these tendencies, appeals to them, yet its elitist-manipulative orientation is roadblock to its obtaining wide appeal in the United States. Neoconservatism is unable to hide the fact that it regards the masses as an object of purposeful manipulation. Neoconservatives feel that a partition exists between them and the rest of the populace, which are merely objects of their ventures.What distinguishes neoconservatism from traditionalism and libertarianism, which had formed in the main by the time of the New Deal and have long-existing ideological traditions, is that this is a new type of political consciousness which still is in the process of formation and therefore lacks the definitive internal pivot.
Another feature that distinguishes neoconservatism from traditionalism and libertarianism, which on the whole occupy peripheral positions in American ideological and political lire, is that it has managed to impart to American conservative social and political ideas an intellectual respectability which they clearly lacked in the past.
One more feature of neoconservatism, finally, is that it is more politicized than traditionalism or even libertarianism. Hence, neoconservative positions on a wide range of political problems in present-day America are more clear-cut.
The rightward shift in Washington at the threshold of the 1980s witnesses the ascendancy of neoconservatism among the ruling elite in the United States. Despite the fact that presently a like shift has been more strongly felt in the Democratic Party, (in particular, in the Coalition for a Democratic Majority headed by such well-known conservative politicians as Senators Jackson and Moynichan), neoconservative ideas also reflect the program propositions of the Republican Party. It may be added that in the 1980 Presidential election some neoconservatives supported Republican Ronald Reagan, not Democrat Jimmy Carter. Yet it would be obviously too early to identify this type of political consciousness with some definite party line.
Problems of domestic policy. The overwhelming majority of the notions of neoconservative consciousness in domestic politics are to various degrees a result of its critical attitude to the neoliberal program of welfare state and the social policies of neoliberalism. The conservatives accuse the liberals of the 1960s of three basic mistakes having to do with their approach to the social policies of the government. First, as they see it, in the 1960s the government undertook too many initiatives in the economic and social sphere and made too many Utopian promises---to entirely eradicate poverty, to do away with racial discrimination, to 136 promote the attainment of socio-economic ecjuality for every citizen, etc. Second, the government's social policy, neoconservatives maintain, proved to be too egalitarian, which ultimately called forth a reaction of a "revolution for equality" in mass consciousness, bringing into question many or the traditional values of Americanism. Third, the consequences of government interference in socio-economic areas were in principle unpredictable, and more often than not---negative (a thesis derived from the British conservative Michael Oakeshott). In this respect neoconservative consciousness differs from traditionalism and libertarianism in that it is much more apprehensive of government interference in the social than in the economic sphere.
The notion of "limits of social policy" occupies center stage in the neoconservative notions in domestic politics. In practical terms this notion is the recognition that there must be a limit to human ability in reforming a specific social structure. Neoconservatives oppose the enthusiasm for reforms which is characteristic of liberal social policies and offer in its place the idea of the ``resiliency'' of social realities and their unamenability by radical reforms, i.e., they offer the thesis that there is a limit to social policies.
Neoconservative political consciousness believes that the social organism can function stably only if the individualistic impulses coming from below are extinguished by intermediary social mechanisms and ultimately do not reach the top of the political structure of society. This idea also has a specific social thrust: as neoconservatives allege, formerly many of the functions of the welfare state social policy, understood primarily as aid to the needy by the government, were not performed by government institutions and departments, but by intermediate social institutions--- the family, the church, philanthropic organizations, etc. The shifting of the burden of welfare of all populace onto the government, according to this view, destroys traditional social relations and dependencies and, moreover, leads to a growth of dependence attitudes. Neoconservatives thus regard it necessary for the government to significantly decrease aid to needy Americans and force them to a greater degree to stand on their own two feet.
Neoconservatives suggest that the ineffectiveness of liberal reform efforts aimed at more or less radically changing the existing social order is caused by the growing complexity and ungovernability of the entire social system as well as by the resistivity of both human nature and social realities.
In criticizing the centralization and professionalization 137 of the government policy of social reformism in the 1960s, neoconservative consciousness thereby defines its own position in respect to the federal and local government. On the whole neoconseivatives would like to see social functions performed by local governments, rather than the federal government, and even lower, by the local community. The neoconservative social ideal to a significant degree draws on the traditionalist ``order'' and ``peace'', although it also incorporates some new components taken from liberalism.
In order to somehow balance these heterogeneous elements, neoconservatives try to combine federal programs for regulating socio-economic life with the action of the market mechanisms. In this regard the market mechanism receives a primarily socio-political interpretation. The most important area for its application is by far not the economy (since neoconservatives are adherents of the idea of planning), but social welfare. In this area neoconservatives propose switching over from granting direct aid and services to the doling out of a certain sum of money which the needy would be more or less free to make use of at their pleasure. This, in turn, would promote the growth of the free-- enterprise instinct neoconservatives continue to regard as the basis of personal wellbeing and success. They regard a greater role for the market mechanisms in the social areas as the only possible way for lessening the overburdening of the system, which is proving beyond the strength of the American welfare state.
A by-product of the social policies of the welfare state of the 1960s, which engendered so many thoughtless promises never fulfilled, is, neoconservatives maintain, a revolution of rising entitlements, on which they place a significant amount of the blame for the social instability in America. They, moreover, perceive the causes for such instability in the escalation of government interference, which resulted in that "the government had made a commitment not only to create a substantial welfare state, but to redress the impact of all economic and social inequalities as well''.^^1^^
The transition the new liberals made from market mechanisms of regulation to etatist mechanisms and their further absolutization within the social policies of the 1960s---all this, according to neoconservatives, led to a new form of political economy and a new scheme for solving social conflicts when they were transferred from the economic to the political sphere, by which they became more visible and became the struggle for a greater share of the state budget. According to neoconservatives, a relatively effective _-_-_
^^1^^ Danicl Bell,
138 mechuiiism had existed earlier which ensured the solving of social conflicts between various individuals with their conflicting claims and demands. This was the impersonal mechanism of the free market and free competition. However, because the market mechanism became outmoded and could no longer satisfy the demands of the individual, it was replaced by the state social welfare system. From economics the struggle of interests resettled itself into politics, the result of which was that ``biology'' was replaced by ``psychology'' as a criterion for the satisfaction of personal demands. From the point of view of neoconservatives, however, ``psychology'' is unable to be an adecmate criterion for the satisfaction of demands, since in distinction from ``biology'' (the basic means of existence, food, shelter, etc.) psychological claims are practically unlimited. Hence the conclusion about the need for greater recourse to the action of the market mechanisms in the social area, whose purpose is above all to free the government from the responsibility for the existence in America of injustice, poverty, race discrimination, etc.A specific feature of the neoconservative position on the problems of internal policy is that it perceives the " revolution of rising entitlements" in categories of a certain subjective-psychological complex---the feeling of the socalled relative deprivation (or the Tocqueville Effect). According to this view there exists a direct relationship between the measures taken by the government to lessen socio-economic inequality in a democratic social system, on the one hand, and the increase of dissatisfaction, the envy of those people who experience the feeling of "relative deprivation" when they compare their own economic: status with the higher position of others. In other words, the more is done for the common people, the more they want.
Neoconservatives view demands for the "equality of results'', which appear to be the topmost ideological slogan of "the revolution of rising entitlements'', as one of the most substantial threats for the entire American social system based on the principles of the "equality of opportunity''. As a matter of fact, neoconservatives give a deliberately narrow interpretation to the concept of equality, making a claim to the revival of its classical liberal interpretation, which, however, bears a remarkable resemblance to the classical conservative contrasting of freedom and equality. For neoconservatives, the notion of ``just'' equality turns out to be identical to that of the "equality of opportunity'', and any kind of extending the interpretation of equality beyond this is regarded as ``unjust''.
139As is known, the classical liberal principle of equal opportunity was based on the assumption of possible social mobility in earlybourgeois society that had just been liberated from the feudal-estate bonds. At that time, Frederick Engels wrote about the United States as a country "where the passage of the working class to that of farmer, trader, or capitalist, is still comparatively easy".^^1^^ However, the transition to the imperialist phase in the development of the capitalist order leads to an objective narrowing of the circle of persons who are in fact capable of achieving success in life by participating in free enterprise. In turn, this inevitably entails a deep crisis of the traditional American ideology of individualistic entrepreneurial success. As a reaction against this crisis there is a growing dissatisfaction in American society with the formal interpretation of the principle of equality as "equality of opportunity" and an advancement of demands for real equality which incorporates among other things raising of the living standards of the underpriviliged sections of the population.
In the thinking of many Americans these demands are embodied in a special ideological form of the slogan " equality of results" which takes in a wide range of general democratic rights and freedoms not possessed by certain segments of the population. It is this ideological form, and not the real social content hidden behind it, which becomes the chief object of criticism in neoconservative consciousness, and that criticism simplifies and vulgarizes the social tendencies expressed in the "equal results" slogan.
The idea of meritocracy is what neoconservative consciousness views as positive incorporation of ``just'' equality in the process of its development. Actually, the principle of meritocracy figures in this consciousness as an ideological justification of the privileges of the ruling class. This principle warrants the existence of "natural aristocracy" or "democratic elite" based on the preeminence of earned privileges and rejecting inherited privileges. Essentially, however, the idea of earning privileges as a mechanism of the formation of the elite is used in neoconservative consciousness to rhetorically justify the privileges the ruling class already possesses and the democratic movements of the 1960s criticized.
Neoconservatives see the most abnormal and destructive consequences of the "revolution of rising entitlements" _-_-_
~^^1^^ "A Working Men's Party'', in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Articles on Britain, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1978, p. 375.
140 in the area of race relations, above all in the demands for "equal results" set forth by the black movement and the reform efforts of the new liberals aimed to compensate for all the consequences of racial segregation.In distinction from traditional American conservatism and right radicalism, neoconservatism in principle recognizes the fact of the presence in America of racial problems. At the same time it suggests that the logic of development of American society in the last 200 years went in the direction of gradual eradication of racial segregation and integration of ethnic minorities as equal members of the American community. From the neoconservative point of view, by the mid-1960s a series of federal laws haa resulted in a racial balance and the consequences of discrimination against blacks and other minorities had been eliminated. At the same time, neoconservatives allege, soon after the pendulum of racial balance in the United States swung to the other side, the result of which was that the balance was upset and new conflicts and contradictions erupted: "reverse discrimination" began, this time of white Americans, as a result of the policy of the liberals in the area of race relations, i.e., of the programs of "affirmative actions''. These programs were introduced in the United States in order to create racial balance and proposed establishing certain guaranteed slots in enrollment in school, college, the university, at work, etc., for the black population, proportionate to its share in the total population.
The main accusation neoconservatives level at these programs is that they pervert the traditional principles of American individualism and replace them with quasi-- collectivist orientations, rejecting tne traditional American support for the rights of the individual in favor of the rights of the group. What distinguishes the neoconservative position on the problems of domestic politics is that it perceives the spreading of demands for group rights and the equality of results as the "excesses of democracy'', as a social sickness, supposedly inherent in the basic developmental trends of American society in the 1960s and 1970s.
Neoconservatives characterize the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s as a period of the growth of democratic passions and claims which were most clearly visible in the democratic protest movements. These movements are regarded as ``excesses'' of that very democratic tradition which is traced back to the era of the formation of American political consciousness and which has lately been made absolute and hypertrophied.
``The themes of the 1960s were those of Jacksonian Democracy and the muckraking Progressives; they embodied ideas 141 and beliefs which were deep in the American tradition but which did not usually command the passionate intensity of commitment that they did in the 1960s,"^^1^^ maintains Samuel Hundngton. According to this view, the effective functioning of the democratic political system suggests a certain degree of passivity, apathy and nonparticipation in the political process on the part of the majority of the population. As the democratic activity of increasing sections of the populations in America has intensified since the 1960s, the sole antidote to these potentially destructive tendencies in American society is expected to be `` moderation'' on the part of the participants in the democratic process, their ``restraint''. In other words, "there are also potentially desirable limits to the extension of political democracy. Democracy could have a longer life if it has a more balanced existence.''^^2^^
Admittedly, lately the idea of the self-destructibility of ``excessive'' bourgeois democracy has been put on the back burner in the internal political notions of neoconservative consciousness. This circumstance seems to be due to a significant degree to the desire of certain political circles to restore confidence in America as the "mainstay of the democratic world''. For instance, there is evidencethat many neoconservatives presently lean towards the assertion that only the capitalist social system can create the genuine conditions for political democracy. "There is a high positive correlation between capitalism and democracy,'' writes Peter Berger expressing the attitude of neoconservatives. And he adds that "all societies that are democratic are also capitalist".^^3^^
It would be presently immature to talk about the complete obsolescence of the thesis of the possible "excesses of democracy" in neoconservative consciousness. This proposition continues to occupy such an important place that not only problems of American domestic politics are considered through its prism, but also problems of world policy and international relations.
__NOTE__ Note how LVL heading is embedded before first sentence of paragraph:Problems of foreign policy. As in respect to domestic politics, in their understanding of foreign policy problems neoconservatives proceed from the idea of the growing complexity of world politics and the crisis of the old world order. There is a qualitatively new international situation which neoconservatives associate with, first, the appearance _-_-_
~^^1^^ Samuel Huntington, "The Democratic Distemper" The Public Interest No. 41, Fall 1975, pp. 9-10.
^^2^^ oirac`v''. Commentary.
^^3^^ Vol. 65, No. 4, April 1978, p. 33.
142 of an enormous number of new actors in the world political arena (above all the developing countries) and, second, the emergence of political dilemmas unsolvable by the traditional methods of Western diplomacy. The general evaluation of this situation is pervaded with pessimistic tones, for neoconservative consciousness is sufficiently aware of the fact that basic shifts took place in the international relations in the 1970s, which cost the United States its former privileged position. However, by virtue of their class limitation and attachment to what is already the past stage in the development of the United States, neoconservatives are incapable of seeing and explaining the real causes for the shifts which have taken place in international relations, the attainment of nuclear parity between the United States and the USSR and the growing might of the socialist community among them, and to put up with them. In trying to give at least some kind of explanation for these changes, neoconservatives call attention above all to the strengthened positions of the developing countries.Neoconservatives explain the fall in the prestige of America by the assertion that the United States and other countries of the "Free World" (North America, Western Europe and Japan) actually remain the only heirs of the democratic tradition in its classical bourgeois understanding while the rest of the world is moving in a different direction, that of egalitarianism. And here the neoconservatives see the consequences of the overstated promises in the liberal programs of the welfare state in the world arena, resulting in the rise of a new set of international socio-economic rights similar to the demands for "equal results''. According to neoconservatives, soon after the 1973 world economic recession a fight began for redistributing the wealth on an international level, with the OPEC countries playing the paramount role in it. In order to head them off, neoconservatives consider it necessary to consolidate the economic and political forces of the developed capitalist countries.
Recognizing the very close interrelationship between domestic and foreign policy problems, neoconservatives proceed from the assumption that the increased domestic economic and political difficulties in countries of the West and primarilyin the United States render ineffective the attempts they make to solve them on the national level. It is for this reason that neoconservatives urge the creation of a "new international order''. Characteristically, as regards the problems of foreign policy, too, neoconservatives give significant attention to using market mechanisms (in particular, the market mechanism of price formation) so as to attain social purposes on the international level.
143On the whole, neoconservatives stick to a pragmatic interpretation of the "national interests of the United States''. From this position they are sharply opposed to the policy of relaxing international tensions and the SALT talks, and insist on maintaining US military superiority from a position of the cold war. A distinguishing trait of neoconservative's foreign policy stance is its clearcut support of Israel. Yet at the same time, neoconservatism displays certain fears in regard to the possible domestic and foreign policy consequences of the moralistic approach to international relations, and this causes its somewhat ambivalent attitude to the present-day political line of the US Administration.
Neoconservative concepts about political strategy and tactics are to a significant degree determined by a pessimistic perception of the spiritual climate in present-day American society and by the desire to influence it outside politics, through spiritual and intellectual efforts.
Neoconservatives allege that the crisis of democracy is caused by the crisis of the traditional liberal values of individualsm which have come into conflict with the realities of modern economy. The most important consequence in this respect is the loss of the readiness to respect the established social authorities. To restore these individual qualities as a condition for social stability, the neoconservatives regard it necessary to create a new social philosophy, a set of values and priorities corresponding both to traditional liberal principles and to the modern realities of developed capitalist society. Daniel Bell writes on this score: "The questions are: how to find common purposes, yet retain individual means of fulfilling them; and now to define individual (and group) needs and find common means of meeting them.''^^1^^ For neoconservative consciousness it remains unclear how this dilemma can be solved.
An important point of internal tension in neoconservative consciousness is the question of the correlation of two basic value orientations---individualism and collectivism. The first is derived from the individualistic market traditions of classical liberalism and is therefore reproduced in one form or other in neoconservative consciousness together with the advocacy of market mechanisms. The individualistic motive for neoconservatism proves to be an undesirable yet an inevitable by-product of the ideological deformation of new liberalism resulting from the motive of market regulation. The second, collectivism, is an orientation genetically connected with the rejection of the individualistic _-_-_
^^1^^ Daniel Bell, op. cit., p. 279.
144 tradition as anarchic and not corresponding to the organizational structure of big business, and with the advent to the forefront of the personal qualities of self-restraint and bourgeois collectivism. The purpose of a "new public philosophy'', which neoconservatives call for, is to find a corresponding balance between these two orientations.A program for creating this philosophy thus becomes the central feature of the neoconservative interpretation of the problems of political strategy and tactics. In fact, these appeals raise the question about the value reorientation of present-day bourgeois consciousness in the United States but fail to solve it. In its presently existing forms neoconservatism is "a mood and a fashion rather than a deeply felt political stance".^^1^^ The adherents of neoconservatism themselves also recognize this circumstance: "We have no integrated theory of the economics and politics of public finance, no sociology of the structural conflicts between classes and social groups on the decisive question of taxation, no political philosophy ... which attempts a theory of distributive justice based on the centrahty of the public household in the society.''^^2^^
However, it should be mentioned that this feature of neoconservative consciousness, which is reflected in its position on the problems of political strategy and tactics, is rooted in its internal structure, in its refusal to find positive solutions to social problems and to allow for the active interference in them by the social subject. The neoconservative penchant for the market acts as an ideological defense of its passiveness, its spontaneity, and lack of system. Yet despite the reluctance of neoconservatives to devise alternative socio-philosophical schemes and their inclination for combining empirically heterogeneous ideological and political components, this type of consciousness has a certain chance for growth under the present conditions in America, since it not only pinpoints, as libertarianism and traditionalism do, but also more distinctly brings up for discussion many of the crucial ideological and political problems, in particular, the question about the optimum correlation of market and etatist tendencies in the evolution of American society.
_-_-_~^^1^^ The New Conservatives: A Critique from the Left. Ed. by Lewis A. Coser and Irving Howe, N. Y., 1974, p. 4.
~^^2^^ Daniel Bell, op. tit., p. 221.
__PRINTERS_P_145_COMMENT__ 10--34 [145] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Four __ALPHA_LVL1__ RIGHT-WING RADICALThe key to understanding the essence of right-wing radicalism as a political trend and as a political consciousness in bourgeois society can be found already in its very name. Its characteristic as ``right-wing'' goes to show that it defends the fundamentals of the capitalist order and that it is directed against social progress. The term `` radicalism'' implies profound social dissatisfaction with the status quo and a striving for basic: changes in the social system. The description of a tradition of political consciousness as "right-wing radical" presupposes that this consciousness combines diametrically opposed, mutually exclusive principles, that it is distinctive for particular internal contradiction, for extreme eclecticism and instability.
``Right-wing radicalism" could also be denoted as " reactionary rebelliousness''. This rebelliousness appears as a phenomenon inherent in bourgeois consciousness, a special part of the political spectrum of bourgeois society in the age of imperialism and socialist revolutions. Right-wing radicalism, which was expressed during the first stage of the general crisis of capitalism in the form of a fascist movement, determined the dominant form oi bourgeois political consciousness in Italy, Germany and in a number of other countries. Right-wing radical traditions in these countries served the creation of ideological and psychological prerequisites for the liquidation of bourgeois-democratic law and order and the formation of totalitarian dictatorial regimes expressing the interests of the most reactionary monopolistic groupings. Following the rout of fascism, right-wing radicalism develops both in the form of neofascist trends, which frankly declare their political continuity in regard to prewar fascism, and also in the form of reactionary trends which, although believing themselves to be far from fascism, actually often represent phenomena basically 146 similar to it even though they take root in a different national climate and in a different historical situation.
The formation of a reactionary-rebellious consciousness usually takes place on the basis of the interaction of two main processes. The leading role here belongs to the evolution of conservatism to the right, when a crisis of more simple, more stable and moderate forms of conservative consciousness leads to its general ``hardening'' and conservatism becomes less effective as a political movement and ideological trend (and with this as a form for mobilizing the masses politically). While proclaiming with increasing determination its loyalty to the fundamentals of capitalism, conservatism renounces the traditional social institutions to which it swore allegiance yesterday, but which today it already considers dangerous from the point of view of preserving the ``fundamentals''. Relinquishing things of minor importance in the status quo for the sake of preserving the main thing is the procedure which consciousness periodically is forced to perform while it is not able and not willing to be reconciled with social progress. And conservatism performs this procedure not only during its swing to the right, but also during the process of a constant painful accommodation with liberal innovations. The basic difference between the two variants of this procedure is that by evolving towards liberalism, conservatism makes a definite concession to the objective demands of social development, while upon becoming transformed into right-wing radicalism, conservatism goes backwards, both in words and deed, towards its fetishes of yesterday. As a result, conservatism becomes so alienated from the status quo that it begins to forfeit its right to be called conservatism. From a guardian of "law and order" it becomes its violator. Its adventurism grows by leaps and bounds, it takes oppositional catch-slogans from the liberals and even from the Left. Regardless of consistency, it tries to make use of the widest possible spectrum of social protest.
Right-wing radicalism's profound internal dependence on conservatism, both genetic and in substance, predetermines the basic identity of their ideological substratum. While examining conservative consciousness, we have already noted that it is formed mainly on the basis of ideological structures borrowed from other traditions and transformed to a certain degree. This is also true of right-wing radicalism, with the only difference that whereas the ideology of conservatism is ``secondary'', the ideological substratum of the right-wing types or consciousness is ``tertiary'', since basically it represents a borrowed and transformed (sometimes substantially) ideology of conservatism.
__PRINTERS_P_147_COMMENT__ 10* 147The closeness of conservative and right-wing radical consciousness is also expressed in a similarity of their social and socio-psychological bases.
One can say that the degree of the political success of right-wing radicalism is in direct proportion to the scale of the mood of social protest which is identifiable in the ideological structures of conservatism in its rightward shift.
The process of activating and disseminating social discontent and protest never represents a straight-line movement from active support for the existing order to a clearly apprehended need for a real social alternative. Discontent is usually caused by a systematic practice of infringing the rights of a definite social group, arousing in its consciousness a stable feeling of injustice inflicted by the dominant order and a wish to change it.
The next phase in the development of social discontent is the search for initial causes of injustice on the basis of the generalization of real experience. But this step in the absence of a sufficiently strong influence (at least from the point of view of the possibility of an impact on mass consciousness) of a "subjective factor'', capable of providing a scientifically substantiated answer to sore questions, often turns out to be false. The possibility of a false interpretation of the causes for a social crisis sharply increases when it is a question of the consciousness of a petty-bourgeois type, the very social nature of which hampers an objective analysis of social processes.
The evolution of social protest that gives birth to rightwing radicalism is explained to a large degree by the inability of the individual to find a real community, the defense of whose positions would at the same time be a defense of the individual's own interests. Mass consciousness leading to reactionary rebellion sharply feels the presence of social antagonisms, and sees in their elimination with the help of radical means the only solution to the pressing problems of society. However, the model of an ``organic'' society, to which right-wing radicalism strives, is based on a completely false interpretation of the substance of the basic antagonism which is to be eliminated.
This may be interpreted, for example, as an antagonism between races, between ethnic groups, between an individual proprietor and the state, between "productive elements" (i.e., mostly people engaged in the production sector of the economy) and the ``nonproductive'' intellectuals, between groups differing in the amount of their incomes. In all these versions right-wing radical consciousness seeks to represent "the nation'', "the people'', "the majority" 148 who arc oppressed and exploited in all ways by ihe allmighty minority who have usurped political and economic power. Correspondingly, the way out of the social crisis is seen in struggle by the ``nation'' united on the basis of this or that motive against the- usurpers, the overthrow of their rule and the reorganization of the whole of society on the basis of an "organically united" race, an ethnic group, the mass of proprietor-individuals, a community of ``producers'' and so on. A social protest channeled in this direction produces in this way an especially conservative, to be more exact, reactionary result: not simply the preservation of the existing system of social relations, but a restoration of its obsolete, archaic forms.
The self-identification of an individual protesting against the existing order with such a false community becomes possible only under conditions when his protest does not transcend the borders of the consciousness of the petty proprietor, who defends above all his individual conditions for existence, who limits himself to them and therefore is unable to discover a real community that reveals to him a social future. It is precisely on the question of private property that the conservatism of the ruling class, evolving towards the right, and the petty-bourgeois rebelliousness find common ground for their right-wing radical symbiosis.
Despite their common attitude to private property, the two tendencies, on the basis of the merging of which rightwing radicalism exists, in the final analysis exclude one another. The conservatism of the upper crust, appearing in the form of a crude, straightforward defense of private property, represents a last ditch, a frenzied attempt to save a social system which is falling apart. Contrariwise, the petty-bourgeois protest of the lower strata, assuming a right-wing radical form, is only the start of the radicalization of the more backward section of the masses, a process the logical development of which may bring its participants, or at least part of them, to a struggle to topple the existing order.
To achieve their aims the right-wing radicals resort to different methods of political action, which, however, are united by a striving to destroy democracy. Claiming the role of a defender of the "middle class'', and even the driving force in its fight against "conspiracy in high places" and castigating contemporary liberalism as a weapon of the oligarchy, right-wing radicalism inevitably gravitates towards other forms of political action than those that constitute a norm for basic bourgeois political trends and parties.
The propaganda of the right-wing radicals is of a pogrom 149 nature, actually denying their political opponents, primarily, the left-wing forces, their legitimate right to exist. Any kind of pluralism is quite alien to right-wing radical consciousness. This propaganda', into the bargain, is aimed at undermining the prestige of the ruling elite and of all bourgeois-democratic institutions.
A special type of political organization characteristic of right-wing radicalism is secret societies or sects with a more or less hard structure, bureaucratic: centralism, and strict ideological orthodoxy. Resting on the sects as organizations of leaders, functionaries and activist cadres, right-wing radicalism at the same time takes advantage of methods of mass political mobilization, viz. protest campaigns against certain actions by the government, the nomination of charismatic leaders at elections, a skilled use of television, and the establishment of parties outside the two-party system. All these methods of work among the masses have one characteristic trait: the activity of the masses is precisely regulated and directed from above, the intermediary instances linking the rank and file of the movement with the leadership operate solely "from top to bottom''. Inner-party democracy is strictly proscribed for right-wing radical movements due to the objective incompatibility of the political trends that have brought them to life. At the same time the- combination of bureaucracy and elitism with which the right-wing radical leaders direct their following often results in the latter (at least partially) easily being cooptcd by other political trends. This circumstance only increases the hatred of the right-wing radicals for democracy, increases their intolerance of political opponents.
Right-wing radicals, denying the legitimacy of bourgeois democracy, preaching the cult of force, and regarding themselves as "fighters against tyranny'', take to the path of civil disobedience, of replacing state police functions with a system of private political spying, and, finally, of outright physical terror.A typical example of their rhetoric is a quotation from the right-wing radical newspaper National Spotlight (Dec. 15, 1975): "We have those who caution,'Work within the system! Never challenge a law except as a plaintiff in court in a civil action! As long as a ``law'' is on the books it is your sac-red obligation to obey it! Your only recourse is to petition your congressman or legislator to change it!'... In short, there is no way to patch up socialism. It must be resisted and challenged, as our Founding Fathers resisted and challenged the British... They knew that a 'higher law' had to be supported... Patriots must strike hard and they must strike immediately. Tomorrow you will 150 be a slave and will only have slave-tools to resist with.''
Terrorist groups play a special role among the right-wing radicals, for private terror, all the more physical terror, as a downright crime, represents the most direct, frank and brutal challenge to law and order that can be made by a political body. But private terror is not only a challenge to law and order; as an attempt to usurp the right to physical coercion, which is a prerogative of the state, it is a direct substitution, an usurpation of state power.
However, the fact that the right-wing radical terrorists actually act outside the law and that they dispute one of the sovereign rights of the state, is very seldom openly recognized by the state itself. Firstly, right-wing terror serves the same class objectives as the activities of the bourgeois state. Secondly, the state itself exercises physical terror for political objectives, and it does this on an incomparably larger scale than the right-wing radicals. Thirdly, one should take into account the existence in the United States of strong and deep historical traditions of private political violence, originating from the specific traits of the country's development. (See V.E. Petrovsky, Lynch Law. Essays on the History of Terrorism and Intolerance in the USA, Moscow, 1967, in Russian.)
The bourgeois state, as experience shows, takes steps to protect its monopoly on terror mainly in those cases when an act violating this monopoly hampers the activity of the state in spheres vital for the bourgeoisie. The strictness of these measures, however, only in rare cases accords with the graveness of the crime perpetrated: the contradictions between separate links of the state apparatus, reflecting the infighting of the bourgeoisie, result in the interaction between state and private terror having a restraining impact on the attempts to restrict this latter terror. Thus, the activities of the right-wing terrorists present a contradictory picture; on the one hand, these terrorists are regularly brought to trial for breaking the law, and they operate more or less secretly; on the other hand, it is as regularly discovered that the terrorist organizations have secret patrons within the law enforcement bodies.
Applying a wide range of methods of struggle for power, right-wing radicalism always has in reserve an option for an extra-legal seizure of power by a coup, preferably a military coup. The right-wing radicals attach special importance to work in the army, and usually they find sympathy and backing among the military. They invariably side with the military in all conflicts within the ruling elite whether it be a question of Pentagon appropriations, or the role of the generals in elaborating and realizing military policy.
151Speaking of the specific traits of right-wing radical consciousness in the United States, it is necessary to stress the organic interconnection between the phenomenon of right-wing radicalism and the level of the development of the crisis tendencies in society. Pragmatic conservatism, an inert attachment to the socio-political status quo, is most characteristic of the ruling class when it does not apprehend a serious threat to its positions. Only a situation of acute crisis can give rise to sharp dissatisfaction among the bourgeoisie at the ineffectiveness of conservatism and an urge to create more dynamic, more aggressive forms of struggle against social change. The scale of the spreading and influence of right-wing radical consciousness, as a rule, is in direct proportion to the scale of the crisis. Thus, the socio-political crisis of the late '60s led to a marked weakening of the impact of conservatism among the nonmonopolistic bourgeoisie, while at the same time within the ranks of the financial oligarchy a different consensus was formed---for modernizing conservatism and expanding its base. The oligarchy, more objectively assessing the situation, did not at all consider this crisis fatal for the social foundations, and it favored only a dosed form of authoritarian methods, at the same time making a series of liberal concessions, both in foreign and home policy. This resulted in right-wing radicalism having to be satisfied with the role of an auxiliary force, acting, in the final analysis, in the interests of a wider coalition of conservative forces led by President Nixon. All attempts to transcend the framework of this role aroused sharp dissatisfaction within the monopolistic circles, which assessed them as a threat to political stability, and they inevitably ended unsuccessfully.
A mass protest against the status quo, which assumes a right-radical form, is even more unstable. The natural evolution of a protest of the masses against the oligarchy, which initially develops as right-wing radicalism, in due course inevitably comes into collision with the main stream of this trend, determined by its leading elements which represent the interests of the ruling class. The incompatibility of the tendencies on the basis of which right-wing radicalism is formed sooner or later becomes evident to the bulk of those who adhere to it. As a consequence the movement is shaken from within and it splits into rival groupings, which in the end weakens its potential.
From this it follows that right-wing radical consciousness can be a stable form of political consciousness only for a narrow circle of politically committed persons---- professional or -semi-professional leaders and activists, while right-- 152 wing radicalism as a mass phenomenon finds expression mainly in the form of outbreaks of mass political activity, arising from crisis situations. The scale and concrete forms of these outbreaks differ depending on the situation: a mass right-wing radical protest may arise in the form of a purely local and short-term campaign against a definite measure imposed by the authorities (for example, against school bussing in Detroit in 1971, and in Boston in 1974-- 1975) or in the form of a more prolonged and broader movement aimed at changing the balance of political forces in the country during a nation-wide crisis situation (for example, the George Wallace for President campaign in the late '60s and the early '70s and the New Right movement of the late '70s and early '80s). The instability of the mass base, certainly, weakens this trend, but it does not at all turn it into a "paper tiger''. As history teaches, in a situation of an extremely acute social crisis an outbreak of right-wing radicalism may play a decisive role in sharply changing a political regime, in consequence of which the shaky postulates of right-wing radical consciousness receive a mighty support in the form of state coercion. In less critical situations, however, outbreaks of right-wing radicalism do not exert a decisive influence on the fate of a political regime, their instability to a certain degree constitutes an earnest of their repetition.
Right-wing radicalism, which is objectively a form of disorientation of mass protest, fulfills this function the better the more amorphous its ideology and the organization of its mass base. A systematically organized participation by the masses in a right-wing radical movement inevitably explodes it from within, while occasional participation by the masses in this movement, with a constant change of slogans and with an effective isolation of its rank and file from the guidance of the movement, blunts the disenchantment of the masses and, in the end, protects the movement (at least for some time) from disintegration.
One should also note the circumstance that a simultaneous "protest on two fronts" typical of right-wing radicalism--- against both a ruling oligarchy and a democratic opposition---creates the possibility for a purely eclectic combination within the framework of one and the same movement of positions inherent in different types of political consciousness. Besides orthodox right-wing radicals, the movement can also embrace conservatives, who prefer to ignore the slogans of the populists, seeing the movement as an instrument for the defense of the fundamentals of an existing order, and the populists, who are attracted to the movement primarily by the fierce attacks staged by the 153 right-wing radicals against the oligarchy, and by their declarations in defense of the "ordinary man''.
Although within the framework of the right-wing radical tradition of the American political consciousness there appear and coexist types personifying different socio-- political principles and orientations and resting on different social bases, they possess to this or that degree a number of common features, the sum-total of which constitutes the basic ideological content of the right-wing radical tradition in the United States.
Among these common traits militant nationalism probably plays the leading role. ``Americanists'', ``patriots'', and ``nationalists'' are the beloved self-designations of the right-wing radicals. Only a right-wing radical party claims the title of "The American Party''. One of the best known terrorist groups of the right-wing radicals bears the name of Minutemen, an analogy with the legendary militia of the War of Independence. Right-wing publications make wide use of ``patriotic'' symbols: the star-spangled flag, the bell of liberty, the bald eagle, the Founding Fathers and so on. This fetishism, however, simply boils down to the opposition of a specifically interpreted " national unity" to the ideas of class struggle within the framework of the nation and, at the same time, to the ideas of internationalism, cosmopolitanism, global mutual dependence and so on. All types of right-wing radical consciousness inevitably refer to the category of the ``nation'', which is regarded in the ideal as a self-contained, organichierarchical community. Class struggle within the nation and legitimacy of any supranational interests are rejected as running counter to the natural course of things. The need for national unity is motivated by a presence of foreign and internal threats to the existence or the nation.
All this would have been just a simplified version of traditionalist conservatism had it not been for two things. First, unlike conservatism, radicalism refuses to recognize the possibility of reaching "national unity" on the basis of the existing conditions of bourgeois democracy. Secondly, right-wing radicalism expresses not simply an opposition to the class struggle and to ``internationalism'', ready to compromise in the name of "national unity'', but it demands an immediate achievement of "national unity" with the help of radical methods and its preservation as a necessary condition for the continued existence of capitalism.
Right-wing radicalism believes that the way to ensuring "national unity" lies in ``purging'' the nation of those elements and institutions whose existence is conducive to class conflicts. It is a question, first, of the forces that 154 directly clelend the interests of the working class, primarily, of the Communist Party. Secondly, right-wing radi-- calism relegates to the "enemies of national unity" forces that recogni/e, although within certain limits, the legitimacy of the class struggle as a norm of political life.
Castigating liberalism, right-wing radical consciousness pays special attention to the liberal elements of the ruling class, whom it regards as mostly responsible for the "disintegration of the nation''. From the point of view of right-wing radicalism the liberalism of the upper crust is not an expression of weakness or short-sightedness on the part of a section of the ruling class, it is not a concession to the people, but a contemplated policy of a small ruling elite, who already wields enormous power and strives to make this power absolute.
The myth about a "natural superiority" of the Americans over other nations is a necessary component of right-wing radical nationalism. In the John Birch Society publication American Opinion, for example, one can find the following assertion:
``While Americans were and are kin to all the world, they are now also different from all the rest of the world--- somehow a special breed, though composed of various strains.
``Our common characteristics are due to the American experience, but before concluding that this means environment is more decisive than heredity, we must recall that the decision to come to America required a trait of enterprise, of aggression if you like (or even if you don't), which would seem to have a genetic base, though by no means confined to the nationality or race. There are bold, curious types in every nation and every race, though among countries long settled there may well be significant statistical differences in the frequency of such types...
``But all those variations are due to centuries of interacting natural selection and cultural development. What happened when America was colonized by Europeans in the XVI, XVII, and XVIII Centuries was that the forbidding prospect beyond the Atlantic served as a screening device to separate the men from the boys, to use a colloquialism, or (to put the matter more gravely) to insure an aboveaverage quotient of audacity... They were the most daring examples of Europe's Renaissance man, they were the Seventeenth Century's representatives of high seriousness in religion; they were the Eighteenth Century's truest English gentry.''^^1^^
_-_-_^^1^^ American Opinion, Vol. XIX. No. 4, April 197(1, pp. 26--27.
155Racism is a necessary component of right-wing radical consciousness, although it may be manifest in varying degrees. The absolutization of race and ethnic differences between individuals is needed by right-wing radical consciousness as an old, tried-out means for moulding an unauthentic community as opposed to class differences. One type of right-wing radicalism presupposes the direct preaching of race hatred, when race features are advanced as a basis for "national unification'', that is, when the "restoration of the race purity" of the nation is declared to be essential for this ``unification''.
Far more common, however, is the use of racism as an auxiliary means to mould mass conceptions of an `` authentic'' community. In examining the basis of "national unity'', other types of right-wing radicalism shift the emphasis to features not linked to race origin; still they actively support race demarcation as a ``natural'' form of social organization and stubbornly oppose all attempts to eliminate race segregation.
During the past 15 years the racist principle of rightwing radicalism has been greatly stimulated and `` substantiated'' due to growing resentment and disenchantment among American society over some aspects of government policy in the field of race relations. The criticism of this policy is by no means a monopoly of the racists; in the '70s this criticism became widely spread and affected practically all types of political consciousness, including the consciousness of the black Americans. However, the conservatives and right-wing radicals made the biggest political capital (at least at the beginning) out of the revision of the liberal reformism of the '60s. To a certain degree the traditional antiintegration stand of the right wing was a forecast which came true: for one of the main reasons of the crisis of Washington's policy on the race question was the fierce, many-sided, skillful resistance put up to it by the right wing.
Liberal reformism in the field of race relations is condemned by the right-wing radicals, firstly, as an expression of government interference into a kind of "natural course of things" which presupposes an inherent superiority of whites over nonwhites and a minimal level of relationship between the races; secondly, as "illegal coercion" of the white majority into race integration in public life, as a trampling on individual rights and the rights of the states by the almighty federal government; thirdly, as an economic exploitation of the whites, part of whose incomes is alienated by the same "big government" in the form of taxation, which is then transferred to the nonwhite poor as ``welfare''.
156A prominent trait among those inherited by right-wing radicalism from its conservative forefathers is traditionalism. The significance of this element of right-wing radical consciousness sharply increased during the mid-'70s in the conditions of a real traditionalistic boom that embraced the American middle class. Right-wing radicalism received a mighty shot in the arm from the real mass sentiments of the so-called "moral majority'', and it modified its own positions accordingly.
The traditionalist orientation of the right-wing radicals was formulated in the early '80s in one of their program booklets in the following manner:
``The issues of abortion, the meaning of the equal rights amendment, and whether the state should legitimize all alternative life-styles and living arrangements ... reflect a deep ... chasm between two radically distinct and diametrically opposed moral visions of humanity...
``The struggle is between the Judeo-Christian ethic, based on God-given eternal law, and the secular humanist orthodoxy that rejects God and traditional values. In the secular humanist world review, man, individually and collectively, has the absolute power, based on purely human will and reason, to determine all choices that will fulfill his individual and collective well-being.''^^1^^
Right-wing radical consciousness in general tends to exaggerate the role of the moral factor in the life of society. The panicky fear experienced by right-wing radicals in face of current socio-political change forces them to search for the unchangeable, eternal, stable, and intransient to which they cling in order to keep their head above water, and, at the same time, to take their bearings in order to understand the nature of the events that oppress them. Nationalistic fetishes and race or ethnic affiliation provide them with some degree of confidence in themselves and in their political orientation, but here a far greater role is played by the "God-given eternal laws'', their view of the world and the related rigid, dogmatic norms of ethics and morality. Compliance with this ``law'', the regulation of the behavior of individuals by some "moral code'', strengthened by legal norms, is regarded as almost the most important condition for the normal functioning of society. Correspondingly, any crisis phenomenon in society---from stagflation to the failure of the foreign policy of the state---can be treated as an effect of "moral degradation'', caused in turn by a negation of the divine principle.
_-_-_^^1^^ Onalfc MiGravv, [he Famili, feminism and the Therapeutic State, Washington, 19KO, p. 17.
157In the United States right-wing radicalism is inseparably linked with religious fundamentalism, above all with Protestant fundamentalism. Fundamentalistir forms of religious consciousness are similar to right-wing radicalism, primarily in that in both cases the genetic basis of consciousness is a specific combination of conservativereactionary and radical-rebellious elements. Affiliation to corresponding denominations does not mean, of course, an inevitable identification with right-wing radical political trends, but it serves for the bulk of American right-wing radicals, especially for the rank and file of their movements, as a necessary condition for such an identification.
Religious fundamentalism is vitally necessary for rightwing radicalism. If we consider political conflicts in absolute categories of good and evil, inspired accordingly by God and the devil, then a reconciliation of such conflicts is ruled out as unthinkable. If communism, liberalism, and secular humanism are declared schemes of the devil, then it turns out to be the duty of every "true believer" to do away with these ills. A political program built on such grounds is inevitably characterized by extreme intolerance and authoritarianism. Simultaneously, the religious element of right-wing radical consciousness also serves as justification of anticipated failure in resolving the eternal conflict and alleviates the right-wing radical's disenchantment---for if he takes on the devil himself he is sure to lose, while even small, temporary successes constitute an enormous victory.
The central place in the "moral code" of the right-wing radical consciousness belongs to the ethics of the patriarchal family. According to Merrill Root, an ideologist of right-wing radicalism, "we revere the family as a unit based on continuity of blood and purpose and meaning, on a spiritual culture, on a psychic entity... Thus the family, in its integrity, is a chief fortress for our God, against relativism, pragmatism, existentialism, and the collective tyranny of the state---or of the `democratic' mass.''^^1^^ "Strong families and strong leaders built this country,'' Harold Voth, leader of the movement "in defense of the family'', has declared, "and strong families and strong leaders will save it.''^^2^^
The "strong family'', revered by the right-wing radicals, hinges on implicit one-man management and the authority of the father---the ``bread-winner''; the social role of women _-_-_
~^^1^^ American Opinion, March 1966, p. 39.
~^^2^^ See R. Viguerie, The New Right: We're Ready In I.etul. Falls Church Virginia, 1980, p. 196.
158 should be restricted to running the household; children are brought up in conditions of strict discipline and loyalty towards "my home, my castle''; extramarital ties are excluded, and sex is treated according to the Bible---^as a sin justified only by the need for reproduction.The patriarchal-authoritarian ideal of a "strong family" is extremely important for right-wing radical consciousness. The family is regarded as a natural, basic, God-blessed social community, linking the individual with the nation via other than class and political ties.
As such, the family is ordained to serve as the foundation of social stability, a kind of damper on social and political dissatisfaction. So far as the individual finds support in the family to accomplish his objectives, so far as the family helps him to overcome (or live with) the difficulties he comes up against, his urge to join forces with other individuals in political organizations to confront the state with social demands is weakened. In the words of one neoconservative ideologist, the family is the only "department of health, education and welfare that works".^^1^^
The "strong family" is ordained to make the management of society easier in other respects too. The individual, getting accustomed within the framework of the family to authoritarian norms for adopting decisions, to a hierarchical distribution of social roles, to obedience and selfrestraint for the sake of the common good, is supposed to assimilate a definite type of political conduct, making him an "exemplary citizen'', who does not create problems for the ruling elite.
This "strong family" ideal propagated by the right wing was not interesting even for some right-wing ideologists way back in the '60s. In the '70s, however, it received a new and considerable articulation in the conditions of the actual process of the disintegration of the traditional bourgeois family in the United States. This process is expressed in an enormous growth in the number of divorces, in the forfeiting by men 6f many of their privileges in regard to women, in the spreading of "alternative forms" of family and sexual relations, built on hedonism and the negation of many traditional' ethic norms, and in a sharpening of the conflict of the generations. Right-wing radical consciousness explains all these phenomena as the effect of the schemes of the liberal-reformists obsessed with ideas of ``modernization'' and ``perfection'' of society, or due to the atheists bent on destroying the religious foundation of the traditional family, or due to the _-_-_
^^1^^ Quoted in: Onalee McGraw, op. (it., p. 20.
159 Communists engaging in "subversive activities" against America.``The struggle for the family is ... an undeclared civil war, whose outcome will determine how our society defines itself,"^^1^^ writes Onalee McGraw. In this "civil war'', the right wing comes out under the slogan of a comprehensive "moral counterrevolution'', obstructing the approval of the Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution, demanding a ban on abortion, the establishment of a strict ``moral'' censorship of the mass media, a radical revision of the school c urrk ulums in order to wipe out all the ideas that in one way or another "undermine traditional ethics'', a purge of the teaching staffs, the abrogation of the practice of school desegregation, a resumption of the daily prayers held in the classrooms, the legalization of corporal punishment for the pupils, harsher court measures against juvenile crime and so on. "Textbooks have become absolutely obscene and vulgar,'' says one of the appeals of the extreme right to "clean up America''. "Many of them are openly attacking the integrity of the Bible... Darwinian evolution is taught from kindergarten right through high school.'' (See: Phi Delta Kappa, May 1980, p. 609.)
Individualism, as stated above, not only does not hinder the forming of a protesting consciousness under the slogans of militant nationalism and racism, but it constitutes a necessary condition for this process. Only a consciousness that in its protest keeps within narrow borders of individual proprietary interests is capable of assuming that " national renewal" by banning the class struggle, routing the left-wing forces and the labor movement, by replacing the existing ``chaos'' with a corporative ``order'' resting on the gun, and preparations for a general war to "save Western civilization" represent a ``radical'' way out of the crisis of contemporary capitalist society.
From the point of view of right-wing radical consciousness an individual has been endowed by nature with a dual quality, that of a producer and a proprietor. Both sides of this quality are given an extended meaning: the proprietor side includes every person who owns any kind of property, while to the producer side are relegated practically all those engaged in the private sector. This cheap popular print has no place for contradictions between the worker (who is regarded as a producer, as far as he works for a private company, and also as a proprietor, as he has his own house and car and some of the stock of this company) and the owner of the company (a proprietor, once he owns capital, and a ``producer'', as he has invested this capital into _-_-_
^^1^^ O. McGraw, op.
160 production, and, perhaps, takes part in running the enterprise). The only differences remaining between the two individuals, which cannot by any stretch of the imagination serve as fertile soil for any conflict between them, are the difference in the size of their property, explained by virtue of education, heredity, and so on, and the difference in the content of the ``productive'' role, explained by the division of functions between labor and capital. The absence of formal obstacles to the worker, who decides to put his savings into his own business, should ensure the individual the possibility of freely substituting one "production function" for another. It is supposed that the model works the better the wider scope there is for the play of market forces.Here right-wing radicalism once more repeats the conservative postulates, this time of a libertarian fashion, widely publicized by the associations of employers. The difference between right-wing radical individualism and conservative individualism is that, while presenting this model as an ideal, right-wing radical consciousness at the same time admits that reality is quite some distance away from this model. The essence of the matter, from the viewpoint of right-wing radicalism, is that the producers-proprietors, who form a "middle class" and constifute the bulk of the population, are being exploited by the ``parasitic'' sections of the population through a mighty government apparatus which is increasingly restricting the freedom of the market. The conflicts and contradictions within this "middle class" are therefore explained by pressures from outside that distort the natural play or market forces and deplenish the wealth of the producers-proprietors.
The coalition of the "enemies of the middle class" includes those who one way or another are materially interested in the intensification of the economic role of the government, viz. the government bureaucracy, the poorest section of the population who live on government aid, the ``nonproductive'' intellectuals, the "Eastern Establishment" that has become intimately linked with the bureaucracy and multiplied its might thanks to the strengthening of the government. All these forces, the right-wing radicals assert, stand for ``collectivism'', which is understood as a compulsory, governmental redistribution of the incomes from the pockets of the ``producers'' into the pockets of the ``parasites'', supplemented by comprehensive interference by the government into the private life of individuals. Accordingly, the destruction of the mechanism of the governmental redistribution of incomes, the restoration of a completely free market, and the suppression of the " __PRINTERS_P_161_COMMENT__ 11--34 161 collectivistic" aspirations of the nonproductive section of the population should return internal stability and prosperity to the essentially homogeneous "middle class" and, consequently, to the whole of society.
The unity of ownership and productive labor in the rightwing radical consciousness is merely formal. The right-wing radical protest basically represents a defense only of the property interests of the individual, remaining alien towards his labor interests. Defending the rights of the proprietor in opposition to governmental policy, right-wing radicalism defends the freedom of private enterprise. The laws and the government institutions which regulate the activities of private enterprise, the tax system, including the progressive taxation of incomes, the policy of stimulating economic growth, which leads to inflation---all this is roundly condemned as an encroachment on the economic interests of most of the employers, primarily of small business, for which the bureaucratic rules and regulations, the growing taxes, and the laws permitting trade-union activity turn out to be an insufferable burden. The antietatist sentiments of the bourgeoisie are one of the most important sources of all the varieties of right-wing radicalism, and they find expression especially vividly in its ``market'' variety, directly reflecting the everyday consciousness of the employer.
From the point of view of the impact of the right-wing radical consciousness a far greater role is played by its claims to defend broader property interests, not directly linked to private enterprise as such. A corresponding slogan was formulated by one ideologist in the following manner: "Let the individual keep his dollar!" The property of the individual who does not belong to the class of the employers, the property acquired by the sweat of his brow and ordained to satisfy his basic demands, is the object of a growing encroachment on the part of the government, whose policy is causing inflation and a greater tax burden. A complex, contradictory mechanism of a dual exploitation of the individual by the state-monopoly system appears in right-wing radical consciousness in the form of an absolute opposition of a ``natural'', ``free'' market form of communion of individuals, making them proprietors, to an ``unnatural'', coercive, etatist form of communion that constantly threatens their right to property.
Anticommunism is a necessary attribute of right-wing radical consciousness, and in their political fight the right-wing radicals always play the role of zealous, irreconcilable enemies of the communist movement and other leftwing forces. Declaring their anticoimnunism, the right-wing 162 radicals practically never regard the "communist threat" as an independent source of evil, feeling an urge to deduce it rather from race-ethnic differences, from a striving of financial capital to dominate the world, even from the schemes of the devil. The wish of the right-wing radicals to find additional arguments for their anticommunism is explained primarily by the crisis of the more traditional, conventional forms of anticommunist consciousness based on the opposition of bourgeois democracy tocommunism. Another reason is that right-wing radicalism fights not only communism, but also bourgeois democracy and for this reason alone it must look for other anticommunist slogans.
The negation of democracy by the right-wing radicals is not always expressed openly, the less so in America. Appealing to the existing dissatisfaction of the masses, defending in their rhetoric the "man in the street" from the arbitrariness of the almighty elite, the right-wing radicals try to project their movement as a democratic ``popular'' trend, allegedly striving to replace false bourgeois democracy with a genuine people's power. They castigate bourgeois democracy for its inability to ensure "national unity" and to end the class struggle of the workers, for allowing the poorest sections of society to pressure the government while at the same time hampering the freedom of action of the punitive organs.
Attacking bourgeois democracy and liberalism, American right-wing radicals of today seldom oppose the bourgeoisdemocratic credo with a comprehensive alternative political system of their own. If we do not take into account the individual groupings that propagate a slightly renovated version of German fascism, then it should be admitted that right-wing radical consciousness has proved to be incapable of evolving a notion of the forms of power it would like to substitute for the existing system. Demanding the stepping up of the reprisals against the democratic forces and against all dissention and striving to destroy democratic rights and civil liberties, the right-wing radicals usually present the matter as if they are fighting for a return to the ``original'', "truly American" forms of a socio-political system, dislodged by the advancement of ``collectivism''.
This stand is sometimes interpreted by bourgeois researchers as a kind of romantic nostalgia which has nothing to do with reality. However, it appears that the matter is far more serious: the basic outlines of the ``alternative'' to which the right-wing radicals strive, consciously or unconsciously, are sufficiently clear-cut. It is a question primarily of abrogating the right of working people collectively to defend their interests, and, as an inevitable 163 consequence of this, blocking the channels for influencing the state apparatus on the part of the broad public. The balance of strength which has become established in the political system, with the organized power of the monopolies opposing the organized labor movement and other mass democratic movements (with government recognition of the legitimate right of these movements to fight for their demands), is planned to be radically changed in favor of the ruling class by the outlawing and liquidation of those ``collectivistic'' structures which nave been formed in the political system as a definite counterweight to the oligarchy, resulting from the persistent struggle waged by the labor movement and its allies. To confine the political rights of citizens to the sphere of strictly individual participation in politics on behalf of strictly individual interests in the conditions of the modern state-monopoly system would mean, in essence, a real ban on political liberties, that is, the establishment of a frank dictatorship of the state-monopoly elite.
Militarism as an important trait of right-wing radical consciousness is expressed in the apologetics of armed force as a means to implement the government's foreign and home policy. The need of right-wing radical consciousness in a militaristic orientation is explained primarily by the fact that the task of destroying democracy can ultimately be resolved only with the help of a mass use of armed force. Besides this, the militarism of the right-wing radicals is explained by their notion of the police functions of the state as its most natural functions. Finally, the army apologetics is closely linked to militant nationalism, which is in need of both symbols and concrete forms of the organization of individuals "in the name of the nation''.
The foreign policy orientation of right-wing radical consciousness is based on anticommunism, on the cult of armed force as a means to implement foreign policy, and on extreme nationalism. The thesis of a "growing communist threat" to the West, which is incapable of offering effective resistance, is the initial premise of any right-wing radical analysis of world development. Right-wing radicalism deliberately rejects the idea of the historical nature of the world revolutionary process, and asserts that " communist threat" grows as the result of a secret global conspiracy of a section of the ruling circles in the West. The different types of right-wing radical consciousness identify this section differently (international bankers, international Jewry, the "intellectual elite" and so on) and they describe the motives and methods of this " treacherous Establishment" in the following manner.
164The Establishment is supranational and antinational. Its interests transcend national borders, it thinks in cosmopolitan terms and strives to take advantage of the national resources of the United States and of other countries in the interests of its own struggle for world domination;~
as distinct from the ``normal'' employers (``producers''), the Establishment is parasitic, it creates no wealth and deprives others of their wealth by usury, taxation, nationalization, and direct expropriation. Whereas the source of the enrichment of the ``producer'' capitalist is the free market, the Establishment robs the ``producers'' with the help of the state;~
the final aim of the Establishment is ``collectivism'' on a global scale under the aegis of a world state. For this end communism, socialism, social-democracy, the welfare state and also supranational formations---the United Nations, NATO, the International Monetary Fund and so on--- have been ``created'';~
the anticommunism of the Establishment is completely false, for it coexists with communism in all its manifestations; at the same time it encourages the development of ``collectivistic'' tendencies in the West in the form of progressive taxation, the government's social policy and the other trappings of the welfare state.
From this it logically follows that the struggle of the United States against communism is senseless while the "treacherous Establishment" which rides roughshod over national interests continues to reign. To "save the West" it is necessary to dislodge the cosmopolitan elite from power and to set up a regime expressing the "interests of the nation" and engaging in an uncompromising war against communism.
Advancing this strategic objective, right-wing radicalism at the same time defends the immediate foreign political demands of reaction: complete rejection of the policy of detente, a build-up of the military potential in order to achieve military superiority over the Soviet Union, the extended use of military force in foreign policy, more support for reactionary dictatorships, no reliance on the reformist forces of the West and of the "third world'', and so on. But the right-wing radical stand on current affairs differs from the conservative stand in its more pronounced nationalistic slant. Thus, the demand to harden anticommunism in foreign policy is formulated in the slogans for "national freedom'', "liberation of captive nations'', and so on, whilst any criticism levelled at the South African, South Korean and other dictatorial regimes is condemned as 165 encroachments on their ``sovereignty'' and "national honor''. Under the aegis of the fight against "international bankers'', the US right-wing radicals have established their own network of international ties, which includes practically all the ultraright dictatorships of Asia, Africa and Latin America, and also most of the neofascist organizations of the world, including the Italian Scxial Movement---the National Right and the National Democratic Party of the FRG. During the mid-'70s, the idea of setting up an international anticommunist alliance (in opposition to the three ``superpowers''), which would include the FRG, Japan, Taiwan, Brazil, Iran, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and a number of other countries, became popular among these circles.^^1^^ It is indicative that the initiative in advancing this project be~longed to the American right-wing radicals, who tanked on acquiring an international base for their own struggle for power within the United States.
Characteristically enough, the thesis regarding the senseless struggle against communism under the existing US regime, and other similar attacks against Washington often coincide with traditional American isolationism, which sees in the policy of active global interventionism by the United States a threat to the country's internal stability. Right-wing radical consciousness does not understand, and does not want to understand, the logic of a modern American ``empire'', based not only on military coercion, but also on a complex interlacing of economic and political ties, on a striving to accommodate to world social change and to take advantage of a wide range of political forces for its objectives. Most right-wing radicals belong to the social strata which are isolated from the process of foreign policy-making, whose interests practically are not represented in this process, and, most importantly, who are far more concerned at the socio-political changes taking place inside the United States than with what is going on beyond the borders of their country. Nevertheless, the right-wing radical trend is systematically used by the militaristic: groupings of the foreign policy elite as a strike force in the fight against international detente.
The above-mentioned features of contemporary American right-wing radical political consciousness characterize it as a whole. As regards its concrete, specific expressions, which are spelt out in corresponding right-wing radical constellations, here these features are presented in varying measure and in different combinations---more or less stable and representative. This gives grounds for _-_-_
^^1^^ American Opinion, Vol. XXI, No. 3, March 1978, pp. 5-10, 81--88.
166 distinguishing three types of right-wing radical consciousness---radical-propertarian, radical-racist and right-- populist. __ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. RADICAL-PROPERTARIAN CONSCIOUSNESSGeneral characteristics and genesis. Radical-propertarian consciousness is the main type of right-wing radical consciousness in the United States which most consistently personifies the ``market'' consciousness principles. The most typical representatives and active proponents of the radical-propertarian ideas are the organizations and functionaries grouped around the John Birch Society. Whereas libertarianism, or anarcho-capitalism, constitutes classic liberalism that has evolutiomzed into conservatism on the basis of the absolutization of the economic dogmas of liberal consciousness, Birchism is nothing but a logical continuation, a subsequent stage of the same evolution, when the slogans of anarcho-capitalism become the ideological basis of consciousness orientated, in the final analysis, at the establishment of a right-wing dictatorship in American society in order to suppress the working-class movement and the democratic and liberal forces.
Originating from among the midst of the nonmonopoly bourgeoisie---big, middle and small---the radical-propertarian' type reproduces many traits of the everyday consciousness of a provincial bourgeois, whose political activity is concentrated chiefly within the framework of employers associations, provincial clubs of businessmen and the right wing of the Republican Party. This type of consciousness is most widely spread in areas of the South, South-West and mountainous states of the US, which during the postwar decades experienced an economic boom, linked, to a considerable degree, with the advancement of the military-industrial complex. It is characterized by a feeling that the social changes linked with the process of a further intensification of the role of the government in American society and the enhancement of the role of the monopoly bourgeoisie and government bureaucracy, are catastrophic.
As regards an assessment of radical-propertarian sentiments, principles and orientations by the carrier of this consciousness (who considers himself to be a conservative), he is convinced that this type personifies the dominant consciousness of the "middle class" and fulfills the function of a mechanism designed to defend this class ideologically from its enemies at the top and at the bottom of society inside and outside America.
167Apology for "economic freedom'', that is, freedom to possess private property, to a large degree determines the consciousness of the bulk of the American bourgeoisie who do not belong to the financial oligarchy. The criticism of socio-political reality from the point of view of the laissez-faire for the nonmonopoly bourgeoisie has for a long time been a convenient form for expressing both its loyalist sentiments for the oligarchy and an antimonopolistic protest (when the oligarchy is accused of violating the rules of free competition). In the former case the special position of the monopolies in society is ignored and those points are stressed that are common for all capitalists. A typical and most widely spread example of this is the propaganda of the employers' associations opposed to the ``collectivistic'' and ``etatist'' tendencies of today. The second, ``dissident'' variant of the advocated laissez-faire, sanctified by American political tradition and the antitrust legislation, is promoting the ``market'' variety of today's right-wing radicalism. As an opponent of all the tendencies (and the social and political forces that stand behind them) that restrict the action of the free market, the radical propertarian conceives socio-political reality as the embodiment of a global social conflict. One pole of this conflict is represented by the individual employer, the other---by his eternal enemy, the state, whose might is growing all the time. The employer's side of the conflict represents, according to this model, all the boons and merits of civilization: private property, free competition,and private enterprise are regarded as the attributes of an ideal form of a social system, the fount of scientific and technological, economic and social progress, the natural foundation of a healthy morality, just legislation, a strongfamily, religion and liberties. The opposite pole is absolutely negative; here you have the right of political coercion, bureaucratic interference in the natural course of events, the tyranny and arbitrariness of the authorities, the burden of taxation, behind-the-scenes intrigues and the politicians playing up to the crowd. The rapid development of the `` collectivistic'' tendencies of this pole createsa deadly danger to the "most perfect" social system mankind has ever known.
In an attempt to explain the emergence of this threat, the Birchists, proceeding from a militant apology of private enterprise, deliberately exclude a search for the causes of the etatization of social life within the development of the capitalist form of ownership itself. And they are fundamentally opposed to a historical approach towards these socio-political phenomena and processes. This in part is due to the fact that radical propertarianism as a 168 ``provincial'', ``conventional'' type of consciousness lacks the elementary culture of an historical and social analysis. However, the main reason for the antihistorical approach inherent in this consciousness apparently lies elsewhere. An historical approach is dangerous for it inevitably reveals the narrowness and anachronism of the radical-propertarian conceptions, knocks the Birchists off balance, and actually deprives them of any hope of realizing their social ideals. On the other hand, Birchism (and right-wing radicalism in general), as a rebellious form of consciousness, sees in any reference to the objective causes of the changes taking place in society a serious factor for demobilizing the forces of protest. Acting ultimately in the interests of preserving the fundamentals of capitalism, and striving to ensure for itself a mass base, right-wing radicalism has to trace the course of events taking an undesirable direction for it in factors which can be eliminated without affecting the basis of the system. Hence the constant striving by the radical-propertarianist to shift the accent in social analysis to the "subjective factor'', above 11 to identifying those responsible for the social ills.
As a result, you have the "conspiracy theory'', with the help of which the Birchist strives to explain away all the fundamental changes taking place in society, including, of course, the growing role of the state in the USA. Here is a typical description of a ``conspiracy'' belonging to the founder of the John Birch Society, Robert Welch: "For approximately two hundred years there has been in existence an International Master Conspiracy with a self-perpetuating Inner Circle of control. All the actions of that Conspiracy, which include every amoral crime, massive deception, and ruthless cruelty known to man, have been aimed at making a top circle of Insiders the absolute and tyrannical rulers of the whole human race. The intermediate aim of these Insiders consists of gradually gaining more and more power until they have brutally enslaved the total population of the earth. Their unchanging strategy for this satanic accomplishment calls for the destruction of all religion, of all previously existing governments, and of all traditional human institutions. This is so that their 'new world order' ... can be imposed on the resulting chaos, misery and despair...'' (American Opinion, Vol. XVII, No. 11, December 1974, p. 56.).
``Why is all this so important?" the Birchist journal explained in 1976. "It is so important because the millions of Americans who now feel hopeless in the face of 'bad luck' can reasonably be expected to get mad enough to do something when they realize that Kissinger & Company are 169 destroying us deliberately. Entrenched `stupid' leadership and a consistent run of 'bad luck' makes our defeat ' inevitable', as the Communists claim. But a Conspiracy can be exposed and beaten.''^^1^^
``Those who believe that major world events result from planning are laughed at for believing in the 'conspiracy theory of history','' writes Clary Allen, a leading publicist of the John Birch Society. "Of course, no one in this modern day and age really believes in the conspiracy theory of history---except those who have taken the time to study the subject. When you think about it, there are really only two theories of history. Either things happen by accident neither planned nor caused by anybody, or they happen because they are planned and somebody causes them to happen. In reality, it is the 'accidental theory of history" preached in the unhallowed Halls of Ivy which should be ridiculed. Otherwise, why does every recent administration make the same mistakes as the previous ones? Why do they repeat the errors of the past which produce inflation, depression and war? Why does our State Department `stumble' from one Communist-aiding `blunder' to another? If you believe it is all an accident or the result of mysterious and unexplainable tides of history, you will be regarded as an ' intellectual' who understands that we live in a complex world. If you believe that something like 32,496 consecutive coincidences over the past forty years stretches the law of averages a bit, you are a kook!''^^2^^
The modern Birchist variant of the "conspiracy theory" has its ideological origin, firstly, in the anti-Masonic sentiments which were widespread among the American right wing in the 19th century, and which considered the primary cause of social ills to be the collusion of powerful individuals united in the Mason lodges; secondly, in the antisemitism of the first half of the 20th century, which actively nourished the nazi movement in Germany, the United States and other countries (the demagogy regarding a " conspiracy of world Jewry''); and finally, in McCarthyism, which treated the ``conspiracy'' as a communist one and which explained the foreign policy failures of the United States by treachery, by the "presence of Soviet agents" in the Administration and in the political and public organizations. And the traditional petty-bourgeois criticism of the monopolies, accusing them of "collusion aimed at destroying free trade'', also had a definite impact on the formation of Birchism.
_-_-_~^^1^^ American Opinion, Vol. XIX, No. 1, January 1976, p. 48.
~^^2^^ Gary Allen, None Dare Call It Conspiracy, Rossmoor, California, s.a.,pp. 8-9.
170At ihe early stage of its existence Birchism treated the conspiracy thesis mainly in the spirit of McCarthyism, as a "communist conspiracy''. The McCarthy variety of anticommunism remains one of the fundamentals of Birchism, fulfilling the function of a kind of conditional reflex, when the very mention of the word ``communism'' invariably brings into action a hard, dogmatic: system of anticommunist cliches. Inasmuch as private enterprise is idealized by Birchism as a sign of the highest stage of social development, it naturally cannot recognize communism as a new, still higher social formation. Rejecting any argumented controversy on the correlation between capitalism and communism as two competing historical formations (such a controversy is at one and the same time inaccessible and heretic for the primitive petty-bourgeois Birchist consciousness that is dogmatically devoted to capitalism), the Birchist explains the emergence and existence of communism by the evil intentions of a close-knit circle of conspirators, who are striving for world domination with the help of `` violence'' and ``deception''. Hence the persistent demand of the Birchist consciousness for the most fantastic: inventions about communism, for without this the entire structure falls apart. Birchism can exist only if it permanently sees before it the haunting specter of an omnipresent "communist agent" active in the Administration, in the political parties, trade unions, churches, mass media and schools.
In the '5()s the "communist threat" syndrome was one of the determining traits of American political consciousness as a whole; during several years dozens of millions of Americans thought in the McCarthy style. In the '60s the McCarthy variety of anticornmunism entered a stage of rapid disintegration; Birchism immediately reacted to this change of events by searching for more solid ``arguments'' for its anticommunist dogma. And the striving of international finance capital for world domination was declared to be the source of the "communist conspiracy''.
In the program booklet of the Birchists, None Dare Call It Conspiracy, which they used as campaign literature during the 1972 presidential elections, the following is stated: "While it would be an over-simplification to ascribe the entire conspiracy to international bankers, they nevertheless have played a key role... It would be equally disastrous to lump all businessmen and bankers into the conspiracy. One must draw the distinction between competitive free enterprise, the most moral and productive system ever devised, and cartel capitalism dominated by industrial monopolists and international bankers. The difference is that the private enterpriser operates by offering products and 171 services in a competitive free market while the cartel capitalist uses the government to force the public to do business with him. These corporate socialists are the deadly enemies of competitive private enterprise.'' (Gary Allen, op. cit., pp. 37, 77.)
``Exposing" the "schemes of the Communists'', the Birchists at the same time point to many facts that, in their opinion, testify to how the financial groups of the Morgans, Rockefellers, Rothschilds and others control the economic and political life in the West, taking advantage of illegal forms and methods in their exercise of power. The contemporary attuning of these exposures was set way back in the '60s by the much publicized pamphlet of former FBI employee Dan Smoot The Invisible Government (Boston, 1965), which was reprinted several times and distributed by the John Birch Society. The booklet is aimed at convincing the reader that the true government of the United States is actually a ramified network of unofficial organizations of the ruling elite, directing the activity of the state from behind the scenes. According to Dan Smoot, the " invisible government" consists of such organizations as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Foreign Policy Association, the Committee for Economic Development, the Business Council, the Advertising Council, and the US United Nations Association, which rest on tax-free charity foundations of Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie, Sloan and others. The main role is allegedly played by the Council on Foreign Relations. Affirming that the United States is unable to stop the " communist threat" on a global scale and the progressive process of the etatization of American society, Dan Smoot explains this by a "conscious scheme" of the invisible government.
The role of the unofficial organs of the ruling elite during the past 5-10 years has become the object of serious researches by politologists of left-wing radical trends. One can point, for example, to the works by William Domhoff, David Shoup and W. Minter. William Domhoff in his book Who Rules America?, devoted to the structure of the US ruling class, even makes use of the factual material collected by Dan Smoot (William Domhoff, Who Rules America?, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1967).
Similar exposures often hit at real targets. However, the amount of ``realism'' of the right-wing radicals as social critics should not be overestimated at all. A closer examination reveals that the ``antistate-monopolistic'' sentiments of the radical-propertarianist simply boil down to a kind of envy of a rival who enjoys more advantageous rights in regard to the use of state power. For example, the Birchist journal American Opinion, explaining the ``conspiracy'' 172 motives, has this to say: "If you wish to control commerce, banking, transportation, and natural resources on a national level, you must control the federal government. If you and your clique wish to establish worldwide monopolies, you must control a World Government. The motive, then, is simply the achievement of power and control of its Siamese twin, wealth.'' (American Opinion, Vol. XV, No. 9, October 1972, p. 64).
The Birchist sees the cause of the formation of a mighty state-monopoly elite in the fact that some of the capitalists during a considerable period of time systematically and conspiratorially violate the rules of free competition in a bid for world domination. The violators are a handful of bankers who over 200 years have specialized in financing world trade. The suprastate, cosmopolitan status of the international bankers, the huge capital at their disposal, finally, their long-standing practice of financing the state debt of the United States and of other countries---all this is quite sufficient for the Birchist consciousness to assimilate the idea that it is precisely the schemes of the international bankers that explain the hated progress of etatization. From the Birchist point of view, the international banker is a ``socialist'' because he gets rich at the expense of the state whose monetary-financial mechanism allows him to pump wealth out of the "productive section of the population" with the help of taxation, inflation and so on.
And this same international banker also turns out to be a communist fellow-traveller. According to Gary Allen, " Communism is not a movement of the downtrodden masses but is a movement created, manipulated and used by powerseeking billionaires in order to gain control over the world ... first by establishing socialist governments in the various nations and then consolidating them all through a 'Great Merger', into an all-powerful world socialist super-state probably under the auspices of the United Nations".^^1^^
The Birchist ``substantiates'' this thesis by pointing out that in the 20th century the processes of the formation and elevation of the financial oligarchy and the strengthening of the role of the state in the West have taken place simultaneously with the upsurge of the revolutionary movement, with the formation and energetic growth of the socialist states, and this against the background of a gradual decline of traditional free enterprise. The Birchist looks for a connection between these two lines of historical development, and his outraged consciousness only sees that _-_-_
^^1^^ Gary Allen, op. cit., p. 35.
173 the financial oligarchy not only lias not managed to put an end to the revolutionary process, hut is trying to accommodate itself to this process, seeking support in the social-reformist movements and introducing into the practice of capitalism principles borrowed from socialism: social security, state economic planning and so on. True, the Birchist (so as not to ``underestimate'' the "communist threat'') has to introduce into his scheme a thesis that the Communists, having acquired their own strong base in the form of states where they have come to power, are allegedly trying to push aside their ``patrons'' of the international banks so as to become the masters of the world themselves and, in the end, to acquire ``autonomy''. However, this thesis does not detract from the general radical-- propertarian stance of regarding communism and the financial oligarchy as accomplices in a ``conspiracy''.Problems of domestic and foreign policy. Even the initial theses which give birth to radical-propertarianism as a market type of right-wing radical consciousness, viz. an apology of the laissez-faire, anticommunism, demagogic criticism of the monopolies, and, finally, the conspiracy theory, sufficiently clearly draw the contours of the field of this type of political consciousness and characterize the principles of its approach towards resolving problems of domestic and foreign policy.
As a proponent of the laissez-faire, the radical-- propertarianist idealizes the free market, in which he sees a guarantee for the maintenance of a "natural order" both with in the borders of his own country and on a worldwide scale. The free market, he sincerely believes, can give rise neither to class struggle within the country nor to armed struggle between states. As the most natural form of human community it creates only social harmony and peace. The source of class contradictions, of revolution and war, lies in the crafty designs and machinations of adventurists striving for power, backed up by the capital of the world banks.
The conspiratorial activity of the adventurists is strengthening the state, which they are using as a weapon to achieve their selfish objectives. This notion of the radical-propertarianist predetermines his critical attitude towards the modern liberal concept of the state both in its technocratic, and, all the more, its reformist variant. The welfare state, the Birchist believes, is a mechanism to rob the "productive majority''.
According to the radical-propertarianist, all members of American society are divided into three categories. The monopolist ``insiders'' are at the top, wielding all the basic 174 levers of state power. At the opposite pole you have the poor, the lumpenproletariat, the "nonproductive elements'', the ``parasites'', who are unfit for work and strive to live at the expense of others. The bulk of the nation constitute the "middle class'', to which the Birchist allocates most of the bourgeoisie, the middle strata and the majority of the working class.
The depiction of the bulk of contemporary American society as a single "middle class" represents not only nostalgia for preindustrial America of the independent farmer. It is also a view of society as consisting exclusively of individual proprietors, whose social roles differ according to a natural division of production functions: sorrre invest then money, some direct, others work at the bench, still others errgage in marketing, and so on. There can be no antagonisms between these individuals; harmonic cooperation alone exists, for the "middle class'', according to right-wing radical mythology, is simultaneously the carrier of the highest moral values, the motivating force of progress, and the bulwark of the constitution. Its lifegiving environment is the free market; its ideal is laissezfaire capitalism.
The other two categories of the population---the ``insider'' state-monopoly elite and the poor---constantly encroach on the rights arrd wealth of the "middle class'', striving to cash in at its expense by the redistribution of incomes and by other coercive measures. The welfare state ``invented'' by the liberals, the Birchist firmly believes, is just the mechanism for this unfair' ``redistribution'', and, in essence, is an instrument for robbery. The poor who are motivated by envy and are poor because they are lazy and careless, arrd come of a bad stock present the state with ever- growing demands arrd threaten to stage social disorders arrd revolution should their demands not be met, thus playing the role of pawns in the hands of the elite.
Once a substantial section of the American poor belong to the national minorities, the ``insiders'' also encourage purely race friction, setting blacks against whites. Unfortunately, Birchisrn claims, a considerable part of the "middle class'', misled by the politicians and the mass media, support a policy airrred in the final analysis at the enslavement of their own class.
All the liberal measures adopted by the state, owirrg to pressure from below (for example, legislation restricting arbitrariness by the employers, antirecession measures, measures to redistribute the national income, measures to curb race arrd sex discrimination) are condemned by the radical-propertarianist as violalions of the natural balance 175 of market forces, as subversive activity, as a movement towards communism, as exploitation of the "middle class" by the ruling elite and the lumpenproletariat. Democratic movements are regarded as a political base for liberal reformism, and as a blind tool in the hands of the Communists and the liberal wing of the elite.
Castigating not only communism, but also liberalism and social-democracy, and repudiating all concessions by the state to the demands coming from below, Birchism, in effect, completely rejects the policy of reform applied by the bourgeoisie along with a policy of overt repression. As regards the attitude towards the latter policy on the part of radical-propertarianism, this is determined by the same principle as that of conservatism: "the maintenance of law and order" and "the defense of the country from foreign enemies" are considered to be the only justified functions of the state. This principle, if interpreted without reservation, opens up practically unlimited possibilities for an expansion of the state's repressive functions, including the complete liquidation of bourgeois democracy.
At first sight it may seem that the Birchist consciousness, which so zealously defends individual freedom in opposition to state coercion, should feel some kind of contradiction here. However, the contradiction is removed if freedom is treated in a narrow-class bourgeois key as market freedom; the idealization of free enterprise implies a readiness to engage in every kind of violence, and to impose any restrictions on the political rights of citizens in order to protect this free market.
This hard line also determines the basic foreign policy orientations of the radical-propertarianist. In principle he has a strong isolationist leaning, stemming from traditional American mistrust of the Old World and from a panicky fear of the possibility of the creation of a "world government" (for which, allegedly, the international banks and the Communists are striving). Nevertheless, the Birchist quite definitely comes out both in support of those countries which nave frankly anticommumst, dictatorial regimes (Chile, for example) and against the policy of detente in relations with the socialist countries, primarily with the Soviet Union. In particular, he comes out (together with other right-wing forces) against promoting East-West trade and scientific contacts, actively propagating the thesis that trade and scientific contacts strengthen the positions of world communism and undermine Western positions. In general, the Birchist believes that any course aimed at "wiping out communism'', including a total war against the Soviet Union and its allies, is a good foreign policy.
176Problems of political strategy and tactics. The radicalpropertarianist, though acknowledging his difficult position in American society, believes that not all is lost for the "productive majority'', that there are still hopes for the implementation of "basic changes" and for a return to the self-regulating market, to free competitive capitalism. Hence his active propaganda work and participation in political strife at all levels. One should note that in questions pertaining to political tactics, the Birchist, rigid and bluntly straightforward in many respects, displays unexpected flexibility, especially in looking for allies (in case of need he may even form a bloc with trade-union bureaucrats) prepared to knock together ``fronts'', i.e., mass public organizations geared to conducting political campaigns on different concrete questions.
While "exposing the conspirators'', the Birchist himself tends to act like a conspirator. This, in particular, is seen in his notion of political organization, to which he assigns a major role in the political process, and this corresponds to his conception of the role of the "subjective factor" in public life. His ideal of an organization (a party) is based on strict discipline and the principles of bureaucratic centralism, forming a semi-conspiratorial unit, a kind of sect, orientated not simply at solving current political tasks, but at educating the ``vanguard'' in a messianic spirit. Only this kind of organization is capable, in the view of the Birchist, of surviving in conditions of ``conspiracy'' and of getting the "middle class" to follow it.
In principle the radical-propertarianist does not exclude the possibility that "basic changes" in American society may be implemented constitutionally, but, on the other hand, he does not exclude the possibility of a political coup, to which, he asserts, it would be necessary to resort should it not be possible to achieve his objectives by constitutional means.
The Birchist accuses the American capitalist state of wide-ranging administrative and judicial coercion, applied to individual employers in the course of state-monopoly regulation. As Dan Smoot writes, "in the United States, as government controls fashion our economy into the likeness of Communism, businessmen who violate the economic commands of regulatory agencies are considered more dangerous than criminals. Our courts and other branches of government are becoming so permissive about crime and so concerned about the rights of criminals that the right of society to be protected is sometimes ignored; but businessmen accused of economic offenses are punished without due process of law... Harassing business has __PRINTERS_P_177_COMMENT__ 12--34 177 become a major function of government...'' (The Business End of Government, Boston, Los Angeles, 1973, pp. 39, 215).
But this does not at all mean that the Birchist is an opponent of coercion as such. In principle he justifies the use of coercion only against ``real'' enemies of society, that is primarily against ``criminals'' (for he supports "law and order'') and persons personifying the "communist threat''. In general, when the Birchist speaks about state coercion, reprisals and dictatorship, he has in mind, first and foremost, infringements of the rights of the proprietor and of free enterprise---from taxation up to nationalization. Political reprisals he explains away as a natural effect of the intrusion by the state into economic life (``without economic freedom there can be no political freedom''). Contrariwise, state coercion aimed at expanding free enterprise and against all attempts at restricting it, constitutes not a violation of rights, but their protection, not `` totalitarianism'' but ``freedom''.
Highly indicative in this respect is the interpretation given by the Birchist to old European fascism. Not rejecting the criticism of fascism (from a liberal stance) as a dictatorship of an almighty state grossly suppressing the rights and liberties of the individual, the Birchist, as distinct from the liberal, explains this phenomenon as a result of the development not of the repressive, but of the social-reformist function of the state. In the Birchist interpretation, the wiping out of bourgeois democracy by the fascists was only the effect of their etatist policy in the economic and social fields. The root of the evil is therefore seen in the encroachment by fascism on the freedom of the market, and this allows fascism to be put on an equal footing with modern liberalism and the left-wing trends that regard the state as a means to achieve social changes of a reformist or revolutionary type.
At the same time attempts are made to whitewash the militaristic, aggressive essence of fascism, and to absolve fascism of the responsibility for World War II. As Gary Allen, leading spokesman of the John Birch Society, asserts contrary to the historical truth, Hitler did not at all strive for world domination. Neither did he want war with the West. All he wanted was to "break the chains" of the Versailles Treaty, to achieve an armaments parity with France, Britain and Poland and to conquer Russia---the source of the "communist threat''. (American Opinion, Vol. XIX, No. 5, May 1976, pp. 41, 43).
The history of the ``market'' type of right-wing radicalism shows that it is not widely spread in American society today. But the direct and close ties between Birchist 178 objectives and the everyday consciousness of the provincial businessman ensure this type of political consciousness a stable base among certain sections of the public. However, these same links, identifying Birchism as a narrow-class, employer's view of the world, reveal its essence as a protest in defense of purely bourgeois privileges, and severely restrict the mass base of this type of consciousness. Radical-propertarianism, despite its violent attacks against the state-monopoly elite, is too clearly antidemocratic to provide adequate expression for the protest by the man in the street, who sincerely believes he is a democrat though objectively acts from reactionary positions.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. RADICAL-RACIST CONSCIOUSNESSGeneral characteristics and genesis. Racism forms the ideological and socio-psychological basis of this type of consciousness. All the basic concepts of the radical racist concerning the state, freedom, the market, domestic and foreign policy, etc., are strongly linked with racial prejudices and theories.
As we have already said, racism is organically inherent in all types of right-radical consciousness. However, only radical racism draws on racist theories to provide the basis for the imaginary community in which he seeks to find an antidote to social reality. This circumstance is important for understanding both right-wing radical policy and the ideological substratum which underlies this type of consciousness. It is this circumstance that explains the reason for the direct borrowing and wide use made by American radical racists of the ideological dogmas of German Nazism, the methods employed by Nazi propaganda, and also the methods adopted by European fascism to mobilize the masses.
It is well known that racist consciousness, asserting that there are biological differences between various sections of mankind and using this assertion in order to justify social inequality and exploitation, aggressive wars and the enslavement of whole peoples, has had a strong influence on the policy of the bourgeoisie and on the entire course of the history of capitalism. The myth of primordial superiority of Europeans over other peoples, which identified the white man with civilization as such and accorded him the right to seize the lands of the ``savages'', to rob, enslave, and annihilate the population of the conquered countries became an important element in the ideology justifying the creation of __PRINTERS_P_179_COMMENT__ 12* 179 colonial empires of the West. The establishment of the United States was also linked with this ideology, accompanied by genocide against to the Indians and the development of the plantation economy based on black slave labor.
In the 19th century, racism, continuing to serve colonial expansion, acquired a qualitatively new function, having become the political slogan of traditionalist reaction to the spread of bourgeois-democratic: ideas and the growth of the working-class movement. 1'his period saw the emergence of the first political movements under racist slogans. The Ku Klux Klan in the United States declared its intention "to do everything in our power in order to maintain, in this Republic, the supremacy of the Caucasian race, and restrain the black or African race to that condition of social and political inferiority for which God has destined it".^^1^^ The anti-Semitic parties in France and Germany placed the responsibility for the economic crises, the ruin of the petty bourgeoisie and the rise of the working-class struggle at the door of the Jewish bankers. Pogroms of Jews were unleashed in tzarist Russia.
In the United States, racism developed into a particularly large-scale phenomenon. In no other Western country were the transformation of an agrarian into an industrialized economy, the growth of monopolies and the emergence of the mass industrial proletariat so intertwined with race and ethnic problems. The emancipation of the black people as a result of the Civil War and the arrival in the United States of 25 million immigrants between the Civil War and World War I---mostly from Eastern and Southern Europe and China---gave the rapidly growing socio-political antagonisms a race and ethnic coloring. The mass of the ``native'' white Anglo-Saxon Protestant population, who earlier had been relatively homogeneous in social terms, increasingly began to lose their former economic basis---small-scale farming, and migrated to the towns to join the ranks of the proletariat, which were being increased at the same time by blacks, Italians, Poles, Jews, and other ethnic groups whose way of thinking, culture, moral norms, and political orientation differed from those predominant in the United States. Whereas, for example, the Italian peasant becoming an American worker acquired, as a rule, a higher standard of living and social status, the hereditary white farmer of Kansas becoming a worker conceived his new status as the collapse of his normal way of life and as a loss of social prospects. _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Poisoned Tongue. A Documentary History of American
Prejudice. Ed. by Stanley Felclslein, N.Y.,'' 1972, p. 176.
Racism and
The system of racial stratification, which was embodied in laws, employment practices, the patterns of political coalitions, in political-psychological stereotypes and so on, consisted of a more or less clear-cut identification of the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant minority of the nation as a special community (``Aryan'', ``Teutonic'', ``Nordic'' and so on). This "superior race" was ascribed a natural superiority in all fields of human endeavor; it was considered to be the most stable basis of the American system of free enterprise and traditional constitutionalism, the living incarnation of "American exceptionalism'', ordained to save America from the social cataclysms of the Old World.
Immigrants from Europe whose poverty, low social status and poor education were ``explained'' by their biological inferiority (at the time they were mostly defined as ``Alpine'' and ``Mediterranean'' races) were allotted a subordinate place. Protesting, the immigrants stubbornly defended their right to equality with the "superior race'', using such methods as strikes, the formation of socialist parties and the propaganda of the ideas of class struggle. Thus the rationale for restriction and discrimination against these sections of the population was based not only on their "racial inferiority'', but also on the danger they represented to America's "social peace''. The fact that the bulk of the immigrants were Catholics or Jews only served to reinforce the prejudices in the consciousness of the white Protestants.
Finally, the lowest rung in the racial stratification system was occupied by blacks, Indians, Mexicans, Chinese and other nonwhite minorities, who were considered to be unfit to enjoy democratic rights and liberties, and, therefore, were practically deprived of them.
The Great Depression of 1929--33, which laid bare the real social contradictions of American society, helped to free the consciousness of many millions of Americans from racial bias and was a factor in the erosion of the system of racial stratification. Whereas in the 1920s 181 the Ku Klux Klan was the biggest nonparty political organization in the United States, in the '30s pride of place went to labor organizations.
In Europe during this period diametrically opposite processes were taking place which, in the long run, had an impact also on the future of American right radicalism. As a result of the emergence of the Nazi regime in Germany, racist doctrines in their most extreme, inhuman forms were elevated to the rank of official ideology and state policy and were put into practice by officially proclaimed genocide, first inside the country and then beyond its borders.
German fascism provided a classic example of the use of racism as the basis of a right-radical platform. Fighting for power in a situation of extreme economic and social crisis, the national-socialists relied on racism as an initial premise for their antimonopoly demagogy, anticommunism, antidemocratism and their program of struggle for world domination. They threw overboard as "contrary to the laws of nature" all bourgeois-liberal traditions of the 18th and 19th centuries, based on the principles of recognition of the inalienable rights of the individual, the legislated equality of citizens, the "social contract" as the basis of the state, the autonomy of the state from society and so on. They proclaimed the principle of "blood kinship" to be the ``natural'' basis for the formation of the community of individuals. According to this racist proposition, the social contradictions that were tearing German society apart were considered to be stemming from race distinctions. The Jewish population of Germany was declared to be an alien body in the organism of the nation, the basic cause of the social conflicts among the ``Aryans'' and of the spread of liberal and Marxist ideas.
Nazism could not come out against capitalism as such, for it relied on the bourgeoisie and defended their interests. Yet at the same time Nazism was in need of slogans with a sufficiently insurgent ring to attract millions of the dissatisfied, whose dissatisfaction was, in the final analysis, directed against capitalism. Yet the anticapitalist and antimonopoly protest diverted into the antiSemitic channel no longer presented any danger for the foundations of the system.
Nazism was directed, above all, against revolutionary forces, but it could not come out openly against socialist ideas without risking the loss of the masses disenchanted with traditional bourgeois ideals. Anti-Semitism, which decades ago August Bebel aptly characterized as the "socialism of the pnilistine'', provided the possibility 182 of splitting off from the left wing and inciting against it those who were infected with nationalistic bias and who were unable to distinguish between socialist ideas and bellicose tribalism.
The Nazi slogan of "racial renovation of the German nation" gave millions of Germans the illusion of overcoming bourgeois individualism, which had suffered an obvious fiasco and needed to be replaced by a collectivist approach. It seemed to the supporters of Nazism that they had finally extracted themselves from the labyrinth of individualism and had found that ``natural'', that ``organic'' community which could defend the<r individual interests and could provide them with the possibility of self-development in accordance with the interests of the whole. Actually, however, Nazism simply relieved bourgeois individualism of its crushing burden of belief in the free market of goods and ideas, while retaining its basis unchanged---its attitude towards property. The "unification on a racial basis" not only did not require the development of the human social principle in the individual, but, on the contrary, it suppressed this principle by the preaching of racial hatred, at the same time bringing into action purely biological instincts.
Nazism attempted to couple its objective of "racial renovation of the nation" with that of limiting the free market and setting up a strong military-bureaucratic state with a widely developed system of repressive organs, a state completely eliminating the trappings of bourgeois parliamentarism and based on the cult of strength, on "purity of the race'', and "biological homogeneity" of the nation.
The rout of the Axis powers and the political discredit of Nazism and the other varieties of prewar fascism have sharply restricted the potential of radical-racist trends, including those in the United States. However, it is in the United States that an acute political struggle erupted in the postwar period over the problem of race relations and the rights of the black population. With the upsurge of segregationist reaction aiming to suppress the black movement at all costs, and in the climate of cold war hysteria, radical racism was given a new lease of life and accommodated itself to the new conditions. The highest level of radical-racist activity in the postwar period was reached in the second half of the '50s and in the '60s, then followed a decline, and in the late '70s and early '80s another growth in the radical-racist trend became a characteristic trait of the swing to the right in American political 183 life.
Radical-racist consciousness also takes the form of primitive combinations of prejudices and stereotypes in the minds of criminal elements from whom right-wing terrorists are recruited. An ideologically tinted form is the consciousness of a particular category of political leaders and functionaries who strive to create a mass movement under the aegis of radical-racism. The main center of ideological radical-racism is the Liberty Lobby in Washington, which is persistently attempting to introduce the methods of German national-socialism into the practice of the American right wing. But whereas the Liberty Lobby, which is officially registered at the US Congress and widely engages in press and radio propaganda, is forced to hide its neoNazi essence, other sects of a similar kind, like the National Socialist White People's Party, openly copy Hitlerism pure and simple, even making use of its symbols. And such terrorist organizations as the Ku Klux Klan, the Committee of One Million and the armed bands of Cuban immigrants also claim affiliation to the radical-racist camp. A special place is occupied by the National Caucus of Labor Committees also known as the US Labor Party. Formed in 1968 as an ultra-left wing, a splinter group of the Students for a Democratic Society, it has graduallyturned into an especially dangerous group of a neofascist type.
Problems of domestic and foreign policy. In contrast to the radical propertarianist, who thinks mainly in economic terms and is preoccupied chiefly with the future of the petty bourgeois in conditions of developed state-monopoly capitalism, the radical racist puts the main emphasis on politics, which he tries to place on a ``biological'' basis. The Birchist considers himself to be a proponent of individualism and an enemy of collectivism; meanwhile the radical racist regards the ``collectivist'' categories of ``race'' and ``nation'', of ``West'' and "Western culture" as the highest values. Discarding the individual-cum-state dichotomy the radical racist is relieved of those contradictions that hamper the formation of a totalitarian model of society and the state on the basis of radical propertarianism with its antistate dogmas. At the ideological level, the radical racist tries to renounce nearly all bourgeois political traditions, counting the period of the "decline of the West" from the age of Enlightenment.
The world outlook of radical-racism has been most fully generalized and theorized by Francis Parker Yockey in his book Imperium. The Philosophy of History and Politics which is widely publicized by the Liberty Lobby as a sort of 184 ``bible" for racists who claim to be intellectually minded.^^1^^
Yockey's treatise represents a phantasmagorical collection of the basic ideas of that part of German idealisticphilosophy that passes from Nietzsche via Spengler to the ideologists of Nazism Junger, Baeumler and Rosenberg, and also includes the views of Joseph Gobineau, Houston Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler (the book is dedicated to the latter). The author claims the role of savior of "Western culture'', which, in his view, reached its hey-day in the Gothic period, and, beginning with the Great French Revolution, has been going through a period of crisis. This crisis is expressed in ``chaos'', in the dissemination of ideas of equality, in "an outcry for rights'', in materialism, in commerce as an objective in itself, in class struggle, parliamentarism, "free love'', all of this being directly identified with ``capitalism'' which should be replaced by an "ethical socialism" in order to save Western culture. This "ethical socialism" does not refer, of course, to a change of the socio-economic order, but simply to a change in the political structure such as to result in the creation of a totalitarian, corporate military-bureaucratic state in which property and profits would be protected from any threat from below. "Into the social structure of the Western Civilization there will be infused the principle of authority, supplanting the principle of wealth. This view is not at all hostile to private property or private management---that belongs to the negative feeling of hatred and jealousy which inform class war. The 20th century Idea liquidates class war... Instead of economics being the sphere wherein individuals battled one another for private spoils, it becomes now a strong and important side of the political organism which is the custodian of the Destiny of all.''^^2^^
The basic objective of this state should be to engage in war to seize lands and to subjugate peoples, resulting in the formation of a world "Empire of the West'', or Imperium. Only thus will Western culture be saved.
``I set forth here then the two great action-tasks of the Inner Imperative of the West:
``First, the liquidation of the tyranny of the 19th century _-_-_
~^^1^^ An American by origin, Yockey, following World War II, settled in Europe where he became active in the neofascist movement. In 1960 he was ar rested in the United States on charges of forging documents. In prison he committed suicide. In the eyes of the radical racists the image of Francis Yockey has acquired the halo of a "martyr saint" who died for his beliefs because of a "Jewish conspiracy''.
~^^2^^ Ulick Varange (Francis Parker Yockey), Imperium. The Philosophy of History and Politics, Sausalito, California, 1969, p. 113.
185 ideas... Replacing these ideals is the strong and manlyIdea of the Age of Absolute Politics: Authority, Discipline, Faith, Responsibility, Duty, Ethical Socialism, Fertility, Order, State, Hierarchy---the creation of the Empire of the West.``Second, the solution of the immediate Life-problem of the West by conquest on the eastern plains of a base for the further existence and fulfillment of the world-mission of the Western Civilization.'' (Varange, op. cit., p. 617).
The deployment of forces in the conflict described by Yockey is based on race. The bulwark, the ``bearer'' of Western culture can only be the Higher Race, to which belong the North European nations and which is opposed by the "destroyers of culture"---the barbarians (of these, the most dangerous are the Russians and Chinese) and the Internal Enemies (the Jews).
The decisive battle for Western culture began, according to Yockey, with World War I. The fact that West European countries proved to be opponents and not allies in that war was, in the author's opinion, a great tragedy. Then comes the German "Revolution of 1933''. The Bearers of Culture came to power in Germany, whilst in the United States the Internal Enemies took power and then entered into an alliance with the Barbarians, "drove a knife into the back" of Germany and gave the Barbarians half of Europe. Yockey could not forgive the United States for siding with the anti-Hitler coalition and invariably expressed contempt for his country. He considered the United States primarily as a colony of Western culture, whose self-determination had no historic grounds whatsoever. The elements of the Higher Race in the United States had been suppressed due to a series of such events as the victory of the North over the South, the influx of immigrants, the establishment of the domination of banking capital and the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. However, a rebellion of the Bearers of Culture in America, in Yockey's opinion, was inevitable and "when the American National Revolution takes political form, its inspiration will come from the same ultimate source as the European Revolution of 1933''. (Varange, op. cit., pp. 557--58.)
The radical racist declares that America is in the throes of its death agony caused by the disintegration of capitalism. The downfall of capitalism started when the banks began playing first fiddle in the capitalist economy. "We, as a people, are now ruled by a system of Banker-owned Mammon that has usurped the mantle of government, disguised itself as our legitimate government, and set about to pauperize and control our people. It is now a centralized, 186 all-powerful political apparatus.''^^1^^ Both the rise to power of the banks and Marxism, socialism and communism are simply weapons in the hands of the Jews in their struggle to control the world. ``I'm tired of Anti-Communists wno talk about 'Moscow, Center of the World Conspiracy'. Moscow is NOT and NEVER has been the real center of Communism. Moscow is regarded as a rather important outpost, to be sure; but the real center of Marxism is always located at the center of Jewish Power, and that center today is not Moscow but New York.''^^2^^
One of the manifestations of America's disintegration is said to be the class struggle. It has been aroused both by the "schemes of the Marxists'', who strive to incite the representatives of the "Aryan race" against one another, and by the greediness of the capitalists who in their pursuit of profits have brought into the country ``non-Aryan'' labor from Europe. As a result, "the American middle class accepted class hatred a bit too eagerly. They were just a bit too eager to believe that all working men were 'Dirty Reds', and that the world proletariat was the principle cause of dangers which beset decent middle-class folk... I know otherwise decent bourgeois folk in America who regard the working class as a special race of mad dogs, to whom no human obligations are owed.''^^3^^ As an alternative to social conflicts the radical racists advance the model of a racially homogeneous society, society of tribe, a "blood-kinship community" ordained to guarantee social stability.
But while society still remains heterogeneous, the radical racist proposes his own option of a class conflict, in which he intends to take an active part.
The radical racist allows himself bitter invectives aimed at the ``Aryan'' American bourgeoisie, who, in his opinion, are incapable of saving capitalism. "These 'great patriots' and 'great anti-Communists'... are not going to save us from Communism, or anything else. They are not likely to be able to save even their own hides... Today, the old-fashioned Liberal-Bourgeois calls himself a ' Conservative'. He proclaims that he is going to 'save us from Communism'. He gallops around our neo-Socialist, managerial society howling about 'Free Private Enterprise', fifty years after free private enterprise uttered its last death gasp... The 'American Conservative' is not going to save either us or himself from anything. He is merely amusing _-_-_
~^^1^^ Common Sense, Issue No. 536, April 1. 1969.
~^^2^^ Common Sense, May 15, 1966.
^^3^^ Common Sense, Issue No. 509, January 15, 1968.
187 himself.''^^1^^ "American Conservatism is dying because it is the philosophy of the provincial bourgeois, and this class is itself dying on the vine. It is being wiped out by the Conglomerates.''^^2^^ "The Conservative thinks that moving `forward' can only mean moving in a more Liberal or Marxian direction. He cannot conceive forward movement in any other terms. Here we see the appalling magnitude and the abysmal depth of the defeat of the old Gentile leadership class in the United States...``I will say this to the American Conservative: If you are looking for somebody to flatter you, you will have to get yourself another boy... I wouldn't work for you... You are failing because you are empty, shallow, and ideologically bankrupt... Half of the world already thinks that you are finished... The process of our degeneration and destruction can be stopped only by realistic action, based upon a competent analysis of the realities which confront us. If you cannot accomplish that, do not expect me to take part in your empty and stupid sloganeering, your futile campaigns to take us back to the days of McKinley, or your idle daydreaming. I have had more than enough of all that. In common vernacular, the time has come to PUT UP OR SHUT UP!''^^3^^
Like other types of right-radical consciousness, the radical racist comes out on behalf of the ``producers'', of the "great middle class'', which opposes, on the one hand, the "international bankers'', who try to enslave it, and, on the other, the ``parasites'', who are trying to get onto the "producer`s'' back and to put their hand into his pocket. He constantly stresses that this social demarcation corresponds to the race demarcation. Only the white race is capable of establishing a strong, confident middle class. The blacks, as ``barbarians'', are only capable of anarchy; in the United States they constitute a considerable part of the lower class. The upper class is heterogeneous: its conservative part, which sympathizes more with the middle class, consists of white Anglo-Saxons, while the liberals, as a rule, come from the ethnic minorities. This is why the fight of the middle class for self-- determination is, at the same time, a fight for the selfdetermination of the white race. "The middle class is now beginning to realize that it is quite capable of taking over the means of production, that it no longer needs the upper class. The new right is, in large part, a fight to _-_-_
~^^1^^ Common Sense, Issue No. 538, May 1, 1969.
~^^2^^ Common Sense, Issue No. 549, November 15, 1969.
~^^3^^ Common Sense, Issue No. 509, January 15, 1968.
188 bring into being an authentic middle class, a middle class which no longer needs the bourgeoisie, just as the bourgeoisie long ago realized that it no longer needed the nobility... The revolutionary change in the industrialized Western nations will be a slide down of power from the upper class to the middle class... Proletarians do not have the skills to run production, much less develop it further. However, the middle class has an excess of skill. It is now growing impatient.''^^1^^The antieconomic thesis of radical racism is at the same time an anticivilian one. "The Twentieth Century is a century of WAR!"^^2^^, and its demands cannot be met by the "swiftly disintegrating" civilian sector of society. "Today the civilian sector offers no hope, no prospects, no enlightenment, no noble aspirations. It is ignoble and corrupt... Its religions have degenerated into empty humbug. Its economic theories are the absurd expressions of undisciplined desires, and are not well related to reality. Its intellectuals are eager prostitutes who sell themselves like street-corner whores to secretive and corrupt interests. The civilian sector will fall because it is no longer legitimate...
``In the Nineteenth Century, the money men controlled the military men. In this century, NAKED FORCE and VIOLENCE are replacing money and intellect as power. In this century, the man with the gun, or the man with the 100-megaton bomb, will 'control the currency".^^3^^
The present era of the disintegration of capitalism is to be followed by an era of the rule of the warrior cast. The radical racist admires the army officer. In the present political struggle the radical racist demands an expansion of the prerogatives of the military elite in state affairs, the militarization of public and political life and a maximum build-up of the military potential of the United States in order to prepare for a war for world domination.
There are two levels in radical-racist foreign policy attitudes. At one level radical-racism actively backs the most extreme demands of the militaristic wing of the ruling class. The only exception here made by radical-racism is in regard to American-Israeli relations. Anti-Semitism plays too important a role in this type of consciousness to allow it to support Washington's banking on Israel. The radical racists advocate the ending of the American-- _-_-_
~^^1^^ Statecraft, Vol. 2, No. 3, April-May 1969.
^^2^^ Common Sense, Issue No. 538, May 1, 1969.
^^3^^ Ibidem
189 Israeli alliance, proposing a pro-Arab orientation instead.At the other level of this consciousness there are its own, as yet unrealizable foreign policy ``concepts'' which derive from racial theories: first, the liberation of the country's "national interests" from the web of cosmopolitanism, and then "unification of the race" of the West for the struggle against the ``barbarians'' in order to seize the "Eastern plains''. At this level the radical racist promotes his own international ties---with neofascist groupings and right-wing dictatorships abroad. There exist several organizational forms of these ties, the most important of them being the World Anti-Communist League. The radical-racist organizations of the United States give practical assistance to the neofascists of Federal Germany (in the United States there is, for example, an overseas organization of the NSDAP which smuggles into Federal Germany banned neo-Nazi literature), and to emigre groups engaged in subversive activities against the socialist countries and revolutionary governments in the developing countries.
Problems of political strategy and tactics. The right radical clearly understands that in a country like America the establishment of an openly fascist regime cannot be carried out by constitutional means---in the end a coup would be necessary (in all probability an armed coup relying on actual participation by the army) bolstered up by a wave of "popular anger".^^1^^ However, this is a more or less long-term prospect for which, so the radical racist believes, it is necessary to prepare gradually, taking advantage of a broad range of political methods: lobbying, attempting to set up a separate party, conducting press and radio propaganda, organizing civil disobedience campaigns and, finally, direct terrorism. An important element of the political tactics of the right-wing radical is the use of various means to discredit the existing bourgeois-- democratic regime in the eyes of the public, primarily the middle class. In this area he tries to find common ground with the left-wing radicals and, if possible, to borrow some elements from the tactics of their struggle against the Establishment.
The radical racist, like the Birchist, too, strives to create a secret or semi-secret, centalized paramilitary organization which, if necessary, could be used as a terrorist arm.
_-_-_~^^1^^ In 1971 the American press reported that the Liberty Lobby was trying to form a military organization that could become the nucleus of a military putsch.
190Radical-racist consciousness is not a wide-spread phenomenon. Its most steady and consistent supporters are found among ultraright political activists and functionaries, and among some white declasse elements. However, despite the limited scale of this type of consciousness, it should not be discounted, because in critical situations radical-racism is supported by right populism and is therefore capable of becoming, at least for a while, quite an influential political force. Moreover, it should also be remembered that some of the problems which America is facing today, and will face tomorrow, can always be given a racial slant which almost immediately brings about a chain reaction of right radicalism among some sections of the middle class.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. RIGHT-POPULIST CONSCIOUSNESSGeneral characteristics and genesis. Both the market and the etatist types of right-radical consciousness emerge as a result of an evolution to the right of conservative protectionist tendencies in the ideology and psychology of the ruling class and the strata close to it. Expressing the interests and sentiments of certain sections of the bourgeoisie, of political functionaries of a right-wing slant and of the reactionary section of the intellectuals, above all their dissatisfaction with the limited effectiveness of conservatism as against the maximalistic aims of the right, these types of consciousness, for all their claims to have a mass basis, are of a more or less clear-cut elitist nature.
However, within the framework of right-radical consciousness, there also emerge structures based on mass sentiments of protest, which are exploited (due to specific historical condition) by the ruling class in order to realize its reactionary aspirations. A social protest by certain sections of the working class and middle strata which takes on a right-radical form can be defined as right populism. This political trend and the right-populist consciousness formed on its basis are far more contradictory and carry less ideology than radical libertarianism or radical etatism. Right populism looks more like a combination of direct political reactions by individuals to a course of events that systematically infringes their closest interests, rather than the purposeful practical embodiment of a definite ideology. This explains why, in the sphere of political action, it mostly rinds expression in the form of public campaigns and marches as a sign of protest against concrete measures taken by the authorities. For example, the antibussing movement in Michigan (1971--72) and in Boston 191 (1975), the action in West Virginia against the introduction of liberal school text-books on social subjects, and also the taxrevolt (civil disobedience campaigns) occurring in some places, and so on. The most organized form of rightpopulist action in the past decade or so was election support for such candidates as George Wallace. In 1976, before deciding to withdraw from the presidential campaign, Wallace could count on about one-fifth of the American electorate, which can show the dimensions of right populism in American society today.
According to the results of sociological surveys, rightpopulist consciousness is not a monopoly of one class or one social group. At the same time there is a clear-cut correlation between support for right-wing populism and certain socio-demographic characteristics. First, right populism is a specifically ``white'' phenomenon. Secondly, the overwhelming majority of the right-populist bloc is made up of hired workers. Right-populist consciousness is found mostly among semi-skilled and unskilled white workers whose living standards fluctuate between the poverty level and the national average. Other social characteristics associated with the right-populist type of consciousness are a low educational level, residence in a small Southern townlet, a Baptist denomination and an age-range of 30 to 48.^^1^^
Contemporary right-populist consciousness was basically formed in the 1960s as a reaction by a rather considerable section of the working class and the middle strata to the rapid development of crisis trends in society.
The individual who became the carrier of this consciousness was, just in the early 1960s, the pillar of social and political stability. In the main he did not have his own business, but he earned good money and was almost free from the fear of losing his job. He knew of the existence of social inequality, but in practice he had become reconciled to this inequality for he had already ceased to feel belonging to the "lower class'', and could afford some of the attributes of a ``decent'' life (his own home, a car, two years of college for his children, and so on). The '50s inculcated in these people a belief that if the man worked steadily, attended church regularly, voted for ``moderate'' Republican or Democratic candidates, backed the President in critical world situations, and did not meddle in politics too actively, then the existing system would ensure him prosperity. However, the achievement of prosperity _-_-_
~^^1^^ S. Lipset, E. Raab, The Politics of Unreason, N. Y., 1970, pp. 380--81; Donald I. Warren, The Radical Center. Middle Americans and the Politics of Alienation, Notre Dame, 1976, p. 28.
192 called for strenuous work, while the consumer criteria of individual success proved to be constantly beyond his reach, and the existence of a broad range of inaccessible social privileges constantly aroused his doubts as to the justness of the existing social order. If this kind of consciousness could be described as ``contented'' then this ``contentment'' was so unstable, so tense, that the shocks of the '60s proved to be its undoing.The first shock was the racial crisis that had a direct bearing on the interests and consciousness of a considerable number of white Americans. The migration processes which took place between the '40s and '60s and turned the black problem into a nation-wide urban problem, the growth of the black movement and the reaction of the state to this movement, aroused in some sections of the white population an upsurge of reactionary rebellious sentiments. Although the conflict assumed the form of purely racial collisions, it cannot be treated as race hatred pure and simple.
The mass migration of black Americans from Southern rural areas to towns in the South and North and the influx of black labor into the manufacturing and service industries, created a new social situation not only for the blacks themselves, but also for millions of whites. It is important to stress that the negative reactions to the "intrusion of the blacks" originated not on the factory floor, where, as a rule, there is the least friction between the races, but in daily social life, where the tendency towards a racial division is usually very marked. The appearance of a growing number of blacks in the social environment of the whites was seen by the ordinary white citizen of the type under examination here as a phenomenon bringing him into contact with a lower stratum, poorer, less educated, and more likely, in his eyes, to violate established norms and laws. In roughly about the same manner Americans of Anglo-Saxon descent had looked at the ``intrusion'' into their world of the poor immigrants from Europe: Irish, Poles, Italians and so on, at the turn of the century.
Fear at the prospect of being absorbed into a "lower grade" environment, fear of the loss of one's personal social status, has always served in America as a powerful stimulus for'the growth of reactionary sentiments and the appearance of right-radical movements. And history repeats itself.
But this time the appearance of right-radical protest among certain sections of the white population was also aroused to a certain degree by the tactics pursued by the black movement, and also by the concessions it wrested from the ruling elite. The struggle of the blacks for __PRINTERS_P_193_COMMENT__ 13--34 193 their rights objectively created a situation in which tinwhite philistine came into conflict with his socio-political environment. For most of the black masses, herded together in the urban ghettos, the conservative ideal of a prosperity which could be reached by good work, by respecting law and order and by a routine participation in political life did not work simply because of the low employment level, the abominable living conditions in the ghettos and racial discrimination. To win their rights the blacks had to resort to such methods as civil disobedience, mass demonstrations and, finally, to rioting and destroying shops belonging to whites, and so on. To the white bigot this looked like an attempt by the blacks to forge ahead by violating the rules of the game, by cutting corners, by the use of unfair methods. In his view the state should have taken up this challenge by severely punishing the offenders. When, however, the authorities began making concessions to the blacks (although these were also combined with tough repressive measures) then these concessions, conceived of by the bigots as betrayal, aroused in their consciousness a real crisis. Falling back on ingrained prejudices, they explained what had occurred as the consequence of a "Communist conspiracy''.
At the same time, the racial crisis painfully reminded ordinary white Americans that they themselves were powerless, exploited pawns in the hands of the almighty elite. A New York construction worker said indignantly: "Look around ... Look in the papers. Look on T.V. What the hell does Lindsay /Republican John Lindsay, New York Mayor at the time, who advocated liberal concessions to the blacks---Ed. I care about me? He don't care whether my kid has shoes, whether my boy gets a new suit at Easter, whether I got any money in the bank. None of the politicians gives a good goddam. All they worry about is the niggers. And everything is for the niggers. The niggers get the schools. The niggers get the new playgrounds. The niggers get nursery schools. And they get it all without workin'. I'm an ironworker, a connector; when I go to work in the mornin', I don't know if I'm gonna make it back. My wife is scared to death, every mornin', all day. Up on the iron, if the wind blows hard or the steel gets icy or I make a wrong step, hango, forget it, I'm dead. Who feeds my wife and kid if I'm dead? Lindsay? The poverty program? You know the answer: nobody. But the niggers, they don't worry about it. They take the welfare and sit out on the stop drinkin' cheap wine and throwin' the bottles on the street. They never gotta walk outta the house. They take the money outta my pay check and they just turn it over to some la/y son of a bitch who 194 won't work. I gotta carry him on my back... And I'll tell ya somethin'. There's a lotta people who just ain't gonna put up with it much longer.''^^1^^
The measures against racial discrimination adopted by the authorities under pressure from the black movement and its allies, constituted a major victory for democratic forces. While stressing this fact, it is also necessary to point out that the desegregation policy was pursued in such a way that it infringed on the individual interests of the less well-off whites, arousing their dissatisfaction and protest. For example, the implementation of the law banning racial discrimination in housing was stubbornly opposed by the white landlords. As a rule, the moving of blacks from the ghettos into white residential areas resulted in a fall of real estate prices in these areas, that is, it brought the landlords material losses. The less stable the material position of the landlord and the more difficult it was for him to acquire real estate, the more quickly he came into conflict with housing desegregation and the more stubbornly he was forced to oppose it. Characteristically enough, in those residential areas where whites did not own real estate, but rented apartments, the moving in of blacks did not, as a rule, meet with any serious opposition.
The federal policy of assistance for poor families, the scale of which was substantially expanded in the '60s, was another sphere where the interests of whites and blacks clashed. Although the blacks constituted a minority of the recipients of this aid, the main force which compelled the state to increase the scale of the incomes redistribution so as to finance this assistance, was precisely the black movement, and thus assistance to the poor took on a racial slant in mass consciousness.
Another important factor in the evolution of the conservatism of the ordinary man towards right populism was the war in Southeast Asia, which, according to opinion surveys, "has grown in importance in the consciousness of the American people and ... this has been accompanied by a growing uneasiness and disillusionment''.^^2^^ Sentiments in favor of a speedy end to the war ultimately became most widely spread among the workers,^^3^^ for it was they who suffered the main burden of the military call-up and of the casualties. However, not all the carriers of these _-_-_
~^^1^^ The White Majority. Between Poverty and Affluence. I'.d. by Louise Kapp Howe. N.Y., 1970, p. 12.
^^2^^ M. |. Rosenberg, S. Verba, I'll. E. Converse, Vietnam and the Silent Majority, N.Y.. 1970, p. 35.
^^3^^ Ibid., pp. 54--55.
195 sentiments supported the demand of the antiwar movement for an end to the aggression in Indochina and for a revision of the whole of American foreign policy. The American philistine, weary of the war, regarding it in isolation from foreign policy calculations he did not understand and believing that America could reach an immediate victory "if it wanted to'', began to call for a "speedy military solution''. "We have no reason to be in Vietnam... Go in and bomb the hell out of them.''^^1^^ However, he also began for the first time to question US foreign policy. Washington's unwillingness to "speedily put an end to Vietnam" had, he believed, no justification whatsoever and this greatly strengthened the antielitism, aroused in him by the racial crisis. Moreover, he began to doubt whether the United States should have interfered in the affairs of Vietnam at all. According to a 1968 public opinion poll, these doubts were more widespread among supporters of George Wallace than among all other categories of voters.^^2^^Hatred for the antiwar movement contained both a purely authoritarian impulse---as this movement consciously hindered the government from pursuing the war, thereby contributing to America's defeat---and also a social protest against the privileged part of society, insofar as a most prominent role in the movement was played by the offspring of wealthy intellectual families. In the mind of these Americans, as public opinion analyst Andrew Greeley wrote, "the long-haired militants and their faculty patrons are every bit as much part of the Establishment as are the presidents of corporations... The protestors and the militants are the sons and daughters of the well-to-do. They have attended elite colleges and are supported financially by their parents through all their radical activity... The peace movement is seen as very much of an Establishment movement, working against the values, the stability and patriotism of the American masses, which masses incidentally are seen as footing the bill for Establishment games and amusements.''^^3^^
Finally, the third factor assisting the consolidation of right populist consciousness was dissatisfaction among the broad masses of American society at the worsening or levelling off of their economic position, which had already made itself felt in the mid-'60s and became more noticeable still in the '70s. A 1968 opinion poll of white workers _-_-_
~^^1^^ Samuel Lubell, The Hidden Crisis in American Politics, N.Y., 1970, pp. 255--56.
^^2^^ Philip Crass, The Wallace Factor, N.Y., 1976, p. 133.
^^3^^ M. J. Rosenberg, S. Verba, Ph. E. Converse, op. lit., p. 70.
196 supporting George Wallace showed a high correlation between support for George Wallace and a negative appraisal of the condition of the "average American''. Over 40 per cent of those who agreed with the statement: "In spite of what some say, the condition of the average man is getting worse, not better'', supported Wallace, while among those who disagreed his supporters were only 18 per cent.^^1^^ The antiinflation feelings (a natural reaction in a situation where there is a high level of employment, but the rising prices offset the higher earnings) combined with profound disenchantment at the concrete results of the economic ``prosperity'' following World War II which had left the existing structure of incomes distribution practically untouched. However---and this must be stressed---the "average citizen" saw the causes of his economic hardships as rooted not in the very principles of the functioning of the capitalist economy, but in the concrete social and economic policy of the state.Economic dissatisfaction was undoubtedly conducive to strengthening progressive-democratic trends in the political consciousness of American society. However, when combined with philistine individualism this dissatisfaction, at least during the initial period, gave rise primarily to right radicalism. The collapse of his former objective of personal enrichment now forced the average American to defend his income from the encroachments of the state authority, his relations with it seen as no longer profitable.
Constantly increasing its expenditure, the state took away from the ordinary man part of his income in the form of taxes and made the remaining part worthless by covering up the budgetary deficit with the help of the printing press; with this the fruits of increased state spending were enjoyed not by the "average citizen" but by the richest or poorest people. The enraged "average citizen" began to demand a reform which would reduce low-incometax rates and, at the same time, close the tax evasion loopholes for the big corporations and cut back on the assistance to the poor (for, as he saw it, many were poor simply because of laziness). Put simply, the "average citizen" demanded a reform of the economic policy to coincide with his personal interests.
The presidential campaign of Governor George Wallace of Alabama served as a kind of catalyst in the formation of right-populist consciousness taking place under the impact of the factors we have mentioned.
The fact that the decisive role in the formation of _-_-_
^^1^^ S. I.ipset, K. Raab, op. cil.. p. 365.
197 right-wing populism was played by the states of the Deep South, which during the years of the Civil War constituted the backbone of the slave-owners' Confederation, is explained by several reasons. First, during the postwar period the Deep South experienced rapid economic growth. Millions of white farmers who had eked out a meager existence on small plots of land cultivated by primitive methods, migrated to the growing towns of the South and found work in industry and the public services. Their consciousness acquired that philistine individualistic orientation on the basis of which right-populist consciousness developed. Secondly, it was the Deep South that saw the beginning of the racial crisis in the 1950s, and it was here that this crisis was expressed in its sharpest forms up to the mid-'60s. Thirdly, the Deep South has deep-rooted traditions of rebellion against policies of Washington and Wall Street. For all the seeming incompatibility of such historical phenomena as the 1861 revolt of the slaveowner states, which served as the initial point of the Civil War, and the populist antimonopoly movement of small farmers in the late 19th century, the regional traditions born of these phenomena can merge to form a basis for certain oppositional trends, imbuing them with a particularly dynamic force.Finally, there is a developed tradition of right-wing radicalism in the political life of the region, represented by the Ku Klux Klan, by Huey Long and by many politicians of local importance, who have successfully engaged in right-radical demagogy as a means to win and maintain political power. The Ceorge Wallace movement was just another stage in this tradition.
The 1968 presidential campaign of Ceorge Wallace played a key role in the maturing of right-populist consciousness. This consciousness proved to be effective and dynamic in the battle for votes; the electoral groups which had evolved in this direction united under a common banner, received nation-wide publicity, and were able to flex their muscle. They emerged as a political force, amorphous it is true, but aware of its strength and perceived by cithers to be a major new phenomenon in the political life of the United States.
The 1968 presidential election gave Ceorge Wallace 13.6 per cent of the total vote. Neither he nor his campaign sponsors seriously thought that he would be victorious over Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon. Their main aim was to prevent both leading candidates from getting an absolute majority in the electoral college, in which case both of them would be forced to trade with Wallace for the votes 198 they lacked in exchange for concessions. This objective was not achieved. However, the results of the voting cannot be assessed as a serious setback for Wallace', for a more limited objective was reached: the replacement of a Democratic Administration by a conservative government that would to a certain degree depend on the right-wing radicals.
Following the election of Richard Nixon as US President the Wallace movement began to play the role of a serious pressure' group, ensuring a swing to the right in Washington's domestic policy. It was sufficiently evident that Wallace intended, to continue his tight for I he presidency, and his electorate stubbornlv backed this intention despite the' most active attempts by the Nixon Administration to dissolve- the' right-populist blew in a large conservative Republican coalition.
Without dwelling on the ups and downs of Wallace's fight to become' President of the United States and his activity as the' reeogni/ed leader of the right populists, it should nonetheless be mentioned that he managed not only to retain the backing of his supporters right up to the 1976 primary elections but also to acquire new supporters from average well-to-do strata. In 19/5, according to the opinion polls, Wallace's candidacy was backed by about 25 per cent of white Americans, with the percentage of his potential supporters among the 10 to 15 thousand-dollar income bracket almost doubling.^^1^^
By that time, however, many of the demands advanced by the Wallace movement since the late '60s, had been included in one form or another in the platforms of the moderateconservative coalitions of both major parties, and, to a certain extent, reflected in government policy. During the 1976 presidential election campaign the right-populist bloc was partially integrated within the coalitions of Jimmy Carter and (ierald Ford. Two years later, upon the expiration of his last term of office as governor of Alabama, Ceorge Wallace practically left the political scene.
Attempts to form a new force in American politics on the basis of the right-populist trend, however, have not abated with the departure of Wallace. In the late '70s and earlv '80s a group calling itself the New Right, which included the Baptist preachers Jerry Folwell and fames Robinson, the Washington political operator Richard Viguerie, journalist Kevin Philips, Senator Jesse Helms and others, began to work with the Wallace electorate. With the help of church sermons, shrewd political demagogy, computers containing information about millions of voters, and _-_-_
~^^1^^ 1). Warren, op. <it., pp. r>.>-(i7.
199 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1984/PCUSA333/20071201/299.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.12.02) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ television, the New Right have been able to inflict a number of defeats on liberal and moderate-conservative forces.Problems of domestic and foreign policy. As the most widespread form of right radicalism, right-populist consciousness is at the same time almost the most selfcontradictory and politically alienated.
The right-populist has been brought up in 'the spirit of individualism, but his individualism does not necessarily presuppose the desire to free himself from hired labor and set up his own business, although proprietary individualism in principle is not alien to the right-populist consciousness. Usually a hired worker, he perceives the hardships of his position as inevitable, and this gives his conflicts with his employer a largely routine nature. Basically, his individualistic orientation is realized in the sphere of consumption and daily life---it is here that he tries to "prove himself'', to implement his notions of happiness based primarily on property which testifies to his social success. And it is the failure of these attempts that forces him to rebel.
Research carried out by Donald Warren shows that rightpopulist orientation is, as a rule, combined with extreme dissatisfaction over the nature and organization of the labor process (hard work, bad promotion conditions, the suppression of the individuality in the labor process). This sphere of right-populist consciousness offers highly promising possibilities for the formation of a consistent anticapitalist orientation. However, as this consciousness remains within the framework of right populism, the sentiments of dissatisfaction and alienation produced by the process of exploitation are projected onto the sphere of consumer and everyday-life interests. Warren believes that a reverse action takes place at the same time: the frustration of the individual, born of the failures of his attempts at self-realization in the role of a man of property, is projected onto the sphere of labor and intensifies his dissatisfaction with the conditions there (D. Warren, op. cit., p.66).
Engaged in a desperate struggle to implement his essentially philistine ideals, striving to impede, or even reverse, me socio-cultural processes taking place before his eyes, processes that not only often undermine his position in society and negate his ideals, but, as it seems to him, sow universal chaos, the right-populist takes up the defense of traditional institutions and morality: for if one does not protect the family from a ''revolution of morals'', protect the community from the intrusion of blacks and the growth of crime, protect the 200 nation from irresponsible, corrupt politicians, if one does not preserve religion and the ethics of honest work, thriftiness, a reliance on one's own strength and respect for the law, the entire way of life on which the right populist orientates himself is deprived of its necessary foundation.
A traditionalist orientation inevitably makes the right populist an opponent not only of the Establishment, but also of the social status quo as a whole, within the framework of which he attacks those institutions that, in his view, constitute the main threat to ordinary white Americans. This is, primarily, the "big government'', which, the right populist profoundly believes, serves the interests of the privileged elite and concedes the "unjustified claims" of the lower social stratum. He is especially disgusted with the Federal government: it ignores the needs of the "average citizen" who conscientiously pays for the government's activity out of his own earned income, while at the same time constantly making concessions to big business and to the black poor.
The right populist is far removed from consistent anarchocapitalism. He is by no means a convinced opponent of state interference or an apologist for the free market; he rejects only those aspects of the policy of the "big government" that directly hit his individual interests, first of all he does not want to be used as an object of "social engineering" (the policy of school desegregation, for example) and he does not want the money taken out of his pocket in the form of taxes to be spent on the needs of other people. However, with this he does not reject, the way the radical propertarianist does, the very idea of the welfare state, but supports state-financed benefits for old age, illness, unemployment, and also federal anticrisis measures.
The right populist demands of the state more resolute policy when it comes to suppressing opposition action or combatting crime; he believes that a more stringent punitive policy is needed. He is also in favor of strengthening the US military might and is ready to foot the enormous military bill provided that he feels secure.
Prior to the 1960s the right populist did not show much interest in foreign policy. During the periods when the international situation became strained the myth of a "communist threat" conveniently served to explain to him what was wrong. Identifying himself with the nation as a whole and with an unflinching faith in America's omnipotence he was ready to back any and all actions of the President-Commander-in-Chief, including the use of nuclear weapons. The Vietnam war, as we have already noted, served, in the long run, to awaken his interest in 201 problems. However, on the whole, right-populist consciousness gives pride of plate to domestic political issues, and it displays a certain inclination towards isolationism. The right populist says that the federal administration should spend less on foreign aid and help only those states that regularly back America on the world arena. He believes that if the United States does get ``enmeshed'' in any international issue, then it should act resolutely until it is victorious, for his country must be the strongest and must not be humiliated in the eyes of the world.
In the late '70s and early '80s right-wing populist consciousness readily accepted the idea of a "hostile world" and America's ``vulnerability''. The '70s were full of symbols of the decline of American might---from a fourfold increase of oil prices by the OPEC countries and the flight of the Americans from Saigon, to the defeat of the American automobile industry at the hands of their Japanese counterparts and the seizure of the American Embassy in Teheran.
Isolationism has begun to develop into militant nationalism. The right populist, once more dragged into questions of world politics against his will, irritably demands that the world "be punished'', demands that the Arabs, the Russians and the allies be "put in their place'', that force be used, that there be no fooling around, but at the same time he wants measures to be taken to reduce America's dependence on the rest of the world, for his country is capable of self-sufficiency in every field.
Attacking the "big government'', the right populist at the same time castigates the so-called "new class" which, he believes, has usurped state power. He relegates to the "new class" or the ``mediacracy'' the "producers of ideas and information"---the social bureaucracy, the mass media, universities and research enterprises, corporation charity foundations and, into the bargain, the judiciary, whose powers have been substantially extended during the- past decades. This ``unelected oligarchy ... guided by thcit own ideology and insulated from the electorate and the common man"^^1^^ is materially interested in social changes and reforms that extend the volume of state actn ity which lies so heavily upon the shoulders of the "middle class" and undermines traditional American values. The right populist believes that the poorest sections of the population who live on state assistance constitute the mass base of the "new _-_-_
~^^1^^ P. Buchanan, Conservative \'otes, Liberal \'ictories: Win ike Righl Has Failed, N.V., 1975. p. 21; sec also: K. Phillips, " Mfiliat racy: Parlies and Politics in the Communications Age, Garden (lily, 1975.
202 class''. Inasmuch as this "new class" does not produce material value's, the right populist considers it to be a parasitic class as distinct from the "real producers"---the businessmen and the workers by hand and by brain engaged in industry. The ``mediacracy'' have created the "big government" in order to exploit the ``producers'' and to multiply their own power.This sharply critical attitude of the right populist towards the ``mediacracy'' is also linked with the fact that he has always nurtured a deep hostility towards liberals and intellectuals (between whom he sees no great difference) as the personification of almost all social evils. In his consciousness ``liberalism'' is identified with the squandering of the taxpayer's money, with connivance in regard to criminals and other law-breakers, with absurd unrealistic reformism, with "counter culture" marked by moral degradation and the disintegration of the family, and, finally, with disarmament before the external enemy and putting up with ``communists''.
Big business also plays a prominant part in the demonology of right populism. Here the right populist tries to combine his class protest against the ruling oligarchy with his purely bourgeois orientation forcing him to bow to wealth and to entrepreneurial success, even if he personally cannot attain this goal. Therefore, big business is condemned for conduct that does not accord with right-populist notions regarding the ideal ``producer'' capitalist. The corporations come under the fire of right-radical criticism when they make use of the state to receive economic privileges, when they siibsidi/e the "new class" and its artificially concocted projects that undermine morals, the family and social stability and, finally, when they trade with the communists, thus ``sacrificing'' national interests.^^1^^
Another target of the right populist is the "big labor unions''. Many right populists themselves belong to unions, and, therefore, unlike other types of right-radical consciousness, this type, at least on a mass level, does not deny the need for blue-and white-collar workers to unite to fight for their rights. The right populist rebels against the top labor bureaucracy. This protest has a certain democratic slant---the attempt to force the union elite to barken to the voice of the rank and file, to make them more accountable. But at the same time the union bureaucrats are also condemned for acting together with liberal forces and serving the "new class'', for indulging the blacks, the women's lib and other forces hostile to _-_-_
^^1^^ Sec: Conservative Digest, April 1977, pp. (i-1 1.
203 the "middle class''. It is these sentiments that the New Right leadership take advantage of in their campaigns to do away with the unions as an influential institution within the American political system.Considering himself to be a victim of economic exploitation and of political manipulation by the hostile forces, the right populist stubbornly searches for ways to assert his status in American society. His consciousness is increasingly dominated by the idea that members of the "middle class" should organize to protect themselves against unfair treatment.^^1^^ But he encounters serious difficulties in the practical realization of this idea.
Problems of political strategy and tactics. One characteristic trait of the right-populist movement is its organizational amorphism, the absence of systematized strategy and tactics. Not only do the right populists lack secret or semi-secret organizations like those of the Birchists, the Ku Klux Klan and the neofascists, but they lack any stable form of mass organization. It is true that in recent years there has been an increasing move towards the creation of a new right-populist party (a "party of the new majority'', an "independence party''), but it is difficult to expect that, in present circumstances, at the present stage in the development of American society, this kind of party would be able to grow into a serious political force capable of holding its own with the Republicans and Democrats. And this is not so much indicative of the immaturity of this type of consciousness, but is rather an expression of its substance.
A systematic, organized participation in political life within the framework of a party brings the rank-and-file populist, who is full of illusions regarding the ``popular'' and ``democratic'' nature of his movement, into close interaction with the contingent of elitist-reactionary and oldfashioned-sectarian leaders and activists of such rightradical organizations as the John Birch Society and the Liberty Lobby, which provide the right-populist campaigns with leading cadres. Any more or less sustained intercourse between these two strata reveals the objective social incompatibility of their aspirations, which disenchants the ordinary populist and frightens his ``vanguard''. The inevitable factional infighting that takes place on this basis hampers the tendency of right populism towards ideological and organizational self-determination. The internal contradictions of the personal aims of the ordinary populist also play their part.
_-_-_~^^1^^ D. Warren, op. cit., p. 101.
204As an authoritarian, the right populist has certainly a profound internal need for political authority. But as an individualist with an aversion for all bureaucracy, including party bureaucracy, he shows a cautious attitude towards a strong centralized organization, engaged, among other things, in drawing up a strategy and tactics for the political behavior of the "middle class''. The right populist gravitates towards a strong personality, a charismatic leader for whom the most important thing is not some kind of programs evolved by a bureaucracy, but the "voice of the people'', the real moods and aspirations of the "ordinary man'', which he would use as his program of action.
This orientation towards the leader principle, exceptional even by the yardstick of traditionally personified American politics, opens wide vistas for a skillful politician-- demagogue, and at the same time it puts the trusting representative of the "great middle class" into the position of a volunteer puppet in the hands of professional politicians, towards whom the ordinary right-wing populist is essentially profoundly hostile. George Wallace was precisely this kind of politician for many years. He invariably came out with a direct appeal to the ``nation''. However, speaking on behalf of the "ordinary American'', Wallace actually played his own political game which by no means always accorded with the position of the ordinary right populist, to say nothing of the interests of the "middle class''.
The amorphism of right-populist consciousness opens the way for most diverse elements to take advantage of its political energy. The process of renovation of the ideology, strategy and tactics of the conservatives feeds on right populism. Thus, Ronald Reagan managed to mobilize this type of political consciousness in his fight for the presidency. The left forces are engaged in active and not unsuccessful activity among the right-populist masses in a bid to get them to take the path of the struggle for democracy and against the domination of monopoly capital. Finally, some elements of right-populist consciousness found a place in the political platform of the Carter Administration. Constituting a considerable mass impulse in American political life in 'the late '70s and early '80s, right populism functions above all as a transitional type of political consciousness, marking the growth of internal contradictions in the political system of the United States.
[205] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Five __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE LEFT-RADICAL TRADITIONTypes that develop in the context of the left-radical tradition make up an organic part of the spectrum of political consciousness of American society today.
Radicalism, like conservatism, is a relative concept circumscribed by specific situations. It sets the left or right limit to the prevailing political spectrum. And since that spectrum is changeable, thought structures of different content may take one and the same position in different historical settings. Conversely, the same structure may, within different spectrums, hold dissimilar positions, including the radical, meaning that the radicalism of a specific thought structure can only be pinpointed by relating it to other elements of the spectrum.
Radicalism boils down to social criticism, a function that expresses the social and political essence of radicalism while registering its historical boundaries and, in the long run, also its substantive definiteness.
Since the limits of radicalism's social critical function are not rigidly defined (or, rather, defined in terms of a metaphor), ideas, orientations and actions both of the reformist and the revolutionary, rebel, variety are often styled as radical.^^1^^ As a result, intellectual currents, and political movements identified as radical do not, as a rule, represent a single stream and are ideologically, socially, and politically heterogeneous. The indefinite connotation of the terms ``radical'' and ``radicalism'' is often exploited to obfuscate the distinctions between heterogeneous social and political forces that stand left of center. It is therefore up to the Marxist to show the social disparity of the elements of radicalism (trends _-_-_
~^^1^^ The lerms ``radicalism'' and "led radicalism" will, save in special cases, he used here interc han^eably as synonyms.
206 and currents in left-radical movements, and types of the radical mentality), to provide an appropriate evaluation, and to do so without writing oft the concept as such for it has become an integral component of the culture of modern political thinking.Certainly, social criticism is not an attribute exclusively of radicalism, but also that of conservatism and liberalism. Specifically radical criticism has its own social and political orientation, and, indeed, expresses the essence of radical thinking. A liberal (or conservative) social critic does not transcend the prevailing system of relations and has his sights on reform by means of the existing, officially sanctioned, socio-political mechanism. A liberal may, of course, express `` disagreement'', but it will never be aimed at destroying but rather at stabilizing the system. It is not an impulse of destruction, but of buttressing the system.
A radical, on the other hand, is out to secure deepgoing social change and is oriented on actions outside the rules of the system. That is why radical consciousness, as shaped in bourgeois society, is inescapably pregnant with the embryo of new institutions, new relations and values that reflect the dynamics of the historical process, and assumes a more or less distinct anti-capitalist complexion in the course of its development.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. THE LEFT-RADICAL TRADITION IN US111 Europe and America radicalism travelled different roads. The stable tradition of class and party conflicts, the more rigid (than in America) social differentiation, the limitations of the liberal doctrine, the elitism of bourgeois democracy, and, finally, the less favorable conditions and prospects for economic development have, soon after the victory of bourgeois revolutions, led in many European countries to the emergence of independent legal (and underground) radical parties and political organizations that put themselves at the head of mass democratic movements. At the same time, an independent radical political ideology began to evolve which, though intrinsically heterogeneous and controversial, was of a more or less distinct antiliberal and anticon/serv alive complexion. Furthermore, radicals in Europe could always count on a relatively stable social base in the petty bourgeoisie. But in no European country was the right to acting against the existing political regime (the right to 207 revolution) ever entrenched (either morally or juridically) in any appropriate constitutional acts.
In the USA, radicalism developed in step with American society. Historian Staughton Lynd wrote: "If there is danger in romanticizing the past by fabricating a radicalism which was not there, it is equally misleading to suppose that there was no American radicalism prior to the formation of an industrial proletariat or the advent of Marxist theory. A continuous radical tradition existed. Ambiguous ideological- axioms evolved, under the pressure of events, into radical corollaries which threatened private property and the authority of the state.''^^1^^ But unlike Europe the USA never had any radical mass parties or other political organizations that survived for any length of time or had a stable base in the mass of the people. Nor has an independent left-radical ideology evolved there as a force (much less an organizationally framed force) in constant and open confrontation with the dominant liberal ideology.
This was, indeed, in many ways the effect of the specificities of the 1776 revolution and the subsequent development of American capitalism. The United States was the only bourgeois state in existence where radicalism as a function was officially countenanced by a constitutional bill which the ruling class has for two hundred years relied upon as the fundamental document of the American revolution. This document is the Declaration of Independence, which says in its preamble that "it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish" the existing form of governance and "to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness''.
The principle of the people's sovereignty was solidly supported by various sections of American society. As Lynd says, "during the century between 1760 and 1860 the right of revolution was justified by presidents as well as prophets, by politicians in power as well as by radicals out of it".^^2^^ Thomas Jefferson said repeatedly that society wanted serious social upheaval from time to time. "God forbid,'' he wrote in a letter to William Stephen Smith in 1787, "we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.''^^3^^ The support _-_-_
~^^1^^ Lynd, Intellectual Origins of American Radicalism, N.Y., 1968, p. 8.
^^2^^ Ibid., p. 4.
^^3^^ Thomas Jefferson on Democracy. Ed. by Saul K. Padover, N. Y., 1939, p. 20.
208 that the burgeoning American bourgeoisie rendered the principle of the people's sovereignty expressed the striving of its most advanced section to establish the ``best'' social system and, furthermore, to pursue what it conceived as the principles on which history developed. At the same time, it was an expression of the self-confidence of the American capitalist, who was certain that the social order he was building would be so greatly superior to all the other systems that it would never enter anyone's head to use the right of revolution in order to try and alter it from the bottom up. The changes that he assumed as likely in the framework of the existing order would only, as he saw it, make the existing system better. Because, as conceived by the 18th-century American bourgeois democrat, revolution was not a change in the system of social relations, but an act of force in defense of the principles of ``liberty'', ``equality'' and "the pursuit of happiness'', and of the purity of the declared ideals---change of personalities (or at least of institutions) within the framework of capitalist social relations.Radicalism was therefore understood to be a legal mechanism for correcting any departures from the original humanitarian democratic principles and for safeguarding the fundamental ideas of the American revolution.
In fulfilling its mission radicalism inevitably leaned on the very ideas and principles (which it accepted as its own) set forth in the Declaration of Independence and in other documents of the American revolution. And since these ideas and principles were integrated---formally, in any case---in the early American liberalism, and were securely associated with it in the mass consciousness, American radicals did not think in terms of producing their own ideology opposed to the liberal (as did the West European radicals) but relied on the latter to promote, with resort to force when necessary, the practical exercise of the professed liberal creed. When the term `` radicalism'' gained more or less broad circulation in the American political vocabulary, and that occurred by all evidence after the Civil War, it was conceived as the antithesis of ``conservatism'' and stood for criticism of the prevailing social arrangements and for defense of the purity of the liberal doctrine.^^1^^
Neither right after the revolution nor later did radicals ever reject that creed itself or the role of "true heirs of the spirit of '76'', that had been ascribed _-_-_
~^^1^^ See Left, Right and Center. Essays on Liberalism and Conservatism in the United States. Ed. by Robert A. Goldwin, Chicago, 1965.
__PRINTERS_P_209_COMMENT__ 14--34 209 to them, and never failed to stress the fundamental significance of the Declaration of Independence in safeguarding the democratic liberties and rights in American society. As Lynd notes, for almost two hundred years all kinds of American radicals have traced their intellectual origins to the Declaration of Independence and to the Revolution it justified. But parting ways with the liberals more and more over the manner of exercising the revolutionary democratic creed, radicals arrived at the conclusion that the liberals were entirely incapable to make real the rhetoric of 1776. All the more so because the latter, as they pointed out again and again, traced "its intellectual ancestry more to Paine than to Locke'',^^1^^ that is, expressed the spirit and essence of the American Enlightenment (associated with the names of Franklin, Paine and Jefferson) rather than the principles of European (English) liberalism (associated primarily with Locke).In many ways, the American Enlightenment did stand ahead of Locke, who was in no way radically oriented, and also of European liberalism as a whole. This we see from the ideas of Jefferson, Franklin, Paine, Rush and others on the relation between state and society, on the essence of man and human rights and on political activity and revolution which were the core of the social and political creed of American radicalism.
The American Enlighteners were convinced humanists. They conceived man as immaculate, kind by nature, and imbued by reason. The people were for them the competent subject of the political process. "You love them as infants whom you are afraid to trust without nurses; and I as adults whom I freely leave to self-government,'' Jefferson wrote to Dupont de Nemours.^^2^^
The Englighteners were democrats and champions of human rights. "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain (inherent and) inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,'' wrote Jefferson in the Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America in General Congress Assembled.^^3^^
The Englighteners differentiated between the inherent rights that people were endowed with by nature and that could not be alienated, and those civil rights that originated with the emergence of the state and were secondary _-_-_
~^^1^^ Lynd, op. tit., pp. 7, 4.
~^^2^^ Thomas Jefferson on Democracy, p. 36.
~^^3^^ Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson, N. Y., 1959, p. 36.
210 to the former. The right to acquiring and possessing property was one such civil right. And since preordained harmony in the world was denied in the same breath and a line was drawn between what is and what should be, it was only a short step to acknowledging the right of the people to revolution as the highest principle of bourgeois democracy.The Enlighteners' distinction between natural and civil rights is closely related to their established distinction between the state and society, on which reposes their antietatism. Though they did not deny the role and importance of the state, they maintained that it was secondary in relation to society, and that its role should be commensurate to the needs of society as a whole and to those of the individual.
So, naturally, for the Enlighteners the best government was that which governed little, for it was an evil in all cases, albeit an unavoidable one. In this respect the Enlighteners' attitude coincided with the laissez-faire attitude of the liberals. Still, though they did think a free market was necessary, the Enlighteners were obviously not inclined to regard it as a universal model for regulating public affairs.
The growth of American capitalism and the accompanying aggravation of its intrinsic contradictions led inevitably to the liberals' ever more visible departure from Jeffersonian democracy and its ideas of Enlightenment. As a result, the radicals became its sole supporters and champions, and have been so throughout the 19th and the early half of the 20th century.
Orientation on the exercise of the above-mentioned social and political ideas and principles is seen in the slogans and programs of all more or less large social protest movements in the United States between the 1820s and the 1930s. Their influence is felt distinctly in the Grange, Greenbackers and Populist movements, mostlyconsisting of farmers and also of some unorganized workers and the urban middle strata.
The radicals pressed for demands in the spirit of the American revolution (``fair'' distribution of property, protection of the people from corporations, and so on). But, increasingly, they insisted that the bourgeois state should act as the champion of the system of free enterprise, which worked in the interests of the ``people'' (as an aggregate of petty proprietors) and on which the monopolies had begun to impinge. What this meant, in substance, was buttressing the positions and extending the functions of the state in order to safeguard the small entrepreneur in the free market __PRINTERS_P_211_COMMENT__ 14* 211 and the free market in general. This produced a paradoxical situation. The aim and the means to that aim were at loggerheads, while the orientation on effective and consistent exercise of the ideas and principles of revolutionary democracy called for release from the existing social and political order and for new ideas and principles---such as would lead to the exercise of the democratic ideal in the changed historical environment. In other words, to safeguard the spirit and ideals of the American revolution, it had become essential to revise and broaden the ideological base and the social functions of radicalism.
Change became all the more necessary because the growth of American capitalism generated growth of the social base of the protest movement which was absorbing new social strata and groups (including industrial workers) whose interests and aspirations stretched more and more beyond the framework of the liberalism of Jeffersonian democracy.
An important stage in the forming of the left radical's ideological base was the transcendentalism of Thoreau, Emerson, and others. It reasserted fidelity to the principles of democracy and antietatism, and levelled criticism at the American capitalist society. Among its postulates and principles were some that the left-radical mentality reproduced time and again in the years that followed. Certain ideas and principles formulated by the American Transcendentalists added a new element to the ideological substratum of the radical consciousness.
The American Romanticists contended that in a truly democratic society the personality was the prime element of social relations, and that its free development was the aim and purpose of the state. Projecting the Enlighteners' idea of the difference between what is and what should be, the Romanticists had their sights set on a living, critical and immediate apprehension of life through the prism of personal experience.
Though most Transcendentalists were dedicated to nonviolent action (civil disobedience) and laid the accent on the self-improvement of the personality, their social criticism was of a political complexion and was, in effect, anticapitalist because their humanitarian imperatives were essentially in conflict with bourgeois civilization. More, some of the followers of Emerson and Thoreau, such as George Ripley, associated achievement of these imperatives with change in the prevailing social system.
In this manner, transcendentalism gradually filled radicalism with an anticapitalist content, and gave impulse to a new appreciation of its functions---no longer mere ``correction'', but also rejection of the existing society 212 as (he proper- medium for the exercise of the right to life and the pursuit of happiness.
It will not be amiss to note that the social criticism of the Transcendentalists was distinctly Utopian---a feature that is typical of nearly all the later types of the American left-radical consciousness. We see the same utopianism in Thoreau, who acts (and reasons) along the classic Utopian lines: "I wish ... to suggest that we may possibly so live as to secure all the advantage without suffering any of the disadvantage.''^^1^^
The new stage in American radicalism is associated with the spread of essentially American forms of the non-- Marxist, primarily critical and Utopian, socialism.
The 19th-century European Utopian socialists looked with hope to the New World, where they expected to find favorable material conditions for their various projects and, indeed, active support by the government and the nation--- something they were denied and so acutely missed in Europe. And their expectations came true in part. The United States was "the chief theater of experiments of the Utopian socialists of all nations'', wrote Morris Hillquit.^^2^^ The interest that Americans showed in Utopian socialism (notably Fourierism) in the 1830s to 1850s was fired by the crisis that was gripping the country during that time. The dream of a farmer's America was losing its lustre, while an industrial America held still less promise as a vehicle for the principles of the American revolution.
In the circumstances, the ideas of Utopian socialism seemed to express the instinctive aspirations of the farmers and the urban petty bourgeoisie to a farmers' America, for they were consonant in many ways with the ideas of the Enlighteners and Romanticists (fair distribution of goods, harmony between the social organism as a whole and its separate elements, man's fusion with nature, direct participation of all adult members of the community in decision-making, and so on).
The Civil War and the Reconstruction that followed seemed to bury that dream for good. But the ideas of Utopian socialism had by then struck such deep root in American society that they became part of the ideological substratum of the left-radical consciousness. In practice, this led to the emergence in the 1880s and 1890s of a broad reformist movement, which took in a large diversity of elements and took organizational shape in a network of Nationalist Clubs. The movement worked under utopian-socialist _-_-_
~^^1^^ Henry David Thoreau, Walden, or Life in the Woods, N.Y.. 1961, p. 26.
^^2^^ Hillquil, History of Socialism in the United Stales, N.Y., 1903, p. 22.
213 slogans and was largely stimulated by the evolution of a national tradition of Utopian socialism, one of whose heralds was Edward Bellamy. His novel, Looking Backward (1888), like many other Utopian works of the late 19th century, bore one main message: if "the great experiment" in America is to succeed, "why should not society go forward toward a true commonwealth, founded on a social economy and dedicated to common justice and the common well-being?" To achieve this "there was need only to subordinate private interest to collective interests, and substitute cooperation for the present mad scramble of selfish individualism".^^1^^Bellamy's social ideal, "the new industrial system'', was designed to create equality of living conditions, solidarity, fraternity, and happiness for all. Labor would be a common obligation (regulated by the state) and, at once, a pleasure. And the state would guarantee "the nurture, education, and comfortable maintenance of every citizen from the cradle to the grave".^^2^^
The Nationalists took notice of the state's greater interference in the affairs of society. They expressed the mass discontent with the shrinkage of the operational sphere of the free market, with the growth of monopoly, the crisis of market individualism and the related values. But they were also alarmed by the growth of the labor movement, and sought a solution of the problems not in rejecting the objective concentration and centralization of production and the growing role of the state, but in a socio-political reorientation of these processes, that is, in anticapitalist etatization of society. This is probably why, a few decades later, on the eve and at the time of the New Deal, Bellamy's ideas regained popularity among radicals.
The ten years from the late '20s to the late '30s, which historians named ``red'', generated powerful social protest movements and a large variety of Utopian plans and projects that were influenced by diverse ideas, principles and ideals. "It was Red in the sense that the center of political gravity swung sharply to the Left,'' writes Sidney Lens, "and millions of jobless, war veterans, and mass industry workers took to the streets in demonstrations or `seized' factories in sit-down strikes. It was Red in tone, mood, flavor as thousands of artists, intellectuals, movie stars, and literary figures found _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. L. Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought, Vol. 3, The Beginnings of Critical Realism in America, 1860--1920, N.Y., 1930, p. 301.
^^2^^ Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward 2000--1887, Cambridge Mass 1967 pp. 242, 149.
214 an emotional haven with various radical parties.''^^1^^American Utopian socialism, too (notably the ideas of the Nationalists), played a conspicuous role in the 1930s, but this time its influence was compounded with the impact of scientific socialism, above all through the experience of socialist construction in the Soviet Union.
A typical example of the impact made by the Nationalists' ideas and a specimen of the radicals' Utopian scheming of the 1930s was the movement initiated by Upton Sinclair in 1933 to carry out Plan EPIC (End the Poverty in California), aimed at engaging the mass of jobless in the production process at cooperative enterprises that were not bedevilled by the immoral scramble for profit, and thereupon restructure the rest of society along cooperative lines.
America's discovery of Marxism, we may recall, occurred in the mid-19th century. But at that time Marxism did not become widespread in the United States. Partly, this was due to the general recession of the labor movement owing to the crisis of 1857 and, chiefly, to the preeminence of petty-bourgeois ideology among the American working class. No small part here was also played by the diverse national background of the US proletariat of that time. Besides, the pioneers of the communist movement in the United States were active chiefly among the German workers and most of the socialist and Marxist publications were in German.
Its acquaintanceship with socialism, both Utopian and scientific, was of great significance for US radicalism: it furthered the development of its function of negating the prevailing social system as the sole realistic vehicle of the democratic ideal of the American revolution.
Those were the main stages in the growth of left radicalism as a social and political movement and in the emergence of the radical intellectual tradition as a complex of ideas, notions, and principles comprising the ideological substratum of the various structures of the left-radical political consciousness. And each of the elements of the substratum (Enlightenment, Romanticism, Socialism) exercised an influence on all the subsequent forms of radical thought and played a dominant part in the evolution of at least one of its several types. A special link is clearly seen, for example, between the radical-democratic consciousness and the Enlightenment, and between the radical-romantic and the romanticist structures.
There were times in US history when radicalism seemed to have been wiped out for good. Take the 1940s and '50s, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Sidney Lens, Radicalism in America, N.Y., 1966, p. 297.
215 the time of McCarthyism. Though McCarthyism was mainly directed against the American Communists, it did not, as usual in such cases, spare those who practised social criticism outside the communist movement. Left organizations and groups were either crushed or fell apart by themselves. The radical tradition seemed to have been stamped out once and for all.But at the end of the 1950s there appeared the first signs of new trends on the US cultural, social and political scene. And something like ten years later, America saw massive democratic movements nurturing new types of left radicalism.
The left-radical consciousness of the 960s and '70s was charged with a wide variety of ideas and principles, many of them inherited by the new radicals from their predecessors: above all the democratic commandments of the American Enlighteners, and especially the ideas and principles entrenched in the Declaration of Independence. This was due less to any wish of providing historical justification for their own views or claiming resemblance to the revolutionaries of 1776 (though elements of the typically American penchant for political showmanship were discernible among left radicals as well) and more to the incontestable socio-critical potential of the provisions contained in the Declaration of Independence. "What preCivil War radicals meant by these old words /the text of the Declaration of Independence/ had much in common with what the modern radical movement means by its own characteristic phrases. Men should be free, according to the revolutionary tradition, because on joining society they do not surrender their essential natural powers. If existing society abuses those powers, men should demand their restoration at once" (Lynd, Intellectual Origins of American Radicalism, p. 10). That potential, far from having declined with the passage of time, gains new strength, however paradoxical that may seem at first glance. While history provides new proof of the inability of the bourgeois state to keep the promises of the revolution, it is compelled by virtue of the tradition shaped over two centuries to continuously reproduce them at the level of political rhetoric as the aim of its activity and, hence, also as its own promises. And that inevitably generates vain expectations among the masses and fortifies radical sentiment.
Addressing themselves to the tradition of the Enlightenment, the left radicals of the 1960s and '70s retained loyalty, too, to the humanitarian ideals of the Romantic Transcendentalists on which they relied extensively in their treatment of the problem of man and culture. Lastly, 216 like their predecessors, the new radicals turned to images, ideas and principles that were fostered in the realm of the socialist tradition. To be sure, the range of ideas and principles that made up the substratum of the leftradical consciousness of that period had grown visibly broader both as a result of new ideas and ideological constructions and of a more productive and intensive use of the old sources.
The latter element is seen distinctly in the treatment that the new American radicals accorded the ideas and concepts produced within the framework of the socialist tradition. While directly or indirectly reproducing many of the ideas, notions and prejudices of the 19th-century Utopian socialism (especially that of Fourier and Bellamy), the new radical mentality also sought an anchor in the new forms of Utopian socialism that had emerged in the developing countries and attracted the radical by their anticonsumerism,
antibureaucratism, antitechnicism,
and so on. The radical ignored, or simply failed to notice, that genetically these provisions were often the product of the etatist, bureaucratic, militarist mentality and had no positive foundation as an alternative theoretically in harmony with the principles of the American revolution or acceptable to a developed capitalist country.
The new radical was eager to find a foothold in an ideology that would serve him not only as a moral and political vindication, but also as a symbol of protest. And since the official ideology opposed itself publicly to Marxism, the radical was liable to accept the latter as the theoretical form of negating the hated Establishment and its avowed ideology. But the radical's narrowly practical (negativist) interest in Marxism imposed an interpretation that shifted the accent on only those of its aspects that contrasted with the respectable and affirmative style of the ``positive'' bourgeois theories. And from this angle, ``Marxism'' stood forth at best as an "ideology of negation" consonant with the "critical theory of society'', while leaving many important aspects of the Marxist concept of revolution in the shade.
True, the "critical theory" played a prominent part in the making of the radical consciousness of the 1960s and '70s. The philosophical and sociological concepts that it fostered despite the diversity of its philosophical and social sources, had one important common feature: they more or less effectively destroyed the notions of reconciliation, absence of conflict and good organization in American society propagated by the integrationist ideology, and the integrationist claim that American society was 217 humane and democratic: and its social institutions nonrepressive. In so doing, they intertwined in bizarre fashion with elements of Marxism, on the one hand, and with the integrationist sociology worked into the critical theory as a peculiar background to negation, on the other.
That the new radical consciousness relied on .so wide a range of ideas and principles was due less to its intrinsic eclecticism, and less, too, to the dynamic evolution that it went through within something like a decade. It was due more to its own intrinsic heterogeneity that embraces several different types closely related by some common features and functions, sometimes overlapping but, at the same time, substantially different from one another.
Under the earlier suggested criteria, the radical consciousness of the 1960s and '70s may be said to have had four basic types that we may for convenience describe as radical-democratic, radical-rebellious, radical-romantic and radical-socialist. And the evolution of radical consciousness in the USA in the '60s and '70s may be described as consistent passage from one type to the next, and the change in its general orientation as passage of the dominant role from one type to the next (within the limits of the movement).
The orientation on cultural enlightenment and nonviolent methods of struggle predominated in the initial stage of the mass protest movements (until the mid-'60s) which battled for civil rights for the blacks and "free speech" for students, and aspired to "new values''. It should be borne in mind, however, that there had never been any sharp watershed between political and socio-cultural radicalism. The students' struggle for new moral values and a new life style, though it did not always have a direct outlet in politics, was of a distinctly political dimension if only because it challenged the traditional values and cast doubt on the "American way of life''.
In the mid-'60s, radicalism entered upon a new stage. During that stage, which coincided in time with the US aggression in Vietnam, the emphasis of radical criticism shifted from cultural values to the Establishment, the ``system'', to big business and the military-industrial complex. Clearly political demands, including an end to the aggression in Vietnam, limitation of the power of the military establishment, and political power for the ``people'', gained precedence. It is noteworthy that most of the demands were nominally ``constitutional'', though they were received by the authorities as a dangerous political challenge and spurred them to repressive action. That only tended to radicalize the democratic movements. 218 Suiting the logic of the struggle, they put forward new demands and resorted to means that were often of a distinctly rebellious nature and directed not only to breaking with the ``system'' but also to its destruction.
The partial successes achieved by the blacks and the students, the defeat suffered by US imperialism in Vietnam, the economic deterioration in the United States and the rest of the capitalist world, coupled with the change of generations in colleges and with a few other factors, saw political radicalism reach its peak at the turn of the 60s into the 70s and then begin to decline along with the democratic mass movement that had nourished it. The radicalrebellious consciousness yielded again to cultural enlightenment orientations. But this was not a return to the past. The years in which mass radical movements had existed in the country extended the field of search for social alternatives and revived the interest in socialist ideas and ideals among Americans (above all youth), resulting in the emergence of a new, radical-socialist type of consciousness.
The dynamics of the radical movements led to an alternation of the dominant types of the radical consciousness. The radical-democratic type that had prevailed initially was replaced in the latter half of the '60s by the radicalrebellious consciousness, and at the junction of the '60? and '70s a conspicuous role fell to the radical-romantic consciousness, with the rebel type gradually dropping to the background. In the mid-'70s, radical-democratic trends became dominant again, though this time they shared the spotlight with the radical-socialist consciousness.
What, then, are the features that put these types of consciousness under the head of one and the same radical tradition?
The prime and perhaps basic feature of all the leftradical types is that they are antibourgeois. Though most radicals do not in so many words reject private property (their criticism is focused on the large corporations) or capitalism as a historically shaped system of social relations, all the types of the radical consciousness are antibourgeois in objective content because many of their demands and values, though often expressed in abstractly humanitarian terms, cannot be attained in a capitalist environment and any consistent drive to attain them leads inevitably to the destruction of or at least assault on the bourgeois political and social structures in America, and also the cultural and moral values of capitalism.
This antibourgeois charge of the radical consciousness is linked closely with its humanitarian orientation. At the center in the minds of the new radicals stands the human 219 being---not as some abstract objective concept but as a concrete, sensual subject; a developed free personality is conceived as the end goal of all effort.
It is proper to note that this orientation on the subject lies at the root of many of the principles that govern the political practices of the left radical. To begin with, the left-radical consciousness derives above all from the effective and direct experience of its bearers; it is backed by tradition, but in essence it is a rationalized expression of their own existence within the ``system''. Hence the nonclassical complexion of the left-radical consciousness (as distinct from the liberal, conservative, even the right radical) noted by nearly all scholars.
The orientation on personal experience (usually very modest), coupled with a sceptical view of the legacy of the Old left, the deliberate renunciation of any objectively definitive or universal system of criticism and exclusive concentration on only those problems that are associated with personal political experience---all this makes the radical consciousness strongly particularist if not sectarian. That is why, indeed, the radical's attitude to some substantive aspects of contemporary domestic and, especially, foreign policy is so rudimentary, for these aspects have simply dropped out of his field of vision.
The particularism of the radical consciousness, oriented as it is on social change, has in many ways also predetermined its utopianism. The ineradicable faith of a man in the street in the American dream has restrained him time and again from radical action, though, on the other hand, the failure of that dream has often prodded the average American to confrontation and rebellion in critical situations.
Though, as a rule, the new radicals did not openly side with the idea of America's Manifest Destiny, they were deeply convinced that if the Utopian dream of a free, prosperous and nonrepressive society was ever to come true, it would come about exclusively in the United States of America, and would be achieved not by the liberals in power but by left radicals, those dedicated to turning the "American creed" declared two hundred years before into reality. In that sense we may safely refer to an American left-radical messianic spirit inherent in varying degrees in all the prevailing types of radicalism.
Summing up, we should therefore bear in mind the ambivalent nature of the new-radical consciousness. Being critical, it was in a state of confrontation both with the existing socio-political system and with other types of political consciousness. But being American, it reproduced many of the features of the national character and psychology 220 (displaying many a point of contact with the very targets of its criticism), and this despite the orientation on renouncing tradition.
Though the various types of the radical consciousness of the '60s and '70s have common features, there are also some substantial distinctions between them. To begin with, the new American radicals had no single political goal. They did, it is true, all oppose the social and political status quo, but there were differences in their apprehension of the targets of negation. Serious differences also prevailed over the manner of negating the object and over the subject of social change. The spectrum of social groups on which the radicals pinned their hope of altering American society was so broad that it excluded none but the bourgeoisie.
Radicalism is often styled ``petty-bourgeois'', the connotation being that it reflects the sentiment and interests of the petty bourgeoisie and develops on the petty-- bourgeois social base. Though largely true in respect of the past, it calls for some important amplification in respect of present-day American society, both because a reconstruction of its structures is currently in train and because the process of radicalization is spreading to new strata and classes.
Most scholars classify the bulk of the new radicals under three social heads: student youth, intellectuals in the humanities and in technical fields, and the ``outsiders'', among them the jobless and the lumpenproletarians. And only a small segment of these groups belongs in social origin and status to the petty bourgeoisie (in the strict sense of the word) or expresses its sentiments and interests.
Most radicals come from the intermediate strata not identifiable with the petty bourgeoisie, and belonging to the new segments of the working class, which includes workers by brain. The need for such differentiation is stressed by students of American society. The study, SocioPolitical Movements in the USA, (Moscow, 1974, p. 30, in Russian), puts "petty proprietors living mainly by their own labor" under the head of petty bourgeoisie, while among the "intermediate strata" it includes "employed sections of the intelligentsia" (highly-skilled specialists, scientists and professionals) and "other intermediate groups" ( medium-level administrators, small stock brokers, travelling salesmen, and so on).
This is also a fairly accurate reflection of the basic trends in the social structure of American society that surfaced in the late '5()s due to the shrinkage of the free 221 market and the growth of state-monopoly capitalism and the scientific and technological revolution. The inescapable result was a decline in numbers of the petty bourgeoisie and an expansion of the intermediate strata and the working class, which absorbed part of the petty bourgeoisie and the intermediate strata, above all what was traditionally known as the educated class, the intelligentsia.
Certainly, the consciousness of the present-day petty bourgeois, that of a member of the intermediate strata and of a proletarianized intellectual have a number of common features of, so to speak, a "petty-bourgeois type" deriving from the transitional nature of the social situation in which they exist.
The determining feature of the mentality (and being) of the petty bourgeois is the same as it was when defined by Marx and Engels. It is his duality, stemming from the fact that he is at once a worker and a proprietor.
The social consequences of the scientific and technological revolution and the formation of state-monopoly capitalism tend to restrict the sphere of free enterprise. This sharpens the petty bourgeois' sense of danger. He knows he must fight to remove the contradictions of his social position and faces the choice of either working to preserve what he has or---when this becomes unrealistic--- to radically restructure society so that he as a minor proprietor will not drop to the level of proletarian and will in the final count retain (possibly in an altered form) the aggregate of benefits that is being imperilled by the state or big business.
The petty-bourgeois mind is opposed to centralization. So is that of a section of the intermediate strata that had once belonged to the big or petty bourgeoisie, and that of the part of the aggregate working class that had once belonged to the intermediate strata. Above all, this concerns the intelligentsia and the numerically growing body of students (many of whom we may regard as a would-be intelligentsia).
In developed capitalist society, however, the intelligentsia joins the fight against state-monopoly capitalism (on a mass scale) only inasmuch as, owing to the substantive changes in its position, it ceases to be an intelligentsia in the classic and traditional sense of the word. In the past (up until the latter half of the 20th century), the intellectual was not directly involved in the process of producing surplus value and stood apart from industrially organized production. He controlled the making of his own product from start to finish and then acted as its salesman. He either failed to notice or attached no importance to the 222 fact that he was mercilessly plundered by his employers, to whom he sold his labor power for only a fraction of its worth; that his nonalienation (from the product of his mind) did not transcend the limits of individual artisan production and vanished the moment the market came into play; that his ``free'' professional or creative activity was, in the final analysis, subject to the mechanism of demand and supply. Hence the intellectual's self-identification as a free, politically uninvolved producer, which gave him a sense of elitist independence and exclusiveness.
Today the situation is changing, and changing radically. The fact that science is thrusting directly into industrial production, into the services and into management, and that culture is turning into a scientifically organized industry, has pushed up the number of intellectual professionals employed in these fields. This proliferation of the once relatively sparse intelligentsia naturally changed the character of mental labor and with it the social status of the intellectual. From member of an elite, of the narrow corporation of free professionals, he has turned into a wage laborer working on commissions that are all too often contrary to his inner motivations---a laborer chained to a specific sector of the production line. No longer a lone artisan producer, no longer in control of his output, the intellectual also forfeited the control and power, albeit relative and limited, he had once had over his own activity. As member of a social group, therefore, he forfeited his former social status.
This metamorphosis put the intellectual in a developed capitalist society in a dual and conflicting position very close to that traditionally ascribed to the petty bourgeois. Though no longer a free professional but a hired intellectual whose social image and being has begun more and more to resemble that of the industrial worker, he has not yet become a proletarian, for he still retains some privileges, has not yet entirely relinquished the traditional stereotypes of the ``free'' intellectual, and continues to think in terms that are already in many ways out of tune with his new social being. He might be said to walk the boundary between distinctive social groups and, like the petty bourgeois, associates his wellbeing with struggle for the restoration of the old order or, when he sees that such restoration is impossible, for a radical alteration of the social relations that have earned his disaffection.
In sum, the radicalism of the 1960s and '70s was not petty-bourgeois either in social content or social base. Though reflecting the interests and contradictions of a certain segment of the petty bourgeoisie (and relying on 223 it), it championed the interests and contradictions of the intelligentsia that was turning proletarian, of the mass of students, and of national minorities, all of whom have a petty-bourgeois type of mentality but are not to be identified with the petty bourgeoisie as such. This nonidentity, indeed, has got to be borne in mind if we want to put our finger on the prospects of radicalism in American society. For if the radicalism of today stems from the contradictions of the social being and consciousness of mainly the intermediate strata and a certain section of the proletariat (whose numbers and role are on the increase) and no longer from those of the petty bourgeoisie alone (whose numbers and role are on the decrease), we can expect a further radicalization of American society, for then its objective social base will survive and expand.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. RADICAL-DEMOCRATIC CONSCIOUSNESSGeneral characteristics and genesis. The radical-- democratic consciousness is the most moderate of the left-radical types. Oriented on nonviolent socio-political reconstruction, it sees its chief aim in creating a "free democratic society" through transfer of political power into the hands of "the people''. It has its roots deep in the cultural and political traditions of the United States and bears a strong imprint of the American national character, which paradoxically combines vulgar pragmatism with political utopianism, and a blend of patriotism and faith in a better future with a critical view of the prevailing state of affairs. This consciousness is the most massive and the most stable in the context of the American left-radical tradition.
The radical-democratic consciousness is nourished by abortive efforts to secure the bourgeois-democratic liberties proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence within the framework of the existing institutions. These efforts have led to an appreciation of the existence of "warring elements" in the American creed, to use the expression of historian Howard Zinn. "There is the rhetorical creed,'' he writes, "represented best by the words of the Declaration of Independence: 'all Men are created equal... unalienable Rights... Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness... whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it...' There is the working creed, those beliefs that, whether or not written into the Constitution and the laws, are embedded in the minds of the 224 American people by constant practice.''^^1^^ Attempts to eliminate this duality and make the ``rhetorical'' creed dominant and effective determine the emotional thrust and the fundamental content of the radical-democratic consciousness.
Though determined to act within the law, the radical democrat is, however, convinced that the goal he has set cannot be reached by mere reform in the context of the existing institutions and on the basis of the existing values. That is the essential difference between him and the liberal (of the reformist type) who is no less critical of the state of affairs but assumes that in principle the ``system'' is quite capable of effecting the necessary reforms. In that sense, the radical-democratic consciousness may be considered a product of the crisis of liberal policy and liberal thinking, and the radical democrat himself a disillusioned liberal.
In the 19th and the early half of the 20th century the main cause of radicalization was the unsatisfactory economic condition of certain groups in society. The radical saw the root of the evil mainly in the mechanism of the free market, in market excesses, which prompted him again and again to address himself for protection and help to the state. But the immediate motivations of the radicalization of the 1960s and '70s were social and political, associated not with market excesses but excesses of etatization. This does not go to say that economic reasons are no longer a factor of radicalization. It only means that when the wants of the working people expand, the socio-cultural and political situation may, on a par with the economic, act as an important stimulant of the radical consciousness.
Since many of the guarantees assumed by the "welfare state" have proved pies in the sky, the state is seen as the culprit of the unsatisfactory state of affairs registered by the social critic. But if at one time the radical mentality nourished by the "excesses of the free market" addressed its appeals to the state, it is now wholly bereft of intrinsic institutional support because it does not see the market as an alternative social and political lever.
And one more feature of the radical-democratic consciousness: the gap between the ``rhetorical'' and ``working'' creeds registered by the radical superimposes itself on his ingrained belief in the collosal ``liberative'' potential accumulated by American society, that is, in the existence of material conditions for resolving all or almost all the _-_-_
~^^1^^ H. Zinn, Postwar America: 1945--1971, N.Y., 1973, p. XIV.
225 problems bedevilling the individual, provided the relationships and institutions are altered.The radical-democratic type of consciousness lacks a single and independent ideological foundation. But Staughton Lynd's following definition fits it more than it does any of the other types of radicalism: "Subsequent variants of American radicalism have taken the Declaration of Independence as their point of departure and claimed to be the true heirs of the spirit of 76.''^^1^^ It is, indeed, true that the ideas of Jefferson, Paine, Franklin and the other American Enlighteners, reflected in the fundamental documents of the American revolution, notably the Declaration of Independence, are the basic component of the ideological substratum of the radical-democratic consciousness.
The radical-democratic consciousness was involved in practically all the mass democratic movements of the 1960s and '70s, and this at all their stages. But it was in the forefront mainly in the initial and the concluding stages, that is, when the movements were on the upgrade, setting new, more far-reaching goals and adopting more radical methods, or when they were on the downgrade, abandoning their ``immoderate'' demands.
Problems of domestic policy. One of the main difficulties besetting the radical-democratic consciousness, like the radical mentality in general, was that of identifying the object of its criticism. The traditional concept of `` society'' appeared to be insufficient, because it reflected neither the complexity of the situation nor the state of the object of criticism. As a result there appeared the term ``system'', which is attractive to the radical because it seems to apply to the totality of the object of criticism: not some specific institution but a faceless, "centralized, a hierarchical structure in which all elements and phases are interlocking and interdependent, and in the final analysis, interpenetrative and inseparable".^^2^^ In espousing the term, the radical felt that he must emphasize two aspects of the ``system''---its corporate nature and its ``liberal'' origins. That was how the radical-democratic consciousness gave birth to the concept of a "liberal-corporate system" or "liberal corporatism''.
Though consensus was lacking among radical democrats (and all the more so among other types of radicals) as to the precise make-up of the "liberal-corporate system'', most of them agreed that it included three basic elements.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Lynd, op. cit., p. 4.
^^2^^ "All We Are Saying...'' The Philosophy of the New Left. Ed. bv Arthur I.othstein, N. Y., 1970, p. 33.
226First, the economic structures reposing on private capitalist property and consisting of large-scale corporations. Despite their superficial and narrow notions of the economic basis of American society, the radical democrats were aware that "all aspects of this society, from occupation to housing, education to health, scientific research to television entertainment, are dependent on the corporate-controlled area of economy".^^1^^ In some cases, especially when criticizing ``technobureaucracy'', the radical democrat was liable to single out corporate organization, or what John K. Galbraith termed "the technostructure'', as an autonomous structural element of the ``system''.
Second, the military establishment and its core, the military-industrial complex, which "not only stabilizes the domestic economy but is also proving to be an essential adjunct to the world-wide practice of American capitalism".^^2^^
Third, the state. In the setting of "organized capitalism'', the state "has become the agency for the complex of interlocking bureaucracies. The state is now the focus of the protective apparatus.''^^3^^ It will be noted that the radical's notion of the structure of the ``system'' is affected by C. Wright Mills' concept of the power elite.
As the radical democrat sees it, "liberal corporatism implies a political structure in which principal policy issues are worked out at the federal level, formulated with the active participation of experts, and ratified---not in the legislative arena---but through a process of consultation among a national elite representing those interests and institutions which now recognize each other as legitimate. Such a conception of government is `corporatist' in at least two ways: first, it involves the major corporations and other interest groups actively and directly in the governmental process; second, it models government structure and administrative style in the manner of modern corporation management. It is `liberal' in the sense that it includes the active participation of representatives of groups traditionally favoring liberal reform and democracy---particularly, for example, the unions. Liberal corporatism tends toward the co-optation of dissent and reform rather than their suppression.''^^4^^
It follows that the humanitarian aims proclaimed by the radical democrat cannot be achieved by reforming the ``system'', because reform has now become a condition for _-_-_
~^^1^^ "All We Are Saying'', p. 29.
~^^2^^ Ibidem.
^^3^^ Ibid., pp. 31--32.
~^^4^^ The New Left: A Documentary History. Ed. by Massimo Teodori, N. Y., 1969, pp. 192--93.
__PRINTERS_P_227_COMMENT__ 15* 227 its existence and tends to strengthen rather than weaken it. In short, the ``system'' must be abolished as a distortion of the "declared American creed''.The radical sees the distortion above all in the " system`s'' lack of humanism. According to the rhetorical creed, the human being is the supreme value, and "the people" are the sole true subject of the socio-historical process. The Port Huron Statement (1962) says: "We regard men as infinitely precious and possessed of unfulfilled capacities for reason, freedom, and love... We oppose the depersonalization that reduces human beings to the status of things" (The New Left..., p. 166). Yet in modern America man is absorbed and suppressed by the ``system'', which is hostile to him because it is concerned with the whole and not the part, not the individual, not the personality: man lives for the ``system'', which saddles him with its needs and forces him to live by its laws.
The sole motive for the radical democrat's opposition to the prevailing reality is man's situation in society, man's social state of mind rather than the persuasive historical causes of the prevailing nonhumanitarian condition. If the ``system'' obstructs the development of the individual, if it sets artificial barriers to individual liberties, then, as the radical democrat sees it, it forfeits the right to exist. Doubly so, because today even the "metaphysics of history" cannot justify estrangement and nonhumanism: the material basis for emancipation is too considerable and the repression too artificial and elitist to prevent attempts at carrying through the humanitarian principles proclaimed by the American revolution.
The radical democrat sees the prevailing ``system'' as a distortion of the "rhetorical creed" because it has detached the people from power and has turned them into an object of the historical process, thereby tearing up the principles of democracy entrenched in the basic documents of the American revolution.
The radical democrat blames the undemocratic nature of the American political system first and foremost on representative democracy as a political principle and the system of political institutions embodying that principle. Precluding direct participation of the bulk of the American people in the adoption of vital decisions, participatory democracy operates not as a vehicle that affords the people access to political power but rather as a means of alienating them from it. The average American, says the radical democrat, has the feeling that "though he voted, though he could speak freely in his own milieu, all the great decisions of life were being made somewhere, 228 somehow, by people he did not know... He was becoming an invisible atom in a huge country, reading the newspapers, watching television, listening to the radio, a passive recipient of whatever history was being made, but certainly not a vibrant force in making it" (Zinn, op. cit., p. 90).
For the radical democrat another token of the lack of democracy in American society is the concentration of power in the hands of the political, economic and military elite which operates through governmental institutions, corporations and armed forces respectively, and forms the "power elite''. He sees this concentration of power triggering the processes of centralization and bureaucratization. And as the immediate effect, he also sees that the strengthening of executive power leads to its breaking out from under the control of the existing democratic mechanisms, which results in anonymous decision-making and a diffusion of responsibility.
One more departure from democracy and a breach of the "inalienable human rights" is the social and political inequality of citizens. Equality before the law is effective only if it has equal material backing. The economic inequalities that exist in American society rob various groups in it of the very chance of exercising their constitutional rights and liberties. In other words, there is no equality of opportunity in America. This being so if citizens are to be truly equal, says the radical democrat, the formal (in effect fictitious) equality of opportunity must be breached and replaced by guarantees of equal conditions. Formal inequality is thus the only real form of securing equality, and thus also justice as the radical conceives it.
The radical democrat does not nurse the same nihilistic attitude to the law as the rebel radical. He is not against the law as such but against ``bad'' law, against ``unfair'' law. He is also against the manner in which the law is used in American society when "those who hold governmental power do not revere the law in this undifferentiated way; they choose which laws to enforce and which laws not to enforce; which laws to violate and which not to violate; which laws to make and which laws not to make.''^^1^^
The radical democrat sees the abuses of executive power that have become something next to the norm in the political process as a stark sign of the imperfections or the judiciary structure in the United States. In the prevailing state of things, power over constitutional rights is in effect wielded by the police. Howard Zinn notes in this _-_-_
~^^1^^ Zinn, op. lit., p. 196.
229 connection that "the protection of the Constitution is a distant one; the immediate power over free speech is with those who possess club and gun on the spot where exercise of the freedom is being sought".^^1^^If there is to be a truly democratic political system and a society in which the supreme goal will be to ensure the freedom of one and all---and that, precisely, is how the radical democrat conceives a truly democratic society---the existing political institutions must be debureaucratized and decentralized, and power must pass from the hands of the ruling elite into the hands of the people.
The sole remedy the radical democrat sees in self-- government through direct (participatory) democracy, which would ensure the participation of each individual in running society and adopting "those social decisions determining the quality and direction of his life".^^2^^
For the radical democrat of the '60s and '70s, participatory democracy was the foundation for restructuring economic, as well as political relations. What he was concerned with was to make production humane, not necessarily rational or efficient. In other words, the problem of reorganizing the economic organism was seen by his critical mind as a moral imperative---which explains the conflicting nature, the intrinsic incohesiveness of the suggested economic solutions. The critical leverage of the radical democrat's economic views is consonant with the propositions of what is known as the radical political economy. In the view of one of its exponents, Martin Bronfenbrenner, its characteristic features are: denunciation of the unequal distribution of incomes; criticism of militarism and racism, and likewise of neocolonialism, which widens the gap between rich and poor nations; criticism of the traditional economics for its onesided approach to man, whom it sees only in one dimension and treats exclusively in the light of his function in production and consumption; criticism of restricted social spending on improving the quality of life and on combatting environmental pollution.^^3^^
The radical democrat is dead set against the market as a mechanism for regulating the economic and all other activity of society. As noted by Assar Lindbeck (who made a special study of the topic), a radical denounces the market system as "primitive, inefficient, chaotic, antisocial, unfair, and basically immoral".^^4^^ The radical _-_-_
~^^1^^ Zinn, op. cit., p. 170.
~^^2^^ The New Left..., p. 167.
~^^3^^ The Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. VIII, No. 3, September 1970.
~^^4^^ Assar Lindbeck, The Political Economy of the New Left. An Outsider's View, N. Y., 1971, p. 32.
230 democrat sees the immorality of the market less in its economic rigidity (unequal, unfair distribution of the social wealth) and more in the rigidity of its ethics, because the market destroys all the human qualities, cultivates a spirit of competition and hostility and the lust of profit. And monopolization of the market by the large corporations, far from mitigating things, only makes matters worse. It creates what the radical democrat regards as an insufferable situation where the principles of humanism are sacrificed to functional rationale and efficiency, and where the aims of society's economic development are tied not to the "true interests cf the people" but to the interests of corporations, which, in the final analysis, are themselves shaped under the influences of the technological imperative.Though critical of the market, however, the radical democrat does not favor any ``bureaucratic'' regulation of economic relations. He is no less critical of the " bureaucratic state" that has assumed the function of economic regulation than he is of the market. Because the state has failed to find a humane solution for any of the problems bred by the market mechanisms. There has been no democratization of power in the economic field, but new bureaucratic structures appeared and new steps were taken to concentrate power in the ruling elite, in which the state bureaucracy has now also been given its due share. And that, in the eyes of the radical, means that the people were pushed still farther away from power: most American citizens are deprived of any opportunity for directly influencing the making of the country's economic policy or for at least controlling its implementation.
While failing to resolve the problem of the people's deprivation of economic power, the state has also failed to secure a more just distribution of the public wealth. The programs of the welfare state have failed to root out poverty or to solve the problem of unemployment. Nor has there been any reorientation of the economy to meeting the true wants of the people and ensuring the all-round development of the individual.
Contrary to the impression one gets at first glance, the simultaneous opposition of the radical democrat to the market and to the state as a mechanism of bureaucratic economic regulation is not without its logic. But the radical democrat's logic is the logic of the humanist and philosophizer. If he were compelled to solve the complex of intricate problems related to the economy, making ends meet, he would inevitably have to make his choice, giving precedence either to the market or to the state. But since, 231 being bereft of power, the radical democrat approaches economic problems as an uncommitted philosopmzer and moralist, he can afford to fail to make ends meet. While denouncing the market and the etatist solution of economic problems as being equally contrary to humanism and morality, he suggests an alternative that would open for "democratic social regulation" both the basic economic resources and the means of production, and would make it possible to redirect social production to satisfying the true wants and to bring these wants into harmony with man's true nature. The way he suggests for securing this is participatory democracy.
Introduction of participatory democracy in economic relations, as the radical democrat conceives it, would mean that "work should involve incentives worthier than money or survival. It should be educative, not stultifying; creative, not mechanical; self-directed, not manipulated, encouraging independence, a respect for others, a sense of dignity and a willingness to accept social responsibility, since it is this experience that has crucial influence on habits, perceptions and individual ethics.''^^1^^
While calling for humanization of economic relations, the radical democrat does not reject the institution of private property, though, to be sure, he does deflate its social value, denying it, in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, the quality of a natural and inalienable right. The emotional impact of his egalitarianism derives from his renunciation of property which, however, as a rule, does not culminate in the demand that it be socialized. In other words, though he criticizes capitalism, and though he denounces it as an inhuman social system, the radical democrat would not go so far as to advance the socialist alternative. Here we see the same incohesiveness as in the question of market and state: neither capitalism nor socialism.
In many ways, this posture stems from the notion that in America today the question of property does not play any determining role in settling the problem of humanization of social relations or, in any. case, that putting the economy on socialist tracks will not guarantee a humane solution of America's main problems. Hence the efforts to shift the solution from the sphere of property to that of production management. As a result/ the radical democrat, that foe of liberal solutions, suggests humanizing the economy by means of quasi-liberal means a la John Galbraith.
By classifying the economic problems as a moral _-_-_
~^^1^^ The New Left..., p. 168.
232 imperative, the radical-democratic consciousness betrays its Utopian soul. That is clear enough. It is also clear, however, that so long as it does not capture power, its utopianism can play a certain positive role, especially on the plane of moral criticism, and can win it popularity among those who, far removed from the economic elite, seek a simple and clear solution to the intricate political and economic problems.For the radical democrat, participatory democracy is not merely a principle governing the organization and functioning of society. It is also a principle for tying the individual to society, for securing their interaction. For him, the optimum goal is the involvement of the individual in society so, that he would exercise a direct influence on the activity of each and every institution. That is where participatory democracy is to live up to its purpose: that "society be organized to encourage independence in men and provide the media for their common participation'', and that "politics has the function of bringing people out of isolation and into community, thus being a necessary, though not sufficient, means of finding meaning in personal life".^^1^^
True, the orientation on participatory democracy, which leads to the dissolution of organization in community, sets the radical a problem not easy to solve: how to align the functioning of an intricate system (such as society) reposing on a high level of professionalism and division of labor, on the one hand, and complete equality---not only legal, political and social, but also functional (on which participatory democracy is based)---on the other. The radical tackles the problem in the spirit of the populist tradition: the intrinsic virtue and ingrained wisdom of the ``plain'' man would enable him, so the radical holds, to cope with any of the intricate tasks that are now being handled by experts once he is no longer manipulated and wins equal access to information. "We oppose, too, the doctrine of human incompetence because it rests essentially on the modern fact that men have been `competently' manipulated into incompetence" (The New Left..., p. 166).
To be sure, the radical democrat is not so blind as to overlook the intricacies of present-day society, which make complete functional equality impossible, and therefore also rule out complete identification of organization and community, thus invalidating participatory democracy as a universal principle. But the radical has no choice. He has to substitute a political solution for a managerial one, and an ethical solution for a political one. All the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 167.
233 more so, because he puts the humanitarian alternative in the foreground as a program for cultivating critics of the ``system''. Besides, so long as the radical-democratic consciousness is bereft of governmental power, the above contradiction is more or less concealed from public view. Otherwise the radical would have to revise his concept of participatory democracy and either make some far-- reaching concessions in favor of functional rationality, division of labor, and so on, or resort to the tactic of "double standards" which is his pet hate.Problems of foreign policy. The views of the radical democrat of the 1960s and '70s on matters of foreign policy began shaping at the conceptual theoretical level in the late '50s. A conspicuous role here was played by the American historians grouped round Professor William Appleman Williams of the University of Wisconsin: Gabriel Kolko, Howard Zinn and David Horowitz. Their books, and notably that of Williams himself , The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (early 1959), and later Kolko's The Policy of War (1968) and The Roots of American Foreign Policy (1969), Zinn's Postwar America: 1945--1971, and a few others, were the first to formulate the set of ideas that struck a broad response in the mass radical consciousness. Here we refer to these historians not as to theorists and authors of any definite concepts of US foreign policy (that topic calls for special study) but as to transmitters of the more typical notions of the radical democrat on relevant aspects of foreign policy.
The radical democrat's critical view of the foreign policy of the United States is a logical projection of his view of domestic policy. As he sees it, both are not only organically interlocked, but are an outgrowth of one and the same root. This monistic outlook makes the social critic's task considerably easier, for it enables him to spot behind the liberal rhetoric the concealed mainsprings of foreign policy actions, and in so doing to relate the latter to each other and to actions in domestic policy. But all too often, this monism acquires a mechanical expression, resulting in excessively straightforward cause-- and-effect formulas, in rigid judgements, in overly contrasted evaluations (lacking nearly all halftones), and in the striving to deduce all things from one and the same ``root'', indeed, to reduce them to the operation of a social force that the radical often invests in the cloak of a mystical "first cause''.
Critical of American diplomacy, the radical democrat associates its failures, even its ``tragedy'' (Williams), with the fact that the people are denied a say in charting and 234 implementing foreign policy. "We have seen,'' Zinn quotes de Tocqueville as having said in the 1890s, "that the Federal Constitution entrusts the permanent direction of the external interests of the nation to the President and the State, which tends in some degree to detach the general foreign policy of the Union from the control of the people. It cannot therefore be asserted with truth that the external affairs of State are conducted by the democracy.''^^1^^ The making of foreign policy is the affair of a narrow elite which, in turn, is subordinated to the rigid dictates of the ``system''---one that expresses the interests of corporate capitalism rather than those of the people. As a result, the practice of foreign policy is contrary to the declared principles. America proclaimed "the warm, generous, humanitarian impulse to help other people solve their problems''. It proclaimed "the principle of self-determination applied at the international level, which asserts the right of every society to establish its own goals or objectives, and to realize them internally through the means it decides are appropriate".^^2^^ But in reality, as the radical democrat notes, the "impulse to help" stands for expansionism while ``self-determination'' stands for saddling other nations with what the USA determines is best for them. Force, rejected by the liberal rhetoric, had become a principle of liberal foreign policy. This is seen, among other things, in the US policy of aggressive wars, a natural and ineluctable part of the essence of the ``system''. "The modern liberal capitalist state, by its essential economic and political characteristics, tends to intensify and expand aggressive warfare" (Zinn, op. cit., p. 41).
The radical democrat is against wars: they mean senseless slaughter, reduce the operation of democratic principles, strengthen the military-industrial complex and stimulate nationalism and racism. Also, wars cause colossal unproductive waste of resources, that could be used instead to heighten the wellbeing of the people. The radical democrat justifies (though with reservations) revolutionary and liberative wars, for just such a war gave birth to the democratic principles which he is now trying to carry into effect. But he believes---and that is the fundamental difference between radical democrat and rebel---that it would be best to secure revolutionary goals without war.
The radical democrat displayed his attitude at the time of _-_-_
~^^1^^ Zinn, op. cit., p. 41.
^^2^^ William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy oj American Diplomacy, N. Y., 1959* p. 9.
235 the US aggression in Vietnam. Indeed, for the radical consciousness of the '60s Vietnam became a testing stone not only of US foreign policy, but of the ``system'' as a whole: the undeclared (and therefore unsanctioned---by either the people or the representative institutions) war against a developing country fighting for national liberation (as the United States had fought two hundred years before) was, as the radical democrat was well aware, a war of aggression, even a counterrevolutionary war, a war in the interests of monopoly capital, of the big civic bureaucracy and the military establishment. "Their aim in Vietnam,'' wrote Carl Oglesby, one of the leaders of the protest movement, in reference to the US leaders, "is to safeguard what they take to be American interests around the world against revolution or revolutionary change, which they always call Communism.''^^1^^ More, for the radical democrat, US policy in Vietnam was a particular manifestation of the general neocolonialist strategy directed to securing such relations and supporting such regimes that would put developing countries in a position subordinate to and dependent on the United States.Radical democrats have repeatedly declared that US foreign policy is in sore need of a far-reaching reconstruction, of democratizing diplomacy or, more specifically, letting the people participate in charting and implementing external relations. It is not enough that the people should understand their country's foreign policy, and that it expresses the people's interests. It must be charted with the direct participation of the people, must be controlled by the people and, when necessary, immediately corrected by the people. The people must therefore have access to exhaustive information, making for competent judgement of government moves, and secret diplomacy must give place to open diplomacy. In short, the objective is in keeping with participatory democracy in the field of foreign affairs.
The other aspect of this democratization, as the radical democrat sees it, was renunciation of force in international relations and scrupulous fidelity to the principle of selfdetermination, with each country respecting the right of the others to deal with their internal affairs on their own.
The radical democrat of the '60s and '70s emphasized the need to renounce anticommunism and scrap the policy of cold war, for, as he saw it, communism had never been a threat to the national security of the United States. And if, owing to the efforts of the McCarthyites (at whose _-_-_
^^1^^ The New Left..., p. 183.
236 hands the radical, too, dubbed ``red'', had suffered), the country was gripped by "fanatical anticommunism'', this was due mainly to the fact "that Communist nations posed an especially tough obstacle to the normal drives of liberal nationalism: for expansion, for paternalism, for maximum profit".^^1^^To the very same reasons the radical democrat traces the origins of the cold war. Unlike supporters of the conventional view, who at best divide the blame for the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union, and more often than not put the onus of guilt on the latter, the radical maintains that it was "America's prime responsibility for imposing the cold war on a war-torn world".^^2^^
The radical democrat is against cold war because it is a source of internal crisis and a potential source of another world war. The cold war, said the Port Huron Statement, "poisoned and corroded all aspects of intellectual activity. To it were sacrificed the essential ingredients of democratic process---free debate, the right to dissent, political engagement and controversy. And its final outcome was a balance of terror so precarious and so infinitely dangerous that, in the end, all interests and all security were in jeopardy.''^^3^^
His own experience brought it home to the radical democrat that in present conditions detente was the only sensible alternative to cold war and to the arms race which not only consumed collosal funds but also kept the world constantly in a state of tension. At the same time, the radical democrat was of two minds in his attitude towards the Soviet Union and most other socialist countries. The existing socialism he saw as a centralized ``system'' built on the ``dictates'' of the Communist Party and the State, denying the individual personal freedom and detaching the people from power.
Still, he refuses to back the officially sanctioned tactic of international pressure under cover of ethical slogans. He was critical of the "human rights" campaign the Carter Administration used as a means of pressure and blackmail against the socialist countries. No, certainly, the radical democrat is not against subordinating foreign policy to moral principles. In the past ten or fifteen years, nobody in America has been more insistent than he to secure such subordination, and nobody more zealous in _-_-_
~^^1^^ Zinn, op. cit., p. 51.
^^2^^ Robert W. Tucker, The Radical Left and American Foreign Policy, Baltimore, 1971, p. 11.
^^3^^ The Neu> Left..., p. 173.
237 championing human rights. But the radical democrat, as we have already noted, is against violence in international relations, even if that violence is said to protect the moral principles he reveres.The radical democrat has no social ideal outside the United States he would wish to follow in the struggle for a democratic America. True, he has always been in sympathy with the developing countries, which are trying to carry out (as America once did) a revolution and to create new values different from those cultivated by corporate capitalism. But he has always been realistic enough to avoid the aim of reconstructing American society on "third world" lines. The only thing the radical democrat wants is to blend the revolutionary inspiration and political enthusiasm of the young countries of Asia and Africa with the material achievements of his highly industrialized capitalist state, and thereby---come to the society bequeathed by the American 18th-century Enlighteners.
Problems of political strategy and tactics. The radical democrat's strategic aim is to secure a thorough reconstruction of American society, which he sometimes describes as a ``revolution''. While evading the job of charting an integral positive program, he merely stresses that this ``revolution'' should align the institutions of society with "human nature'', and assert the principles of true democracy, humanism and goodwill.
But the reconstruction must be carried out by none other than the people themselves. Furthermore, the conversion to people's power must not be violent, and must follow democratic procedure. "In social change or interchange,'' says the Port Huron Statement, "we find violence to be abhorrent because it requires generally the transformation of the target, be it a human being or a community of people, into a depersonalized object of 'hate. It is imperative that the means of violence be abolished and the institutions---local, national, international---that encourage nonviolence as a condition of conflict be developed.''^^1^^ The orientation on nonviolence remains an important feature distinguishing the radical-democratic consciousness from other, in many ways related, types of consciousness, notably the radical-rebellious.
It would be right to note, however, that the practice of protesting prompted the radical democrat of the '60s and '70s to certain modifications. He advanced the slogan of nonviolent revolution envisaging not only nonviolent civil disobedience but also direct confrontation _-_-_
^^1^^ The New Left..., p. 168.
238 with the Establishment. The question of "nonviolent revolution" was debated in the America of the '60s in various mass movements and at different levels. One example is the speech of John Lewis, president of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, in August 1963 (The New Left..., pp. 100--02). Another is Staughton Lynd's article, " Coalition Politics or Nonviolent Revolution" in Liberation (June/July 1965). "So long as revolution is pictured as a violent insurrection,'' Lynd writes, "it seems to me both distasteful and unreal; the traditional alternative, the Social Democratic vision of electing more and more radical legislators until power passes peacefully to the Left, seems equally illusory.'' Lynd sees a different strategy: "One can now begin to envision a series of nonviolent protests which would from the beginning question the legitimacy of the Administration's authority where it has gone beyond constitutional and moral limits, and might ... culminate in the decision of hundreds of thousands of people to recognize the authority of alternative institutions of their own making" (The New Left..., p. 199).Viewing "nonviolent revolution" as a drawn-out process culminating in the transfer of all authority to the people, the radical democrat maintains that an essential condition for the scheme to work is organizing at grassroots level. This calls for "direct action" aimed at handling concrete problems outside the conventional political channels.
``Direct action" has all the more meaning for the radical democrat, because he sees it as a practical materialization of the propagated idea of "nonrepressive politics": the activist who organizes the masses within an educational establishment, a factory, community, and the like, does not seek power, des not manipulate the people, does not impose bureaucratic solutions from above. Since he sees a political party as an elitist bureaucratic organization divorced from the people, standing above the people and inhibiting the people's initiative, he is in principle opposed to any party as a leading and organizing force in politics. This does not mean, however, that he is opposed to all political organization as such. At certain times, indeed, he felt the need for it strongly. But to avoid becoming a "bureaucratic structure'', local organizations should be formed only at times of necessity, and their governing bodies should be elective and subject to regular reelection. As for the central political organization, it should confine itself mainly to educational, coordinating and organizational functions, and should on no account arrogate the right to making decisions of 239 vital importance for the people. The vanguard organization should consist of activists who go to the people, study their problems, carry on political education, help the people organize, but in so doing leave them complete freedom in making vitally important decisions.
The history of the radical protest of the '60s and '70s saw two lines in the tactics of the democrat which he followed in pursuit of nonviolent revolution. One line was to rely on "direct action" and the principles of participatory democracy to create within the existing society new democratic structures (parallel institutions, counterinstitutions, alternative institutions or, in short, a counter-society) which could for a start---during the peculiar diarchy---put the Establishment under their control, and later strip it of all real political power. Tom Hayden, though admitting that "it is hard to imagine this kind of revolutionary process in the United States'', offerred as a kind of intellectual experiment a scenario of the first stage of such a nonviolent revolution: "This means building institutions outside the established order which seek to become the genuine institutions of the total society. Community unions, freedom schools, experimental universities, community-formed police review boards, people's own anti-poverty organization fighting for federal money, independent union locals---all can be `practical' pressure points from which to launch reform in the conventional institutions while at the same time maintaining a separate base and pointing towards a new system. Ultimately, this movement might lead to a Continental Congress called by all the people who feel excluded from the higher circles of decision-making in the country. This Congress might even become a kind of second government, receiving taxes from its supporters, establishing contact with other nations, holding debates on American foreign and domestic policy.''^^1^^
Though aware that most Americans were not prepared to accept the idea of an "alternative society'', the radical democrat of the '60s and '70s held that it was in principle feasible because of America's historical traditions and, chiefly, because the average American was fed up with the ``system'' and therefore liable to back radical change. The radical democrat thereby rejected the thought that the populace, though dissatisfied with the ``system'', could nevertheless (for a number of reasons) continue to support it. And that, perhaps, is one of the most vulnerable tactical and strategic areas in the democratic consciousness, for it _-_-_
~^^1^^ The New Left..., p. 208.
240 elite to control society depends far less than before on the spontaneous (i.e., unorganized) discontent of the masses.The other tactic on which the radical democrat thought he could rely in carrying out nonviolent revolution was gradual infiltration of radical organizers and groups in the existing social and political institutions. Though on the face of it this tactic was contrary to the radical's strategic, philosophical and political outlook, he accepted it as consonant with his radicalism because it was designed, in the final analysis, to secure a gradual inner reconstruction of traditional institutions, which could be used to rally the masses against the existing society and, thereupon, to carry forward nonviolent revolution.
It is safe to say, on the whole, that for the radical the tactics of that revolution remained an open question, as did the technique of a democratic exercise of power.
Though the radical democrat maintained (and with good reason) that the vast majority of Americans were exposed to violence on the part of the ruling elite, and though he believed that in favorable circumstances that majority would back the principle of people's power, he was continuously troubled by the question of who would finally stand in the lead of the struggle for a "truly democratic America''. He scorned the idea of the "old left" that the working class was the historical subject of change because from his point of view the workers had "assimilated the dominant values'', had "integrated with the Establishment" and therefore wanted no radical reconstruction of American society.
But the radical democrat did not entirely write off possible alliance with the working class, for he was conscious of the changes within it stemming, among other things, from the change of generations and the accompanying change of value orientations.
Still, the radical democrat's main attention was elsewhere. Unlike the rebel radical who pinned his political hopes on those "outside the system'', he was betting chiefly on those who, while still "within the system'', were likely to drop out of it, who faced undesirable change of social status, who were displeased with the system and yearned for democratic correctives.
In the '60s, the radical democrat was inclined to believe that this applied above all to the needy part of America's white population. "There is an unstated assumption,'' wrote Staughton Lynd, "that the poor, when they find voice, will produce a truer, sounder radicalism than any which alienated_intell£ctuals might prescribe.''^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ The New Left..., p. 229.
__PRINTERS_P_241_COMMENT__ 16--34 241Contacts and work with the poof, however, dampened the radical democrat's optimism. He found, among other things, that many of them tended to blame their sad plight on their own failings rather than the imperfections of the system, and that they tended to seek relief not in " solidarity of the distressed" and not in any radical change, but in marshalling their own enterprise and initiative. He also found that his idea of the poor man's immunity to the dominant values was an illusion.
True, the radical democrat continued to regard the poorest sections as one of the mainsprings of radical action, but relied far more on the youth, notably the students, to whom, in many cases, he himself belonged.
He considered the university a microcosm of American society: it was similarly anangecl and had the same problems--- bureaucrati/ation, manipulation, authoritarianism and, as a result, the same alienation. This, he assumed, made the students an oppressed group and nourished their sense of involvement in the acutest problems of American society.
In short, the radical democrat of the '60s and '70s staked his plans on forces that, as past experience showed, might indeed participate in revolution, but were not really able to carry it out and establish a new system of social relations without the working class.
In the '60s and '70s, the radical-democratic consciousness had a broader social base in America than the other leit-radic.al types: many democratically minded workers, petty bourgeois and intellectuals who had earlier backed the liberals, were disappointed in the latter's policy and shifted to radical-democratic positions. Today, too, though the influence of the left-radical consciousness has declined owing to the shift to the right, the radical-- democratic type is still (though on a smaller scale than ten years ago) the most representative type of left radicalism with dee]) roots in the national tradition.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. RADICAL-REBELLIOUS CONSCIOUSNESSGeneral characteristics and genesis. The radical-- rebellious consciousness is the most militant and pathetic of the left-radical types. The rebel rejects the democrat's idea of nonviolent revolution. He insists on a clean break (by violent, including armed, means) with dominant institutions and values of American society (even on their destruction) in the name of a ``free'', ``nonrepressive'' society.
Rebel radicalism is historically a derivative of the radical-democratic consciousness. Its evolution was spurred 242 in the 1960s and '70s by the massive protest movements that gave impulse to rebel forms of action contained in embryo in the consciousness of the radical-democratic type. As a radical once admitted, there was always a sense of embitterment and fury behind the outer optimism of those who took part in the civil rights movement (mostly blacks of radical-democratic views). Breaking to the surface, this sense of embitterment and fury altered the radical's line of behavior, converting the ``democrat'' into a ``rebel'', and changing the very object of critical action. Initially, the suppressed bitterness and anger of the blacks over their segregated condition, their inability to penetrate the Establishment and gain access to what whites had in abundance, stimulated action to tear down the partitions that kept them on the foringes of the "welfare state''. Then, breaking to the surface after long and futile attempts to win, their feelings nourished hate of the `` system'' (since they saw that the partitions would not fall until the ``system'' fell too) and gave a powerful umpulse to rebellion.
In 1967 the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders stated in its report: "The frustrations of powerlessness have led some Negroes to the conviction that there is no effective alternative to violence as a means of achieving redress of grievances and of 'moving the system'. These frustrations are reflected in alienation and hostility toward the institutions of law and government and the white society which controls them, and in the reach toward racial consciousness and solidarity reflected in the slogan 'Black Power'.''^^1^^
An analogous evolution occurred within the mass protest movements consisting mainly of whites. Disaffection of specific institutions or political programs and the failure of their attempts to change the state of affairs by nonviolent action developed in the long run into disaffection of the system as a whole and prompted many of the radical democrats to opt for rebellion. "The failure of legal and non-violent protests to eradicate social injustice coupled with the unexpected rigidity of the corporate liberal establishment drove young activists towards greater militancy... The civil rights movement became a struggle for black liberation; anti-poverty crusades produced opposition to the capitalist system and its welfare-warfare offspring; the peace movement gave rise to an anti-- imperialist consciousness.''^^2^^ Tom Hayden believed that many of _-_-_
~^^1^^ /inn, op. c'it., pp. 145-4(i.
^^2^^ Weatherman. Ed. by Harold Jacobs, N.Y., 1970. p. ii.
243 the Weatherman leaders had been formed by the 1968 events in Chicago. "When our legal protest was clubbed down, they became outlaws,'' he wrote. "When our pitiful attempts at peaceful confrontation were overwhelmed, they adopted the tactic of offensive guerrilla violence.''^^1^^In sum, the typical rebel radical of the '60s and '70s was a former radical democrat who, frustrated and embittered, abandoned many of his previous attitudes. He could also, of course, be a former liberal or former socialist. But in all cases, the reason for the shift to new positions was his disappointment in the strategy and tactics of his previous critical action and his desire to secure the set goal at any price. "Confronted with such ' failures','' wrote Kenneth Keniston, "the radical inevitably becomes cynical. His is not the cynicism of a man without ideals, but the cynical `realism' of one who progressively learns how difficult it is to implement the nominal ideals of his society. His cynicism about the power structure inevitably pushes him farther away from traditional politics, toward more `radical' tactics (in particular, tactics of resistance and confrontation), and toward efforts to create a 'power base' in the community that will eventually force the implementation of the principles that seem to him so unquestionably right.''^^2^^
The genetic link between the two types of consciousness explains the many points of contact between the radical democrat and the rebel, especially in their attitude towards modern American society and in diagnosing its ills. But the democrat and the rebel fell out substantially over the strategy and tactics of political action, which, in turn, affected their disparate ideological orientation.
The rebel type of consciousness which surfaced in America in the 1960s and '70s derived from a wide range of sources. Among these were the very same traditions that nourished the radical-democratic consciousness. On the other hand, the rebel consciousness absorbed some of the fundamental propositions of the American radical sociology (C. Wright Mills, Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse) and reproduced them, as a rule, in a mass and hence vulgar form with a slight admixture of the European critical theory of society (Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Jean-Paul Sartre).
The radical-rebellious consciousness also reflected some aspects of the non-Marxist conceptions of socialism that appeared in recent decades in the framework of the national _-_-_
~^^1^^ Weatherman. Ed. by Harold Jacobs, N.Y., 197(1, p. 2.
^^2^^ Keniston, Young Radicals. Notes on Committed Youth, N. Y 1968, p. lf)8.
244 liberation movements in Asia and Africa. Maoism exercised considerable influence on the formation of the American left radicalism of the '60s and '70s, some of its theses fitting easily into the rebel consciousness. The matter did not hinge on Maoism, however, whose influence was accidental in the historical sense, but on the fact that the radical-rebellious consciousness in a country like America needed an outside revolutionizing stimulant, political as well as ideological.A certain part in moulding the rebel consciousness (and, for that matter, other radical types as well) was played by some of the theoretical postulates of the bourgeois apologist sociology, steeped as it was in optimism and proclaiming the advent in America of the ``postindustrial'' era said to offer new opportunities for man's emancipation. It was against the background of these claims that the rebel consciousness took shape, reposing on the notion that any Utopia was now practicable and that people had to be helped to realize this and to be inspired with a "will for power''.
Finally, the ideological substratum of the radical-- rebellious consciousness of the '60s and '70s included elements of Marxist-Leninist theory. The rebels, of course, were no Marxists-Leninists (though they claimed to be at times), but many of them were impelled by the wish to use MarxismLeninism (often in vulgarized form) and even to rely on some of its postulates. And we must not rule out the likelihood that this wish to use Marxist-Leninist theory may work as a substantial factor in moulding later forms of the radical-rebellious consciousness in America.
The heterogeneous nature of the rebel ideological substratum is less an evidence of eclecticism than an organic expression of the intrinsic heterogeneity of the rebel consciousness, typified by its changing attitudes to the strategy and tactics of negating the social system. But despite their diversity, the sub-types are brought together (partly also with other types of the radical consciousness) by certain common ideas and attitudes concerning the domestic and external policies of the United States.
Problems of domestic and foreign policy. By and large, the rebel radical shares the view of the radical democrat about the "American system"---its genesis, structure, and basic functions. But his critical attitude is more irreconcilable and sharper. For him the ``system'' is not simply imperfect. He hates it, and strives to effect a break with it. The rebel's criticism of the ``system'' lays the accent on the state as its nucleus, and within the state on the state's repressive agencies.
245To be sine, any mass critical consciousness tends to accentuate some single element of the complex mechanism (even to reduce it to that element), whether a corporation, state, ``technocracy'', and so on, that is more easily verified through personal experience and that embodies in concentrated form the main properties of that mechanism (from the point of view of the consciousness concerned).
The rebel lays the accent on the state as a mechanism of repression because he singles out its repressiveness from among all the other properties of the ``system''. And the modern American state he considers to be the most typical of all repressive mechanisms in existence.
And it is true that in his confrontation with the `` system'', the rebel has come hard up against not the corporations and not the ``technocracy'', but the bourgeois state or, more precisely, against the state's repressive machinery, which only hardened his ideas about the repressiveness of the ``system'' and about the role of the state in that `` system''. "Whenever we attack the system,'' Huey Newton said, "the first thing the administrators do is to send out their strong-arm men... They don't come themselves. They send their protectors. So to deal with the corrupt exploiter you are going to have to deal with his protector, which is the police who take orders from him.''^^1^^ A significant part in reaching this conclusion has been played by the rebel's feeling (especially if he is a black or a member of some other oppressed minority) of being a victim of the ``system'', which he therefore looks upon with the eyes of a victim, especially sensitive to the dividing lines and contrasts. It remains to be added that the judgements of the rebel radical, which he arrived at through his own harrowing experiences, were backed by the corresponding theoretical postulates of the "critical theory of society" which stressed the repressive nature of ``neocapitalism''.
In principle, the rebel agrees with the radical democrat about the crisis of the democratic institutions and values of American society. But he feels his powerlessness more acutely than the democrat, and therefore declares the democratic institutions to be not merely ineffective but a pure fiction that acts as a screen for repression: the state (the ``system'' as a whole) recognizes and tolerates opposition only to the point where it begins to tangibly endanger the ruling class. The moment the opposition creates such a danger, the ``system'' brutally suppresses it. In other words, the real capability and effectiveness of the opposition is first artificially _-_-_
~^^1^^ The .Vfir /.</( Rentier. Kd. by Carl Ofrlesby, N.Y.. 1969. p. 229.
246 restricted and then reduced to nought. This situation is registered in the conception of "repressive tolerance".^^1^^For the ``system'' to survive, the rebel radical holds, it must permanenly suppress racial, ethnic and other social groups, such as the poor, such as women, such as a certain segment of immigrants. And his reaction is especiallysharp to racism, which he regards as "internal colonialism" or "internal imperialism" directed first and foremost against America's black population, the "black colony" within the USA. And since racism, as the rebel radical sees it, is rooted in the fundamental institutions of the American society and state, it cannot be stamped out by any of the legal mechanisms of the bourgeois state ( Congress, Supreme Court) or any policy of integration, but only by first stamping out the ``system''.
For the rebel radical the repressive nature of the American state is also brought into evidence by its acting as the legal mechanism safeguarding unequal opportunities--- in politics and in the social field, as well as in the economy. Examining the social policy of the state, and specifically the programs aimed at creating a welfare state, the rebel has arrived at the firm conclusion that it cannot bring about any true redistribution of social wealth or eliminate economic and social distinctions. As for the concessions that were wrested from the ``system'' in spite of the state's policy, they failed to improve the situation in substance and only blunted the critical consciousness of citizens by breeding reformist illusions.
The rebel radical wants the principle of equal opportunities to be effective in American society. But both the essence of the prevailing ``system'' and the policy of the American state and, primarily, the actual inequality of conditions in which members of various social groups find themselves, turn that principle, in effect, into a safeguard of the status quo. This has compelled the rebel to renounce it in favor of another, Utopian, principle of equal results. After two hundred years of inequality, this principle would guarantee unequal opportunities in favor of the oppressed groups (i.e., provide for a certain redistribution in favor of the victim) and would in the American environment boil down to a factual equality of opportunity.
To be sure, while fighting for the principle of equal results as a form securing factual equality of opportunity, the rebel radical is aware deep in his heart that it is wholly illusory. He knows perfectly well that the _-_-_
^^1^^ Si-c- Robert Paul Wold, Bat ]inKtori Me
.1 (')ititjiti' of /'(nr lolt'riintf. Hoston, 19(if>.
101 e, |T.. Herbert Man use.
Hence the rebel's conclusion that a revolutionary should have nothing to do with the modern American state, because any attempt to use the existing democratic mechanisms in the struggle for people's power would, far from succeeding, only contribute to the perpetuation of repression. The existing state merits one thing only: total negation. And since the radical-rebellious consciousness is largely attuned to the anarchist idea that the authoritarianbureaucratic tendencies which the rebel abhors are less the result of the dominant bourgeois social relations and mainly an ingrained quality of a strong state as such, he envisages achievement of the humane alternative not through destroying the bourgeois state but, more often than not, as a total negation of the state as regulator of social relations, as the imperative of establishing "direct democracy''.
The rebel knows that creating a free society involves revolutionary negation of the ``system'' as a whole, because repression is exercised not only by the state and not only by main force. He is aware of the permanent ``quiet'' suppression of the individual and the cultivation of the `` onedimensional'' conformist by the state jointly with the corporations through the consumer mechanism. The individual, as the rebel assumes, is artificially burdened with consumer needs that prevent the making of a free, autonomous personality with a keen socio-critical consciousness. "The individual becomes enmeshed in this structure of artificial wants. More and more, the individual, in obediently supporting his economy, surrenders areas of autonomy. The system's demands on him, the stereotyped and standardized forms of amusement, leisure activity and pleasure, block out any possibility for the development of individual interests, needs and desires.''^^1^^
And since the manipulation of wants is exercised through society's cultural apparatus which embodies certain properties and functions of the ``system'', the critical attitude of the rebel radical extends to that apparatus as well (which includes the higher school, the mass media, and advertising), to science and technology, and to the principles of ``rationality'' and ``efficiency'' lying at their root.
All the types of the radical consciousness have brooded over the subject of manipulation---manipulation of _-_-_
^^1^^ ``All We Are Saying...'', p. 31.
248 individuals, groups, and society as a whole. The rebel lays stress on the repressive nature of manipulation, and on the artificiality of the wants imposed on people. The activity of the ``system'' he views, in effect, as corruption of the originally pure human nature which accepts the prevailing way of life only insofar as it is forced to do so. That the individual can be happy in the existing society, and that its values and standard wants can be to his liking and can conform with his interests and orientations, is categorically ruled out. To be sure, the rebel does not deny the possibility that this self-experience exists, but he questions the genuineness of such happiness. In general, as we have already observed, the rebel nurses the thought of total repression in modern American society: the prevailing morality is shot through with the spirit of authoritarianism and market competition, and is repressive; the family is repressive for it reposes on this morality; art is repressive, having forfeited the "critical dimension'', ana so is reason itself, upon which the whole edifice of bourgeois civilization is built.And a specific, characteristic and visible token of the repressiveness of the ``system'' the rebel radical sees in US foreign policy. He is firmly convinced that America is trying to prevent revolutionary change in the world (and would not stick at force in doing so) and seeks to saddle other nations with arrangements suiting the interests of American imperialism.
To prove the aggressiveness of America's foreign policy, the rebel, like other radicals, refers to the history of US foreign relations from the 1940s through the '60s and notably, of course, to the US aggression in Vietnam.
The rebel agrees in principle that on the general humanitarian plane war is an evil. But he stresses that the social critic's attitude to war and peace should always take into account that so long as capitalism survives, wars are inevitable. And since this is so, every new revolutionary war is to be viewed as a catalyst of the revolutionary process and, in that sense, as a positive development.
For the rebel radical, US policy towards the developing countries is a special manifestation of aggressiveness: it is neocolonialism it is racist, it is directed not only to economic exploitation but also to subordinating the countries concerned to the great-power interests of the USA and to suppressing their national culture.
It will be proper to note here that the vehemence of the radical of the '60s and '70s in opposing the expansionist US policy in Asian, African and Latin American countries 249 stemmed in many ways from his own interest in the "third world'', which lie associated in his mind with the struggle of the oppressed masses for freedom, antibureaut rac y and many other values---genuine and imagined---whose absence in the United States he felt so keenly. The picture of the "noble savage'', which had once inspired Europe, came to the aid of radical America (though, of course, in a much transformed shape) in the '60s and '70s, when it looked upon the "third world" not only as a source of moral inspiration but also as an important factor of the humanitarian transformation of its highly advanced capitalist society.
The rebel radical was still more critical of, if not to say hostile to, the Soviet Union and other countries of the socialist community than the radical democrat. He compared the social relations and institutions in those countries with his abstract ideals of free, democratic society and, failing to discover full identity between them, rejected the existing socialism as a social ideal and a revolutionary force of our time. More, he held that to build ``genuine'' socialism in those countries called for a new, antibureauc ratic revolution whereby power would pass into the hands of "the people''. That is why he backed those forces in the socialist countries which, as he conceived it, would help to carry this out.
But the rebel radical also rejected anticommunism both in US domestic and foreign policy, seeing it as a gross infringement on every nation's right to choose its own form of governance. It was easy, it is true, to find among the rebels of the '60s and '70s outspoken devotees of the "the worse, the better" principle and, therefore, opponents of any relaxation of international tensions. But most of them rejected the cold war in favor of detente, though at bottom convinced that any far-reaching and stable change of American domestic and foreign policy was impossible so long as the ``system'' survived.
The rebel radical did not expect his criticism to yield any practical results. Nor did he put any faith in possible governmental reforms that might in some way influence the foreign-policy line of the United States. He pinned all his hopes on a radical restructuring of American society.
Problems of political strategy and tactics. The only wayhe saw of recasting the existing society was to effect a clean break with the ``system'', that is, to refuse to work in the framework of the existing institutions or to accept the dominant values. This would, in the end, destroy the ``system''. That, indeed, was the meaning of the Great Refusal referred to in the '60s by Marcuse, who on a philosophical plane defined the essence of the rebel 250 radical's attitude to the "repressive world''.
But what is the radical's negation to repose upon if all organization is authoritarian, all ideology repressive, and God does not exist? On himself and only on himself, on his experience, his senses, his intuition. It is easily seen that this posture is consonant with the traditional market individualism. But to go deeper into the substance of the matter, it is not a throwback to individualist enterprise of the era of free competition. No, it is a protest against the individual's subordination to the entity that towers over him, whether state or market, and a protest that expresses the aspiration to an integral personality, to social harmony built upon the negation of repression.
This is borne out by the rebel radical's view of the social ideal. He offers no articulate social alternative for he assumes that any such act would in itself be `` repressive'' since it would inevitably bear the imprint of the existing society. But that does not mean that he has no social ideal at all. Antiprognosis, as we know, does not prevent the formation of social ideals. It only makes them Utopian. The rebel is by nature a dreamer and Utopian. But his positive ideal is frequently nothing but a plain negation of the dominant ideals and values.
He pictures free society as "decentralized, anarchistically self-regulating communities, controlled from below and free of class relationship''. For these to function, there must be a "radical reconstruction of human experience around `de-alienated' social principles, such as personal openness, mutual aid, and face-to-face encounter".^^1^^
Unlike the radical democrat, who sets his sights on nonviolent revolution as a drawn-out and multifarious process, the rebel radical associates the making of nonrepressive society with a forcible recasting of the ``system'' (which he also calls ``revolution''). He is deeply convinced that an order founded on violence can be changed only by violence (``counter-violence'').
But within the rebel consciousness of the 1960s and '70s there were differences (above all over the tactic of violence) which distinguished the rebel activist and the rebel extremist as relatively independent sub-types of the radical-rebellious consciousness.
The rebel activist preferred nonarmed violence, and was oriented on such negation of the existing society as would allow for the retention of some elements of the negated object and their subsequent integration in the _-_-_
^^1^^ All We Arc .SVivi/iff...''. p. 11.
251 new society. This sub-type tended to proliferate rapidly when radical movements were on the upgrade.The rebel extremist laid his main stake on armed force and was oriented on total negation of the existing society. We find a good example of total negation in Mark Rudd, a left-radical activist who later opted for political terrorism. He took an active part in the seizure of Columbia University, and later related how at one meeting Professor Alan Silver (``a good liberal who always considered himself a radical'') asked him: "Mr. Rudd, is there nothing in the university worth saving?" Rudd recalled: "Had I been as sure then as I was several weeks later, after much study, experience, and discussion, the answer No would have come readily.''^^1^^ Violence was regarded not merely as a means of resolving immediate political tasks, but also as "the best means of creating revolutionary consciousness among the mass of American people".^^2^^ This sub-type was not, as a rule, widespread in American society. But at the peak of the mass protest movements, rebel extremists often became influential in them. It was from their midst that terrorists came.
Since the activist and extremist alike were oriented on a break with the ``system'' and society, they both felt themselves internally free of society, of its norms, principles and laws. But since the measure of their break was dissimilar, so was the feeling of this illusory freedom. The extremist, whose sights were set on total break, also felt more alone and more free, but all the tenser was the conflict between his social senses and the reality, and all the more tragic was his political fate.
The extremist is not necessarily a terrorist. This should be stressed, because one keeps running into people who ignore the intrinsic distinction between the rebel (and generally radical) consciousness and rebel behavior. As a result, the "left radical" is identified with the `` rebel'', the ``rebel'' with the ``extremist'', and the `` extremist'' with the ``terrorist''. However, the terrorist is a rebel extremist who has isolated himself from the outside world, a loner in despair. He acts on the principle of "the worse, the better" and functions, as a rule, in the framework of a small (underground or semi-underground) group. He follows the tactic of conspiracy and armed provocation, seeking to unbalance the ``system'', compel it to redouble repression, and thereby, as he thinks, facilitate the making of a revolutionary situation. The extremist acts differently. He rejects the tactic of terrorism, _-_-_
~^^1^^ The New Left Render, p. 300.
~^^2^^ Weatherman, p. 8.
252 and seeks to arouse the ``masses'' against the ``system'' so that they would take up arms and destroy it in the process of ``direct'' and ``mass'' revolutionary action.The rebel radical is aware that the readiness of the bulk of Americans to follow him at once in an assault on the ``system'' is far below the maturity of the available material conditions for a "nonrepressive society''. He is therefore faced with the choice of either abandoning his orientation on the "simple strategy of instant revolution"^^1^^ and joining the radical democrat in the painstaking job of "preparing the masses for revolution" (while remaining faithful to his avowed principles of antiauthoritarianism, "direct democracy" and negation of manipulation) or resorting to means that will inevitably contradict the proclaimed goal and would, in effect, be no different from those used by the ``system''.
The rebel radical chooses the latter way, betraying thereby that his consciousness is burdened by certain features typical of the liberal consciousness that he denounces. He does not believe that in due course most Americans will acquire a revolutionary consciousness, and, indeed, simply mistrusts the majority. The majority, he says, is unfree, is unaware of it, and does not therefore aspire to liberation. The majority is culpable (of racism, imperialism, and the like). It cannot save itself, nor can it save the ``sinful'' world. All he can do, therefore, is follow the authoritarian tactic of manipulating the masses, of "making them happy'', of forcing ``new'' values down their throats, that is, follow a tactic that he categorically denounces in his speeches. The only difference is that the manipulation is not by the governing elite but by a "revolutionary vanguard'', that is, by the rebel himself. As a result, violence against the ``system'' is turned into violence against the masses because it is artificial violence unbacked by objective social processes---a violence of a messianic ``revolutionary'' nature. The rebel feels "historically responsible" for the future of America and for that of the entire world, and has therefore to be a living embodiment of the ``true'' wants, the ``true'' ethics, the ``true'' sentiments or, in short, the embodiment of the "new man''. Since he is unable to achieve this ideal he has to turn his violence also against himself and subordinate his own life to the ``revolutionary'' imperative he has himself constructed.
Since he does not expect the majority of Americans, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Weatherman, p. 18.
253 including the working class (whom he declares "integrated in the system''), to support his strategy and tactics, the rebel radical pins his hopes on the ``outsiders'', those who no longer have anything to look forward to, those who have lost all hope. Among these, in the '60s and '70s, he counted the national minorities (above all the "black colony''), the dec lasse elements, part of the jobless, and---on the international scale---the "victims of imperialism'', that is, first of all the countries of the "third world''.This picture of the "agent of revolutionary change" looks natural enough if we recall that the main social base of the rebel radical consists of the very groups in the USA with whom he associates his hope of ``revolution''.
The relatively tranquil development of the socio-- political processes in America in the late '70s may create the impression that the radical-rebellious consciousness has vanished as a mass type. This judgement is correct insofar as it registers the scarcity of this type of consciousness in the United States of the early '80s. But since American society continues, by and large, to reproduce the contradictions that nourish rebel radicalism and the ideological structures that constitute its substratum, we can evidently conclude that the radical-rebellious consciousness still exists as a phenomenon of the mass (nonelitist) consciousness and may, during the next eruption of protest, rapidly gain large dimensions.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. RADICAL-ROMANTIC CONSCIOUSNESSGeneral characteristics and genesis. The radical-romantic consciousness has many features in common with the radicalrebellious type: the same keen and emotional criticism of the ``system'', nourished by humanitarian symbols, and the same orientation on breaking with the Establishment and building a new, nonrepressive society.
But unlike the rebel, the romanticist is a fervent opponent of violence. America's road to a new society, as he conceives it, is not political revolution, which inescapably involves violence, but (to paraphrase Charles A. Reich) a "revolution through culture'', which the romanticist considers a true revolution fitting American conditions. The question "where to begin?" which eternally bedevills philosophers and politicians pondering over the logic of revolutionary action (whether with the ``subject'', i.e., man himself, or the economy, or culture), is answered clear and loud by the romantic radical: the reconstruction of present-day highly developed capitalist society 254 must begin in the cultural sphere, with man, with his mind, his consciousness and senses.
The radical-romantic consciousness has lasting traditions in American culture dating back to the Transcendentalists, who were among the first to subject American capitalism to systematic romantic-Utopian criticism.
This type of consciousness recurred in the United States later too. The beatnik and hipster were its precursors in post-World War II America. But at least three conditions were needed to give it any political influence. First, a high level ol scientific and technological development, which fostered greater material abundance, on the one hand, and enhanced the role of technical experts (the technobureaucracy'') who drove the traditional creative intellectual into the wilderness, on the other. Second, growth of the material wealth of society, a distinct saturation of goods and services, which (even in a setting of obvious inequality) created the impression that the accent might shifted to satisfying the prime spiritual needs. And, third, etatization of social life, which narrowed the existing limits of personal freedom and bred in the intellectual's mind the fear of a "totalitarian threat''.
These (or roughly these) conditions did arise in the American society of the '60s and '70s, when currents directed to a so-called counter culture became fairly widespread within and without the New Left movement. It was largely within those currents that the radical-romantic consciousness took shape.
Fear of a society that swallows the individual, fear of the corporate technocratic slate that establishes control over society, determined the distinctly expressed antietatism of the radical-romantic consciousness. Certainly, it must not be regarded as a consistent form of market consciousness. It rejects the omnipotence of the market as it does the omnipotence of the state, but it does gravitate towards the market and displays objective hostility to state-monopoly capitalism, which is unable to satisfy its pretensions.
Problems of domestic and foreign policy. The emotional charge of radical-romantic criticism is directed above all against the total anonymous ``objectiveness'' concretely associated in the romanticist's mind with the corporate state as the basic element of the existing repressive ``system''.
The state has gained colossal administrative power. It is not only an organizing and stabilizing force, but also a destructive agent eroding nature, society and the individual. "The State, and not the market or the people or anv abstract economic laws, determines what shall be 255 produced, what shall be consumed, and how it shall be allocated,'' writes Charles A. Reich. "Individuals have no protected area of liberty, privacy, or individual sovereignty beyond the reach of the State. The State is subject neither to democratic controls, constitutional limits, or legal regulation.''^^1^^
The contrast drawn here between "abstract economic laws" and the activity of the state is no slip of the pen. While acknowledging the existence of certain economic institutions and relations (and the specific level of society's economic development, as well as of the wellbeing of its citizens) as an objective factor, the radical-romantic consciousness evicts them from the bounds of historical change in American society. It as much as assumes, in other words, that all economic problems have been settled for good and that the country has come to a phase of development in which they and the economic contradictions have faded into the background, giving place to the political, and the political to the cultural. Reich says that in the modern developed meritocratic society, "it is not primarily a question of wages, surplus, and economic exploitation. It is a question of participation in society, of status, authority, and servility, and of the right to a full mental, creative, and emotional life.''^^2^^
These illusory romantic and Utopian notions prompted by official propaganda and readily accepted by the romantic radical as suiting his humanitarian orientation, determined his main angle of attack on the ``system'' in the '60s and '70s.
The romanticist could not care less for the objective economic institutions and relations, though, when occasion demands, he will say he regards the big corporations as a source of social evil and will call for their abolition. The problems of social equality, the racial question, and the questions of war and peace are outside his field of vision, which distinguishes him from the rebel radical. It will not be right to say, however, that the romanticist is blind to the forms of ``repression'' that so incenses the rebel. He is not indifferent to them, but he has his own ideas both of the way society should be changed and of the imperatives facing America. Hence his distinctive attitude to the radical reconstruction of American society. His attention is centered on the inner world of society (i.e., its culture) and the inner world of the individual (i.e., his consciousness), for in these he sees the key _-_-_
^^1^^ Reich, The Greening of America, N. Y., 1970, pp. 93--94.
^^2^^ Ibid., p. 313.
256 to changing the objective world. And the objective world engages his interest only in the context of the changes ihat, as lie set's it, form (or deform) the inner world.For the romantic radical ilie corporate state is above all an administrative agency traceable to the sharp growth of executive power. This power, as he sees it, is handled by experts relying on the achievements of science and technology and guided by the principles of "functional efficiency" and ``rationality''. And this integral system, often described as ``technocracy'', arouses his ire and protest.
Technocracy, he says, is inhuman. It rules with an iron hand and standardizes the life of the individual, integrating him against his will in the hierarchical system at different levels and reducing the sphere of his personal freedom to the minimum. "It specializes in pervasive manipulation rather than top-down dictation, managing deftly to coax a national order out of the seeming chaos of inherited institutions,'' writes Theodore Roszak.^^1^^ Given this system of manipulation, the individual becomes an adjunct of the ``rationally'' organized ``system'', which, however, shows complete indifference to the specific individual and works first and foremost to further its own interests.
The romanticist's hostility to technocracy spreads automatically to those who determine its operation as a social form, that is, to the technocrats, with whom the romanticist has scores to settle for having elbowed the creative intelligentsia out of its former positions of prominence in society. For the romanticist the technocrat is the incarnation of the forces that have brought American society to a crisis and that must be removed from power if that society is to survive.
The political establishment, the institution of legislative, executive and judicial power, is, in effect, disregarded by the radical-romantic consciousness and criticism---partly due to ignorance of how it functions, partly due to reluctance to 'play political games" with it, but chiefly due to his idea that the true road to political reconstruction has to do with the consciousness and culture.
This also explains the absence of an articulate concept of foreign policy. Of course, the romantic radical has his own attitude to questions of war and peace and to US relations with other countries. He backed the radicals of the '60s and early '70s who opposed the US aggression in Vietnam, and demanded an end to the arms race and _-_-_
~^^1^^ Ros/.iik, Where the WnxU'ltiiul f,mA. I`liHl'm nnil ro\lin<lustritil Society, (iurclcn Cily. N.Y., 197.'!, p. 10.
__PRINTERS_P_257_COMMENT__ 17--34 257 democratization of international relations. But he touched on loi cign-pohc v issues only in passing. They were periphc'al io his social involvements.Calling on people to break \viih the "urban-industrial world'', the romanticist o( the 'rids and '70s (like the rebel), was reluctant to otter an articulate social alternative. "But what specifically should it look like, this hi/arre postindustrial alternative? How e\acll\ would it hang together and function.-'" asks Theodore Ros/ak. and adds: "I think only a tool would pretend he could answer that question in am significant detail.''
This, however, did not prevent the romanticist from indulging in reflections about the ideal man and ideal society in the spirit ol the Utopian tradition (though in his own eves he is no Utopian at all). Says Roszak: "Not that I haven't, in the privacy of my own head, done more than a little Utopian brainstorming about the world I think I see on the far side of the urban-industrial wasteland.
``About the proper mix of handcrai'l labor, intermediate technologies, and necessarily heavy industry.
``About the revitali/ation of work as a self-determining, non-exploitative activity---and a means of spiritual growth.
``About a new economics elaborated out of kinship, friendship and co-operation.
``About non-bureauerati/.ed, user-developed, user-- administered social services.
``About the regionali/ation and grass roots control of transport and mass communication...
``About the society-wide co-ordination of worker-- controlled industries and producers' co-operatives.
``About credit unions and mutual insurance as an alternative to the big banks and insurance companies.''^^1^^
The romantic radical is lor a society in which relations would be directed to satisfying the needs that maketor the ``free'' development of the individual. The assumed high level of material development is seen as a premise for turning labor into ``play''. And debureaucrati/ation and decentrali/ation of political institutions, like the clepolitici/ation ol social life, are seen as conditions for making participatory democracy the main decision-making instrument both at community level and at the level of societv as a whole.
In such an environment, the romanticist believes, the individual could gain supreme value and become the aim for which society would work.
As a result, a radical change would come about in the _-_-_
^^1^^ Roszak, op. cit., pp. 395--96.
258 personality structure thanks to the reign of nonrepressive culture. Among other things, sexuality would change into Eros, thus eroding the deep-down psychological roots of political repression. Competition and hostility would give way to mutual love and understanding. Liberated from artificial wants, the individual would throw overboard many of the attributes of his former life as false and redundant, and would establish direct contact with other people, with Nature and God.Problems of political strategy and tactics. In the matter of political strategy and tactics, the romantic radical is a convinced foe of violence (because, as he sees it, it is liable to produce a world still worse than the existing one). The only type of violence the romanticist is inclined to accept is violence by the individual directed against himself as a product and object of the influence exercised by the dominant ethics and ideology. Still, in principle, he does not rule out political revolution based on violence as a tool of social change. But he stresses that, at best, such a revolution would settle problems no longer relevant for America and is therefore itself irrelevant.
What America needs, the romanticist says, is the ``next'' revolution, loftier in aim, which would liberate man from violence on the basis of the material prosperity already attained. "And I do deny,'' writes Roszak, "that this liberation can be achieved automatical!}' by a politics belonging to an earlier historical horizon.''^^1^^ The new, in substance political revolution is to be achieved not by political means (in the traditional sense), but by cultural methods, and doubly so because, as the romanticist points out, the lines between politics, psychology and culture in present-day American society have become indistinct.
The substance of the romanticist's strategy of nonviolent actions is simple: forming a "new culture" (`` counter culture'') as a medium for the nonalienated existence of the individual, and cultivating a "new man" with "true needs'', "nonrepressive ethics" and "new sensibility''.
The romantic radical probably realizes that his objective is extremely difficult to attain (both socially and psychologically). But on the tactical plane he reduces it to a few practical imperatives designed for mass consumption. To begin with, a break with the surrounding society, its institutions, values, priorities, and life style. In so doing it is not at all necessary to "drop _-_-_
^^1^^ Ros/ak. <>[>. (il., ]>. XXII.
259 oul" of society as the hippies did in (heir day. The main thing is the intrinsic break. One can function in society and simultaneously live by one's own interests as a kind ot "internal emigre''. There is also another way---setting up volunteer communes that will mould nonrepi essive relations and cultivate a spirit of respect for the individual and the priority of nonmaterial Values.The break with the dominant culture means turning to a new source that would in the long run give rise to a "new culture" and a "new man''. This new source is `` subjectiveness'' or (he internal experience of the individual. Only by turning to his self, to his own inner world, the romanticist presumes, can the individual develop his free imagination, his intuition and "new sensibility''.
His "new sensibility" would enable the individual to establish contacts with other people on a fundamentally new basis free of competition and greed and directed above all to developing one's inner potentialities. It would also enable him to enter into direct, natural and harmonious contact, free of pragmatic interests, with the surrounding world and nature, and apprehend them in their richness.
One ol the chief means to that end, and to a radical renewal of the world in general, the romanticist considers religion. "It is the energy of religious renewal that will generate the next politics, and perhaps the final radicalism ot our society.''^^1^^
This orientation on breaking with society, with its institutions and morality, the espousal of mysticism and criticism of technocracy, have prompted many an American politician and sociologist to accuse the romantic radical of ``immorality'', ``individualism'' and ``irrationalism''.^^2^^
The romantic radical, however, rejects the charge of irrationalism. He makes clear that he is for liberation not from reason in general, but from a definite type of reason, i.e., from the functional rationalism of the establishment. "That the roots of the new politics are located in the instinctual life, in lived immediacy, in gut moral feelings does not imply, however, that the ne\v politics is a new irrationalism. One must not confuse its repudiation of the chlorophorming, administrative rationality of Establishment politics with a blanket condemnation of reason.'' ("All We Are Saying"..., pp. 16--17).
It would probably be unfair to accuse the romantic radical of wanting to banish rational principles from the life of society. On the other hand, a suspicious attitude to _-_-_
^^1^^ Kos/;ik. op. (il., p. XVIII.
^^2^^ Set- 1). Boll, The Cultural Ctmtratiirlions of Capitalism, N.Y., 197(i.
260 reason is, indeed, present in the nature of the modern romantic consciousness (and has deep loots in the American and world romantic tradition). There are objective reasons for this. One will hardly disagree with the romanticist when he says that 20th-century history abounds in examples when reason not only served antihumanitarian aims, but also acted as the metaphysical basis for them. Social history may some day give the romantic radical cause for a more loyal attitude to reason. But then the present suspiciousness will have to vanish---along with the radical-romantic consciousness (if the latter survives by then as a mass phenomenon).But no matter how history shapes in future, the presentday radical-romantic consciousness is opposed to reason. Naturally so for the radical consciousness, for it leaves no room for the existence of any ``central'' type oriented on a symbiosis of sensuality and rationality. And to rebuke the radical for "lacking a sense of proportion" or for rushing from one extreme to another, is tantamount to rebuking him for being a radical.
This is also borne out by his attitude towards morality and, especially, towards individualism. The romanticist is not ``immoral'' because, in principle, he is not against moral regulation of relations between people. He wants, however, that this regulation should be based not on somemoral imperative, but on a kind of moral instinct that unites one and all. And the romanticist's posture could not be anything else even if he declared the contrary. Still, it is a very shaky position for it to be regarded as an effective foundation for the moral consciousness of a free society.
The romantic radical is no apologist for entrepreneurial individualism. But neither is he a collectivism He would be pleased to find a harmonious form of relationship between the individual and the collective, but today for him such harmony is either illusory or much too local (and transient). In essence, his withdrawal into a commune (usually numerically small) is also a form of individualism (only of a slightly extended variety). And this means that if the romantic radical wants to hang on to his function of social critic, he will have no choice but to hang on to his individualism (possibly without knowing it).
For the romanticist there is no such problem as defining the "agent of social change" because his revolution is to be carried out not by a class, not by a party, and not even by the people: it is to come about by itself as a natural result of the revolution in the consciousness 261 and culture, as a product ol the transformation ol the personality.
This abstract approach to the problems of politics makes I he romantic type of consciousness less practical than other radical types, but gives it greater stability, though it restricts the number of its followers. Its \ ulgar forms (associated with the hippies and yippies) may have won some followers, but were short-lived. But the basic orientations, which are to be traced to the national romantic tradition, survive (albeit in concealed form) even when other forms of radicalism step off the stage.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 5. RADICAL-SOCIALIST CONSCIOUSNESS(General characteristics and genesis. In the past fewdecades the socialist consciousness in America has shaped itself simultaneously within various socio-political movements, and adopted a diversity of forms. In the organized communist movement it exists in the form of the revolutionary socialist consciousness (or scientific socialism) as embodied in the practice of the socialist countries---the Soviet Union and a number of others. The non-Marxist varieties of the socialist consciousness, which oppose themselves directly to Marxism or are substantially different from it, crystallize within bourgeois-democratic movements and processes reposing on the liberal tradition, and take the shape of a reformist (bourgeois) socialism. Then thereis the socialist consciousness that emerged within the mass democratic protest movements with a nonproletarian base and reiving on the intellectual and political tradition of radicalism. We see it as a radical socialism that develops outside the Marxist tradition.
The attitude of American left radicals to socialism is of a complex nature. On the one hand, all types of the radical consciousness of the 1960s and '70s were, in one way or another, stimulated by socialist ideas and imagery. On the other, neither the radical-democratic, nor the rebel, nor the romantic consciousness may be legitimately classed as socialist because many of its elements are out of step with the socialist tradition and because it has no deliberate orientation on charting and implementing the socialist alternative.
Still, there has always been a tendency in the mass democratic movements to search for this alternative and for ways of carrying it into effect. It is nourished by the radical-socialist consciousness, which derives simultaneously from the socialist and the radical tradition.
262Attempts to produce alternative blucpiints of a `` socialist'' America were made in the' '60s and '70s by various disparate' movements and orgam/ations. sue as the New Democratic Movement (which published the newspaper New American Movement in the latter half of the' '70s) and the journal Working Papers for a .Ync Society, among whose contributors arc- some of the former New Left activists. Authors such as Michael Lerner, Staughton Lvncl, Gar Alperovit/ and David Moberg oiler America their particular variants ol socialism.^^1^^
Being out of line' with the Marxist tradition, sometimes even in confrontation with it, these and other authors produce various pictures of ``socialism'' and have different ideas about its essence. It is not surprising, therefore, that the mass political consciousness, too (outside the Marxist orientation), nourishes diverse- ideas of what socialist America could or should be, and of how it is to be achieved. That is why, examining the radicalsocialist consciousness as one of the types of the mass political consciousness in modern America, we will register only a few of its features to produce an overall view.
The socialist radical is usually either a former radical democrat who has understood that the strategy and tactics of "nonviolent revolution" is Utopian, or a former rebel who has admitted defeat but still believes that American society can be changed, and hopes that he will finally find the way to changing it. He addresses the socialist tradition in the hope of finding a new creed, a new strategy and tactics, that would give impulse to reconstruction of American society in a setting of relative stability.
In so doing, the socialist radical tends to rediscover certain truths that were axiomatic for the "old left" but were later jettisoned by the New Left. "We believe...,'' he declaims, "that public ownership and democracy are not irreconcilable; that by moving toward public ownership and coordinated economic planning, popular participation in decision-making can be increased and power can be decentralized.''^^2^^
But on a number of substantive matters (the attitude to the communist movement and the socialist countries, the contradictions in modern American society, and so on) he _-_-_
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Carrying on the tradition of American Utopian socialism, the radical-socialist consciousness reposes on a fairly intricate ideological substratum comprising a mixture of ideas borrowed from the Utopian socialists, from scientific socialism and from ``neo-Marxism'', which, of course, makes for the evolution of its bearers in diverse directions.
Problems o] domestic and foreign policy. In his criticism of modern American society, the socialist radical builds on what he conceives as the totality of the crisis facing America---an economic:, political, social and moral crisis whose concentrated expression he sees in the humanitarian crisis. Here, there is nothing original. Nor is there anything original about the fact that the socialist radical seeks to change the prevailing state of affairs by a thorough reconstruction of society, that is, by revolution. But be conceives revolution differently than other radicals or than Marxists. The socialist radical does not stray from the common view that the ``system'' is the basic target of critical action. But he identifies it with capitalism as a system of social relations reposing on total alienation, that is, on private property and, indeed, on private power. Hence the search for a socialist alternative leading not only to revolution in the system of property but also to a direct, revolutionary change in the conditions of human existence.
Aiming his criticism against capitalism, the socialist radical ultimately associates the total alienation bred by it with the dominance of market relations. He tends to look upon the degree of regulation by the capitalist state as a secondary matter, because, as he sees it, this does not alter the essence of market relations. And their domination inevitably results in that large industrial corporations and banks, which control the market, impose their will on society, concealing this behind demagogical talk about serving national interests.
The socialist radical spurns the liberal-technocratic claim that a "redistribution of wealth" is in train in American society. He does not deny that today workers get a bigger slice of the national pie than, say, half a century ago. But he traces the reason, above all. to the fact that the pie itself has grown bigger. As for the _-_-_
^^1^^ Lerner, op. cit. p. XIV.
264 power of the corporations, it is tending to increase as is their share of the national wealth. The socialist radical rejects the version that control over big corporations is gradually passing into the hands of managers. He stresses, in fact, that as before power is held entirely by the owners of large fortunes, and that private property is still the essential (though not the only) element in the foundation on which the edifice of modern American society reposes. Henee also his moderate view of the governmental social programs which, as the socialist radical holds, cannot and never will abolish inequality. "For, despite all the rhetoric,'' writes Lerner, "the most persistent and successful applicants for public assistance in the American 'welfare state' have not been the poor. They have been the corporate giants of the private enterprise system.''^^1^^But while emphasizing the class implications of the state's social policies, the socialist radical does not call for any boycott of the state's social welfare program nor for ending the fight for further state or corporate concessions to the working people. On the contrary, the broader and the more active the struggle, he holds, the better it is for the working people, and for the cause of socialist revolution. First, because the working people gain experience in social struggle and added faith in the effectiveness of joint action. Second, because they will, consequently, later be able to concentrate their effort in other, more crucial areas of the fight against capitalism. But the socialist radical spurns the idea that the struggle and the resultant reforms will ever lead to "economic democracy''. Capitalism would never permit such democracy for that is tantamount to its suicide.
The socialist radical is aware of the abyss between declared ideals and the existing laws, which are all too often formal and have a restricted' field of operation. But he never suggests abandoning struggle for the practical exercise of the bourgeois rights and freedoms (though he does not believe it can succeed), and likewise never suggests that the masses should confine themselves to this struggle alone. The main aim of his fight for democracy, as the socialist radical sees it, is to bring it home to Americans that freedom, equality and justice are attainable exclusively through revolutionary reconstruction of American society.
The socialist radical agrees with the rebel that the average American today is a passive object of manipulation by the spontaneous and the organi/ed forces of capitalist _-_-_
^^1^^ Lerner, op. cit. p. 29.
265 society: the' market, the < orponitions and (he Male, and that the needs imposed upon the .American are (at least partly) artificial, and some even aiiiihiiinane and in substance repressive. But unlike the rebel, he maintains that in the context of capitalist civili/ation they ma\ be regarded as ``genuine''. "For, within the context of the contemporary capitalist system,'' wiiics I.erner, "people do need certain consumer goods in order to survive. Given that the interests of the oil and auto companies in the continuation of private transportation make the expansion of mass transit extremely unlikely, manv workers do need cars if they are to get to work... Without public facilities for cooking, washing clothes, storing food, raising children, people do need their own stoves, washing machines, refrigerators, children's tovs, and clothing, etc:. So people don't consume just because of false needs, but because of needs peculiar to a capitalist form of social organi/ation.''^^1^^This approach to the origin and satisfaction of needs, one of the most acute issues dealt with by the critical consciousness in the past two decades, seems to be sounder and more promising than, say, the rebel radical's or romantic radical's. The socialist radical wants to build a bridge between the present and the future, something that the rebel radical opposes most vehemently. And even if, here and there, he idealizes the communal alternative, this is far less damaging in the present circumstances than the orientation on total break with society or on total refusal to articulate a socio-political alternative.
Though the radical-socialist consciousness does not confine itself to solely domestic problems, its involvement in matters of foreign policy, and the scale of its critical analysis, are interior to that of the radical-democratic or rebel consciousness which seeks outside sources and stimulants of change in America.
The socialist radical is against anticommunism both of the ``internal'' and ``external'' varieties, for he sees it, and rightly so, as a tool of the reactionary ruling class not only against communism, but also against bourgeois democracy (the memories of McCarthv ism are still fresh in the radical's mind). But he is often a prey to anticommunist prejudices actively disseminated by bourgeois propaganda, and is critical of the experience (save perhaps in the economic field) of most of the socialist countries. While denouncing the market as a universal mechanism of social regulation, which blocks (he people's access to _-_-_
^^1^^ Lerner, op. cit. p. 38.
266 power, he is no less opposed to the forms of state in the socialist countries, which he mistakenly identifies with etatism and bureaucracy. True, unlike the rebel who rejects the existing socialism out of hand, the socialist radical finds countless historical factors that explain (and in a way even justify) the emergence of the forms of socialism he rejects (moved, seemingly, by a sense of guilt, for he declares his allegiance to the socialist idea in no uncertain terms). To be sure, this does not alter the socialist radical's general conclusion that the socialist countries cannot be a historical example the American `` revolutionary'' should follow. And that tends to undermine his position substantially and, in effect, to confuse him in the search of America's road to socialism.It is not amiss to note, however, that the socialist radical is more consistent than the rebel and more thorough than the democrat in stigmatizing the expansionist ( imperialist) essence of US foreign policy. He condemns what he calls the ``liberal-demagogical'' claim that US foreign policy is motivated by the imperative of defending "the interests of the American nation" against communism. The objective of combatting communism, he admits, does play a certain part in the making of the country's course in foreign affairs. But, as he points out, it is stimulated not by defense of the nation's interests but by those of the Establishment, which considers world communism a rival on the international scene. Second, the objective of combatting world communism is not the main reason behind American expansionism, which has its roots in the nature of capitalism. And that dashes all hope that the USA would, without a radical recasting at home, be able one day to change the principles of its foreign-policy line (save for transient fluctuations).
This element of his thinking explains the socialist radical's misgivings about the outlook for detente or, more precisely, the ability of the United States to carry detente forward with any degree of consistency. The function of detente (as the American side conceives it), lie holds, is to amend the preceding years of US anticommunist policy, giving the American businessman an opportunity, which has now become essential, to do business with the Soviet Union and some of the other socialist countries. It is the drive for more profit plus the adversary's military power that will, in the socialist radical's view, continue to prompt the American ruling element towards detente. And though detente is by itself a good thing and deserving of support, he warns against putting loo much trust in it because capitalism will forever retain its expansionist nature.
267For the socialist radical there is only one way to interdict America's expansionism, to end wars, to abolish international competition and establish friendly relations among the peoples of the world. That way is revolution, one that would lead to the building of "genuine socialism''. Lerner says, for example, that "the only changes that will make sense in America are those that will move this country to socialism, a socialism that will be a far cry both from the 'welfare statism' of Sweden and the bureaucratic regimes of Eastern Europe... That socialism ... can be realized in this country only through revolutionary struggle.''^^1^^
Problems of political strategy and tactics. Though the socialist radical has no unambiguous and clear idea of what exactly this "genuine socialism" should look like, he is fairly sure of some of the principles of that new system.
``Socialism,'' writes Lerner. for example, "is the ownership and control of the means of production, and, through that, the control of all areas of life, by the majority of people who work. So socialism is another way of saying 'power to the people': power to control all the basic institutions that affect our lives. Socialism is radical democracy, democracy extended to every area of our collective lives.''^^2^^
The socialist radical stresses not only socialized property, but also, on all accounts, constant public control by the people conceived in the spirit of participatory democracy---control over production and over conditions of life, offering the individual an avenue to self-- determination and self-realization, and hence to a life where ``beauty'', ``love'' and ``wisdom'' will reign supreme. That is the kind of revolution, he says, that America needs. And that revolution needs America, too, he amplifies, because only in a highly developed capitalist society, notably in the USA, has it a realistic chance of succeeding in full and for good.
There is no consensus among socialist radicals of who would be the subject of America's socialist reconstruction. Some have spoken of the ``poor'', some of the students and national minorities, and other groups. Yet there are many who say that though the youth (especially the students) and the national minorities (especially the blacks) and other groups may be able to play a conspicuous role, particularly in the initial stage of revolution, no majoritarian revolution (with tens of millions of people taking part at different stages) can come about without the active _-_-_
^^1^^ Lerner, op. <it., p. XI.
^^2^^ Ibid., p. 287.
268 involvement of the working class, while any other kind of revolution, even if it were to occur, woula be swiftly put clown by the repressive machinery of the ruling class.The radical-socialist consciousness envisions the American socialist revolution as a long-drawn-out process of several stages, each with its own tasks to tackle. To begin with, people must be helped to understand that they are living a life unworthy of human beings. Their sociological imagination has to be aroused so that they can learn what their lives could be like if power were in their hands. They must be offered a humanitarian alternative.
The socialist radical scoffs at the thought that the new man, the new consciousness and new culture can be moulded preliminary to revolutionary political action (and thus make that action unnecessary). But neither does he agree that this can be successfully done only after political power is won. He is looking for an intermediate, phased road where struggle for power and for recasting the consciousness would blend and stimulate each other, with every new step in the development of the consciousness facilitating a step forward in the political struggle and the latter resulting in another advance of the consciousness, and so on.
The masses could be trained to administer the social and political process through "people's councils''. These could be set up at industrial enterprises, in offices, educational establishments and residential neighborhoods. They could help work out alternative democratic solutions for a wide range of issues and in the long run unite the masses in the fight against those existing institutions which would inevitably hinder their implementation. As the socialist radical sees it, unification of the masses trained in "people's councils" to fight for a new society could eventually lead to capture of power by the working people, giving a start to the long process of socialist reconstruction.
The socialist radical would prefer to carry out the revolution without resort to violence. Yet he knows that capitalism will not surrender without a fight. And that, in his view, is vindication enough for revolutionaries to resort to requisite force, which, however, should be used with the utmost restraint lest it turn from a means into an end in itself. He plunges into a keen polemic with some of the New Left over the question of force, but holds, all the same, that some elements of New Left tactics are thoroughly usable. Among these elements he singles out the tactic of confrontation (including street demonstrations and various types of strikes). But he wants to be more flexible and also use such forms of struggle as election 269 campaigns (lo expose "liberal demagog}''), temporary political alliances with liberals, and the like.
All these tasks are impracticable, the socialist radical says, unless there is a revolutionary party (or parties). But he wants a party different from the (IP USA and the Socialist Labor Party and, of course, from the bourgeois parties, an important part of the Establishment's defense mechanism. It has to be neither ``sectarian'' nor `` opportunist'', and of a democratic nature. While allowing scope for the creative, self-igniting initiative of the masses, it should at the same time have rigid discipline and ideological harmony.
Given all its distinctiveness as compared with other radical types, the radical-socialist consciousness is just as Utopian. By critical thought about the future of socialism and the reasons for the weakness of present-day radicalism, it constructs artificial schemes which, though the) attract a certain section of youth and workers, are not accepted by most of those to whom they are addressed, that is, the new generation of the American working class and the proletariani/ing intelligentsia. Even though it is able to play a certain positive political role, it can do so only as a symbol of the living socialist tradition rather than a guide to action.
__*_*_*__The changed social, economic, political and cultural situation in the United States of the late '70s and early '80s, coupled with a groundswell of right-radical tendencies and decline of the democratic mass movements, has led to a pervasive shrinkage of the sphere and influence of the leftradical consciousness. But radicalism has deep roots in the history of the United States, and it is safe to say that the intricate domestic and external problems facing American society (which, certainly, conservative, and much less right-radical, policies cannot resolve) will in the foreseeable future impel a new explosion of protest and the spread of left-radical thinking. Certainly, that thinking will have new distinctive features, but at the bottom of the nascent constellations there will be---as the archetype---the structure's thai took shape in the '60s and '70s.
[270] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Six __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICALThe emergence and evolution of the main types of the prese'iil-da} political e'onse lousness in the USA is related 10 those dcc-p-going objective changes that are under way in the country and in its position on the international scc'iie. Yet, as we know, the link between the mass consciousness and anv change' in ihe objective reality, that is, the sjjecilic redaction of the rouse iousness to this change, is inevitably congruent with the content and structural characteristics of the consciousness itself.
Between these' covers we have concentrated our attention on I he inner evolution and conflicting fate ol the consciousness that has been historically dominant in the USA and thai reprc'sc-nis in class context a specifically American variety of above all a bourgeois and petty-bourgeois type. The immediate object of our study is the- manner in which this consciousness reads to the' changes and processes highlighting currc'iii history---reactions ol a consciousness that constitutes a definite entity with lasting traditions and lasting structural formations, such as the notions ol personal success typical of the USA, the' ways and means of securing such success, the individual's relation to other people, to society and the' state, the main mechanisms driving American socic-tv, its distinctive traits and its plae'e and role in history.
These notions have' niatei iali/ed in specifically American variants of the- individualist and nationalist orientation, in specific-ally American political structures and customs, and in hopes and expectations generated by the dynamics of American history. But that same dynamics impels and brings out in ever bolcle'i relief the incompatibility of the traditional orientations, habits and expectations with the actual state of affairs in the United Slates and the modern world as a whole.
271A consciousness that has come into collision with reality can react in different ways. One reaction would he to modify and modernize the traditional structures, adjusting them to the changing world. In that case the consciousness evolves in keeping with reformist logic, adding new, nontraditional elements to the traditional ones. This means coexistence of old and new, of tradition and innovation. It means a compromise between them. Though the resulting type of consciousness may, at some concrete period, appear to be relatively stable, its inner substance is profoundly contradictory. Inevitably, as the world continues to change, it becomes more contradictory still. The contradictions spring to the surface, are apprehended, and cause confusion. The internal struggle of different tendencies, groups and forces over the content, scope and rate of reformist activity sharply intensifies.
A conflict arises between forces and groups aspiring to radicalization of the consciousness and groups seeking to slow up, restrict, even halt, that process. A crisis erupts as a result, and often the reformist orientation changes.
This is when the second form of reaction to the changing reality comes clearly into evidence. There arises a tendency to conserve and save tradition from further destruction, to safeguard the status quo, that is, to preserve the ratio between the traditional structures and those nontraditional ones that appeared as a result of previous developments, to ensure the stability of that ratio, the equilibrium of the old and the new, and to inhibit the centrifugal tendencies jeopardizing that equilibrium.
When the conflict between expectation and reality reaches its zenith, a third form of reaction is set in motion typical of a consciousness that is obstinately traditionalist and profoundly displeased with the existing state of affairs---a nostalgic idealization of, and urge to recover, the "good old days''. Often it amounts to a yearning for radical change, for arrangements that the consciousness pictures as a return to the past but that are really ideological projections of a Utopian mentality contrasting the present to its own recollections of the past, that is, to a certain transformed and modified image of the past.
A consciousness still attached to traditional values as it conceives them in its expectations, but one that is beginning to lose hope that these expectations will ever come true, may react in a variety of ways.
To begin with, it may experience an internal alienation from those existing and dominant conditions of life, institutions and means of organized activity that the 272 individual apprehends as an obstacle to his expectations. For him they lose all value. More, he may look upon them as being contrary to the basic values, and may make them the target of sharp criticism.
But if there is no program of reconstruction, and even sometimes no faith that reconstruction is possible, and if, on top of that, the existing system of living conditions, institutions and means of organized activity is conceived as a powerful, menacing and unconquerable force, the spiritual alienation may coexist with conformism in day-to-day behavior. In that case alienation produces a morbid and pained state of mind. This may be introvert and extrovert. It may be concealed, may shift in various directions, and may focus on diverse objects, which are then treated as scapegoats. Alienation may also breed a striving to escape from realities that generate painful emotions.
Values that come into conflict with the reality and that prove unrealizable may, at some junction in history, gain in attractiveness and significance. But unrealizable values, and hence related unrealizable expectations, lead gradually to a loss of faith in them, to their devaluation and erosion. And it may so happen that the loss of faith in traditional, earlier esteemed values is not accompanied by acceptance of any fundamentally new values. This results in an inward ideological and psychological vacuum, a vacuum of values and life aims, a state that different people suffer differently, and often very painfully. The reaction is often one of confusion, dismay, neurosis and hysteria, resulting in social and political apathy.
Discredited as a realizable aim, the old values sometimes retain their power over the individual. True, the consciousness undergoing an agonizing reassessment of once important values that now evoke a sense of protest, that are rejected and even considered to be the cause of painful states of mind, of failures, even of the evils in society, rallies all its energy to rid itself of them. But the reassessment goes through a number of stages, and may yield different results at different stages, and this also in the political consciousness. These results depend on whether or not the devaluation of old values at loggerheads with the changed reality is accompanied by the shaping of truly new values better suited to the objective course of current history and the call of progress in society and the individual.
If this is not the case, the reassessment may boil down to a plain reversal of values, to their being turned into antivalues. Then the struggle of the consciousness against __PRINTERS_P_273_COMMENT__ 18--34 273 itself, against its inner attachments, may end not in qualitative renewal and enrichment hut, conversely, in self-destruction and ruin.
The picture is different when the erosion of old values and expectations is accompanied by the appearance of new ones. But that process is never consistent and always intrinsically conflicting and limited. A consciousness that has assimilated new Values can still be intrinsically attached to the old. Values it may regard as new may be so only in form. A consciousness that has accepted new values may still be hamstrung by old habits and the old way of thinking. Having parted with the old values, it may retain the system of expectations that was shaped under their influence. The reassessment ol values may concern different areas and levels of the consciousness (rational reflection, feelings, habits, unconscious and subconscious attitudes and predispositions) in different degrees. This is typical of an unstable consciousness, one that develops and that tosses and turns all at one time. The process of its renewal may involve abrupt swings from one pole to the other.
Cumulatively, all these and other states of mind were characteristic of different stages in the historical evolution of the mass consciousness in the United States, and in particular of the political consciousness. The conflicting and intricate processes in the political consciousness in the USA are associated to one degree or another with the operation of socio-psychological mechanisms that propel the emergence, alternation, evolution and conversion of various forms, types and states of that consciousness.
This link is the object of our further examination, aimed at showing the dynamics of the socio-psychological factor and its bearing on the various types of the political consciousness. But before launching out on our examination, we want to make a few preliminary points.
While our attention is focused on the socio-psychological mechanisms inlluencing the political consciousness in the USA, we are, of course, aware that the evolution of the consciousness in society depends, in the final count, on the content, depth and sharpness of the problems created for society and its members by the objective march of history (national and world). It must be remembered that the social problems of the United States affect classes, groups and strata of the population in different degrees and different forms. These disparities manifest themselves in the general development of the social consciousness, including the political consciousness. They also manifest 274 themselves in the evolution of the dominant forms and types of the consciousness, inasmuch as people belonging to the various classes, groups and strata are, to one or another extent, bearers of that consciousness.
The general evolution depends on the distribution and correlation of forces, on the class struggle, the existing alignment of groups, the related institutions and organizations influencing the ideological and political relations in society and the formation and alteration of the mass consciousness (this refers not only to domestic but also to external forces exercising such influence). A strong influence on the evolution of the consciousness, especially the political consciousness, is exerted by forces, groups and organizations directly engaged in shaping and disseminating ideas, views, and political attitudes.
All these lines of influence are taken into account in our analysis of the socio-psychological mechanisms whose operation is involved in the historical evolution of the political consciousness in the USA, in changing the political climate in that country.
Any concrete historical analysis must also take into account the relative independence of the spontaneous selfdevelopment of the various types of the political consciousness because the pertinent structures of the consciousness, though an area of sharp struggle between different and differently oriented forces and tendencies, are, for a certain time, integral entities. True, these structures should not be considered absolutely discrete, existing and evolving side by side and independently of one another. In effect, for all their distinctiveness, even polarity, they are interlocking and interpenetrating. This is clearly seen when you examine the real dialectics of the self-- development of political consciousness in any specific society, in any country as a whole, as a single political process possessing its own inner logic.
The mechanisms that govern the formation and evolution of various types and structures of the consciousness, the changes and fluctuations in the relation between them, are better understood if the analysis centers on the political consciousness of society and the country as a whole, on the critical processes assailing that consciousness, and its efforts to compensate or dampen them.
Study of the inner logic behind the twists and turns in the mass political consciousness of the USA reveals irreversible deep-seated tendencies that reflect in a roundabout, convoluted form the objective logic of current history, the logic of the renewal of the world and of the system of international relations.
__PRINTERS_P_275_COMMENT__ 18* 275 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. THE SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL ORIGINS ANDWe begin our study with the sot io-psyc hological origins of the main ideological and political orientations of the 18th and 19th centuries---the liberal and the conservative. This will help us to trace I he reproduction of these types of political consciousness flown the years and, indeed, their evolution, mutual transformation and conflict, which became especially bitter in the era of state-monopoly capitalism when the traditional system of values of private-enterprise individualism was plunged into an ever more desperate crisis~
The devotee of the traditional, relatively consistent and typically American variants of the individualist ideology and psychology had a specific attitude to politics. Mostly, he was interested in matters directly related to the day-to-day practices of private enterprise and the competitive struggle for symbols of success. His activity was focused most of all on the political struggle at local level (elections of sheriff, judge, mayor, and so on). His interest in "big time" politics, i.e., the political activity of the federal authorities, was usually only aroused at critical junctions in American history (e.g., the fight for independence, the Civil War) or when new territories were at issue (such as the war for the incorporation of Texas, and so on) or, lastly, when some general social, economic or political reforms were being contemplated.
Insofar as interest in politics existed, the most typical form for people with a distinctly expressed individualist orientation was that of political liberalism---that specific variant of it which was widespread in the USA in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Political liberalism and traditional individualism were, indeed, the leading, intrinsically and organically interlocking forms of vision and outlook throughout the premonopolistic stage of capitalism.
Even in the earliest US history, political liberalism stood pitted against political conservatism. Conservatism emerged in the USA originally as the ideological and political orientation of those classes and groups that resisted the spread of free enterprise and individualism. This initial form of conservative thinking was, in a way, an aristocratic reaction to bourgeois and radical-- democratic movements. It survived after the bourgeois revolution, reposing on the remnants of teudalisticpatriarchal and slave relations, especially in the South of the United States, where they retained considerable currency for a fairly long time.
276But as capitalism made headway, a new type of conservatism came into being. It was no longer the political outlook of the opponents of bourgeois enterprise. It represented the orientation of individuals who were its subjects, thus turning from an instrument defending precapitalist and noneapitalist arrangements into an instrument of those forces that had sprung up during the development of capitalism, that is, on capitalist soil.
The socio-psychologieal mechanisms that produced the conservative political orientation of that new type are best seen and understood through comparison with the liberal orientation.
Such comparison will show that, as we have already noted, the main and typical hearers of both conservatism and liberalism were subjects of private enterprise and capitalist competition. Their social orientation included the orientation on personal success in its traditionally American interpretation and on other basic values of individualism. They manifested themselves in varying degrees of consistency and intensiveness depending on the subject's place in the sphere of enterprise and competition. They played a varying part in the inner structure of his personality. Shifts of accent occurred in the correlation of its diverse elements. Also, it would in some cases absorb elements (ideas, values, aspirations and inclinations) that had been previously typical of a subject of precapitalist relations and had now, by assimilating the general conservative tradition, become acceptable tor the subject of capitalist relations.
These differences in personality structure are important if we are to understand why the individual opted lor or assimilated either the classical liberal or traditional conservative attitudes.
Historically, liberalism was more typical of the subject of private enterprise more resolutely and consistently oriented on the traditionally individualist ideal of success, and more eager therefore to radically improve his situation in the system of competition, that is, climb the ladder of wealth, power, and prestige.
Conservatism, on the other hand, was typical of the subject who was oriented first of all on retaining and consolidating the fruits of success already reaped by himself or his ancestors. It was typical of persons already in possession of capital, power, prestige and privilege, and eager to turn them into objective natural rights ( personal, familial, dynastic) protected by law and by tradition, eager to defend them, first, against the intensive onslaught of competitors, against those climbing from 277 below, those who expected to rise on the wave of audacious private and free enterprise and, second, against all those who were on the sidelines, who were not active subjects of enterprise, who were bereft of wealth, power and privilege, and were liable to express their discontent with the existing inequality.
Political liberalism was more typical of the individual who was oriented on the accessibility of all the rungs of the hierarchical ladder to anyone engaged in enterprise.
Political conservatism was more typical of the individual who accepted the basic ideals of American capitalism but laid the emphasis on maintenance and reproduction of the already existing hierarchy, on continuity, on the continuance of the status quo as the crucial aspect of life in the capitalist framework.
At all stages in the development of the bourgeois consciousness we see this typical contradiction between the standard aims of traditional individualism that orient the individual on struggle for personal or, more precisely, private success, on the one hand, and on the other, the standard limitations ensuring the stability of the social organization and class structure of capitalist society which have secured and crystallized the results of competition---the inequality of wealth, power and privilege, the inequality of classes and social groups. It follows that political liberalism is correlated to the orientation on mainly standard aims, and political conservatism on mainly standard limitations.
Unlike traditional liberalism, which envisaged the primacy of the individual and took personal interests and related aims to be the foundation of life in society, conservatism laid the accent on the more stable and lasting institutions and ``collectives'' that had been created by American capitalism and that became a tradition, such as the family, the community, a local territorial unit (township or city) and, lastly, the state and the nation. These in content bourgeois forms of institutionalism and ``collectivism'' were viewed by conservatives as value elements of social life providing the individual with clear rules, imposing discipline and restrictions irrespective of the individual's subjective will and wishes.
Traditional liberalism in its more specific form was a political orientation best suited for the active individualist who relied on audacity and imagination in the fight for success, on initiative, inventiveness and innovation, that is, on search of new ways of securing success not always consistent with the stable, institutionalized 278 structures and prevailing traditions. It gave far more scope than conservatism to the growing pretensions of enterprise. Daniel Bell admits that "in fact, political liberalism has been used to justify the unrestrained claims of private economic appetite" (The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, N.Y., 1976, p. ^6). And it is entirely true that liberalism was far better suited than conservatism to the yet unappeased appetites of energetic and combative entrepreneurs. It expressed far more fully the optimistic hopes and illusions bred in the United States by the intensive growth of free enterprise. It is important to remember, too, that it laid the emphasis on the tight of every individual to climbing up the ladder, to lici'ing his rivals. Liberalism battened on the idea that successful enterprise depended on personal virtues and qualities. It was no accident, therefore, that the individual oriented on that idea gravitated towards the liberal position in politics.
Political conservatism, which in general terms also acknowledged the dependence of success on personal qualities---for this idea is typical of the American bourgeois consciousness---was inclined, however, to regard wealth, power, privilege, prestige and the other attributes of success in its bourgeois context as objectified and constant characteristics not only of the individual but also of his family or dynasty. Conservatism accentuated the significance of hierarchy which was inheritable from generation to generation. It accentuated the right of specific families, groups and classes to inherit not only wealth, but also prestige and political power. It sought to guarantee the right of inheritance by the power of the traditions that made other classes and groups bow to that right, to accept it either consciously or by force of habit. Conservatism of the bourgeois type borrowed from the conservatism of the preceding, precapitalist period the general orientation on the ``naturalness'' and, more, the functional usefulness of a self-reproducing aristocracy reposing on tradition. True, in the minds of such conservatives the idea of aristocracy was associated with apologetics of the traditions that emerged during the development of capitalism rather than those of the old feudalistic order. For them aristocracy stood for families and dynasties that had secured success in enterprise by virtue of their founder's personal qualities. For them it also stood for families and dynasties in which these personal qualities were most fully embodied, reproduced and passed down to later generations.
American conservatism unfailingly recogni/.ed the existing traditional institutions of bourgeois-democracy in the United States. But unlike classical liberalism, which laid 279 a special accent on fidelity to bourgeois democratic principles, conservatism gravitated towards an amalgam or democracy and aristocracy, and campaigned continuously against the ``immoderation'' of the democratic aspirations of the masses, warning all the time against the danger of the ``destabilizing'' democratic passions of the commonalty.
The classical variant of American liberalism, faithful to the principles of free competition and the free market, considered plurality and disparity of individual and group interests, and this also in the political sphere, as natural. Natural, too, in its view, were conflicts and clashes between these interests. The more consistent and clearly expressed liberal orientation even considered conflict between individual interests and those of the group functionally important and furthering the dynamic growth of capitalist society and its adaptation to the changing realities. It should not be overlooked, however, that as a rule American liberalism accepted this usefulness of ``plurality'' and ``conflict'' of interests only insofar as the interests were functional within the prevailing system of basic social relations and values.
The liberal interpretation of conflicts, however, did not suit the supporters of bourgeois conservatism. The conservative political orientation became lodged in Americans belonging to groups and strata who abhorred any major conflicts in society or politics, who feared their possible destabilizing effect on the system of relations and, above all, on the hierarchical system of distribution (of wealth, power, privilege and prestige). That was why the conservative political orientation asserted the value of unity and concord among all members of society, harmony of thought and feeling, unity and accord within the framework of the basic institutions of family, job, government, and nation.
We have already said that the conservatism that existed in the USA during the growth of free enterprise was above all the political orientation of the new bourgeois aristocracy, the new elite representing the oligarchic line in politics. But, in fact, conservatism was often also espoused by medium and minor entrepreneurs, by Americans who were in fear of the future, of the dynamism of history fraught with conflict and contradiction and often bringing catastrophe, ruin, and deterioration to large segments of the people. For this sense of fear conservatism may be described as a defensive reaction. It was espoused by Americans who were afraid of losing what they already had (even if it wasn't worth much) and who were therefore eager to conserve the status quo.
280The inclination towards the conservative orientation was fairly frequent among minor entrepreneurs, seeking salvation from the dynamic and intensive growth of Big Business which increasingly threatened the survival of petty enterprise. For them conservatism was a defensive ideologicopsychological reaction to fear of the future and the wish to preserve their condition.
That sort of conservative orientation was modified in form. It was of an antiaristocratic ``populist'' complexion, evolving into an orientation of the man in the street who dreaded not only change but also the "men of substance" and the prospect of their further aggrandizement.
It should be borne in mind, too, that over the centuries an interminable flow of immigrants stepped ashore in the United States, and that many of them displayed their aspirations and appetites in grossly energetic and brazen forms. Some joined the competitive scramble for success, and were looked upon by many ``native'' Americans ( including the least prosperous) as a real or potential menace to their place in society. These ``native'' Americans often turned to conservatism and traditionalism for protection of their status.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. THE SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL MECHANISMS BEHINDThe most substantial factor behind the historical evolution and crisis of the traditional and the emergence of new, modern types of the political consciousness in the USA was the development of state-monopoly capitalism. During that process the bulk of the people (85 per cent of them by Bell's estimate)^^1^^ were reduced to the status of wage and salary earners employed by large bureaucratic organizations. The public life of millions of people came into ever stronger collision with the traditional forms of the social and political orientation of individuals. Those who had assimilated the ideals and aspirations of traditional individualism encountered more and more forms of social organization and being that precluded their exercise in practice. In due course, this structural contradiction led naturally to the birth of disparate and conflicting tendencies in the political consciousness.
Among the most typical evolutionary trends of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ "The End of American Exceplionalism'', The Public Interest, No. 41, Fall 1975, p. 207.
281 traditional types of political consciousness in the USA was that of trying to adapt traditions to the new historical realities. This adaptation resulted in new types of liberal consciousness.In the 20th century, American society faced the typical problems of more advanced, modern forms of the capitalist system. These made themselves felt more and more keenly. The irreversible and intensive socialization of the productive forces of society, circumscribed as they were by the capitalist forms of property and administration, materialized in monopolistic and state-monopoly patterns of production and management. The process precipitated economic crises, of which the one in the early '30s, afflicting all economic, political and ideological areas of relations, was especially painful.
We have already shown that the crisis of the '30s and the reforms and projects of President Roosevelt's New Deal are usually associated by US historians with the birth of a ``new'' liberalism that has since been officially recognized and that gained the support of a large segment of the ruling class and of many prominent ideologists.
The liberal consciousness fostered the idea that national, government-sponsored anticrisis measures were important and necessary. The country's economic affairs needed regulation by the government and, hence, government interference in the spontaneous market and private-enterprise relations.
The liberal consciousness also accentuated the importance and need for a government run and financed system of social maintenance, notably unemployment relief and aid for the most needy and distressed sections of the population. This idea was built on the new conception about the functions and role of the government in the sphere of distribution that bears directly on what comes under the head of "private life" and includes the organization of family affairs. And this notion of the government's new functions was consolidated in the concept of a "welfare state''.
The new variants of the liberal consciousness were also connected with the notion that personal fortunes and the wellbeing of the individual were directly and increasingly dependent on the fortunes of society as an integral organism, on the state of the country's economy, and the political decisions at nation-wide level that concerned all US citizens, all regions of the country and all social strata.
Indeed, liberalism was that American type of political consciousness which gave the most massive expression to all the above ideas. But it was also a conflicting melange 282 of ideas and notions brought into being by the changed reality of state-monopoly capitalism, the new social problems, and the ideas and stereotypes inherited from traditional individualism and liberalism. And that compromise did, up to a point, conceal the disparity in social meaning and purpose of the political orientations of different types of personalities and, in the final count, of different classes, groups and social strata.
Certainly, the adaptation of the liberal tradition to the changed conditions in the USA could not have come about on so large a scale without the consent and backing of the monopoly bourgeoisie and the upper echelons of the governmental bureaucracy. Certain segments of the monopoly bourgeoisie appealed more and more frequently for economic assistance from the government, had a stake in government contracts, in the government's anticrisis measures and in various reforms that stabilized economy and politics and protected the existing system of relations. They also had a stake in a strong government capable of an expansionist foreign policy and of putting down social protest within the country. They preferred to hide their effective economic and political power behind the front of a bureaucratic state, which gave them the opportunity for blaming any sharp deterioration of domestic conflicts on some echelon of the governmental bureaucracy.
The monopoly bourgeoisie reposes on ``collective'', group forms of private property and management. That is why the consciousness of many monopolists breeds the idea of group, collective-corporate interest. The monopolies, which are gigantic bureaucratic organizations, naturally endeavor to inhibit the traditional individualistic and traditional liberal aspirations and habits of those `` average'' Americans whom they have turned into wage and salary workers. Authoritarian bureaucratic methods of managing millions of people combine with manipulation of their consciousness. More and more, the corporations parade as the incarnation of the "common interest" of all gainfully employed, of the nation as a whole.
Many monopolists readily assume the garb of ``technocrats'' supposedly oriented on nothing but the wants of presentday socialized production, on the ``imperatives'' of the new technology and science. These new, nontraditional elements in the mentality of corporation chiefs produce a liberal-technocratic consciousness. It is inclined to use bureaucratic forms of organization and methods of command garnished with ``collectivist'' and technocratic rhetoric. Yet these very same members of the US monopoly bourgeoisie are naturally interested in maintaining the 283 essentially traditional principles of individualism and liberalism, which they need to ensure and protect the requisite measure of tree capitalist enterprise with the help of the government and, in the event of a conflict with the government bureaucracy, also against the government (whenever the government bureaucracy tends to interfere with the exercise of some private interests and the appetites of monopoly capital). Governmental interference in the economy is often viewed as a means of restoring and vitalizing the mechanisms of the capitalist market and free enterprise.
A considerable section of the US monopoly bourgeoisie still expects the political mechanism of liberal democracy (general elections and 'hairy between the main capitalist parties) to ensure the . xisting system of class domination to its best advantage. Liberal democracy enables the monopoly bourgeoisie to chang" personalities in the government and thereby to effectively control their activity. The traditional US liberal-democratic procedures and the plurality of the liberal tradition enable groups within the ruling class to compete among themselves and to defeat rival groups by means of th.'ir influence in the state apparatus.
The ideas and reactions of the modernized liberal consciousness, above all the liberal-bureaucratic and liberaltechnocratic in their purest form, are lodged in those members of the managerial elite, those leading corporation executives and government officials, who have no inherited capital and come from the middle or ``lower'' classes. For them the increasing role of the bureaucracy, be it corporate or governmental, is a reflection of their own destiny and the specific quality of their own lives. For them the mechanisms of bureaucracy, the corridors and levers of power they create, are an avenue to securing their private interests, securing access to the ruling class, to privilege and wealth, and, in the final count, to capital in its immediate sense. Their apologetics of bureaucracy and the administrative function of the state, their plea to "public interest'', "interest of the nation" or "imperatives of technology'', and their reference to specialized knowledge and technical know-how essential for effective and rational treatment of the problems facing the country---all these typical structures and tokens of the current liberal ideology perform important functions in the activity of the bureaucratic elite. They create ai, ideologico-psychological base for influence on the mass consciousness and, thereby, for effectual power. They are also used as a weapon in the competitive struggle against those of the ruling class whose position reposes on inherited wealth and on tradition.
284And inasmuch as members of the administrative elite are actively involved in the competitive struggle for more privileges, more wealth and more power, i.e.,' for their personal interests, their ingrained individualism tends to assume a new, modernized form. It is oriented on a careerism in which egoistic appetites adapt themselves to and are restricted by bureaucratic procedure. Careerism is the individualism of the official whose being and whose personal interest depend on the ``collective'' interest of the bureaucratic agencies that are created by statemonopoly capitalism and are part of the so-called liberal Establishment.
In the modernized liberal-technocratic and liberalbureaucratic consciousness typical of the bureaucratic managerial elite, notably of top-level government officials, the untraditional bureaucratic: "collec tivist" orientation blends contradictorily with structures of traditional political liberalism. The mechanism of liberal democracy is, indeed, widely used by the top-level functionaries of the governmental apparatus and at other levels of the administrative elite in the political struggle for votes, and in political maneuvering and bargaining between bureaucratic agencies, between pressure groups, and between various cliques. But in the minds of a considerable segment of the ruling elite faith in the traditional American ideals of liberal democracy combines with a calculated reliance on authoritarian bureaucratic forms of governance that put a sure halter on the democratic urge of the masses.
When speaking of the socio-psychological reasons why various groups adopt the political orientation of modern liberalism, we must bear in mind that this is due not only to the personal sympathy, inclination or free choice of the individual. There is also the specific ideologicopolitical situation to consider---in the country or a sector of society, and within the agency or organization to which the individual is attached. At those limes when liberalism gains predominance, its structures and political attitudes win greater currency among highly diverse groups. And when it is the official ideology of an agency or organization those employed by it are compelled to reckon with it.
History shows that the consciousness of the mass of average Americans, including workers by hand and brain, was ``hitched'' to modernized forms of liberalism, especially in the 1950s and '60s. The synthesis of the liberalindividualist tradition with new ideas and illusions was accepted by those average Americans who were historically linked, either by family tradition or personally, with the practice of small-scale enterprise and who, having 285 become employees, still in some way hoped to return to that practice either themselves or through their children, or simply cherished its memory. They were still imbued with the thought of individual independence and free activity, the dignity and precious worth of the individual personality. These associations were felt, and even gained added ideologico-psychological impact and significance, when the dependence of wage and salary workers on large bureaucratic organizations was more painfully experienced. At the same time, the objective change that occurred in the life of society gave birth to new ideas and notions when it reached the consciousness of the average American.
The objective process of the average American's direct inclusion in modern large-scale production, for example, which brought home to him the increasing dependence of his personal lot on the development of the modern productive forces (which displayed an obvious tendency to socialization on the scale of the country) spurred his interest in the state of the economy as a whole. This led to a more or less clear understanding that the economy was a kind of integral whole requiring new forms of management exercised on an all-American scale. The government as the sole ail-American organization became a symbol of such management. The idea of economic regulation by the government, mainly to combat crises and unemployment, and to ensure relief for the jobless and the poorest, became for the mass of the working people an expression of their particular interests. For them it had democratic and humanitarian overtones.
But to carry forward and to consolidate this idea in the context of the liberal-reformist political orientation meant acceptance of its coexistence with the traditional liberal notions of the sanctity of private property, private enterprise and the capitalist market as the fundamental principles on which all society was based.
The political consciousness that evolved on this contradictory foundation was, in effect, a specific eclectical melange of traditionally individualistic and traditionally liberal habits, stereotypes and illusions, and obviously untraditional notions, some even contrary to tradition, which represented (be it in undeveloped forms) a kind of ``collectivist'' perception of the more acute social problems and a ``collectivist'' approach to solving them.
Many average Americans are arriving at the conclusion (which is of an objectively collectivist complexion) that most of the problems, both those of society and their personal ones, are solvable exclusively at the level of federal governmental policy. The government is getting to be an 286 object of growing expectations and demands. The mass of average Americans expect and demand governmental reforms that would improve their material condition, expand and drastically improve the economic system, social maintenance, and the public services.
And these in a way collectivist expectations are realistic enough, because the productive forces based on the scientific and technological revolution are, indeed, laying the ground for greater general wellbeing. They are realistic because the up-to-date productive forces, socialized on a vast scale, unite the labor of hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of people, and make it collective. But they are also illusory because the forms of collectivism created by capitalism are, to use Marx's expression, no more than imaginary, being alienated from the collective will and class interests of the working people. The collectivism is imaginary, too, because in effect it is organized as a bureaucracy in which the governing elite practices exploitation of the work force.
Modern American capitalism, which has set in motion forces that tend to create objective premises for socialism, is also giving impulse to the development of a collectivist consciousness oriented on a far-reaching improvement of life. At the same time, however, by setting up diverse forms of false collectivism, i.e., diverse forms of bureaucratic organization, it is generating a spontaneous negative reaction to its bureaucratic surrogate of collectivism.
The mounting disaffection seen in the United States in connection with the trend towards bureaucratization, combines in the minds of many Americans with an obvious vitalization of their faith in liberalism and the political mechanisms of liberalism that they conceive as the sole sufficient instrument for combatting bureaucracy. They believe that to ensure effective people's control over the governmental bureaucracy it is enough to secure consistent exercise of the main principles of ``classic'' liberalism---free expression in elections, ``free'' competition between the main political parties and personalities in the fight for votes and, last but no least, ``free'' political enterprise, that is, creation of various pressure groups to influence the government.
This faith is holding many rank-and-file Americans to the liberal tradition, which, to be sure, is acquiring new, modernized forms of expression.
As we have already pointed out, in US history the orientation on dynamism in the development and renewal of the individual and of society had its origins in the liberal tradition. So does faith in the success of individual and 287 public undertakings, and in the future. 1 hat is why Americans brought up on this tradition accepted the liberal schemes and illusions that f'etishized science and technology in the 1950s and '60s, as an article of faith. They associated their hope of uninterrupted economic growth with the scientific and technological revolution. In their view, the progressive and continuous development of science and technology would of itself bring about affluence and abolish the menace of economic crises and of social and political upheaval and disaster. The considerable influence that the liberal-technocratic consciousness had on the average Americans in that period was connected with optimistic Utopian forecasts. These were produced by ideologists of the liberal Establishment who made a fetish of modern science and new technology. Suffice it to recall the "abundance for all" and "mass consumption" that were to come about through growth of the ``industrial'', `` technetronic'' and ``postindustrial'' society.
In the minds of many average Americans liberal-- technocratic ideas blended, in a contradictory way, with those of liberal democracy. This strange blend was most widespread in the scientific and technological community and among those segments of the work force that were involved in the production and use of scientific knowledge and new technology but had no access to the levers of power and were objects of authoritarian bureaucratic manipulation. For them fetishism of science and technology became a converted outlet for their dislike of the omnipotence of the bureaucratic upper echelon of monopoly capitalism. It was also typical of them to vacillate between the option of a "technocratic revolution" to be achieved by reformist methods, which would ostensibly strengthen the political influence of rank-and-file specialists, of all strata connected with scientific and technological progress, and the wish to maintain, even extend,the traditional mechanisms of liberal democracy as a means of securing the same aims.
We have already stressed earlier that the liberal political consciousness has deep roots in the United States and exercises a considerable influence. In the 20th century, in a new historical setting, liberal structures and orientations act as a kind of matrix superimposed on spontaneous processes occurring in the consciousness and psychology of various classes and social groups. This appears to shape the results of these processes, creating a relative similarity of political attitudes among people with dissimilar places in the class structure of society and with particular interests, aspirations and ideologico-psychological characteristics.
288But any in-depth analysis of the inner structure of the refurbished liberal consciousness will show that it is profoundly and organically contradictory. Behind a front of relative conformity, this naturally creates the soil for what arc in substance different and mutually exclusive political orientations, for crises and inner inversion of the liberal consciousness.
This occurs in acute forms, as a rule, in situations of crisis, while in relatively satisfactory situations this inner contradiction of liberal postulates, structures and slogans may look natural to their devotees. More, to them it may appear as evidence of width and universality of their outlook.
So long as the country's economy tends to prosper, so long as domestic policy is not marked by any acute conflicts and sensational political scandals, and so long as foreign policy seems to attest to enduring US positions abroad, any person who sincerely believes himself to be a liberal thinks that it is possible to combine:
1) the postulate of the sanctity of private property, of a free capitalist market and competition for profit and personal interest, with the slogan of centralized governmental regulation of the economy to secure "general wellbeing'';
2) fidelity to the ideals of traditional individualism with the collectivist orientation on the public interest;
3) struggle for the traditional democratic slogans with bureaucratic forms of social organization and administration;
4) maintenance, even expansion, of democracy inside the country with an imperialist policy abroad, with the role of a world policeman who suppresses the mass liberation movements of other nations by all available methods, including main force.
It will be proper to note here that this ``peaceful'' coexistence of conflicting principles and tendencies in the minds of postwar American liberals was also furthered by the fact that the liberal consciousness has at all times considered such conflict of principles and tendencies a normal thing. More, it is one of the key postulates of traditional liberalism that national ``harmony'' rests on a ``pluralism'' of diverse postulates as a result of free competition between different principles that supplement and limit each other as a result of compromise. That, indeed, is the liberal model of the ``harmonious'' development of society and the individual.
This model, which idealiy.es mutual balance and compensation of diverse forces, tendencies and principles may __PRINTERS_P_289_COMMENT__ 19--34 289 be workable- in a bourgeois society, but only on a limited stale and mainly in situations marked by relative stability, absense of unexpected, deep and abrupt changes, sharp conflicts and other symptoms of crisis.
But in present-day America there are clear signs for a deepening crisis in various areas of society. Accordingly, symptoms of an inner crisis have surfaced in the sphere of the liberal consciousness. That crisis may take various forms and entail various consequences.
In the United States, liberalism most conclusively embodies the characteristic features of the consciousness historically associated with the destiny of US capitalism. Therefore, the crisis of liberalism may be looked upon as a crisis of the bourgeois consciousness in general, setting the stage for the emergence of a fundamentally new type of consciousness, a socialist consciousness.
But so far the inner crisis of liberalism is yielding results of an entirely different kind, because it is affecting the thoughts and feelings of people who have not yet found their way to forms of thinking that are the real alternative to the bourgeois consciousness, that is, people who are still enmeshed in stereotypes and inodes of thought dominant in capitalist society. The sharpened contradictions in a liberal consciousness of that kind result typically in abrupt, sometimes polar, swings from modernized forms of liberalism to traditionalism, from liberalism to conservatism or, more precisely, to its new forms (which are inverted forms of liberalism) and, finally, from liberalism to either left or right radicalism.
The reader has probably understood from the preceding chapters that in the USA the main socio-psychological motivation that transforms the liberal consciousness into a conservative or right-radical consciousness is the obstinate individualism of the ``classic'' American type and that it does so in situations when that consciousness becomes acutely dissatisfied with the new state-monopoly organization of society. This obstinate individualism is securely tied to the elements and structures of liberalism stably correlated to the individualist consciousness of the traditional type. It is an individualism that rebels against such new elements and structures as represent-- etatist, bureaucratic and alienated ``collectivist'' tendencies.
We are speaking of the obstinate and at once disaffected individualism of the liberal who is frightened by the ongoing objective change both within the liberal Establishment and its immanent consciousness, and in the history of the United States, of other countries and the world as a whole. His fears prompt the wish either to preserve 290 the status quo, to conserve the still surviving traditional social, economic and political structures, or to return to the already nonexistent past and restore the already lost tradition by radical means.
In truth, this latter point expresses one of the characteristic distinctions between conservatism and right radicalism. The option between them depends on how intense the disaffection of the obstinate individualist happens to be, on whether it is expressed in moderate or extreme forms, in ``rational'' reform programs or in acts of rebellion, often blind, irrational, and neurotic.
Lastly, the option depends on the background of the bearers of that consciousness, the concrete place they occupy in the social structure of American society, in the system of economic, political and ideological relations, and on what class, group or social stratum they belong to. The distinctive features and ideologico-psychological distinctions of the various concrete types of the conservative and right-radical orientations may be illustrated by the conservatism that surfaced in the crisis of 1929 and in the '3()s or by the conservatism and right radicalism that emerged in the McCarthyist period of the early '5()s.
In the 1930s, the sharp struggle over Roosevelt's New Deal gave final shape to a specific type of conservatism, whose main slogan was to safeguard the ``free'' capitalist market and the ``freedom'' of private enterprise against governmental interference, against etatism. The postulate of free private enterprise and individualist initiative, of the freedom and primacy of the market that Adam Smith, the 19th-century ideologist of classical liberalism, had set forth in his The Wealth of Nations, became in the 1930s the core of a new American conservatism. While the new liberalism began to be associated with the idea of ``mixed'' economy set forth by John M. Keynes, combining the capitalist market with government regulation. This fact figures inevitably in all discussions on liberalism and conservatism. Take Robert L. Bartley. "For nearly two centuries,'' he writes, "adherents to The Wealth of Nations were called liberals; in Continental Europe they are today. But in contemporary U.S. discourse, Smith's followers are called conservatives. They follow proven experience, while the liberals have marched off to a tune of a newer abstraction, the Keynesian multiplier.''^^1^^
The birth of this type of conservatism in the 1930s was a sign of deep-going contradictions in the liberal camp, _-_-_
~^^1^^ "What Is a Liberal---Who Is a Conservative?'', i'.urnmentan, September 1976, p. .'59.
291 of a split and a turn to the right among those liberals who mainly represented the tradition-oriented segments of the ruling class of capitalists, mainly the big and partly the medium capitalists. But this conservatism did not really gain a mass base at that time. The rank-- andfile Americans sided with Roosevelt's New Deal.The McCarthy period in the '50s yielded somewhat different picture. The sharper contradictions and mounting centrifugal tendencies lecf to the emergence of a relatively widespread conservative consciousness that gravitated far more strongly towards right radicalism and extremism.
Types of consciousness blending conservatism and right radicalism with anticomtnunism and anti-Sovietism came to the fore strongly and consistently during that period of US history.
As the contradictions and centrifugal tendencies grew sharper, a characteristic trend appeared: the disaffected and at once obstinate individualism and anticollectivism assumed the form of bellicose anticommunism and antiSovietism. It performed a few specific functions, being used as a means of dampening the contradictions within the United States and as psychological protector of the existing and dominant forms of ideology and practice in a setting of acute crisis. Here anticommunism was a special kind of defensive psychological reaction of the individualist whose hopes had been dashed and who felt himself historically doomed in face of societal tendencies that he saw as a menace, that he rejected, and that he did not understand.
Certainly, the anticommunist and anti-Soviet campaigns in the USA are mostly inspired and organized by the extreme reactionary and conservative section of the ruling class. But the fact that these quarters succeed in planting anticommunist and anti-Soviet sentiments among a certain section of average Americans calls for special analysis. Not always by far are anticommunist ideas apprehended by rank-and-file Americans as something isolated and separate from their daily lives. The anticommunist ideologists sell their ideas to Americans frightened by the critical trends and growing contradictions in their daily lives and consciousness under the signboard of protecting the traditional political and ideological values of the United States. They advertise their product as an avenue of escape from the bitter contradictions, including ideologico-psychological ones, that are assailing Americans. The groundswell of anticommunism in the USA is, as a rule, related to a sharpening of crisis processes in society, and this relation assumes a specific form and complexion depending on the dynamics of the 292 confrontation of the two systems on the international scene.
In the USA propagandists of anticommunism seek to channel into the anticommunist orbit above all the spontaneous mass discontent bred by the results of the bureaucratic state-monopoly rule. And to understand why conservatives and right radicals, the ideologists of anticommunism, succeed, at least to some extent, it is essential to examine the specificity of the discontent. Here again we encounter the characteristic contradiction of present-day US statemonopoly capitalism. On the one hand, it reproduces and romantici/.es the ideals of individualism and the independence of private enterprise, while, on the other, it robs the vast majority of Americans of any chance of exercising these ideals, putting the individual in constant and pained dependence on bureaucratic connections and forms or organization. And where the traditional ideals collide with the present-day reality we find the source of the mass discontent, annoyance and embitterment typical of modern America.
The ruffled, annoyed and embittered individualist is one of the main targets of rightist propaganda. Under its influence his dismay turns into rank anticommunist hysteria, at least in certain circumstances. The manipulators of the mass consciousness use artful psychological mechanisms: that of ``rationality'', of outwardly rational arguments designed to create an illusory picture of the facts; that of driving out of the consciousness such realistic thinking and such emotional reactions as would register the truly relevant social problems; that of shifting the irritations caused by specific: objects to other objects chosen as scapegoats.
The effect of these mechanisms is witnessed in the converted forms that many Americans use to express their attitude towards various bureaucratic organizations governing the individual activity of millions of people. Outwardly, these organizations operate as a ``collective'' force. But this force is in fact alienated from and opposed to the average member of society. The man in the street is prevented from understanding the class essence of this alienation by the individualist stereotypes and values imbedded in his consciousness and psychology. Another obstacle to understanding it is currently widespread liberal-technocratic and liberal-bureaucratic consciousness, which uses "collectivist" demagogy and portrays the bureaucratic, alienated forms of ``collectivism'' as the ``rational'' embodiment of the ostensibly universal imperatives of the new technology and of the interests of rank-and-file Americans and the ``nation'' as a whole.
These methods of ``rationalizing'' and vindicating the 293 activity of the state-monopoly bureaucracy are designed to reduce or neutralize the disaffection and annoyance of the average Americans who are the target of this activity. And these methods succeed to some extent. Under the impact of the apologetic ``rationality'', the ruffled feelings of some Americans tend to be appeased, to disappear, to give way to conformist]].
The consciousness of the still obstinate but also disappointed and embittered individualist is inclined, at the same time, to confuse or even identify the bureaucratic surrogate ``collectiveness'' that exists in the United States with the fundamentally different type of collectivism that Communists aspire to. This confusion is being exploited and deepened by the promoters of right radicalism and conservatism in their drive to discredit the communist movement and the communist parties in socialist countries. Right extremists and conservatives exploit it also in their domestic struggle against liberals and against those trends in government policy and US bourgeois reformist practices which, though they have nothing in common with either communism or socialism, are not to the taste of the hardline traditionalists.
The invigoration of conservatism and right extremism in the early half of the '5()s, and later at the close of the '70s and in the early '80s, was a peculiar reaction to the sharpening of internal contradictions in the USA, extending also to the dominant liberal political consciousness. The reaction was specific largely because conservatives and right radicals succeeded in diverting the individualist's dismay and outrage into the channel of anticommunism and anti-Sovietism. The groundswell of such sentiment was felt for the first time in US postwar history in the early half of the '5()s. It was, among other things, a reaction to the international situation in which the USA found itself and which many rank and file conceived as a crisis.
It should be borne in mind that deeply impregnated in the consciousness of most Americans was the belief that the USA was well out of the reach of direct military action, that no hostilities could ever extend to the territory of their country. This belief was backed by the certainty of US military superiority based on its nuclear weapons monopoly. This belief was actively exploited to further the ideology and policy of cold war and imperialist expansion, which became the official policy of the ruling classes and was promoted by many liberal ideologists. The discovery that the Soviet Union, too, had nuclear arms came as a debilitating blow. Americans nursing the illusion of US invulnerability and the cold war ideology, 294 were assailed by misgivings and fears. These blended with the same feelings of the ``derailed'' individualistic consciousness bred by fear of the intensive growth of bureaucracy in all areas of life at home. And this cumulation of distressed sentiment was sei/ed upon in their interests by the supporters of McCarthyism, who organized a far-flung campaign of rabid anti-Soviet and militarist propaganda. It was accompanied with a witchhunt against all progressive elements, against liberals of a democratic orientation who still cherished the idea of Soviet-American antifascist cooperation and opposed the col war policy and the country's militarization which, they were aware, imperilled the basic ideals and principles of liberal democracy.
The attack on this section of liberals saw the rest of them scuttle into the conservative and right-radical camp. The contradiction between democratic slogans and the drive for US military superiority typical of the postwar liberal consciousness, was thereby settled in favor of the arms race, the country's militarization and its growth into a "mobili/ed state" (a term used in the USA for the militaristic conception of statehood).
The McCarthyites also relied extensively on the sentiments of those Americans who nourished the idea of the "American mission''. Messianic ideas had prevailed in the United States for nearly two hundred years, though at different times in history their content differed. In the late 18th century they were expressive of the US bourgeois-democratic attitude to the feudal-theocratic regimes that still existed in most countries. In the mid-19th century they were an expression of the self-confidence of American capitalism, which was growing more dynamically than capitalism in other countries. In the 20th century they began, among other things, to reflect the aspirations of US imperialism and its claims to world supremacy. And it was the liberal ideology that fostered, supported and cultivated all kinds of messianic ideas. In that context, indeed, the post-World War II liberal consciousness in the USA possessed much optimism and self-assurance (for the idea of the American Age gained fairly wide currency among liberals).
This self-assured and optimistic messianic-cum-imperial consciousness collided with the rapid growth of national liberation movements in many regions and countries opposed to the' imperialist and neocolonialist policy of the United States.
As a result optimism and self-assurance gave way in the minds of many Americans to a sense of hurt national pride, to dismay, misgivings, sometimes irritation. And 295 this was promptly sei/ed upon by conservative rightist groups who brandished chauvinist slogans and clamored for militarization and resort to forte in foreign relations. The aversion to revolutionary movements and forces in other countries, encouraged by the McCarthyites, began to spread to movements and forces in the United States working for democracy in the sense conceived by the liberal consciousness. The contradiction between the imperial claims abroad and the democratic slogans designed for internal use---of which the liberal consciousness was previously unaware---grew sharper. Liberals who opted for the messianic-- cum-imperial mission and wanted domestic policies to be aligned with it, donned the garb of conservatives and right radicals. This option was actively promoted, even forcibly imposed, by conservatives and right radicals. They did their utmost to channel the hurt feelings of Americans disappointed in their messianic-cum-imperial pretensions into the orbit of anticommunism and anti-Sovietism. In so doing, they capitalized on the fact that many of the movements opposing US expansionism in various countries, had Communists in their ranks and were inspired by the example of the USSR, by its international prestige and assistance. At the same time, a witchhunt was launched across the USA against all those who opposed the subordination of political life to the US imperialist foreign policy: even if they adhered to traditionally liberal slogans they were accused of treason to the nation's interests.
These mechanisms functioned vigorously in the McCarthy period, and also came into evidence later, in the late '70s, when the USA succumbed to much the same processes and trends in the political consciousness and in political practice. Both then and now, in the eyes of many Americans, conservatism and right extremism began, in varying degrees, to appear as an escape from the crisis, as a means of dampening the dismay and fear, and securing a more conclusive orientation than liberalism, one that would ostensibly fortify the nation and the individual in face of the acute internal and external problems.
In the '5()s, McCarthvism showed that the extreme conservative and radical right orientations operating as an alternative to liberalism give rise to still sharper contradictions and still more dramatic conflicts on the political scene and in the consciousness of those Americans who, for whatever motives and to whatever extent, espouse them.
The Americans who were initially enticed by the promise of the right extremists to recover the integral system of "traditional American values'', which would give' them 296 reliable bearings in life and politics, soon discovered that their own and their neighbors' ideologico-psyc hological sense of dismay and confusion had only increased.
Main an American learned from their own experience that the McCarthyist internal and external ideological and moral right extremism led to rapid buildup of the repressive apparatus and coercive agencies suppressing liberty, persecuting nonconformist)), and spurning rule of law, and also to an escalation of conflict in the political, ideological and moral fields, to a violent outburst of irrational belligerence, and neurosis.
As a result, the outspokenly conservative and rightradical elements lost ground by the late '50s, and liberal ideology gained influence. But the inner contradiction of the liberal trend did not disappear. On the contrary, by the end of the '60s it became stronger still. But the type of reaction to liberalism's contradiction generated by the growth of crisis processes in the '60s was anything but conservative or right-radical. It should be more appropriately classed as a specific type of political consciousness circumscribed by the concept of left radicalism.
It will be recalled that in the late '60s and early '70s the left-radical consciousness moved into the foreground and became a tangible and significant factor influencing the moral climate and political situation in the United States.
The socio-psychological mechanisms that produce the leftradical consciousness are hard to anatomize even when it assumes clear-cut and widespread forms (such as were in evidence from 1968 to 1972). To begin with, it encompasses a wide range of disparate aims, and goes about attaining them with different degrees of consistency. Second, it evinces a visible bent for rapid change, ambivalent vacillation, even mutation, for an alternation of ups and downs in the course of its evolution, and thus obfuscates the characteristics that reflect long-term historical processes and irreversible tendencies.
The previous chapter contains a full-scale analysis of the left-radical consciousness, its main types, and socialclass foundation. In the present chapter we have set out to examine the soc lo-psyc hological mechanisms which had initially led to a stormy upswing of left radicalism and then, a lew years later, to its decline. Analysis of the sociopsychological aspects of that curve will give a better idea of the general evolution of the political consciousness in the United States in the '70s and of the outlook and premises for its further development.
The- specific and typical forms of left radicalism were 297 exprcssive of the deep-going disaffection thai had accumulated in the USA over a fairly long time and that rose in a powerful wave towards the end of the '60s. Its main target was the basic institutions occupying commanding heights in the social system and known as the Establishment. As conceived by the left radical, the Establishment also included the giant corporations as well as the state (this linkagebeing often expressed by the term "corporate state''), the armed forces, the repressive agencies (the police and EBI), agencies concerned with the ideologico-psyc hological manipulation of rank-and-file Americans, the apparatus of the chief political parties, and so on. All these basic institutions that made up the Establishment were considered by the left-radical consciousness as a single type of organization and an incarnation of bureaucracy. The left radical condemned and rejected bureaucracy for being a force that turned the individual from a subject into an object, a little bolt in a giant machine. Eor him it was an organization alienated from the interests of the ordinary members of society, not subject to their will, and liable to put them and the country as a whole in absurd, disgraceful, even tragic situations.
That was the kind of spot that the United States found itself in as a result of its war in Vietnam, a long and bloody war that ended in obvious defeat. For the leftradical consciousness that war was, in effect, a symbol and a proof of the bankruptcy of the Establishment, of its hostility to the ideals of democracy and humanism, of its being uncontrollable, self-seeking, and immoral.
The discontented and critical consciousness brought into being by the war in Vietnam saw the corruption in the government and other echelons of the Establishment. It could not stomach them. Sensational political scandals followed one another in quick succession, culminating in Watergate. More conspicuous and intolerable became the violence at home as well as in Vietnam: the growth of crime, the political assassinations, and the police brutality in dealing with participants in the antiwar movement. Violence of the most brutal kind also abounded in the struggle against racial discrimination, which reached its peak at that time and which stimulated the growth of left radicalism. Furthermore, the general ideologicopsychological situation of the late '60s brought back memories of McCarthyism, the witches' sabbat of right extremism, repression of all forms of dissidence. And the left-radical consciousness moved against not only physical violence (practiced by the army, police, FBI, the Ku-Klux-Klan, the right extremists, and so on), but 298 also against administrative coercion in the bureaucratic framework and against ideologico-psychological conditioning by manipulation, mass propaganda and advertising.
And since in the USA the '60s were years of liberalism, the left-radical consciousness of the more extreme forms expressed itself in a negation of liberalism, notably of its technocratic, etatist, bureaucratized variants associated with the ideological and political orientations of the ruling elite in control of the Establishment.
The left-radical consciousness of the '60s and '70s gave expression to the specific forms of the liberal crisis. More than at any other time before, the new forms of the left-radical consciousness rejected, discredited and destroyed some of the beliefs and postulates that had previously been traditional, fundamental and characteristic of all variants of American liberalism. The process of destruction affected all aspects of the orientation on individual ``success''.
The left radical put in question and found wanting the classic bourgeois and petty-bourgeois notion of success as something achieved by the individual through free private enterprise and measurable in terms of money, wealth, capital, economic independence, possession of one's own business. He also rejected the careerist orientation which identified success with status and office, with climbing up the bureaucratic ladder. He also rejected the consumerist orientation which gauged success by the volume of "status consumption''. A large segment of left radicals lost their traditional faith in the practicability, and even the general value, of the pluralist principle. That is, they lost trust in what had been firm postulate of American liberalism: that the practice of representative democracy traditional in the USA (``free'' competition of the main political parties, the customary bargaining and deals in politics) could balance up and compensate for the obvious Establishment tendency to develop authoritarian bureaucratic forms in economic management and in domestic: and foreign policy.
The left-radical consciousness showed its disappointment in the typically American liberal orientation on economic, political and ideological expansion on the domestic scene and especially abroad. It lost faith in the basic postulates of all variants of the nationalist consciousness (the US ``mission'' of spreading to the rest of the world the " American model of democracy'', "American economic, scientific and technological efficiency'', or the candidly imperial ideology of US world supremacy). Furthermore, as we have already shown, at the junction of the '60s and '70s the 299 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1984/PCUSA333/20071201/333.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2007.12.02) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ left-radical consciousness endeavored to shake off the ideology and psychology of anticominunism that propped upthe practices of cold war and that was typical of the basic types ol the liberal as well as conservative and rightradical consciousness.
The more consistent left-radical consciousness in the USA was sincere in seeking a ``total'' break with (he Establishment which it so sharply criticized. It wanted to end the ideologico-psyc hological influence that the Establishment exerted on the individual not only at the level of `` rationalized'' ideology but also as concerned habits, sentiments and subconscious and unconscious prejudices.
But though its renovative intentions were sincere and serious, the left-radical consciousness lacked the mental equipment, the habit of theoretical reflection, and instruments of critical analysis that would have enabled it to unravel the intricate jumble of conflicting tendencies that objectively existed in American society.
The left-radical consciousness reduced the prevailing diversity of conditions, organizational forms and characterislics in people's lives vis-a-vis society to a simplistic, one-dimensional scheme conceived as the Establishment. The Establishment had totally absorbed and subordinated all basic aspects of social practice, all the main forms of socially organized collective activity in such fields as production, science, ideology, day-to-day life and leisure.
The left-radical consciousness lac keel the requisite equipment to produce a thorough concrete historical analysis and differentiated dialectical evaluation of these forms of activity, of their nature and influence on society, and confined itself to revealing the visible link of such activity with the Establishment. Indeed, it made all these forms an object of total negation.
Take this example. Since in the USA the link between the future of science and technology and the Establishment, which controlled and used them in its interests, was entirely obvious, the left-radical consciousness adopted a clearlytotal negative attitude towards modern technology and science.
Totally rejected, loo, was the principle of complex organization which necessarily implies differentiation and unity, strict coordination of the activity of vast number of people as well as foi utilization and division of functions, responsibilities and powers, and, last but not least, disciplinary rules and regulations. In the USA, this principle was naturally embodied in the concrete historical, that is, authoritarian bureaucratic svstem of the 300 Establishment. On these grounds, revealing a distinct inclination towards anarchism, the left-radical consciousness was opposed to the principle of complex organization as such.
The principle of ``rationality'' was embodied in the rationale of the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois businessman and in the functional rationale of the bureaucrat, careerist and manipulator. It was associated with pragmatic, utilitarian, often selfish calculation securely harnessed to the success orientation of the specific variety that was sanctioned and practiced by the Establishment. The same principle was exploited to ``rationalize'', i.e., to justify, aggressive wars. And as a result, in the eyes of the left-radical consciousness, the whole idea of rationality, all rationality, was totally discredited.
The same is true of the anticonsumerist posture of left radicalism. The striving of many Americans to raise their standard of consumption was often seen by left radicals as a narrow consumerist orientation on status symbols with the amount and quality of consumed goods and services acting as the chief criterion of the individual's prestige and self-respect, and making him prey of the cult of goods and fashions. The left-radical consciousness made no bones about rejecting this philistine consumerist orientation, but it failed to see, to single out and assess, the natural and legitimate wish of hard-working Americans to better the standard and quality of consumption which is a reaction to class inequality in the system of consumption and which rests on the growth of production and the objective dynamics of higher and newer individual needs typical of the current phase of history.
The left-radical consciousness was bent on abolishing the forms of ideology dominant in the USA and promoted by the Establishment. In so doing it addressed itself to the "free sensuality" of the individual, to his immediate experience in life, to the spontaneity of his sentiments, notions, and thoughts. It expected that experience would generate a critical reaction to the Establishment among average Americans.
But the left-radical consciousness was still an ideological consciousness (as the term was understood by Marx and Engels), that is, a prisoner of its own feelings, notions and thoughts, incapable of advanced theoretical self-- reflection, of critical adaptation of these feelings, notions and thoughts to the results of profound scientific analysis of the Objectively existing contradictions. Its nihilism in relation to science, technology, consumption dynamics, and the principles of ``rationality'' and ``organization'' resulted largely from a spontaneous emotional impulse that 301 arbitrarily reflet ted the limited experience of the average American, the limitations of his day-to-day consciousness, rather than from profound theoretical analysis of current history. That day-to-day consciousness reacted only to the more visible connections and aspects of the American scene and retained its attachment to the stereotypes and thought habits prevalent in the United States.
The left radical's negation of the forms of ideology dominant in the USA, a sincere, sharp and angry negation, proved in fact to be highly inconsistent. What was more, the angrier and the sharper this total negation was, the more distinctly it betrayed the left radical's objective, deep-down, ingrained and unconscious attachment to the stereotypes of the negated ideology.
Take the liberal stereotype of the Establishment as the vehicle of the imperatives of modern science and tec hnology, of the principles of ``rationality'' and ``organi/ation''. The activity of the Establishment was pictured by its liberal apologists as the necessary condition and basis for uninterrupted and continuously more rapid economic growth and for the further steady rise of consumption standards at all levels of society. This picture was also accepted by its critics. Only the emotional impact was different, for the critics' saw it in sombre rather than rosy tones. The critics attitude was negative rather than positive. That which had once prompted trust in the Establishment now prompted discontent and disaffection.
But the picture itself was accepted as valid. The postulates and stereotypes of the consciousness on which that picture was based were also accepted as valid, though they underwent a metamorphosis: what had once been values were now antivalues. And all too often the bulk of the energy of the left-radical consciousness was expended on merely pinpointing and proving this metamorphosis. As for the left radical's deep-rooted habits of thought, his mental structures that bred illusory ideas about the surrounding world, they were still the same and haunted the mentality of many a left radical. This applies, for example, to the thought habit which fetishizes science and technology, consumer goods, and so on.
For the -liberal consciousness science and technology were independent, self-sufficient and positive forces whose development automatically secured growth of capitalism into an "affluent society" free from class conflicts. For the left-radical consciousness science and technology were likewise independent, likewise self-sufficient, hut a negative rather than a positive force whose development automatically called into being forms of bureaucracy and global 302 problems that imperilled peace, democracy and the free development of the individual.
The liberal consciousness held that greater production of consumer goods and services automatically abolished class inequality, reduced the likelihood of social, political and ideological conflict, and harmoni/.ed and enriched the cultural and moral areas of the life of individuals. The left-radical consciousness considered the rising level of consumption a self-sufficient process that automatically generated alienation, that impoverished the spirit and culture of people, that made the individual more dependent on the bureaucracy and the agencies that manipulated their wants and, lastly, that it generated egoism, cynicism and immorality.
The battle royal that erupted in the United States in the late '60s between the left-radical consciousness and the earlier prevalent forms of consciousness was fought simultaneously on different planes and different battlefields. On one battlefield, the prevalent consciousness closely linked with the traditions of liberalism was assaulted by a consciousness of a fundamentally new type which rejected the values of inclividualistically conceived success, competition, expansionism, and nationalism. On another battlefield a sharp fight ensued between disparate orientations that had earlier coexisted within the structure of the prevalent liberal consciousness but had, at that time, parted ways and become intrinsically irreconcilable. The battle followed the logic of development of the prevalent liberal consciousness or, more precisely, the logic of its unfolding internal crisis.
A dichotomy of two disparate orientations occurred within the liberal consciousness. On the one hand, we saw the orientation on the individual's sovereignty, free thought, free will and free action and initiative. On the other, there was an orientation on norms and limits set by the discipline fixed for the individual by the existing social organization, on conformism to the requirements of the institutions comprising the Establishment, on the authority of the state, on the primacy of the interests of country and nation. In the framework of the individualist tradition these two orientations were distinct opposites: any advance of the former meant a retreat of the latter, and vice versa. The two were two poles of the socio-political and ideologito-psychological field, creating stresses of varying intensity.
The influence of liberalism at various stages of American history was congruent with the possibility of a compromise or relative equilibrium between these two poles. Waves 303 of radicalism stood lor periods of a considerable increase of stresses. The) resulted usually from abrupt change in the correlation of the poles which upset the relative equilibrium and intensified centrifugal tendencies. The intensity of the struggle between radicalism and liberalism depended on the amplitude between the poles, the degree of stress arising between them. The amplitude of the wavelike fluctuations from liberalism to radicalism depended on the resistance that one pole rendered to the increased pressure of the other, on how strongly this pressure was apprehended by people and groups of people as a threat to their values, spurring them to reassert or salvage them.
In the late '5()s and the '60s, the USA witnessed a sharp strengthening of authoritarian bureaucratic oranizations and greater pressure in favor of conformist!!. This pressure was felt increasingly in all the main institutionalized areas of activity: labor, material and spiritual production, political activity, personal consumption, and day-to-day life and leisure, that is, even in an area earlier identified as private. In all these fields people felt the ever more distinct restriction and abolition of the traditional individualist orientation. This, indeed, was what impelled the wave of radicalism as a reaction.
The more consistent forms of the left-radical consciousness broke away from this dichotomy, evincing the wish to democratize the basic institutionalized and socially organized forms of activity, to abolish their dependence on bourgeois relations, and to restructure them along lines of democratic collectivism, even socialism (this applies to some varieties of the radical-democratic and radicalsocialist consciousness).
But the left-radical consciousness, remaining within the framework of the dichotomy, tended to emphasize the sovereignty of the individual and his freedom of will and action. And this was opposed by all the forms of organized institutionalized activity totally identifiable with bureaucracy, alienation, and loss of the individual's sovereignty and freedom. The consciousness whose orientations on the sovereignty and freedom of the individual were never realized, conceived of all organization as an embodiment of hostile aniivalues. The intensity of the conflict between values and antivalues rose steeply, and the very battlefield on which the struggle was fought tended to change. The sphere in which the antivalues were prevalent had the tendency to expand, while the sphere where the values were realizable grew more narrow. When the swing between the poles attained its greatest amplitude, all the forms of socially organized and institutionalized 304 activity were bunched on the pole of antivalues, while only action conceived as ``play'', and play that was, moreover, played without rules, only the unrestricted spontaneous manifestation of the inner feelings of the individual remained on the other pole, that of values.
And since it is very hard for any modern individual to keep within these confines, and hence just as hard to gain or retain the sense of his absolute sovereignty and free will, various methods of psychological auto-suggestion and of inducing emotions come to his aid, creating a romantic state of excitation and helping the consciousness to blot out the realities and to sustain the world of illusions. Drugs come to his aid, helping him to fence off the real outside world. At the same time, the rebound caused by the shift of poles in the context of the dichotomy, prompts the individual to espouse anarchistic political rebellion, to demonstratively violate all rules of rational and organized political behavior, even such as devotes its rationality and organization to the aims of humanism and democracy. That same rebound prompts a state of unruly contumacy and deliberate disregard of any and all existing and institutionalized ethical norms, including elementary rules of morality and living.
But a consciousness that attained such amplitude in its pendulum-like swings could not become either a mass or a functional consciousness. Second, it could not remain at that extreme point attained by the swing of the pendulum from liberalism to left radicalism. The more extreme the position of the left-radical consciousness, the greater the force that worked against it and the more imminent the decline of left radicalism in the United States. And that abrupt decline did occur in 1972 and 1973.
Here we must also bear in mind a few more points. The left-radical consciousness of an individual who yearns impatiently and avidly for a total renewal of society but shies away from organized struggle for the vital practical interests of the mass of the working people, including abc'we all the economic sphere, pinned its' hopes fairly often on chance or cataclysm. That was a naive expectation that a cataclysm, an abrupt deterioration of crisis in economy or politics, would spontaneously trigger the desired revolutionary renewal, the cherished ``mutation'' of society. This applied to a consciousness that welcomed critical situations, any deterioration in the state of affairs, the economic included, with lust and emotion, that is, to a consciousness that functioned on the "the worse the better" principle. It was, first of all, an extremist rebel consciousness which nursed anarchist dreams and __PRINTERS_P_305_COMMENT__ 20--34 305 intentions, and even ventured to try and provoke a revolutionary explosion by reckless actions, including such as destroying production, its technical facilities and organization, such as disorganizing the economy and daily life. This orientation of some left radicals naturally lost them the sympathy of the industrial workers and all those who had any close connection with industry and who suffered the most from crises in the system of production. So long as the economic state of the United States was relatively sound, the left-radical criticism of liberal ``economism'', ``technicism'' and ``consumerism'' was taken to be a symptom of the general critical momentum. Whatever rationale there was in the left radical's antieconomism, antitechnicism, antirationalism and anticonsumerism was easier to see. Even the feelings and thoughts behind the "the worse the better" postulate were seen by some as an indication of the fervency and radicalism of the criticism of the prevailing state of affairs and way of life and, indeed, as an indication of impatience for a radical rejuvenation of society.
But when the difficulties and critical processes began mounting in the early half of the '70s, precipitating a tangible decline in produciton, growing unemployment and inflation, and when, moreover, the energy crisis grew more acute and awe-inspiring, the negative aspects of the antieconomist and anticonsumerist orientation of the left radical became more and more visible. This prompted most Americans to repudiate left radicalism. For they were no longer bothered by any of the problems created by overly rapid economic growth or ``excessive'' consumption but by the visible decline in production, the visible deterioration of the quality of life and the drop in consumption, no longer by the ``rationality'' and ``efficiency'' of the economic system in the USA but by the signs of its disorganization and inner crisis.
And when the economic condition really deteriorated and the deterioration was felt directly by millions of Americans, the "the worse the better" slogan became highly unpopular and served as one of the reasons for the discreditation of left radicalism and notably of its romanticoutopian and rebel-extremist varieties (the latter being more conspicuous and associated with left radicalism in general). The discrepancy between the left-radical ideology and the many economic difficulties and employment problems that millions of average Americans had to face had become much too obvious.
The fact that the left-radical orientation often betrayed itself as an orientation of only some specific social groups---the intellectuals (above all in the humanities), 306 students and youth---was another not inconsiderable factor behind its unpopularity. All too often, the accent was laid on precisely the specific problems of these groups and their special role in society, which were raised to an absolute. A tendency had surfaced to oppose these groups to others, to the older generation or the industrial workers. As a result many Americans who did not belong to the youth, especially student youth, or to the "intellectual community'', associated left radicalism with a youth or ``intellectualist'' syndrome. And though the left-radical criticism of the older generation contained much that was rational, such as criticism of the career or ``consumer'' success orientation, of conformism and adaptation, and though there was much that was rational in the diagnosis of the problems of the intelligentsia and intellectual creativity in capitalist America, the extremist manner in which the "generation gap" and the ``gap'' between various types of labor (intellectual and creative vs. labor by hand, and so on) were defined contributed substantially to the inner crisis and declining influence of left radicalism in the United States.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. THE STATE OF AFFAIRS IN THE '70S AND EARLY '80SThe decline of the left-radical protest movement in the USA did not mean that social criticism faded away in the '70s. Though the wave of left-radical activism among students and intellectuals receded, a newly mounting discontent made itself felt more and more insistently. And this time social criticism spread to Americans who come under the head of ``average''.
The average American reacted sensitively to the visible deterioration of the state of the country and the many symptoms of crisis in politics, economy and morality: the defeat in Vietnam, failure of other ventures abroad, Watergate and other political scandals, the decline in production, the mounting inflation and unemployment and the aggravation of energy problems.
The sentiment of discontent and criticism that kept rising among average Americans in the '70s was registered by a large number of scholars. All studies of the public mood noted explosive changes in the state of mind of most Americans.
Harris public opinion polls used widely registered grievances as the basic parameters of discontent, and recorded the following changes in the consciousness of ruffled Americans:~
__PRINTERS_P_307_COMMENT__ 20* 307 The rich get richer and the poor get poorer Most elected officials are in politics for all they personally can get out of it for themselves What you think doesn't count very much any more The people running the country don't really care what happens to you Most people with power try to take advantage of people like yourself (The Harris Survey, December 8, 1977) 1972 1977 67£ 77£ not asked 65£ 51£ 61£ 48£ 60£ 36£ 6()£The state of mind reflected in the above opinions gained notoriety in the USA as "political alienation''. Millions of Americans, social researcher Daniel Yankelovich reported, felt "isolated and distant from the political process'', ``neglected'', ``impotent'', ``manipulated'', "taken advantage of" and "fearful that whoever is running the country does not care what happens to them".^^1^^
Most US citizens took the political alienation very close to heart. Describing the state of mind of the average American, writer Lawrence Chenoweth observed-: "We believe that the individual in America is important, yet we feel insignificant. We assume that the individual can control his life in a democratic society, yet we feel unable to influence our political and economic institutions.''^^2^^
The spread of political alienation in the '70s is indissolubly connected with the rapidly growing concern over the alarming state of the economy. In the fall of 1975 The New York Times concluded from another of its economic opinion polls that for the first time since 1956 (i.e., since the time such polls were begun) most Americans felt that they were losing their economic foothold due to forces beyond their control.
To obtain a clearer picture of the alarm and disaffection felt by average Americans over the critical tendencies in the economy, we must recall that in the late '60s and early '70s the same Americans were essentially confident _-_-_
~^^1^^ Yankelovich, "The Status of Ressentimem in America'', Social Reiearch Vol. 42, No. 4, 1975, p. 762.
~^^2^^ Chenoweth, The American Dream of Surcexs: The Search for the Self in the Twentieth Century, North Scituate, Mass., 1974, p. VII.
308 and steady rise. True, some people, especially those of the older generation, were beset by fears nourished by recollections of the crisis of the 1930s. But in the '60s, as most scholars believe, these fears gave place to a new psychology, a psychology of affluence. By the mid-'70s, however, the fears reappeared. More, they reappeared with a vengeance, affecting the majority of Americans. The contrast was abrupt, the change in their state of mind most painful.Here we ought to remember that the measure of the discontent and unease felt by the individual depends not only on the depth and scale of the actual difficulties he encounters in his immediate practice, but also on the level of his expectations and pretensions. As a rule, a less ambitious person reacts less painfully to suddenly arising difficulties than a person with more ambition. And the expectations and pretensions of very many Americans at the junction of the '60s and '70s were running higher than ever. Even in 1975, Daniel Yankelovich discovered that "a 56 percent majority of the American public expressed the view that as a matter of right they are entitled to an ever-increasing standard of living'', and that, simultaneously, "56 percent express a deep and pervasive anxiety about their future economic security".^^1^^
The abrupt change in the state of mind of the rank-- andfile American was accompanied by an ever more distinct feeling that social justice did not exist in his country. Yankelovich found from various opinion polls that between 60 and 85 per cent of Americans were conscious of gaps and twists in the system of social justice. "People have come to feel,'' he wrote, "that those who work hard and live by the rules are being neglected, shunted aside, and exploited, while those who flaunt the rules and thumb their noses at the social norms get all the breaks... And an overwhelming majority of the country have come to the conclusion that the system is rewarding the wrong people and the wrong actions, implying that the norms by which the consensual authority is achieved are failing to work properly.''^^2^^
In short, in the mid-'7()s the consciousness that experienced discontent and that took a critical view of the general state of affairs was statistically predominant. That type of consciousness, as we have learned, could be found (though in varying measure) in many of the groups and classes making up the nation's majority. Studies confirmed _-_-_
^^1^^ Yankelovic h, op. c'it., pp. 762. 763.
^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 763--64.
309 this. Naturally, the least satisfied with their condition were the ethnic minorities, black Americans, and Americans with a low annual income. In 1975, among black Americans the proportion of the disaffected made up 75 per cent; among people with low annual incomes 66 per cent, and among skilled workers 63 per cent. But in the group with a college education, too, the disaffected numbered 56 per cent, and among white-collar workers and civil servants 58 per cent. The disaffected in the over 15,000-dollar annual income bracket numbered 58 per cent. "The shadow of alienation,'' we read in the Annual Review of Sociology (Vol. 1, Palo Alto, Calif., 1975, p. 97), "now cuts across class line.''In the early half of the '70s the massive growth of discontent and alienation was reflected in a broad and rapid spread of critical and ``self-critical'' ideas. References to the crisis in politics, ideology and morality, and in the practice of governance as a whole, resounded more and more often in books and in the press. It resounded more distinctly, too, in the utterances of political leaders of various orientations. Overall conclusions were drawn more often that America was a "sick society''. And though we may assume that for a certain section of journalists and politicians these references to crisis and sickness were no more than the gratuitous tribute they paid to a current fad, the very fact that symptoms of malaise and crisis were frequently mentioned was certainly no accident. It reflected the general ideologico-psychological situation in the USA of the mid-'70s.
It would seem the country was ripe for a new upswing of the protest movement, this time a really massive one. But no such upswing came about, and for a number of reasons. The discontent, the social criticism and political alienation lodged in tens of millions of people were not an expression of ideological unity. And unity alone could have given rise to mass political action. Organizations with sufficient influence did not step into the breach to head a serious mass movement of protest.
A characteristic point: the political alienation affecting many Americans was expressive not only of their alienation from the ruling elite heading the basic institutions, but also from politics as a whole. The credibility crisis was not focused on "men in power" alone; it extended to all institutional forms of political action.
The increasing political alienation was often accompanied by a mounting sense of impotence. And this blend of alienation and impotence bred variants of consciousness and behavior. One type of consciousness, for example, was sharply 310 critical of the basic institutions, but remained conformist in daily affairs. As we see, trivial day-to-day pragmatism, even cynicism, was liable to coexist with sharp discontent.
Other types of consciousness appeared. In individuals who were conscious of their impotence to change anything and with introverted reactions, the discontent was liable to lead to neuroses and to hard drinking and drugs. In extroverts the same discontent tended to develop into pervasive irritability and embitterment. Incomprehension of the substance of the general social processes was likely to cause the extrovert to divert his irritation and bitterness against those who were weaker, to vent his annoyance and anger on them or on any outside objects which in various ideological situations were treated as scapegoats.
The ideologico-psychological condition known in the USA as political alienation was not, as a rule, conducive to any ideological program of radical societal reconstruction. The average American, even the malcontent who was disappointed in the prevailing ideology and politics, chiefly liberal, had not in most cases yet acquired any truly alternative outlook or political action program. He had no alternative model of the future, and was essentially disappointed with the optimistic Utopian forecasts offerred him by the liberals in the '60s. Sociologist Ronald Inglehart observed: "We have no model of the future.'' For most Americans, he amplified, all rapid change---experienced forcefully in the '70s---was "a leap into the unknown".^^1^^
The dismay and insecurity typical of the discontented majority of the '70s, grew in some cases into a general feeling of impending disaster or cataclysm which, it was felt, neither individuals nor society could avert. In some cases this bred a kind of fatalism: the future would take care of itself, things would work out somehow. Coupled with a sharply critical attitude to the new processes in America it also bred, especially in the latter half of the '70s, the disposition to idealize and romanticize olden times.
In many people the deep-seated disaffection often assumed the proportion of anger against the whole surrounding world. In such cases, materializing in the general emotional state of the individual, the disaffection was no more than an abstract thing: not based on differentiated analysis of the realities and not addressed against concrete social relationships clearly defined and conceived in the class context. The objects of discontent and criticism were such highly general and indefinite phenomena as "the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Inglehart, The Silent Revolution. Changing Values and Political Styles Among Western Publics, Princeton, N.Y., 1977, p. 6.
311 present times'', "modern civilization" and "human society''.On the other hand, the absence of requisite theoretical knowledge caused the average American, given the influence of the individualist tradition, to address his deep-rooted discontent not against the social system, not against any of its institutions, but against specific personalities heading those institutions. Here we must not forget that their individualist ideology and psychology prompts Americans to concentrate their attention on personalities and the personality factor in public life and not on the objective (and in that sense depersonalized) characteristics of the social system and its institutions.
The contradictory nature of the discontent that assailed most Americans in the '70s derived from one more important factor: the disaffected majority of the '70s consisted of people froin diverse social groups and strata. Their objective status, above all their economic status, was anything but similar. First of all, it included those segments of US citizens who, as their members attested, experienced the fairly serious effects of the economic recession. But it also included those whose economic condition remained unaffected. This segment of people reacted more sharply to the failure of the Vietnam adventure and the sensational political scandals, to mounting crime and to drug addiction, to the disintegration of families and other symptoms of a moral and psychological crisis. That is why, within this bracket too, a sense of discontent arose over the general state of affairs. And the fact that the disaffected majority was inwardly divided resulted in that diverse groups accentuated different problems and different aspects of the crisis.
But even in those cases where unity (of basic interests and coinciding objects of the sharp discontent) existed, the general disaffection of the average American was based on different concepts of the social problems and, in the final count, on different political orientations. Take this typical example. All of us remember the outburst of mass discontent caused in the USA by the failure of the aggression against Vietnam. One of the polls held after the US troops were withdrawn from Vietnam was designed todetermine what Americans thought to be the chief reason for the defeat. The most numerous group was of the opinion that the defeat was brought on by the corruption of the South Vietnamese regime, that is, they took a transient rather than a substantive reason to be the most important. Second and third were the groups who ascribed the defeat of the USA to the willpower of the "Viet Cong" and North Vietnam and the aid they had received from the socialist 312 countries, notably the Soviet Union. And those Americans who pointed to the fallacy of a foreign policy that had brought about the Vietnam war and, finally, the defeat of the USA, were only in fourth place.^^1^^
This, along with many other facts, spoke of a certain immaturity of the average American's critical thinking,. of his underdeveloped critical self-reflection concerning the history of his country and its domestic and external policy. His critical consciousness had no foundation in understanding the deep-seated inner causes of the critical situations in which the USA found itself. Rather, it demonstrated an inclination to look for "outside culprits" and to regard other countries, first of all the USSR, as ``scapegoats''.
All too often, the disaffected American's attitude towards the surrounding world was prompted mainly by emotions. His typical state of discontent and political alienation was fragmentary and eclectical. It was therefore highly unstable and changeable. The structure and crystallization of his spontaneous discontent was liable to take different directions and breed diverse, intrinsically conflicting, variants of political consciousness. Here, of course, much depended on the alignment of forces in politics and ideology and on the efforts of the more influential US groups and organizations which engaged in working out political and ideological attitudes and slogans and in the systematic conditioning of rank-and-file Americans. An enormous role was played by professional ideologists shaping the instruments of mass propaganda, brainwashing and manipulation.
__*_*_*__We may recall that progressive movements and organizations gained ground and influence visibly in the early '70s. The interest in socialism and Marxism-Leninism grew considerably.
Visible positive change was seen in foreign policy. Considerable progress was made in relaxing international tensions and in normalizing US-USSR relations. The ideologicopolitical cold war arsenal was subjected to a far-reaching revision, though it should be noted that this occurred less in the context of the prevalent US ideology and much more in the day-to-day political practices, not at the level of ideological theory but in the pragmatic postures that determined the specific foreign policy decisions characterizing the trend towards detente.
_-_-_^^1^^ Sec Yankelovk li, op <ii., p. 769.
313In the early '70s, indeed, antisocialist and anti-Soviet postulates remained a constant element in the ideology prevalent in the United States. All the same, the aggressiveness was toned down a little and the scale of antisocialist and anti-Soviet propaganda was reduced. At the same time, signs of ferment and division appeared among ideologists and political activists of the liberal complexion. They were assailed by the same unease and general criticism as the average Americans, and in many cases failed to rise above the consciousness of the disaffected majority. Their utterances and opinions were distinctly contradictory. Often, a kind of residual and obviously exaggerated optimism went hand in hand with strongly pessimistic references to the general crisis, the disintegration and absence of values, to failures and defeats in various political fields. Much of the liberal writing of that time displayed a leaning towards technocratic and bureaucratic schemes, while containing obvious concessions to left-rebel radicalism, especially in the spiritual field, culture, privacy, and personal and sexual relations.
A change occurred in the period from 1974 to 1976. Conservative groups grew visibly more vigorous in the ideological and political spheres. Traditionalists edged forward in the system of ideological and political relations. A peculiar bloc made up essentially of recent liberals who had shifted rightward and were known as neoconservatives, and of traditionalist conservatives who had adjusted the conservative tradition to the tasks of consolidating power and "law and order'', began playing an active and conspicuous role in the realm of political ideology. This gave rise to what was described as a "second spring of American conservatism'', with the center of American politics shifting to the right.^^1^^
The conservative and rightist groups launched a vigorous offensive on all forms of social criticism inside the country. Criticism of home critics---this was the thrust of speeches, statements and publications that grew ever more numerous since 1975. Cultivators of nationalism and apologists of optimism were elbowing their way back to the forefront. They began calling on everyone employed in the ideological field, the mass media and culture, tb throw off "the complex of defeat, failure and crisis''. A typical example was the book by Ben J. Wattenberg, The Real America, widely advertised in 1975 and 1976. It was built on a primitively simplistic scheme. Under the head _-_-_
^^1^^ Stephen J. Tonsor, "The Second Spring of American Conservatism'', National Review, Vol. XXIX, No. 38, September 30, 1977, p. 1107.
314 of "Complex of Guilt and Failure" were given various critical utterances, whose authors Wattenberg accused of disseminating defeatism and national inferiority, ideological disarmament and moral disorganization of the man in the street. He endeavored to convice the reader that the mood of discontent was confined in the USA to but a handful of left intellectuals and fault-finders who had created a critical fad, and to those irresponsible journalists and politicians who fell for it.The insistent efforts to belittle the impact of the critical processes underway in the country were compounded with romantic idealization of the history of the United States. A big part was played here by the noisy campaign on the occasion of the Bi-Centennial, which laid stress on reviving links with the country's past. The campaign was marked by a striving to recover and rehabilitate " traditional American values''.
Towards the close of the '70s more and more of the leading ideologists, politicians and journalists were unreservedly promoting and lauding capitalism, private property, bourgeois enterprise and the market economy.
Capitalism, private property and the market were more and more frequently and more candidly proclaimed as the foundation and chief premise of economic growth. Outspoken conservative ideologists called for the ``liberation'' of private capitalist enterprise from governmental interference. The more moderate neoconservatives sought to combine apologia of the private capitalist market and demands to revitalize it and ``free'' it of ``excessive'' governmental patronage with recognition of the government's regulating role, which they saw as a permanent and necessary factor, especially in the setting of mounting critical processes.
Conservative ideologists shifted the blame for the inflation mainly on rank-and-file Americans who, they argued, were asking for ``excessive'' pay increases. Daniel Bell, for example, referred to the "destructive way" of the "revolution of rising entitlements" that had in his opinion gripped the USA. He thought it ``destructive'' that rankand-file Americans at the bottom of the incomes pyramid demanded real economic equality, addressing their `` entitlements'' above all to the state and the privileged, top-- ofthe-pyramid ruling class.^^1^^
In recent years conservative ideologists have been appealing to rank-and-file Americans to be "more modest'' _-_-_
~^^1^^ Bell, "The Revolution of Rising Entitlements'', Fortune, April 1975, pp. 98--103, 182--85; Bell, "The Future World Disorder: the Structural Context of Crises" , Foreign Policy, No. 27, Summer 1977, p. 135.
315 and to ``moderate'' their life expectations. The traditionally conservative criticism of ``hedonism'', "excess materialism" and extravagance, in line with the Puritan ethic and addressed to the average American, has escalated.Lastly, conservative writers are fostering the idea that the welfare programs put forward in the '60s were harmful to the general growth of the country's economy. They are levelling criticism at the optimistic liberal projects that, they allege, have triggered the "excessively high" wants of the man in the street, growth of taxes and inflation, and the decline in labor productivity.
Present-day US conservatives are waving the flag of "individual rights" conceived on the traditional individualist plane. And this now and then combines with attacks on the bureaucracy of the federal government. Typically, when criticizing "Washington bureaucracy'', they call for a strengthening of such obviously bureaucratic federal agencies as the FBI, CIA and the Pentagon. They are fighting to recover individual liberties and rights in the traditional bourgeois sense under the slogan of democracy. But the ``democracy'' they have in mind is clearly and conclusively associated with private property, competition in business and politics, i.e., with capitalism. And conservative ideologists who identify democracy and capitalism are natural leaders in the antisocialist and anti-Soviet campaign launched in the USA under the "human rights" signboard. The ideological constructions speculating on democracy and human rights are addressed mainly to the mass discontent and the ``unhappy'' individualist consciousness, to its democratic illusions and also its disappointments and fears, which have visibly increased in face of the steadily growing alienated bureaucratic authoritarian economic and political structures and forms of organization of the '60s and '70s. And again we see at work the socio-psychological mechanisms which had surfaced in the '50s during the McCarthy period.
The official US ideology is snowing an obvious intention to direct the aggrieved sentiments and feelings of discontented and disappointed individualism towards anticommunism and anti-Sovietism. It is aimed at shifting the center of the acute ideological discussions of democracy outward by continuously concocting accusations against the socialist countries and above all the USSR and diverting the attention of Americans from the antidemocratic tendencies on the domestic scene. Simultaneously, a massive campaign has been launched in the USA to, in fact, curtail democracy. The slogan is the usual one: "invigorate national unity" in face of the "mounting communist threat''. 316 Ideas are being circulated that what the country needs is to "deter democracy''.
To the rank-and-file 'American whose real interest lies in expanding democracy, the conservative ideology addresses appeals for tightening social discipline and for sustaining social and political conformism.
Moralizing and lecturing in the conservative tradition and spirit has become typical of present-day America. In that sense, the US ideological literature of today presents a sharp contrast to the liberal-oriented publications of the late '60s and early '70s.
The vitalization of rightist and conservative groups is most conspicuous in questions of foreign policy. The main effort here is directed to overcoming what American writers call "the crisis of the spirit''. "The crisis of the spirit,'' Zbigniew Brzezinski explains, "was stimulated by the Vietnamese War and by the constitutional and moral crises of Watergate.'' The other reason behind it, he admits, is "the widespread global phenomenon of anti-Americanism".^^1^^
In their bid to overcome "the crisis of the spirit'', right conservative ideologists urge the country to "recover its sense of security and optimism" and to "generate a new spirit''. This "new spirit" heralded by them is a new variant of the imperial-nationalist ideology. In 1976 to 1978 they associated it with the traditional idea of US moral `` superiority'' and laid special emphasis on America's "moral mission" in the world, and in 1979 supplemented it with the idea of military superiority. Military superiority and "positions of strength" are being emphasized in the most outspoken terms by the Reagan Administration which came to power under the conservative flag at the junction of the '70s and '80s.
Rightist and conservative ideologists and politicians capitalize on the fears generated among Americans by the nuclear war menace and try to direct it towards anti-- Sovietism and militarism, spurring the USA to escalate the arms race. They exploited the lie of a Soviet war threat to torpedo ratification of the strategic arms limitation treaty signed in 1979 and are preventing implementation of the peace initiatives of the USSR and other socialist countries.
The right has mounted a counteroffensive on those groups in the USA who, moved by political realism, are favoring the policy of international detente. Rightist and conser* vative ideologists address their ideas above all to Americans frightened by the crisis processes that got under way _-_-_
~^^1^^ "The Priorities of I'.S. Foreign Policy'', Dialogue, Vol. 11, No. 2, 1978. pp. 49. 50.
317 in the '70s. Since these members of society do not in most cases understand the true causes of the crisis, the false thought is being sold to them that the relaxation of tensions in those years precipitated crisis processes and that for the USA it was a one-way street (i.e., profited none but the Soviet Union and other socialist countries). Hence the insistent rightist demands to follow a tough line in relation to the Soviet Union and thereby secure advantages for the United States.Furthermore, right conservative ideologists and politicians are eager to reactivate US expansionist policy in Asia, Africa and Latin America, and for this reason are issuing dire warnings about the consequences for the rankand-file American of the energy and raw materials crisis. That crisis, to be sure, is becoming ever more threatening for the United States, a country with only 6 per cent of the world population but consuming nearly 40 per cent of world resources. This fact evokes highly conflicting feelings among rank-and-file Americans. The "new right" is trying to exploit these fealings in its propaganda of expansionism and also in cultivating anticommunist and anti-Soviet sentiment. The average Americans are being told day after day that the USSR, Cuba and other socialist countries are endangering American interests in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, and that they are menacing US efforts to ensure sources of oil and other requisite raw materials.
The clash between various political forces in the USA is growing more bitter. The drive of the "new right" to gain complete control over ideology and politics is being countered by groups favoring detente and socially significant domestic reform. But in spite of this, the influence of rightists and conservatives has risen in recent years, and this not only on political decision-making but also on public opinion and the political orientation of many rank-and-file Americans. The scale and limits of this influence are an object of controversy. Conservatives are inclined to exaggerate them. And some liberals agree that "neoconservative reaction" has gripped the USA. Others argue that this is not so.
There is no denying that the massive propaganda campaign launched by conservative ideologists, politicians and mass media has had its effect. National opinion polls in the late '70s showed that a fairly large number or Americans put themselves down as conservatives. In 1978 to 1981, for example, this applied to from 30 to 40 per cent of those who were polled (while only a little over 20 per cent favored liberalism), and the rest declared themselves 318 middle-of-the-road in relation to conservatives and liberals.
This is clear evidence of the dissappointment of a large segment of Americans in liberalism or, more precisely, the liberalism of the '60s. In the eyes of many Americans a liberal is the incarnation of a bureaucrat and careerist who, having won power in the '60s, began looking down on the people and disregarding their opinion. This is shown, among others, in a study made by Robert Coles, a prominent psychologist (Commentary, September 1976, p. 49). That is the effect of the narrow, one-dimensional range of alternative political attitudes traditionally imposed on the American, offering him a choice only between liberalism and conservatism. A person disappointed in and refusing to identify himself with liberalism is thereby impelled to identify himself with conservatism or to define his new attitude as ``middle-of-the-road'' or ``centrist''. And many rank-and-file Americans submit and fall under the influence of this dichotomic scheme though, in fact, they have no more than a vague idea of the substance of either the liberal or the conservative ideological and political positions and programs.
It will be proper to note that in the framework of the dichotomic scheme that has been saddled on the American, his attitude to various purely concrete matters is often formally and artificially associated either with liberalism or with conservatism. Take this widespread stereotype: if you are in favor of legal abortions, then you are a liberal; if you are in favor of capital punishment for murder, then you are strictly a conservative; if you happen to want firmer measures to combat crime, if you favor tighter discipline and lasting moral principles, then you belong with the conservatives (in the USA, indeed, conservatives have traditionally laid a stronger accent on these problems than liberals). Yet Americans who favor a "rule of law" may, in effect, have nothing in common with the principles of conservatism. For many black Americans today, for example, struggle for "rule of law'', for their rights, means demanding that the equal rights laws already passed in the USA, which are in fact often breached, should be duly observed. And what about the growing protest among rank-and-file Americans against increasing crime, immorality and permissiveness? Is it not entirely understandable, justifiable and natural? Yet it may have nothing at all in common with the political ideology of conservatism and, for that matter, with the ``conservative-liberal'' dichotomy in general.
The rigid liberal-conservative continuum in the political consciousness prevents Americans from seeing their 319 aspiralions, relations and attitudes in their true light. It prevents development and renewal of their political orientations. Often, it makes for pendulum-like swings from liberalism to conservatism and vice versa. The centrist, middle-of-the-road position is often, in effect, traceable to a person's inability or reluctance to identify himself with either liberalism or conservatism or to his disappointment in both. Nevertheless, today in America the consciousness of many is falling under the sway of ideologico-political tendencies that act as a kind of nourishing medium for a certain strengthening of the conservative forces. The deterioration of the general crisis, as we have already said, is exercising a highly contradictory influence on Americans. It tends to scuttle many of their illusions, to stimulate inward discontent and alienation from the prevailing system. It is also, however, creating a number of important conditions for renewal of the political consciousness and a possible future upswing of progressive movements.
But in someone who has failed to find a fundamentally new and truly alternative orientation any aggravation of the crisis will often arouse a whole set of sensitive emotions, moods and states of mind that the conservative can exploit for his ends. A state of depression, weariness, emptiness, nervous strain, confusion, alarm and fear has become typical of a large number of people, and is openly admitted. Referring to the ideologico-political climate in the USA in the late '70s, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. mentioned " national exhaustion'', "a pattern of boredom'', "seasons of fatigue'', and said people were just getting tired of the accumulation of obviously unsolved problems (Public Opinion, Vol. 1, No. 4, Sept./Gct. 1978, pp. 8-10).
And with this loss of faith in the future comes fear that the present state of affairs will deteriorate, fear of losing what you have. This, in turn, stimulates the impulse to conserve the present state of affairs. As a result, the orientation on. personal and social dynamism typical of many Americans has given way to an orientation on ``stability''. As the situation deteriorates, the past begins to look more and more attractive. People tend to idealize the "olden days''. The man in the street keeps going back in his mind to those times when conditions still existed for free initiative on a mass scale and the bureaucratic forms of organization were not as highly developed as they are today. The American tends to idealize the life of the farmer and artisan of the 19th century. He yearns for the "good old days" when the energy and ecological problems were less acute, when no nuclear 320 disaster threatened, and when he was confident that the USA was militarily invulnerable. He also fondly remembers the less remote time when he had faith in the economic, moral and military superiority of the USA and even in the possibility of a Pax Americana. And those are the tendencies that conservatives, and sometimes right-radical groups too, make use of today.
But along with these tendencies, coming into collision with them, there arise other tendencies of a fundamentally different orientation. Despite the invigoration of the obviously apologist propaganda, for example, the accumulation of social discontent in the consciousness of rankand-file Americans continues. Observer Robert D. Novak, who registered an amazingly high level of political alienation, noted that Americans are convinced the government is to blame for many of their troubles.^^1^^
True, the growing disappointment in the government has highly contradictory consequences. Many rank-and-file Americans are losing interest in ``big-time'' politics and pin their hopes on ``local'' politics. The idea of decentralizing authority and accentuating the role of private initiative in settling many of the acute problems is more popular than it was before. And these trends and ideas fit into the traditionalist framework which the conservatives are fostering.
But the deep dissatisfaction with the government often leads Americans to conclusions of a different kind. The demands they set federal bodies of political power go counter to the conservative tradition. Everett C. Ladd, Jr., writing in the journal Public Opinion (No. 4, 1978, p. 33), observes that "there is now a greater inclination than ever to use government as a provider of services and generally as a problem solver''. In essence, he is speaking of a relatively new, highly important, and obviously longterm and irreversible tendency: intensive politicization of the minds of rank-and-file Americans is under way. And this is at loggerheads with the traditionally individualist bourgeois notions of how to solve vital problems facing the individual.
Americans are increasingly aware that they need a political mechanism to ensure the basic social rights of the individual: the right to work, to medical care, and the like. At the height of the intensive conservative propaganda campaign, for example, 74 per cent of Americans held that "government ought to guarantee jobs" and 81 per cent that it "ought to help with medical expenses''. And the _-_-_
^^1^^ Public Opinion, Vol. 1, No. 4, Sept./Oct. 1978, pp. 2-7.
__PRINTERS_P_321_COMMENT__ 21--34 321 interesting point is that these ideas came equally from Americans who identified themselves as liberals (81 and 91 per cent), middle-of-the-roaders (79 and 85 per cent), and even as conservatives (71 and 82 per cent), which is added proof of the vagueness of such self-identification.^^1^^Trying to show that they wield much influence in the USA, the conservatives refer to the dissatisfaction with government aid programs for the poor and blacks (and government regulations allotting a certain quota of jobs and scholarships to blacks and the least provided groups). This dissatisfaction runs high chiefly among Americans who come from the petty bourgeoisie, office workers and partly semiskilled and skilled workers. It is typical of Americans with the least developed socio-political consciousness conditioned by the high-powered propaganda of the conservative and right-radical forces. The growth of crisis trends in the economy is also largely responsible. Many Americans, including those with medium-sized earnings, are facing the tangible threat of a decline in their living standard. This has frightened them and has sharpened the competition between various groups and individuals. Rightists are out to use for their ends the fears of white Americans, and to incite anti-black sentiment. They speculate on the aid that the government has been compelled to extend to black Americans and the poorest sections of whites, while doing nothing in substance to aid semiskilled employees who today experience ever greater misgivings, discontent, and need. More, the government has put the cost of its aid to the poor on the shoulders of taxpayers, the bulk of whom are working people. This intricate and contradictory situation tends to breed sentiments which the conservatives are quick to exploit.
Still, the facts show that increasing numbers of Americans are shaking off racist prejudices. Positive change is in train in the attitude of rank-and-file Americans to the civil rights struggle of their black compatriots. As many as 84 per cent of whites have said they would not hesitate to vote for a black presidential nominee if he deserved it, and 93 per cent that they "favor Blacks' right to live anywhere''. The vast majority of Americans hold that " government should guarantee fair jobs/housing for Blacks''. (And again these opinions are unrelated to the selfidentification of those who were polled, among whom 79 per cent identified themselves as liberal, 73 as middle-- ofthe-road, and 67 as conservative.)^^2^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ See Public Opinion, Vol. 1, No. 4, Sept./Oct. 1978, pp. 35--39.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 37, 38.
322The facts show that the development of the general democratic consciousness in the United States has not stopped. Fake the successful public campaign for the release of the Wilmington Ten and other victims of racism, the struggle against the power of the FBI, against the undemocratic system of surveillance and persecution of dissidents, and for the maintenance and extension of democratic liberties and rights. True, we must not overlook the complexities of the process. The vitalization of traditionalist ideology in recent years has in some measure caused a section of Americans to treat the problem of human rights and freedoms in the traditional liberal spirit. But for all that the democratic consciousness of Americans is in ferment. This is reflected, among other things, in national opinion polls. Despite the visible invigoration of rightconservative trends, 62 per cent of Americans in 1977 (against 37 per cent in 1954) censured those who wished to forbid atheists to make public antireligious utterances, and as many as 76 per cent censured those who were in favor of outlawing public propaganda of socialist ideas (Public Opinion, No. 4, 1978, p. 37). Growth of the democratic consciousness is also borne out by the ever wider demands of "open government" whose activity would be entirely subject to public control.
Since bourgeois ideology is dominant in the USA, it is not surprising that most Americans still consider "private property" and "free enterprise" stable values, and especially so if the question is put to them in general terms and the poll is aimed at establishing the attitude to the general ideological symbols. But no sooner the questions are formulated more specifically and the American is asked to evaluate various aspects of present-day private enterprise, he tends to show increasingly outspoken critical sentiment. Even conservative Ladd admits that "criticism of some business practices has increased in the last decade" (Public Opinion, No. 1, 1978, p. 49). Resentment -of the practices of large corporations is mounting steadily and irreversibly. Americans are blaming the corporations for the prevailing unemployment and rising prices, for creating authoritarian bureaucracy, for the declining quality of commodities, predatory use of natural resources, the deterioration of ecological problems, and so on.
This disaffection is in evidence among various types of the political consciousness. The populist consciousness of a traditionalist, sometimes right-radical, complexion, is on the rise. It has spread above all among the petty bourgeoisie, the declasse bourgeoisie and lumpenproletariat, 323 and among those ruffled and disappointed Americans whose consciousness feeds on traditional individualism. The bearers of this consciousness regard the corporations as enemies of "free enterprise" (read petty and medium enterprise) and of the ideal of the individual's `` independence''. Often, the most fervent and radical criticism of the big corporations comes from those styled " entrepreneurs and producers" and identified with the ``people'' as a whole (hence ``populism''). The guaranteed opportunity and right of every ordinary American to engage in private enterprise is seen by these critics as the chief means of resisting the authoritarianism of big corporations and the government bureaucracy.
But in recent years there is ever greater evidence of a devaluation of the traditional bourgeois idea of the fundamental significance of private property. This devaluation is visible above all in the consciousness of industrial workers who have direct dealings with large-scale corporate forms of property. And the fact that it also occurs among those who identify themselves as conservatives speaks of its depth and scale. Here is the story of a conversation that writer Robert Coles had with a textile worker in the lowest income bracket in a small southern town. The factory owners had managed to prevent a union from being formed and to sow mistrust of unions among the work force. The man called himself a conservative. But here is what this ``conservative'' said: "Why shouldn't we own some of these factories---instead of those stockholders, who never come near this place, and soak up all the profits that we make, sweating and sweating, the long hours of sweating?" (Commentary, September 1976, p. 49). Coles describes this mood as typical. Which means that tendencies contrary to the dominant tradition (let alone its conservative variant) are shaping in the USA. The discontent with the big corporations is bursting the narrow limits of petty-bourgeois ``populist'' illusions and habits, and is laying the ground for antimonopoly sen timent among the working people of America.
The American worker is tending to understand the injustice of the existing economic inequality of social classes. Even Irving Kristol, apologist and recognized leader of neoconservatism in the USA, is forced to admit that "there are a great many people in this society ... who think redistribution on moral grounds is the most important political necessity" (Public Opinion, No. 4, 1978, p. 58). Kristol holds that a specific ideology has arisen around this idea. An ever greater number of American workers are beginning to see the close linkage between the corporate elite and the government apparatus.
324Highly important change is being witnessed in the attitude of Americans to international affairs and foreign policy. And here, too, the individual's political orientation is influenced by disparate forces and processes.
The intensive nationalist and chauvinist propaganda of right conservative groups is naturally leaving its mark, especially when it falls on relatively fertile soil. Here we refer above all to the traditional belief in American exceptionalism, in US superiority over other countries, and in a special historical mission of the USA. This belief, born in the bourgeois revolution, at that time expressed the attitude of the revolutionary ideology towards the feudalist order that still prevailed in most countries of the world. Later, it reflected the optimism and self-- assurance of the young and quickly developing American capitalism. In the 20th century it took the shape of imperial pretensions, of candidly chauvinist sentiments and, finally, the cold war ideology. But over the two-odd centuries its many diverse variants were deeply rooted in the consciousness of a very large cross-section of Americans.
The events of the late '60s and early '70s delivered an all but crippling blow to this belief. Opinion polls showed that 72 per cent of Americans felt that the role played by the United States in Vietnam was a black mark in American history (Public Opinion, No. 1, 1978, p. 13). For some Americans the collapse paved the way to a new political orientation on respecting other countries and nations, respecting their sovereignty and their rights, to an orientation on the peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems, on international detente and mutually profitable cooperation, participation in the constructive solution of global problems, and selfless aid to the developing countries. In the case of others the traditional beliefs tended to withdraw to the background, as it were, and were suppressed or pushed into the subconscious, but did not disintegrate or disappear. A sense of hurt national pride, "national humiliation'', even "national inferiority'', appeared and was often compounded with resentment, irritation, even bitterness, against the rest of the world. These feelings were superimposed on others---on the no less painful feelings of unease and fear bred by the deepening economic crisis, the crisis in domestic politics and in the moral sphere. And rightconservative groups, the hawks of American ideology and politics, played deliberately on these feelings, stimulated andsharpenedthem,anddirectedthemtowardsanticommunism and anti-Sovietism, flag-waving patriotism, nationalism and 325 chauvinism. Use of hurt national pride by rightists and chauvinists is frequent in history. Lenin pointed out years ago that in Russia early in the century "chauvinism appeared as a thirst for revenge engendered by the losing of the war with Japan".^^1^^
A new groundswell of these sentiments rose visibly in the United States by the beginning of the '80s. Affected by high-powered imperialist propaganda, a considerable section of Americans became more receptive to talk about US "world leadership" and the "world mission" of the United States designed to justify the hegemonic claims of the reactionary sections of the ruling class.
The consciousness of many Americans is unavoidably affected by the continuous slander campaign of a "war threat" emanating from the USSR and the other Warsaw Treaty countries. The influence of the militarist groups in the USA is naturally causing dismay and turmoil in the thoughts and senses of Americans. Of late, public opinion polls show, a larger number of people are supporting the idea that the USA ought to secure "superiority over the USSR in military power''.
The massive and strident anti-Soviet campaigns have left a certain imprint on public opinion. The ruling element engineers them to divert the attention of the public from the deteriorating economic problems in the USA and its failures in foreign relations (the events in Iran and the Middle East, in Latin America, and so on). It endeavors to compensate the crisis process and the pained feelings of many Americans (the growing depression, dejection, nervous tension, pessimism and loss of faith in the country's future), and to create new, artificial forms of "national unity" leavened by a cold war.
Seeing the impact achieved by the chauvinist, militarist and anti-Soviet propaganda in the USA, we cannot but wonder about the future of the positive attitudes that surfaced in the foreign-policy orientations of Americans in the '70s and in the past few years.
The numerous national opinion polls show, for example, that there is relatively stable public support of detente and of negotiating limitation of strategic and offensive arms with the USSR. Even at the height of militarist and anti-Soviet campaigns, as in early 1981, as many as 60 per cent of Americans were in favor of a strategic arms limitation agreement, and only 19 per cent were opposed (Time, February 2, 1981, p. 17).
_-_-_~^^1^^ "The Campaign Against Finland'', Collected Works, Vol. 16, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1<I7,'V p. 173).
326Support of the idea of negotiating strategic arms limitation may be regarded as the token of a realistic and stable tendency in the sphere of foreign-policy orientation. It expresses itself also in the increasingly clear awareness of millions of Americans of the growing menace and probable disastrous consequences of nuclear war. This is reflected conclusively, among others, in the serious and large-scale studies made by Morris Janowitz (The Last Half-Century. Societal Change and Politics in America, Chicago, 1978). He stresses that systematic analysis of public opinion polls proves that in the '70s fear of an atomic war was related more and more distinctly in the public consciousness with rejection of using nuclear weapons in military interventions (pp. 206--07).
Opinion polls also show that despite the frantic activity of the foes of detente most Americans are opposed to the arms race. A poll held in June 1981 revealed that 68 per cent favor a UN referendum in all countries on the attitude to nuclear disarmament (Gallup Poll, July 23, 1981). The same poll saw 72 per cent of Americans express themselves in favor of a Soviet-American agreement on ending nuclear arms production.
These positive tendencies, which have been clearly in evidence for a fairly long time, are not likely to come to a complete halt.
True, their scale, leverage and significance may fluctuate along with fluctuations in the balance of the forces working for realism and detente and those representing militarism, hegemonism and anti-Sovietism. The facts show, indeed, that these fluctuations may have considerable amplitude and may be highly dangerous.
The positive tendencies may, as it were, sink from the surface of the mainstream of public opinion, doubly so because it is usually presented through the prism of opinion polls whose organizers come in various measure under the pressure of the dominant ideology and mass propaganda. They may become a deep-down, submerged stratum of public opinion, and then surface again and acquire new strength.
It must be remembered that the objective causes and factors that make peaceful coexistence and detente historically necessary, will not vanish. On the contrary, they will make themselves felt more insistently with the passage of time. The activity of peace forces in the world at large and in the United States has not declined. And all this, cumulatively, is bound to influence the dynamics of the political consciousness of the mass of Americans in the long run.
327When studying the prospects of the future evolution of the political consciousness in the USA, of its basic types, we must take note of the emergence of new orientations. They go counter to the traditional attitudes of "the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois types of consciousness dominant in the USA. True, these new orientations have not, as a rule, impelled any fundamentally new, widespread types of political consciousness distinct from those described in previous chapters. But, all the same, their importance is not to be discounted.
The traditional individualist, private enterprise, bureaucratic careerist and narrow consumerist variants of the success orientation are opposed by the orientation on the inner self-development of the personality, of its initiative and creativity in socially useful labor and socially significant activity on behalf of peace, democracy and positive social change.
The orientation on competition is opposed by the orientation on cooperation and human relations, on such collectivism as necessarily envisages individual development.
The conformist orientation is opposed by the orientation on the vitality of the individual, on converting the personality from an object of authoritarian command and manipulation into a true subject of history and politics.
Pragmatism, petty utilitarian calculation and bureaucratic rationality are opposed by the individual's search of a new social vision, new forms of rationality which would provide closer insight into the objective needs and trends of modern history and contemporary man.
Myth, fetishism, romantic Utopia and illusions are opposed by realism in the individual's attitude to society and to himself in matters of domestic and foreign policy.
Traditionalism, nostalgia, and fear of social change are opposed by the orientation on deep study of future prospects, which are associated more and more conclusively with a radical restructuring of the existing system.
Nationalism, chauvinism, expansionism, hegemonism and militarism are opposed by the orientation on peaceful coexistence, international detente and equal cooperation with other states and peoples in resolving the global problems facing humanity.
The concrete results of the clash of these orientations depend on many factors, such as the relation of forces on the international scene and the change of this relation in favor of socialism, peace and detente, and on the objective dialectics of the economic, 328 political, ideologicaland cultural life in the United Stales.
The clash in attitudes gives rise to intricate and often conflicting combinations and blends of various orientations. Diverse states of mind, diverse feelings and sentiments succeed each other, giving rise to diverse and multifarious forms of behavior. Possible and likely are twists and turns and fluctuations in the mood and vision of people, and various conflicts and crisis symptoms in the system of values and political orientations.
Inasmuch as these processes become mass processes and are associated with forces and groups operating directly in the political and ideological spheres,they may exercise, and do exercise, a strong influence on the dynamics of US history generally and the dynamics of the political consciousness in particular, arid especially on the prevailing political climate and the domestic and foreign policy of the USA.
[329] __ALPHA_LVL1__ CONCLUSIONAs shown in our analysis, a new spectrum of political consciousness types has shaped in the USA in the '60s and '70s substantially different from the one witnessed in the '40s and '50s. Evidently, this change in the national political consciousness will continue. It may be assumed, however, that some elements of the present spectrum are resilient and stable enough to resist the destructive effects of time and that they will survive in the new future spectrum or, at least, that they will be the point of departure for new types of consciousness. In that sense, the typology offered here may extend beyond the '70s.
Speaking of the practical application of this typology, we ought to note that, say, the consciousness of any specific political personality cannot, as a rule, fit into the frame of one specific type. The more dimensional and contradictory is the personality of a politician, sociologist or individual seen as the subject of the political process, and the more complicated his evolution, the greater is the number of types we must use to anatomize and evaluate his political consciousness. On the other hand, the spectrum of types, taken as a whole, is complete enough to provide the researcher or practical politician with a key to a concrete political consciousness, bearer of the typical features of contemporary American society.
The authors have no intention to forecast the further development of the political consciousness in the United States. Still, it is not difficult to see that the central factor in the internal processes determining the transformation of America's political consciousness in the next ten or twenty years will be the ongoing further change in the relation between the market and the state as mechanisms regulating the socio-economic processes in the highly developed capitalist society of the United States. 330 There is also every reason to believe that the foreignpolicy factor will increasingly affect the development of the American political consciousness, especially so in view of the growing economic interdependence of all nations and the struggle of the two systems on the international scene.
The early '80s saw attempts to turn the country rightward, to inhibit the process of detente as the leading trend in international affairs, and to set the stage for a further strengthening of the military-industrial complex and for an offensive on the democratic rights of the working people. Conspicuous here is the fact that the legacy of hegemonism, cold war and anticommunism has survived in the political life of the USA and that the US political mechanism is so shaped as to enable the well organized and wealthy minority to hold down or even paralyze the policy that is supported by the majority. The future will show how long this course can last, how stable it is, and how it will affect the public consciousness, including political consciousness. It should be borne in mind, however, that the problems and contradictions facing America (now and evidently throughout the rest of the '80s) at home and internationally, cannot be resolved by force, on an antidemocratic basis. Besides, this kind of policy will unavoidably encounter resistance of the democratic forces in America itself and of those members of the international community who are aware that there is no sensible alternative to detente. And this means that the public consciousness of the USA will continue to produce diverse approaches, attitudes, tendencies and expectations that make up the intrinsically heterogeneous spectrum of types of political consciousness more or less similar to the one that shaped in the USA in the '60s and '70s.
[331] __ALPHA_LVL1__ NAME INDEXA
Adams, Brooks---99 Adams, Henry---99 Adorno, Theodor---244 Allen, Gary---170, 172, 173, 178 Alperovitz, Gar---263 Arbatov, G.A.---8 Armentano, D.T.---118
B
332Goldwater, Barry M.---109 Greely, Andrew---196 Grushin, B.---16
H
Lernei, Michael---263--66 268
Lewis, John---239
Leybin, V.M.---8
Lincoln, Abraham---6
Lindbeck, Assar---230
Lindsay, John---194
Lipset, Seymour M.---20 104
192, 197
Locke, John---25, 44, 210 Lodge, George C.---53, 54 Lynd, Staughton---208, 210
216, 226, 239, 241, 263
M
D
Hamilton, Alexander---24 Harrington, Michael---57, 81,
82, 84
Harris, L.---32, 308 Hart, Jeffrey---100 Hartz, Louis---21, 27, 46, 91 Hayek, Friedrich---103 Hayden, Tom---240, 243 Hazlitt, Henry---119 Helms, Jesse---199 Herberg, Will---100, 131 Herberger, E.---116 Hillquit, Morris---213 Hitler, Adolf---178 Horkheimer, Max---244 Horowitz, David---24, 234 Hospers, John---103 Humphrey, Hubert---198 Huntington, Samuel---21, 104
MacBride, Roger L.---103, 113,
116, 118
Marcuse, Herbert---24, 247 Marx, Karl---6-8, 12, 22, 43,
97, 140, 287 Mayer, F.---104 McGraw, Onalee---159, 160 Melvil, A.---9, 73 Menken, G---99 Mills, C. Wright---227, 244 Minter, W.---172 Mises, Ludwig von---103 Moberg, .David---263 More. Paul Elmer---99 Moynichan Daniel Patrick---73,
104, 136 Murray, John Courtney---126
N
Danielson, N.F.---6 Davidson, Donald---99 Diamond, Martin---104 Diligenski, G.G.---17 Dolbeare, Kenneth M.---86 Domhoff, William---172 Drucker, Peter---73
Babbit, Irving---99 Banfield, Edward---104 Bartley, Robert L.---291 Bebel, August---183 Bell, Daniel---5, 13, 20, 62, 71, -73, 101, 104, 138, 144, 145,
279, 281, 315
Bellamy, Edward---214, 217 Berger, Peter L.---27, 104 Brzezinski, Zbigniew---21, 69
73, 317
Buckley, William F.Jr.---92, 104 Buhamn, R.---202 Burke, Edmund---24, 124 Burlatski, F.---11 Burnham, James---131
I
Eastman, Max---111 Engels, Frederick---6-8, 12,
22, 97, 140
Epstein, Edwin M.---54 Evans, M. Stanton---104
Inglehart, Ronald---311
J
Jacobs, Harold---243 Janowitz, Morris---327 Jaspers, Karl---13 Jefferson, Thomas---210, 211, 226
Field, Stephen---102 Folwell, Jerry---199 Ford, Henry---181 Ford, Gerald---199 Fourier, Francois Marie Charles---217 Franklin, B.---210, 226 Free, Lloyd A.---19 Friedman, Milton---103, 116 Friedman. David---103, 109 Fromm, Erich---244 Furniss, Norman---78, 79
Newton, Huey---246 Nisbet, Robert---104, 130, 131 Nixon, Richard---152, 198, 199 Noskov, A.P.---16 Nozick, Robert---103, 114
O
K
Kendall, Willmoore---131 Keniston, Kenneth---244 Kennedy, John F.---59 Keynes, John M.---291 Kirk, Russell---100, 124, 126,
129, 132
Kleinberg, BenjaminS.---63, 72 Kolko, Gabriel---234 Kristol, Irving---5, 100, 104,
135, 324
Calhaun, John---99 Cantril, Hadley---19 Carnegie, Andrew---102, 172 Carter, Jimmy---136, 199, 237 Chambers, Whittaker---131 Chenoweth, Lawrence---308 Chinard, Gilbert---18 Coles, Robert---319, 324 Converse, Ph.E.---195 Crass, Philip---196
Oakeshott, Michael---137 O'Connor, James---63, 64, 84 Oglesby, Carl---236, 246
Galbraith, John Kenneth---80,
81, 227, 232 Calkin, A.A.---11, 73 Gimmer, N.N.---97
L
Ladd, Everett Jr.---135, 323 Lekachman, Robert---105 Lenin, V.I.---8, 176, 326 Lens, Sidney---214
Paine, Thomas---210, 226 Parrington.V.L.---101,212,214 Petrovsky, V.E.---151 Philips, Kevin---199, 202 Pinochet, Augusto---116 Podhoretz, Norman---104
333Raab, E.---192, 197 Randolph, John---92, 99 Ranson, John---99 Reagan, Ronald---205, 317 Reich, Charles A.---33, 253, 256 Robespierre, Maximilien Francois---91 Robinson, James---199 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano---93, 186 Root, Merrill---158 Rosenberg, Milton J.---195,
196, 282, 291 Rossiter, Clinton---100 Roszak.Theodore---25,259,260 Rothbard, Murray---103, 113 Rudd, Mark---252
Tonsor, Stephen J.---314 Tuccille, Jerome---103 Tucker, Nathaniel---99 Tucker, Robert W.---237
Valuzhenich, A.V.---8 Verba, Sidney---195, 196 Viereck, Peter---100, 131 Viguerie, Richard---158, 199 Voegelin, Eric---100 Voth, Harold---158 W
Wallace, George---153, 192,
197--99 Warren, Donald I.---99, 192,
199, 200, 204 Warren, Robert Pen---99 Weaver, Richard---100 Weber, Max---30 Welch, Robert---29, 169 Wilensky, Harold---78 Williams, William Appeleman---
234, 235
Wilson, Francis G.---100, 126 Witonski, Peter---100, 103, 123 Wolff, Robert Paul---247
Sartre, Jean-Paul---244
Schelkin, A.---73
Schlesinger, Arthur Jr.---5, 20,
320Schluter, Hermann---6 Schumpeter, Joseph---86 Seider, Maynard S.---56 Seligman, Ben---51 Shoup, David---172 Silver, Alan---252 Sinclair, Upton---215 Smith.Adam---43,109,111,291 Smith, William Stephen---208 Smooth, Dan---172, 177 Sorge, Friedrich Adolph---6, 7,
22Strauss, Leo---100 Sumner, William Graham---102
Yankelovich, Daniel---308, 309,
313Yanovsky, R.G.---16 Yefimov, A.V.---22 Yockey, Francis Parker---184,
185 Yulina, N.S.---8
Tate, Allen---99
Tilton, Timothy---78, 79
Thoreau, Henry David---212,
213 Tocqueville, Alexis de---235
Zamoshkin, Yu.---10, 73 Zinn, Howard---225, 229, 234, 235, 237, 243
[334] __ALPHA_LVL0__ The End. [END]Request to Readers
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