Susan George HOW TO WIN THE WAR OF IDEAS Lessons from the Gramscian Right

In Greek the hegemon is the leader, and from ket-dominated, iniquitous world is neither there it’s just a linguistic hop, skip, and jump to natural nor inevitable, then it should be pos- the notion of rule, authority, and dominance ex- sible to build a counter-project for a different pressed by the word “hegemony.” Traditionally, kind of world. the term was reserved for states. In the 1920s and 1930s, the great Italian Marxist thinker An- Exclusion and tonio Gramsci took the concept further, using it to explain how one class could establish its lead- The late twentieth century could be dubbed the ership over others through ideological domi- Age of Exclusion. It’s now clear that the “free nance. Whereas orthodox Marxism explained market,” which increasingly determines politi- nearly everything by economic forces, Gramsci cal and social as well as economic priorities, added the crucial cultural dimension. He showed cannot embrace everyone. The market’s job is how, once ideological authority—or “cultural he- not to provide jobs, much less social cohesion. gemony”—is established, the use of violence to It has no place for the growing numbers of people impose change can become superfluous. who contribute little or nothing to production Today, few would deny that we live under or consumption. The market operates for the the virtually undisputed rule of the market-domi- benefit of a minority. nated, ultracompetitive, globalized society with The Age of Exclusion engenders myriad so- its cortège of manifold iniquities and everyday cial ills with which various humanitarian and violence. Have we got the hegemony we deserve? charitable agencies, established in an earlier era, I think we have, and by “we” I mean the pro- vainly attempt to cope. Vainly, because they have gressive movement, or what’s left of it. Obvi- failed to understand that their projects and pro- ously I don’t deny the impact of economic forces grams exist in an ideological context that sys- or of political events like the end of the cold tematically frustrates their aims. war in shaping our lives and our societies, but The now-dominant economic doctrine, of here I intend to concentrate on the war of ideas which widespread exclusion is a necessary ele- that has been tragically neglected by the “side ment, did not descend from heaven. It has, of the angels.” Many public and private institu- rather, been carefully nurtured over decades, tions that genuinely believe they are working through thought, action, and ; for a more equitable world have contributed to bought and paid for by a closely knit fraternity the triumph of neoliberalism or have passively (they mostly are men) who stand to gain from allowed this triumph to occur. its rule. If this judgment sounds harsh, positive An earlier version of this doctrine was called conclusions may still be drawn from it. The “laissez-faire”; today Americans speak of Rule of the Right is the result of a concerted, neoconservatism, Europeans of neoliberalism, long-term ideological effort on the part of and the French of “la pensée unique” (the domi- identifiable actors. If we recognize that a mar- nant or single mindset). I shall use

SUMMER • 1997 • 47 The War of Ideas

“neoliberalism,” bearing in mind that the mod- Clearly, —after all, ern version of the doctrine is far removed from Margaret Thatcher proudly proclaimed her al- that of such great “liberal” political economists legiance to the ideas of Hayek, and most eco- as Adam Smith or David Ricardo. Neoliberals nomics students who go on to occupy policy po- pretend to follow these illustrious predecessors, sitions have been trained in the neoliberal cur- but in fact betray their spirit and ignore their ricula. One conservative scholar sums up the moral and social teachings. doctrine thus: “Individual freedom is the ulti- mate social ideal; governmental power, while A Half Century of History necessary, must be limited and decentralized. Interventionism is baneful and dangerous. Eco- The victory of neoliberalism is the result of fifty nomic freedom, that is, capitalism, is an indis- years of intellectual work, now widely reflected pensable condition for political liberty.” in the media, politics, and the programs of in- Neoliberals reject the notion that individual ternational organizations. Reaganism, Thatch- freedom might depend on democracy and the erism, and the Fall of the Wall are often credit- rule of law, guaranteed by the state. For them, ed (or blamed) for this state of affairs and they such “guarantees” are nothing but chains. To have, indeed, made neoliberals more arrogant, be free is to be free from the state. The indi- but there is much more to the story than that. vidual is entirely responsible for his economic Fifty years ago, in the wake of World War and social fate; this implies that disparities will II, neoliberalism had no place in the mainstream necessarily exist. But this is good. As Thatcher political debate. Its few champions preached to put it, “It is our job to glory in inequality and each other or in the desert—everyone else was see that talents and abilities are given vent and a Keynesian, a social/Christian democrat or expression for the benefit of us all.” some shade of Marxist. Overturning that con- text required intellectual tenacity and political planning—but it also took the passivity of a self- In the early days of the neoliberal renaissance, satisfied majority. If there are three kinds of such ideas may have seemed utopian, since they people—those who make things happen, those were antagonistic to the spirit of the New Deal who watch things happen, and those who never and the welfare state. Neoliberals understood, knew what hit them—neoliberals belong to the however, that to transform the economic, po- first category and most progressives to the lat- litical, and social landscape they first had to ter two. The left remained complacent until, sud- change the intellectual and psychological one. denly, it was too late. For ideas to become part of the daily life of The American founding fathers of people and society, they must be propagated neoliberalism thus held few cards at the outset, through books, magazines, journals, confer- but they believed in a crucial principle: Ideas ences, professional associations, and so on. If Have Consequences—the title of a 1948 book some ideas are to become more fashionable than by Richard Weaver that was to have a long and others, they must be financed: it takes money to fruitful career. build intellectual infrastructures and to promote Weaver’s conservative writings were pub- a worldview. lished by the University of Chicago Press, as were When these foundations have been carefully the works of exiled Austrian philosopher-econo- laid and built upon, views that once seemed mist Friedrich von Hayek and the brilliant young minoritarian, elitist, even morally repugnant will economist Milton Friedman. Today the “Chicago gradually become predominant, especially School” is famous: its economic, social, and po- among decision makers. Press, radio, and tele- litical views have spread throughout the world. vision can be guided to follow the lead of the In General Pinochet’s Chile, Chicago-trained more specialized or erudite media. Impercepti- economists were the first to apply el tratamiento bly, nearly everyone will come to feel that cer- de chock (shock treatment) based on freedom for tain ideas are normal, natural, part of the air we business but repression for labor. breathe.

48 • DISSENT The War of Ideas

Manufacturing Ideology Heritage’s success has inspired the creation of thirty-seven mini-Heritages across the United The neoliberals thus conceived their strategy, States, creating synergy, an illusion of diversity, recruiting and rewarding thinkers and writers, and the impression that experts quoted actually raising funds to found and to sustain a broad represent a broad spectrum of views. range of institutions at the forefront of the “con- • Smaller think tanks include the venerable servative revolution.” This revolution began in Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and the United States but, like the rest of American Peace, founded at Stanford University in Cali- culture, has spread across the world. The doc- fornia in 1919 to study . In 1960, it trines of the International Monetary Fund, the added an economic program to its vo- World Bank, and the World Trade Organization cation. The in Washington is lib- are indistinguishable from those of the neoliberal ertarian, advocating minimalist government and credo. Here are some capsule profiles of some specializing in studies on privatization; the Man- of the most influential intellectual institutions hattan Institute for Policy Research, founded in or think tanks. 1978 by William Casey, who later became di- • The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) was rector of the Central Intelligence Agency, spe- founded in 1943 by a group of anti-New Deal cializes in the critique of government income- businessmen. It pioneered intellectual public re- redistribution programs. lations in the 1950s and 1960s, working directly A revolving door between government and with members of Congress, the federal bureau- conservative think tanks allowed former Nixon cracy, and the media. In the 1980s, AEI’s aver- or Reagan/Bush staffers to find homes outside age budget was $14 million; it employed some of government during the Carter and Clinton 150 people. One of its most successful fund-rais- presidencies (although one wonders why they ing campaigns was launched by the Secretary of needed to move: Clinton’s position on welfare Defense in the Pentagon dining room. In the is virtually indistinguishable from that of the 1990s, the annual budget has dropped to around neoliberal think tanks, constituting another vic- $8 to $10 million, but AEI still produces a steady tory for them). stream of books, pamphlets, and legislative rec- Outside the United States, the neoliberal net- ommendations, and its pundits are frequently work is less formal but no less effective. London heard from in the mass media. houses the Centre for Policy Studies; the anti- • is the best known statist Institute of Economic Affairs; and the because of its close association with Adam Smith Institute, which has probably done Ronald Reagan. A week after his electoral vic- more to promote privatization than any other in- tory, Heritage’s director handed Reagan’s staff stitution anywhere. The Adam Smith Institute a thousand-page document of policy advice, brags that over two hundred measures developed called Mandate for Leadership, the fruit of the in its “Omega Project” were put into practice by labors of 250 neoliberal experts. Their recom- Thatcher. Its experts have also advised the World mendations were duly distributed throughout the Bank extensively on privatization programs in new administration; most became law. the bank’s client countries. Heritage, the collective brain behind Reagan and George Bush, was founded in 1973, spends a third of its $18 million annual budget on mar- One of the most important think tanks has no keting, and produces some two hundred docu- fixed address. The Mount Pelerin Society. ments a year. Its Annual Guide lists fifteen hun- founded in 1947 by Friedrich von Hayek, first dred neoliberal public policy experts in seventy brought American and European conservatives different areas—the harried journalist need only together in a village near Lausanne. It has re- telephone to get a quote. President Reagan him- mained an international club for neoliberal self launched a major Heritage fund-raising drive, thinkers ever since; its four-hundred strong telling the audience, “Ideas do have consequences: membership met most recently in Vienna in rhetoric is politics and words are action.” 1996. Milton Friedman says that “Mount Pelerin

SUMMER • 1997 • 49 The War of Ideas showed us that we were not alone” and served Wiener, to “strengthen the economic, political as a “rallying point,” inspiring friendships, net- and cultural institutions upon which . . . private works, and joint projects. Membership in the enterprise is based.” Olin has spent over $55 society is by invitation and members’ names are million on these efforts and the list of its grant- not disclosed; it is, however, known that Czech ees reads like a Who’s Who of the academic right. prime minister, Vaclav Klaus, the former French An anecdote recounted by Wiener illustrates finance minister Alain Madelin, Boris Yeltsin’s how the ideological self-promotion system works. chief advisers, and Margaret Thatcher belong. In 1988, Allan Bloom, director of the University of Chicago’s Olin Center for Inquiry into the Financing Ideology Theory and Practice of Democracy ($3.6 million grant from Olin) invites a State Department offi- Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent cial to give a paper. The speaker proclaims total over the past fifty years to keep these and many victory for the West and for neoliberal values in other neoliberal institutions alive and well. the cold war. His paper is immediately published Where does the money come from? in the National Interest ($1 million Olin subsidy) In the early days, the William Volker Fund edited by Irving Kristol ($376,000 grant as Olin saved the shaky magazines, financed the books Distinguished Professor at New York University published at Chicago, paid the bills for the in- Graduate School of Business). fluential Foundation for Economic Education Kristol simultaneously publishes “re- and funded meetings at U.S. universities. Ameri- sponses” to the paper: one by himself, one by cans at the first Mount Pelerin Society meeting Bloom, one by Samuel Huntington ($1.4 mil- traveled to Switzerland on Volker money. lion for the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies This fund could not, however, cover all the at Harvard). This completely artificial, engi- needs of a growing movement, which sought neered “debate” is then picked up by the New other financial backers early on. The director of York Times, the Washington Post and Time maga- the American Enterprise Institute was jubilant zine. Today everyone has heard of Francis when in 1972 he convinced the prestigious Ford Fukuyama and The End of History, a best-seller Foundation to give AEI $300,000—a significant in several languages. sum at the time. This grant opened doors to other Even in the early 1970s, William Simon, institutional funders. then and still president of the Olin Foundation, For at least a quarter-century, many conser- was exhorting his business associates to support vative American family foundations have poured “scholars, social scientists, writers and journal- money into the production and dissemination of ists” and to give “grants, grants and more grants their ideas. Although smaller than philanthropic in exchange for books, books and more books.” elephants like Ford, these funders use their money Simon knew what he was talking about: not strategically. The Bradley Foundation spends only can well-targeted money create “debates” nearly all its annual income ($28 million in 1994) out of thin air; it can also define which areas on promoting neoliberal causes, including major deserve study and which do not; it can promote gifts to Heritage, AEI, and conservative maga- personal notoriety and ready access to decision zines and journals. As the Foundation’s director makers and to the media for selected neoliberal puts it, “We’re in this for the long haul.” Accord- spokespersons. The editor of the Heritage ing to the Foundation’s literature, the Bradley Foundation’s Policy Review appears to find this brothers believed that “over time, the conse- almost unseemly: quences of ideas [are] more decisive than the force Journalism today is very different from what it was of political or economic movements.” 10 to 20 years ago. Today, op-ed pages are domi- Foundations like Coors (brewery), Scaife or nated by conservatives. We have a tremendous Mellon (steel), and especially Olin (chemicals, amount of conservative opinion but this creates a munitions) finance chairs in some of America’s problem for those who are interested in a career in most prestigious universities. Their occupants journalism. . . . If Bill Buckley were to come out of are carefully chosen, in the words of critic Jon Yale today, nobody would pay much attention to

50 • DISSENT The War of Ideas

him. He would not be that unusual . . . because right. there are probably hundreds of people with those The “angels” have, rather, seen their task ideas and they have already got syndicated columns. as funding projects and programs for the poor Between 1990 and 1993, four neoliberal U.S. and disadvantaged; focusing on the grass roots, magazines received $2.7 million from different enhancing “community empowerment.” Laud- foundations (National Review, the Public Inter- able goals all—but what happens when govern- est, the New Criterion, and the American Spec- ment subscribes, instead, to structural adjust- tator). In contrast, four progressive U.S. maga- ment that utterly devastates the lives of the poor zines with a national audience (the Nation the in the South, or passes antiwelfare, antiworker Progressive, In These Times, and Mother Jones) legislation in the North? What happens when were given ten times less over the same period. the World Trade Organization has more to say In the war of ideas, any movement is in about community survival than the communi- trouble if it cannot renew its ranks of profes- ties themselves? Or when public funds for health, sional researchers, thinkers, and writers. education, housing, transport, the environment, Neoliberals don’t mind financing white men if and so on dry up? white men happen to be best at delivering the Without intellectual ammunition to defend intellectual goods. But they are also funding a them and to create the context in which they great many women, African-Americans, and can flourish, worthy projects and programs col- other minority thinkers and writers; as well as lapse. They cannot exist in a vacuum. dozens of college newspapers, thousands of graduate students, and a small armada of jour- Practical Implications and nals. Literally hundreds of millions of dollars the Plague of the Project are spent every year on purchasing present and future right-wing intellectual clout. So far, I’ve not bothered to declare an interest. I assume readers know or have guessed I have one, since I am a professional researcher, writer, Who’s Who, and What? and, when I can manage it, thinker. So yes: I A somewhat astonishing conclusion can be have all too often heard or read the dread phrase: drawn from all this: the right is a hot-bed of “Your proposal is very interesting but we don’t Marxists! Or at least of Gramscians. They know fund research and writing.” full well that we are not born with our ideas and The point is not private disappointment, but must somehow acquire them; that in order to mass denial. Progressive donors have sent out prevail, ideas require material infrastructures. vanloads of rejections in response to proposals They know, too, that these infrastructures will for intellectual work. I have no reason to doubt largely determine the intellectual superstructure: that the goals of these donors are social equity, this is what Gramsci meant by capitalism’s “he- poverty alleviation, human rights, conflict reso- gemonic project.” Defining, sustaining, and con- lution, and sustainable development. So I am trolling culture is crucial: get into people’s heads mightily perplexed by their behavior. and you will acquire their hearts, their hands, Why, I’m driven to ask, do progressive and their destinies. funders devote so much of their time and money Alas, progressives can’t seem to tell a hege- to “projects” and so little to intellectual infra- monic project from a hedgehog. What has the structure and institution building? “side of the angels” been up to all these years? Why have we not learned from the single- Has it spent its time and money promoting the mindedness of the right? Why can we not see, ideas it believes in? Precious little. Not only do for example, that the destruction of welfare in progressive institutions appear complacent as to the United States or the threats to trade union their side’s intellectual superiority, but they’ve achievements in Europe would have been im- been cruising along as if there were no need to possible without the creation of an intellectual justify their positions, nor even to worry about climate making such onslaughts appear not mor- the nearly hegemonic intellectual hold of the ally repugnant but natural and inevitable?

SUMMER • 1997 • 51 The War of Ideas

Why is the “project”’ approach not seen as proach in favor of institution building. Donors, self-defeating? As neoliberalism dismantles the understandably, want to discuss the substance and gains of the past fifty years and ever greater num- the politics of a project with the person who will bers of its victims are cast adrift, the pressure to be carrying it out. But for that person, this pro- fund only “projects” will grow, pushing us into cess can be counterproductive, preventing him a self-reinforcing procession toward the defini- or her from getting on with the intellectual work. tive dysfunctional society. Drafting several project proposals, defending them separately, in different countries, before dif- Just in Case . . . ferent audiences, following up with correspon- dence, additional information, progress reports, In Spanish they say no protestas sin propuestas accounts—all this is hugely time consuming. or, freely translated, quit complaining if you When I was fund-raising for the Transnation- don’t have anything to offer. Well, obviously I al Institute (on “projects,” naturally, since no other propose that progressive foundations and any approach would have been accepted in the donor other financing sources begin to devote large community) I published only short pieces. Sus- amounts of money to regaining our lost intel- tained endeavors like books are (at least for me) lectual initiative. They should sit at the feet of impossible when time is constantly broken up the neoliberals who have proved they know how with fund-raising activities. Researchers, writers, the game works: let us learn from the masters! and speakers who have to cater to this mentality Assuming that this proposal is somehow rec- in order to get any work done at all are prevented ognized and acted upon, I have several subsid- from devoting their energies to research, writ- iary recommendations. The first may be a bit hard ing, and speaking, and from renewing their own to swallow, so I may as well say it straight out: arsenal of ideas. Project funding, as opposed to funders are not the best judges of the work that institution building, offers no hope for an end to progressive intellectuals ought to be doing. the cycle of low productivity. Why not? Because they are likely to be at- Donors should fund not just the intellectual tracted to issues that have already reached the work itself but the means for making sure it will mainstream. I have witnessed this again and be widely used. The Heritage Foundation spends again, for instance when I first tried to attract fully a third of its comfortable budget on out- financing for work on third world debt. It was reach, yet few progressive funders want to pay then too early, although five or ten years later, for spreading the word. Consequently, idea-pro- numerous organizations were falling over each ducing institutions that are only allowed to spend other to work on the issue. The task of the pro- for items specified in the project budget (with a gressive thinker is to be outside the mainstream, modest overhead) can’t afford translations, can’t to foresee developments that will become cru- develop a “Features Service” for a network of cial in the future. newspapers and magazines in many countries, A good progressive intellectual worker pro- can’t turn articles into radio programs, books duces subversive knowledge. This knowledge, into television films, and so on. by definition, will be unwelcome to the Estab- Grants for institution building are also im- lishment and to the mainstream. Yet someone portant because they allow progressive research- does have to pay for the months or years of work ers and writers to prepare for the future and before the books come out, before the “hot top- keep up the momentum. Smart, dedicated, ide- ics” are recognized and the “subversive knowl- alistic young people often want to work for pro- edge” becomes part of the debate. Funders gressive organizations and are willing to make should accept a division of labor and trust the material sacrifices to do so, but the core funds intellectual workers they choose to support with- to employ them simply aren’t there. out trying to define their agendas. Otherwise, By focusing almost exclusively on projects, they will inadvertently prevent those workers progressive funders have helped to ensure right- from doing their job. wing dominance of the debate. We used to laugh Funders should give up the “project” ap- at the idea that market mechanisms could solve

52 • DISSENT The War of Ideas social problems: such things are now said every remaining third not deserving of the same rights, day with a straight face. Issues we used to take except when arbitrarily granted? Such a society for granted, including the third world itself, have would spontaneously and instantly—at least in almost vanished from the debate. the West—be called unjust. Donors can make the leap of faith from The exclusion of a third or more of their projects to institutional and intellectual move- members is, however, precisely the situation that ment building. They can identify institutions and obtains in societies regulated almost exclusively individuals in both North and South who are by the “laws of the market.” There is a danger- producing original and distinguished work and ous semantic slippage from “law” to “laws of whose record shows they can be trusted—and the market”; from the body of democratically then trust them. This includes research/policy established rules for the proper functioning of institutes, journals, and independent intellectual society to the blind operation of economic forces. workers inside or outside of universities. Neoliberals want “market law” to become the Remarkable institutions and individuals de- sovereign judge of the rights of persons and of serve long-term support that alone can allow societies as a whole. them to do their best work. Donors should set Hegel claimed that the only thing history aside a respectable portion of their disposable teaches us is that nobody ever learns anything funds to endow worthwhile institutions. Formu- from history. Recent history, if we are attentive, las providing guarantees and flexibility to both might still teach us that a society can go from donor and recipient could be readily negotiated. law based on the equality of persons to the laws of the market; from relative social justice to deep And Finally . . . and chronic inequalities within a few short years. The neoliberals’ onslaught continues and their What if we lived in a society in which the sys- intellectual hegemony is almost complete. Those tem of justice rested on the postulate that only who refuse to act on the knowledge that ideas two-thirds of its members were fully human; the have consequences end up suffering them.

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