Managing Democracy Managing Dissent First published 2013 by Corporate Watch c/o Freedom Press Angel Alley 84b Whitechapel High Street London, E1 7QX www.corporatewatch.org © 2013 Corporate Watch, under a Creative Commons Attribution license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Michael Barker, ‘Celebrity Philanthropy: In the Service of Corporate Propaganda’ reprinted with permission from Peter Lang Publishers Inc. from Gerald Sussman (ed.), The Propaganda Society; Promotional Culture and Politics in Global Context (New York: Peter Lang, 2011). British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-907738-09-8 Edited by Rebecca Fisher Cover design by Ally Arthur at TartanPixie.com and Rebecca Fisher Layout and design by Ally Arthur at TartanPixie.com Indexing by Michael Hamilton: mhindex[at]mail.com Printed by Russell Press Corporate Watch Corporate Watch is an independent, not-for-profit research and publishing group that investigates the social and environmental impacts of corporate power. Since 1996 Corporate Watch has been publishing corporate critical ‘information for action’ in the form of books, reports, investigative articles, briefings and magazines. Managing Democracy Managing Dissent Capitalism, Democracy and the Organisation of Consent Edited by Rebecca Fisher Corporate Watch Corporate Critical Research Since 1996 www.corporatewatch.org “The sharp increase in inequality, chronic high unemployment, and lack of response by nominal democracies to difficulties afflicting the majority, have made it clear to increasing numbers that so-called market-based democracy serves the market, not the demos. The growth of this understanding is a threat to dominant elites, so coping with it has become ever more urgent to those in command, who must engineer consent by hook or by crook. Managing Democracy, Managing Dissent has effective analyses of a wide range of these engineering techniques, from adapting language to make capitalism and democracy warm partners, to propaganda barrages in the press and on TV and movie screens, to philanthropic actions, to cooptation of progressive organizations and movements, and to the various forms of repression and violence. This book covers these techniques, and their mode of use at home and abroad. It is an eye-opener.” Edward S. Herman (among his other books, Corporate Control, Corporate Power, and Manufacturing Consent [with Noam Chomsky]) “In ancient times democracy was conceived as antagonistic to any class society. A remarkable change took place when the social technology required to combine the appearance of democracy and the reality of capitalist class rule was created in the late 18th century. This book, with daring clarity, opens the hood and investigates what machinery makes it possible to manage democracy and make it safe for capitalism. In chapter after chapter the reader is shown ‘how it is done’ without obscuration. It is a brave book and it should not be missed.” Silvia Federici, author of Caliban and the Witch and Revolution at Point Zero. “The authors of this timely anthology, Managing Democracy, Managing Dissent deconstruct the democracy myth. They describe how outright repression has been legitimated-even by declaring rioters “brain damaged,” and psychologists labeling anti-authoritarians as diseased. What makes this book essential reading is its description of the many ways in which influence is covert; how consent is obtained to inequality, corporate rule, imperialism, and war. Journalists and academics, including some on the left, obey the silent rules of capitalist hegemony, regularly using language that disguises the deplorable inequality in political power and well-being that exists in the ‘flagship’ ‘democracies’. Co-optation is subtle, and so far, it has been very effective. That is why we must become aware of its methods and thereby avoid those traps. Many positive-sounding civil society interventions have worked to stop liberation struggles in their tracks, while the liberal and reputedly impartial media generally echo corporate propaganda. The book performs and important service by alerting those who wish to progress towards a truly democratic world.” Joan Roelofs, author of Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism. “While capitalism has shown itself to be remarkably adaptable by turning the energies and ideas of its opponents into methods for its survival, radical movements have struggled to find ways to counter this recuperation. This book is an excellent step in countering that, moving from insightful analysis of co-optation not into defeatism, but a renewed spirit of revolt.” Stevphen Shukaitis, Autonomedia / University of Essex “Understanding the continuing economic and political turmoil following the ‘credit crunch’ is a big project. This diverse collection of essays is an important contribution to unravelling the multiple threads and tensions obscured by the ongoing crisis of contemporary capitalism. Combining analysis of the internal dynamics and contradictions of neo- liberalism with rich accounts of events in Europe, America and the Middle East this collection begins to make sense of ‘shock doctrine’, the management of dissent and the massaging of the messages reaching the public sphere. In an era that promotes experiments in participatory democracy with one hand, whilst simultaneously using anti-terrorist surveillance measures against citizens with the other, this is a book to read. The collection points the way towards meaningful democratic forms that can challenge institutional and corporate power. Don’t expect to agree with everything in here but do expect to find clues and pointers towards a progressive politics for the contemporary milieu.” Ian Welsh, Reader in Sociology, Cardiff University Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are. Bertolt Brecht Contents Foreword I Gerald Sussman Notes on Contributors V 1. Introduction 1 Rebecca Fisher Part 1 - The Contradictory Nature of Democracy Under Capitalism 2. The Paradox of Democratic Capitalism: An Historical View 15 Rebecca Fisher 3. Market Patriotism: Liberal Democracy Unmasked 46 David Whyte 4. Global Rebellion: the Coming Chaos? 63 William I. Robinson Part 2 - Masking the Contradiction 5. The Liberal Gatekeepers: State-Corporate Power’s Little 73 Helpers David Cromwell and David Edwards, Media Lens 6. Screening Our Screens: Propaganda and the Entertainment 85 Industry: An Interview with Matthew Alford Rebecca Fisher 7. Celebrity Philanthropy: In the Service of Corporate 96 Propaganda Michael Barker 8. The Politics of Language and the Language of Political 111 Regression James Petras Part 3 - Co-opting Dissent 9. Neoliberal Hegemony and the Organisation of Consent 121 William K. Carroll and Matthew Greeno 10. Reforming Resistance: Neoliberalism and the Co-option of 136 Civil Society Organisations in Palestine Sibille Merz 11. Do Capitalists Fund Revolutions? 153 Michael Barker 12. Strange Contours: Resistance and the Manipulation of 178 People Power Edmund Berger 13. On Shock and Organisation: Riots, Resistance and the Need 195 for Consistency The Free Association 14. “Criminality Pure and Simple”: Comparing the Response to 206 the Student Protests and the August Riots Katie Pollard and Maria Young Part 4 - Legitimating the Repression of Dissent 15. Repression in the Neoliberal University 217 Charles Thorpe 16. When Co-option Fails 232 Tom Anderson 17. Infiltrated, Intimidated and Undermined: How Police 272 Infiltration Can Mute Political Dissent: An Interview with Verity Smith from Cardiff Anarchist Network Tom Anderson Part 5 - ‘Democracy Promotion’ in Pursuit of Global Hegemony 18. Grassroots Globalization: Underneath the Rhetoric of 289 ‘Democracy Promotion’ Edmund Berger 19. Egypt and International Capital: Is this what Democracy 310 looks like? Edmund Berger 20. The Insidious Nature of ‘Democracy Promotion’: The Case of 334 the Westminster Foundation for Democracy Rebecca Fisher Foreword Gerald Sussman In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, a former marine and military analyst for the Rand Corporation, after personally concluding that state secrecy and official propaganda about Vietnam were anathema to democracy, released thousands of pages of ‘top secret’ documents that exposed crucial details of the sordid history of U.S. policy toward that country going back to 1945 - The Pentagon Papers. A few years later, he was featured in the American documentary film Hearts and Minds, a hard- hitting indictment of America’s militarized nationalist culture that undergirded the imperialist invasion of Vietnam. Commenting on the lies that each U.S. president since Truman had told about Vietnam, Ellsberg said: “It’s a tribute to the American public that their leaders perceived that they had to be lied to. It’s no tribute to us that it was so easy to fool the public.” Since Machiavelli, the most famous political consultant, it has been understood that successful authoritarian rulers exercise power not only through the imposition of fear but also by deception and the manipulation of public awareness, the manufacture of state legitimacy, and the active fostering of social and political consent amongst citizens - what Antonio Gramsci described as cultural ‘hegemony’. It is no less a requirement in states with other forms of centralized power. The U.S. state’s reliance on cultural hegemony has become all the more important during the past 40 years of declining real income for most Americans, the