|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In Part 3 we pointed out that in the Trump administration
everything is happening according to the predictions we made in Part 1.
Despite the contrary perception promoted in his speeches, Trump is supporting
jihadism, strengthening Iran, and undermining Israeli security. But we don’t
have a crystal ball; how then do we manage to predict? We try to see, first, whether we can find patterns in the
policy history of past US administrations. This allows us to infer, as a
hypothesis, an intention. This
exercise has revealed a stable pro-jihadist and anti-Israeli tradition (Part 2).
Then we try to estimate the probability that a new president will change that
tradition; to do that, we study the structure of the policy-creation system.
In what follows, we summarize that structure.
The smaller the number of people involved in a policy-creation
system, and the less diverse their origin, the easier it will be for them to
organize around common interests, and to husband and conserve a policy line
to protect them. According to the academics who study this system in the US, it
is very small. The United States has at most 4000 well-connected people in
the key institutional positions that determine public policy. And however
small this number may seem, political scientist Thomas Dye puts it forth as a
corrective to the even smaller figures offered up by other political
scientists.[0] The lords of the system, an even smaller group, are those who
control “corporate and personal wealth,” because, as Thomas Dye explains,
“the initial resources for research, study, planning, and formulation of
national policy are derived from corporate and personal wealth.” The process
begins when “this wealth is channeled into foundations, universities, and
policy-planning groups.”[1] The latter are commonly called ‘think
tanks.’ Think
tanks are private organizations
where industrial leaders, academics (carefully chosen by those industrial
leaders), and former and current top officeholders meet to think. Top
officeholders for the next administration are also groomed here; after being
named, they will return to their ‘alma
maters,’ the same think tanks, to harvest recommendations. Many consider the Council
on Foreign Relations (CFR) in New York as the most influential think
tank. In 1970, William Domhoff, an important political sociologist, wrote the
following: “Douglass Cater, a journalist from Exeter and Harvard who served on the staff of President Lyndon B. Johnson, has noted that ‘a diligent scholar would do well to delve into the role of the purely unofficial Council on Foreign Relations in the care and breeding of an incipient American Establishment.’ ...Turning to the all-important question of government involvement… the point is made most authoritatively by John J. McCloy… director of CFR and a government appointee in a variety of roles since the early 1940s: ‘Whenever we needed a man,’ said McCloy in explaining the presence of CFR members in the modern defense establishment that fought World War II, ‘we thumbed through the roll of council members and put through a call to New York.’ ”[2] Such
opinions are fairly common: “Political
scientist Lester Milbraith observes that the influence of [the] CFR
throughout the government is so pervasive that it is difficult to distinguish
CFR from government programs: ‘The Council on Foreign Relations, while not
financed by government, works so closely with it that it is difficult to
distinguish Council actions stimulated by government from autonomous
actions.’ ”[3] For
government and CFR to be so thoroughly fused, the relationship must survive
the alternation in power of the two main parties, so it is no surprise that
the CFR, not unlike other important think tanks, is ‘ecumenical’: it brings
together ‘Democratic’ and ‘Republican’ functionaries who jointly produce
policy for both Democratic and Republican administrations. What does that imply? In a market with few competitors it is sometimes discovered
that, behind the scenes, these putative ‘rivals’ in fact collude with each
other in the manner of a monopoly. We call that a cartel. In the United States’ political market there are only two
competitors that matter: the Republican and Democratic parties; and these, as
we see above, appear to be intimately integrated with each other in a single
policy-creation system. On this evidence, and considering that “CFR meetings
are secret [and] the remarks of government officials who speak at CFR
meetings are held in confidence,”[4] we
may propose the hypothesis that a political cartel governs the United States. The hypothesis of a bipartisan cartel can explain why certain
foreign policies (and other public policies) orient themselves on a
consistent course despite the alternation in power of the two main parties,
as happens with the pro-jihadist and anti-Israeli tradition (Part 2).
In Mexico we say: “By the owner’s watchful gaze, the cow gets
nice and fat.” The lords of wealth, masters of the system, understand this. “corporate presidents, directors, and top wealth-holders also
sit on the governing boards of the foundations, universities, and
policy-planning groups [think tanks] to oversee the spending of their funds.”[5] These funds are poured through the foundations, which “provide
the initial seed money to identify social problems, to determine national
priorities, and to investigate new policy directions.”[6] One cannot exaggerate the importance of these foundations, for
they provide “essential linkages between wealth and the intellectual
community,” and they articulate with the large corporations and with
government agencies. As Dye points out, the justification for public policy
comes from academic research, and “on the whole, intellectuals respond to
policy directions set by the foundations, corporations, and government
agencies that underwrite the costs of research.”[7] But
all foundations are not equal. The
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, for instance, though it “dwarfs all other
foundations in assets,” it is dedicated to “ending world poverty, eradicating
malaria, conquering polio, and so on,” and it has a global focus, which “tends
to dissipate the Foundation’s public policy influence.” Who does determine
public policy? For that we must look, “historically, [to] the largest and
most powerful foundations…[, those] established by the nation’s leading
families—Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie [and a few others]…”[8] In
our investigation into the very influential Council on Foreign Relations, we
established that it was created by the industrial networks of Carnegie and
Rockefeller, and then financed by the foundations that bear their names, and
also by the Ford Foundation:
Top functionaries of these three industrial networks routinely
involve themselves in the direction of the CFR. But they don’t stop there;
they also see to the financing and direction of many other influential
groups, as political scientist Donald Abelson documents in his erudite study
of think tanks.[10] If my suspicious eyes do not deceive me, then I am seeing a
bipartisan ruling cartel centered on the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller
networks. And if that is so, it is an old tradition. These foundations
concentrated so much power already in the 1950s that a great controversy
raged in the US Congress, fanned by the Cox Committee and then the Reece
Committee investigations. Rene Wormser’s work (1958) is witness to the complaints in
Congress that these foundations, making use of almost unimaginable sums, were
involved in “the promotion of political ends… disguised as charitable or
educational activity.” The Reece Committee spoke of a “ ‘network or cartel’
in the social sciences” (their
words) dominated by “the big three” foundations: Carnegie, Ford, and
Rockefeller. By controlling almost all funds for research, “the big three”
had undermined the free market in social-knowledge production. In this
manner, they dominated the generation of public policy.[11] Things never improved. Beyond pointing out that a cartel
existed, Wormser explains, the Reece Committee of the 1950s achieved nothing,
for “there was powerful opposition to any investigation of these
multi-billion-dollar public trusts.” In fact, “The Reece investigation was
virtually hamstrung from the start to its early demise—which was aided and
abetted by the leading newspaper of the country,” the New York Times.[12]
I find the last detail most intriguing. Why would the New York Times wish to protect “the
big three”? Historian Christopher Simpson’s investigation provides the
context in which to try out an answer. As it turns out, right after being created in 1947, the CIA
put together in the 1950s an entire system to educate media professionals,
establishing in the most important universities—in the blink of an eye—new
departments and institutes run by great experts in mass manipulation: the
geniuses who had directed US psychological warfare during World War II. To
hide its role, the CIA laundered its expenses through “the big three”
foundations. We give an overview of all that here:
The thorough investigation which, in that very historical
moment, the Cox and Reece Committees were demanding, would have caught “the
big three” colluding with the CIA to corrupt the media system. So perhaps the
vehement opposition of the New York
Times is not so mysterious. The foregoing supports the guess that top executives of the
big media companies will be well integrated into the hypothetical ruling
cartel. It is not too surprising, therefore, that Dye finds them on the
boards of directors of the “central coordinating points in the policy-making
process”: the think tanks. These
think tanks, he writes, “…bring together people at the top of the corporate and
financial institutions, the universities, the foundations, the mass media, and the powerful law firms; the top
intellectuals; and influential figures in government.”[14] Such integration of top media executives into the think tanks
is key, for without these media executives the public debate cannot be
channeled to create the appearance that policies pre-cooked in the think tanks
were democratically produced. Thus, policies emerge first in “certain
policy-planning groups—notably the Council on Foreign Relations… [and a few
others]—[that] are influential in a wide range of policy areas,” and their
recommendations “are then distributed to the mass media, federal executive
agencies, and Congress. The mass media play a vital role in preparing public
opinion for policy change. The media define the ‘problem’ as a problem and
thus set the agenda for policy-making. They also encourage political
personalities to assume new policy stances by allocating valuable network
broadcast time to those who will speak out in favor of new policy
directions.”[15] For the details, taxpayer money will be used: “At a later period in the policy-making process, massive
government research funds will be spent to fill in the details in areas
already explored by these initial studies.”[16]
US political grammar—that is, the collection of rules
(often implicit) that govern its public discourse—is ‘democratic.’ In this grammar,
it is understood that ordinary people have power; there is a free market where citizens may
‘consume’ the political ‘product’ they most like. For this reason, if power
is really in the hands of a tiny cartel, this cartel will be forced to
produce, for popular consumption, a minimum of two brands: ‘Republican’ and
‘Democrat.’ This creates the illusion of a contest. What appears to be—on the surface—a vibrant democracy should
be interpreted, following this analysis, as a grand show devoted to satisfying
the public. That show better be good (it helps if Trump is crude and
disrespectful and works hard to look like a racist while his opponent,
Clinton, acts the part of an injured, liberal damsel!). But a show, no matter
how dramatic, is in the end nothing more than that. However the people may
vote, the same cartel is returned to power. Mainstream academics who study US politics almost never
consider the hypothesis of a political cartel. When they do—as did, for
example, the influential political economist Herschel Grossman—it turns out
that the existence of a ruling cartel is obvious
(!?). But have no fear: this cartel, according to Grossman, is ‘democratic.’
(That muffled sound you hear is George Orwell laughing bitterly in his grave:
War is peace, freedom is slavery,
market is monopoly.)
Let’s bring it home: if the hypothesis of a bipartisan cartel
is reasonable, we may doubt that the president—as such—has any real power; he
is a figurehead, playing his media role and hostage to the bureaucracy, as in
the British satire “Yes, Prime Minister!” If so, then even supposing that
Trump really promised from the heart a new direction in the Middle East, his role
is limited to showing up in front of the cameras. He may carry himself
differently and affect a new style, but he cannot—not unless the cartel
allows it—be the creative engine of a new policy.
If this interpretation has merit, then Trump must have recruited
his top foreign-policy officeholders from the most important think tanks, and
these people will do what they always do. In our next article, as a new test
of the HIR model, we shall see how well this prediction does.
[0] Dye, T. R. 2016. Who’s Running America? The Obama Reign, 8 ed. New York: Routledge. (p.194) [1] Dye, T. R. 2016. Who’s Running America? The Obama Reign, 8 ed. New York: Routledge. (p.194) [2] Domhoff, G. W. 1970. The Higher Circles: The Governing Class in America. New York: Random House. (pp.113-14, 117) [3]
Dye, T. R. 1978. Oligarchic Tendencies in
National Policy-Making: the Role of the Private Policy-Planning
Organizations. The Journal of Politics 40:309-331. [4] Dye, T. R. 2016. Who’s Running America? The Obama Reign, 8 ed. New York: Routledge. (p.144) [5]
Dye, T. R. 2016. Who’s Running America? The Obama Reign,
8 ed. New York: Routledge. (p.141) [6] Dye, T. R. 2016. Who’s Running America? The Obama Reign, 8 ed. New York:
Routledge. (p.141) Dye,
T. R. 2016. Who’s Running America? The
Obama Reign, 8 ed. New York: Routledge. (pp.140-143) [7]
Dye, T. R. 2016. Who’s Running America?
The Obama Reign, 8 ed. New York: Routledge. (p.141) [8] Dye, T. R. 2016. Who’s
Running America? The Obama Reign, 8 ed. New York: Routledge. (p.127) [9] “What is the Council on Foreign Relations?”; Historical and Investigative Research;
4 March 2008; by Francisco Gil-White [10] Abelson, D. E. 2006. A Capitol Idea: Think Tanks and US Foreign Policy. Montreal:
McGill-Queen's University Press. [11] Wormser, R. A. 1958. Foundations: Their Power and Influence. New York: Devin Adair.
(pp.xiv, 63-65) [12] Wormser, R. A. 1958. Foundations: Their Power and Influence. New York: Devin Adair.
(contraportada) [13] PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE COMMUNICATION RESEARCH, AND THE
MEDIA; Historical and Investigative
Research; 17 May 2016; by Francisco Gil-White [14] Dye,
T. R. 2016. Who’s Running America? The
Obama Reign, 8 ed. New York: Routledge. (p.141) [15] Dye, T. R. 2016. Who’s Running America? The Obama Reign, 8 ed. New York: Routledge. (p.143) [16] Dye,
T. R. 2016. Who’s Running America? The
Obama Reign, 8 ed. New York: Routledge. (p.141) [17]
“3. PRINCIPAL AGENT THEORY: The Citizen and the State”; from PSYCHOLOGICA
WARFARE AND POLITICAL GRAMMAR; Historical and Investigative Research – 17 May
2016, by Francisco Gil-White |
|
Notify me of new HIR pieces!
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
