"Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism" a review (Philly.com)

(In Democracy Inc., political theorist Sheldon S. Wolin successfully transcends the Left/Right paradigm and challenges his readers to do the same, pointing out the malevolent influence that corporate America inflicts on the U.S. political system, and by extension, the political systems of the world. Whether Democrats or Republicans are elected, important foreign and domestic policy decisions seem redundant. (e.g. Despite the new President, Afghanistan remains a battleground and the 'War on Terror' seems entrenched. Despite a Democratic majority, Health Care reform seems a distant dream for economically over-burdened civilians.) Does the U.S. elite run the country, or do the people? Is there any hope for the present system? How do we go about changing the system for the better? Wolin provides context, research, and sorely needed scholarship on these complex issues that cannot simply be solved by voting for a different body in a business suit, or by desperately scapegoating one faction or another. The best political book I am likely to read this year, I recommend it enthusiastically to all users or visitors to 911blogger.com, this book is a small education unto itself. I was glad to find the following review... -rep.)

A warning of creeping totalitarianism in U.S

Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism by Sheldon S. Wolin - Princeton University Press. 376 pp. $29.95

Reviewed by Chris Hedges

The United States, if it does not radically alter course, will become a totalitarian state. That is the argument of Sheldon S. Wolin's Democracy Incorporated.

This is no political screed. It is a brilliant, nuanced, and detailed dissection of the abject failings of the American political system by one of the nation's preeminent political theorists. It is a work that will rank as one of the most important pieces of political philosophy of the new century. By the time Wolin, who taught political philosophy at Berkeley and Princeton, is finished, it is clear that unless Barack Obama radically restructures corporate and military industrial power, our democracy is doomed.

Wolin uses the term inverted totalitarianism to describe our descent into despotism. "Inverted" totalitarianism does not revolve around a demagogue or charismatic leader, as "classical" kinds of totalitarianism do. The power centers of inverted totalitarianism are corporate and usually anonymous. It does not openly discredit democracy. It pays homage to the democratic ideal, patriotism, and the Constitution while quietly subverting democratic institutions.

The New Deal was the closest the nation came to a popular democracy, according to Wolin. But the rise of the country as a superpower after World War II led, in Wolin's eyes, to an increasingly tamed or "managed democracy." The unchecked power of a corporate elite made possible inverted totalitarianism. It has developed "imperceptibly," he writes, "unpremeditatedly, and in seeming unbroken continuity with the nation's political traditions."

In inverted totalitarianism, pliant legislators are elected by citizens - but they are beholden to armies of corporate lobbyists. Corporate media, which control nearly everything we read, watch or hear, lock out critics of corporate power (as an example, Wolin names Ralph Nader) and imposes a bland uniformity of opinion.

In totalitarian regimes such as Nazi fascism or Soviet communism, economics was subordinate to politics. "Under inverted totalitarianism," writes Wolin, "the reverse is true: economics dominates politics - and with that domination come different forms of ruthlessness."

It is hard to argue with Wolin's thesis, especially as hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars are funneled to Wall Street while the rest of us wonder if we will have a job next month.

"The new system, inverted totalitarianism, is one that professes to be the opposite of what, in fact, it is," Wolin writes. "It disclaims its real identity, trusting that its deviations will become normalized as 'change.' "

Wolin notes that the framers of the Constitution distrusted and often feared popular democracy. They established constitutional restraints - the Electoral College is one - to protect the power of the elite. The rise of democracy was a slow, arduous struggle, decade after decade, that pitted citizens against the elite. The republic existed for three-quarters of a century before the formal end of slavery. It was an additional 100 years before black Americans were assured their voting rights. It was not until the 20th century that women gained the right to vote and trade unions were able to engage in collective bargaining.

"Far from being innate," Wolin writes, "democracy in America has gone against the grain, against the very forms by which the political and economic power of the country has been and continues to be ordered."

The hijacking of government by corporations has permitted the military-industrial complex (which, in a clever sleight of hand, is no longer considered part of the government) to bleed the country. "Big government may be the problem," Wolin quips, "but military is the solution." The social programs implanted by the New Deal have been reduced or eliminated as part of the "selective abdication of governmental responsibility for the well-being of the citizenry" under cover of cost-cutting and improving "efficiency." The official U.S. defense budget for fiscal year 2008 is $623 billion. The next closest national military budget is China's, at $65 billion, according to the Central Intelligence Agency. And yet, even in the midst of our economic collapse, the two main political parties refuse to challenge the right of the military-industrial complex to gorge itself on taxpayer dollars.

Imperialism and democracy are, Wolin writes, incompatible. But imperial politics is what we have, and since our leaders refuse to limit the resources devoted to sustaining empire, democracy will perish.

"Imperial politics represents the conquest of domestic politics and the latter's conversion into a crucial element of inverted totalitarianism," Wolin writes. "It makes no sense to ask how the democratic citizen could 'participate' substantively in imperial politics; hence it is not surprising that the subject of empire is taboo in electoral debates."

Wolin has only one blind spot, a minor one. He believes that no one actively challenges the way things are because the lives of ordinary people are "materially tolerable and safer" in the United States. But this ignores what is happening to consumers and working people in the present economic downturn. As tens of thousands of workers join the ranks of the unemployed daily, as they watch helplessly as their homes are foreclosed on, and as they are unable to pay for health insurance, they could easily turn inverted totalitarianism into classical totalitarianism. And demagogues too often crawl up out of the slime to prey on those in despair during a crisis.

DEM INC.@AMAZON

http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-Inverted-Totalitari...

Editorial Reviews at AMAZON

Review
If democracy means more than occasional elections and protection of those rights that are compatible with economic and political elites' interests, Wolin's analysis of our democratic predicament is shocking, solid, and fundamentally correct. -- C.P. Waligorski Choice Of the many books I've read or skimmed in the past seven years that attempted to get inside the social and political debacles of the present, none has had the chilling clarity and historical discernment of Sheldon S. Wolin's Democracy Incorporated. Building on his fifty years as a political theorist and proponent of radical democracy, Wolin here extends his concern with the extinguishing of the political and its replacement by fraudulent simulations of democratic process. -- Jonathan Crary Artforum

Review
If democracy means more than occasional elections and protection of those rights that are compatible with economic and political elites' interests, Wolin's analysis of our democratic predicament is shocking, solid, and fundamentally correct.
(C.P. Waligorski Choice )

Of the many books I've read or skimmed in the past seven years that attempted to get inside the social and political debacles of the present, none has had the chilling clarity and historical discernment of Sheldon S. Wolin's Democracy Incorporated. Building on his fifty years as a political theorist and proponent of radical democracy, Wolin here extends his concern with the extinguishing of the political and its replacement by fraudulent simulations of democratic process.
(Jonathan Crary Artforum )

Review
With his fundamental grasp of political theory and restless spirit to get at the essence of what threatens modern democracy, Wolin demonstrates that the threats to our democratic traditions and institutions are not always from outside, but may come from within. It is a book that policymakers and scholars of contemporary society should read and reflect upon.
(Rakesh Khurana, Harvard Business School, author of "From Higher Aims to Hired Hands" )

Product Description

Democracy is struggling in America--by now this statement is almost cliché. But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"?

Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive--and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a "managed democracy" where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today's politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror. He argues passionately that democracy's best hope lies in citizens themselves learning anew to exercise power at the local level.

Democracy Incorporated is one of the most worrying diagnoses of America's political ills to emerge in decades. It is sure to be a lightning rod for political debate for years to come.

From the Inside Flap

"With his fundamental grasp of political theory and restless spirit to get at the essence of what threatens modern democracy, Wolin demonstrates that the threats to our democratic traditions and institutions are not always from outside, but may come from within. It is a book that policymakers and scholars of contemporary society should read and reflect upon."--Rakesh Khurana, Harvard Business School, author of From Higher Aims to Hired Hands

"As we've come to expect from Sheldon Wolin, a tightly argued and deeply revealing book about the dangers of unconstrained capitalism for our democracy."--Robert B. Reich, University of California, Berkeley

"For half a century, Sheldon Wolin has been one of the most distinguished and influential political theorists in the United States and a perceptive observer of the American political scene. In his magisterial latest book, Wolin shows himself at the height of his powers as he presents a highly original, sober, and persuasive account of a number of tendencies in contemporary American society that constitute a significant danger for the future of constitutional democracy. If totalitarianism establishes itself in the United States, it will be in the 'inverted' form Wolin analyzes in this important book."--Raymond Geuss, University of Cambridge

"Wolin's writing has a resonance that binds the canon of political philosophy to unfolding events and present circumstances. In Democracy Incorporated, he contends that the institutions and practices that Americans regarded as their defense against totalitarianism--and other forms of authoritarian domination--have failed them. There is nothing like this book. It is a major, potentially revolutionary contribution to political thought."--Anne Norton, author of Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire

"Powerful and persuasive. Democracy Incorporated does exactly what great political theory should do: it provides a theoretical framework that allows the reader to see the political world anew. It left this reader with an almost nightmarish vision of American politics today, a nightmare all the more terrifying for being so compelling, so vivid, and so real."--Marc Stears, author of Progressives, Pluralists, and the Problems of the State

About the Author
Sheldon S. Wolin is professor emeritus of politics at Princeton University. His books include "Politics and Vision" and "Tocqueville between Two Worlds" (both Princeton).

great post

Amazon has this book for 19.77

Just ordered this myself

Sold!

Wolin has hit the nail on the head. This book sounds like a great companion piece to Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine, the Rise of Disaster Capitalism".

(I do have one strong reservation re. "Shock Doctrine" - - In the case of "natural "disasters" (hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunami and flood etc), the beneficiaries do have a framework of reaction-plans ready to roll when a suitable incident happens, such as Hurricanes Katrina and Ike, and the recent Indian Ocean tsunami, but they have to wait an unknown length of time until Nature gets its act together. Regarding *human initiated* disasters (such as 9/11) this is not the case... but unfortunately Naomi Klein toes the official line, and refuses to consider the probability that 9/11 and other such such incidents are most likely deliberately engineered by those who stand to benefit... ie the motivation.. and have the technical/logistical ability to pull them off. The long record of false flag operations in the last 60 years speaks for itself.)

There's a lot of fights to fight out there

Everyone has a role they can play in the fight against the neo-cons. Everybody doesn't have to play the same role.

I think Naomi Klein's website is still the only resource available to to fight disaster capitalism. She's got a pretty full plate with that.

We did get a quote from Amy Goodman supporting a new 9/11 investigation. Perhaps we can get the same from Naomi Klein.

It's almost certain that she supports a new investigation.

I really admire Naomi Klein. I think "The Shock Doctrine" is one of the most important books of our time. And so I was very happy to hear what she said to a 9/11 skeptic in the audience in Portland, Oregon, on December 7, 2007:

"I am not gonna defend the 9/11 truth commission… It is an embarrassment of a report and I do wanna thank you for your contribution. I absolutely have many, many questions. I also would put nothing past these guys. All I have said about this is that I report on what I can prove-- and I can’t prove it, so I’m not reporting on it."

[http://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=-4231109320246838401&ei=vzXASZDkK6i02wL_0_T6CA&q=%22The+Shock+Doctrine%22, it starts at 01:12:40]

She doesn't say it explicitly, but with these words it's almost certain that she would support a new investigation. She says she has many questions, calls the report "an embarrassment," hints at the possibility of 9/11 being an inside job and thanks the 9/11 skeptic for his "contribution." With these words she has gone as far as no other "left gatekeeper" [except for Michael Parenti]. I'm quite surprised that I haven't read these remarkable words anywhere else. They should be spread widely.

Unfortunately the questioner was very aggressive. The anger towards "gatekeepers" is understandable, but shouting only makes us look bad and it really doesn't help us with getting people on our side. And especially in this case he should have appreciated her words and shouldn't have shouted at her for not going far enough. I am thankful that he asked her these questions, so that her answers are now on record, but frankly I felt a little embarrassed by his behaviour.

The problem

'All I have said about this is that I report on what I can prove-- and I can’t prove it, so I’m not reporting on it.'

The comments above by Klein are quite good in and of themselves. The problem I have is that, typically-- after 9/11 truthers are given a palliative so that we'll be satisfied and back off--these left intellectuals will almost invariably revert to treating the official story as basically what happened (with healthy doses of 'blowback' and 'negligence' included) the next time the subject of 9/11 comes up. It does little use for someone ostensibly committed to defeating the forces of war and empire to harbor skepticism towards the 9/11 official story--which has proven to be the most effective weapon of our time in promoting those very agendas--if you only make that skepticism apparent when addressing someone who is already openly skeptical. Otherwise, you only have the effect of encouraging the remainder of your audience to continue deferring to the 9/11 official story--i.e., to help maintain the power of this political weapon, even though that can only continue to benefit the agendas one supposedly opposes.

But apart from the matter of political effectiveness (and ineffectiveness), there is also that of hypocrisy and inconsistency. To be consistent with that 'I report on what I can prove' justification, such intellectuals and journalists would have to cease referring to premises of the OCT as essentially proven. Does Klein truly need any more 'proof' beyond all that has been uncovered regarding 9/11 thus far to be convinced that the powers-that-be have not proven their case? Or is Klein implying that the burden is on critics of the official story to prove what actually happened, and that the OCT will contine to suffice as 'proven' until then? And that, in the meantime, we're stuck with deferring to the version of events promoted by the very forces which have thus far prevented a real investigation?

Perhaps not--but this is definitely the tendency which I have observed among left intellectuals and the topic of 9/11 (that is, the ones who aren't vehemently denouncing us in terms comparable to those used by 'mainstream' journalists), and if Klein is different in this respect, I would be pleasantly 'shocked.'

I understand what you're

I understand what you're saying. I really do. But still, she calls the report "an embarrassment" and says that she has "many, many questions." These are
strong and remarkable words that will certainly stun many leftists. When you're talking to leftists about 9/11 and they dismiss you as a nut, just ask them if they consider Naomi Klein to be a nut as well. I'm going to use her words a lot, because they could be quite effective with the left. She has, rightfully so, a great deal of credibility among progressives.

Jeremy Scahill, whom I also admire, has said [I'm quoting from my less-than-perfect memory here, because I can't find the video now] when he was asked about "9/11 Press for Truth" and his thoughts about it and 9/11 truth in general: "It's a huge distraction. I think the people who are happiest about these theories are the ones sitting in the White House, because it distracts from their real crimes. The facts are bad enough as they are, blablabla." - apparently he doesn't realize that what he thinks are the "facts" about 9/11 are not the real facts. But maybe he has had an epiphany by now, I certainly hope so.

And that's my point: At least Naomi Klein openly acknowledges that there are many unanswered questions and that the official version might be completely wrong. That's far more than we have ever heard from most other "gatekeepers." I'm just as frustrated by the condescending words of many prominent leftists as you are. But instead of shouting at her for not going far enough [as the audience member did] we should thank her for her words of support and civilly encourage her to dig deeper. This was the first time she publicly opened up towards the truth movement and our representative thanked her by angrily screaming at her, that was certainly counterproductive.