Some years ago I wrote an article about how to run a real left wing government.
Seven Rules for running a real left-wing government
Of course, it was really a guide for how to change the ruling ideology a society. Because, yes, elites, apparatchniks and what as might be called a deep state state exist. These aren’t all the same thing. There is plenty of private support for whatever the status quo is, especially at the highest levels, since whatever the ideology is, it put them in charge and benefited them. There are also a lot of mid level enforcers, bureaucrats (both private and public) and professionals who benefit from the status quo.
Anyway, two of the seven rules were specific to the problem of running a left wing government in a neoliberal world (it was 2016.) But here are the other five
- Your First Act Must Be a Media Law
- Take Control of the Banking Sector
- Who Is Your Administrative Class?
- Take Control of Distribution and Utilities
- Reduce Your Vulnerability to the World Trade System
Control the Media: Now the wording isn’t always the best, but Trump has been on a constant attack against the media. He’s changed who is allowed to be part of the White House press pool and he’s made the media pay blackmail money. He’s now talking about removing NBC and ABC’s licenses. He may, he may not, but the threat makes them change.
Take Control of the Banking Sector: for the first time in its history, a Federal Reserve governor has been fired the President has always had this authority in theory (except over the Chair), but has never used it in practice. Ironically I once advised Obama to use this power to stop the Fed bailouts in 2009. Control over the banking sector is really control over the permission system: whoever is given money or the ability to create money can do things. Once you have your hands on the money-artery, nothing significant can happen without your permission.
Who is Your Administrative class: All systems have a class of people which run the bureaucracies. We have come to know ours as the PMC. Trump is replacing them, firing them in huge piles, and replacing them with right wing, often religious, fanatics. These are people who will give him his military parade (denied in his first term), who will extradite his enemies, who will break laws for him knowing that the Supreme Court (carefully packed during decades of preparation for this moment) will make what they do legal, and that in any case, the enforcer class is under Trump’s control.
Indeed, Trump has been purging the enforcer class and replacing them with people who would not have been considered qualified by the previous system. This is true of the military, the FBI and indeed of all the three letter agencies. Since ICE are his loyal brownshirts, needing no purging, they are being massively enlarged and given far greater powers.
Reduce vulnerability to the World Trade System: Let’s state this simply: the US had been losing the trade game badly for about fifteen years. China was coming on hard, Africa is lost, South America is almost lost, Russia is no longer complacent and America has lost the lead in over 80% of technologies. It can’t build ships, its planes fall out of the sky, most electronics are made elsewhere, it can’t even make magnets. It’s a joke.
So Trump is creating a two bloc system, there’s the US and its vassals (calling them allies amounts to lying) Europe, Japan, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Korea. On the other side China, Russia, Iran, and their friends, which includes most of Africa and Asia and a good chunk of South America.
The US has slapped 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs, and tariffs on almost everyone else. Why? Well, simply enough, the US can’t compete. If there is free trade, or anything approximating it, the US’s economy will be further cannibalized. Since they can’t sell overseas, except for chips, food and a few other goods, it’s time to stop competing. The US can’t win, so it’s not going to play.
The problem, of course, is that unless the US takes this time behind trade barriers to become competitive, it’ll just keep falling behind, and there’s only so much it can cannibalize its vassals. Given the massive slashing of research and universities, with no sign of a new system to replace them, it’s clear that the US has chosen semi-permanent decline.
Trump is Changing the US ruling ideology to Controlled un-development
It’s still about making the rich richer, but Trump’s choice is controlled decline. The US and the West will fall further and further behind, living conditions will get worse and worse, but the rich will become relatively richer in relation to everyone else in society. Think India in the post-war period. Fantastically wealthy elites, everyone else is a peon. Oh, there’s lots of ruin in countries, but this is the direction of the arrow and it only changes if a different ideology takes over.
Competition in the US between all groups will become far more savage, because there is no net. You get you hands on a position which commands resources or you become homeless or techno-peasant.
The vassals, who mostly have social welfare systems, will be forced to liquidate them, buy US military goods (which are useless against the US, given the software driven nature of them) and sell off all their public goods to continue the enrichment of elites. Any who try to avoid this fate will be coerced as necessary, first by their own internal elites.
This is the future in America and its allies. The only way to avoid it is to figure out how to defect.
someofparts
Never thought I would feel this good about choosing not to have children.
GrimJim
I’d love to see your analysis on the status on the current position and future of the Tech-Bros and their Technocracy in Trumpistan. They will obviously be needed for the Panopticon, but how will their full on Corporatist policies be adopted and enacted by the Trump Regime, and will they be fit into the Regime or will they be discarded once used (like Musk has been).
NL
Surprisingly, his biggest achievement so far is not mentioned. His biggest achievement has been to impose one of the largest taxes on the population — the consumption tax (the blanket imposition indicates this has nothing to with the industry). The new tax is completely arbitrary and at the whims of the so-called president not only to impose the tax but also to selectively exempt goods from this tax — a corruption and population exploitation paradise — tax what common people buy, exempt what the wealthy buy, collect ‘donations’ to exempt goods. Are private money and an opaque banking system unresponsive to the citizenry good things? Maybe it would be good to do away with the FED independence — although, removing the so-called FED independence will do nothing to the fact that our money are private and are an means of wealth transfer to the few. The media has always been controlled — nothing new there.
“It’s still about making the rich richer, but Trump’s choice is controlled decline.” — First of all, why should we expect anything different? In a way it is not even about making rich richer, it is about maintaining their lifestyle. Children, wives and mistresses cost a lot and do not bring income. When you love your children, wives and mistresses, will you send them out there in the hell of the labor market to work? — you will provide them with a investment income, charity, foundation, trust fund, etc.
Second, this is not Trump’s choice, this is the choice of the whole ruling group (which as I argued in a different post, may have already evolved to a single ruling family/clan) for a very long time. Even more broadly, this is our way of life — this is our Volksgeist — this is what we are. Trump is as American as America can be. The first settlers were naturally broadly equal in wealth. But already Winthrop preached inequality as a common good instilled by God to fight evil.
Third, there is no other way. The president and the wealthy have a lot of children, serial wives, mistresses, sugar babies, houses, servants, etc and constantly need money to maintain the lifestyle. But the peasants have been squeezed dry and no longer even reproduce. As I argue in a different post, engineering requires a huge amount of mental effort, a proper educational system with care for human capital. Engineers are smart and threatening. No one has time for this generational investment, and everyone needs money now. And here comes the consumption tax — let’s squeeze the peasants a bit more, an attack on the technocrats (academia, medicine, gov officials) to push their income down, crypto shenanigans, lower interest rates. Will the situation get worse? — Yes, it will…
Revelo
>Think India
Yes, think about and study India carefully, and not just because USA/Canada has imported huge numbers of south Asian immigrants in recent years. India does indeed show the way forwards. Caste system where birth family determines place in social hierarchy, with limited opportunity to switch castes. Nepotism. Incompetent exploitative elite. Ethnic groups and castes pitted against one another by elite to divide and thus more easily control society. Stagnant economy. Senseless wars (India vs Pakistan/China/Myanmar, USA vs Mexico, Haiti, perhaps Canada and Greenland) to distract from domestic problems. Massive government corruption (license raj). Etc.
canopy
The example of India makes sense in some ways, but I would be more inclined to see the US as splintering apart into regions. A book called Nine Nations of North America, published in 1981, offered a breakdown of the various parts of the country that are cohesive in terms of demographics and geography. Working from the template sketched out in that book, it might be that parts of the country would break away as independent principalities, if the federal government becomes too weak to prevent it and too broke to provide even the most basic services.
The Pacific Northwest, the Great Lakes states and New England, were they independent, might benefit more from affiliation with Canada that from ties to the government in Washington. Florida might feel more at home as part of a Caribbean federation, while the southwestern states might prefer to become part of Mexico if that country joins BRICS and becomes more prosperous than the US. States in the south, the midwest and those on the mid-Atlantic coast could be all that remain of the former US, and would IMO resemble South American banana republics more than India, which is as old as China and seems to have a distinct and extremely complex history unique to itself.
Daniel A Lynch
I can’t disagree with Ian’s assessment, but at the same time I believe the Trump power grab is made possible not due to Trump being clever or popular or the next Hitler, but due to the lack of a credible opposition.
The West is at a crossroads — neoliberalism has failed, the West has lost the Cold War, China and Russia are rising, Covid hasn’t gone away, climate change is looming, and fake liberal parties like the Democrats are like deer in the headlights. So Trump comes along and claims he has solutions (he doesn’t), while deer-in-the-headlights Democrats campaign on “vote for us if you want to maintain the status quo.”
Trump won’t live forever, and his policies seem set to screw things up, so D’s may well win the next election cycle or two, but D’s won’t fix anything, so it’s hard to see anything good happening in the near future. Add climate change and stir.