In an article titled “The State of Emergency and the Revival of American Imperialism: Toward an Authoritarian Post-Fordism” (Public Culture 15:2 2003), University of Michigan Sociologist George Steinmetz shows how the contingent events of George Bush’s election and the terrorist attacks of 9-11 offered an opportunity for lawmakers to bring the U.S. regime of regulation into line with a foreign policy that had for some time been informed by a post-democratic rationale. As the ultra-conservative Project for a New American Century had already pointed out in September 2000, a full year before 9-11, the U.S. had been losing ground to European, Middle Eastern, Russian, Asian, African and Latin American interests for some time. And, yet, even with George Bush in the White House and many of its authors in the President’s Cabinet and the Departments of State and Defense, PNAC’s September 2000 report had a hard time gaining traction with a public eager to address domestic economic ills. The massive increase in military spending envisioned by PNAC’s report was simply nowhere on the horizon.
To capture the import of Steinmetz’s thesis, we need to imagine the U.S. as it might have appeared had the Supreme Court not preempted the 2000 presidential election, a U.S. where Al Gore was President, and not George Bush, and therefore a U.S. where massive U.S. mis-retaliation against the wrong target was nowhere on the table. No lies about weapons of mass destruction. No lies about fissile material. No secret White House within the White House. And we need to imagine a defense establishment sufficiently focused on domestic security (instead of a public relations campaign for larger defense spending) to pay attention to the stream of memos and alerts that warned of an immanent threat.
Would a Gore presidency have avoided the economic downturn the sent Bush’s polling numbers into the netherworld? Would President Gore have continued President Clinton’s multilateralism, both economically and militarily, and thus both promoted more trade and less hostility?
It is impossible to say. What we do know is that there is nothing “in the stars” in November 2000 that says either that George Bush had to be crowned by the Supreme Court or that terrorists had to successfully bomb the Twin Towers in New York. Since neither of these contingent events could have been adequately theorized in November 2000, this means that all post-9/11 theorizing that claims to detect the steady rise of post-democratic values and policies prior to 9/11 must be somewhat suspect. Either George Bush’s accidental presidency and 9/11 are critical links in the chain that led to a post-democratic America or they are incidental.
There is, however, a third (and probably fourth and fifth and sixth . . .) possibility. This possibility invites us to view systemic changes and trends together with these contingent events. This possibility relieves us of having to advance the untenable supposition that George Bush’s accidental presidency and 9/11 were necessary (rather than contingent). But, therefore, it also invites us to view the subsequent rise of authoritarian post-Fordism as itself contingent.
Steinmetz then invites us to explore how the accidental president makes use of the contingent event of 9/11 to solve the problems raised by the September 2000 PNAC report. For example, the lack of wage elasticity prior to 9/11, added to the costs ascribed to government regulation of private industries, has led to declining rates of capital accumulation. Clearly this lack of elasticity and declining rates of capital accumulation are unrelated to the accidental presidency and to 9/11. And, yet, it was possible for the President after 9/11 to argue that he needed greater extra-parliamentary and extra-judicial authority to keep America safe. This same extra-parliamentary and extra-judicial authority could then be used to shift the weight of economic authority away from public oversight of private institutions and away from the legal right of public authorities to regulate private institutions guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution toward private self-regulation of private industry and toward relieving private industry of its obligation to the public, which formerly enjoyed the authority of granting corporations their charters. In other words, 9/11 can become the occasion for resolving the otherwise intractable problem of flagging rates of profit.
More generally, however, the accidental presidency and 9/11 can become the occasion for advancing a vision of government more in line with the post-democratic values and ideals of PNAC and its sister organizations.
In the language of Regulation Theory, the accidental presidency and 9/11 are necessary but not sufficient contingencies that allowed the United States to bring its already post-democratic policy of capital accumulation back into line with a now post-democratic regime of regulation at home. (Consistent with the language of Regulation Theory, “regulation” here is understood not as government regulation, but as the combination of laws, cultural understandings, values, and practices that individuals and groups use to guide their decisions and actions. Thus, for example, the increasingly widespread belief that private decisions and interests are to be favored over public institutions and policies helps regulate our decisions and actions.) Together, this coordination of regimes of capital accumulation and domestic regulation (including self-regulation), helps to promote greater productivity by giving private employers a stronger hand in, e.g., breaking collective bargaining units, driving down wages and benefits, shirking their responsibilities for “neighborhood effects” such as air pollution, degraded transportation systems, water pollution, global warning, tax avoidance, etc.
If prior to 9/11 there was a disparity between foreign policy and domestic, where private companies actively promote anti-democratic policies in regions where they extract wealth and labor, the post-9/11 domestic regulatory regime grants private companies greater freedom to adopt and promote post-democratic practices without fear of a domestic backlash in the U.S.
There are, however, two other interesting side-products generated by authoritarian Post-Fordism. The first comes to light once we recognize how President Obama has pursued a foreign policy not dissimilar from that adopted by President Bush. Yet, instead of receiving support from post-democratic forces in Congress, these forces have doubled their efforts. Why?
The answer could be that President Obama’s rhetoric of greater public oversight and government responsibility is recognized as inconsistent with the authoritarian cultural regulatory regime inaugurated by President Bush and his post-democratic allies. Should citizens come to believe that they need to take their public institutions back from private corporations, or should they come to believe that public institutions are paramount under a republican form of government, these beliefs could seriously jeopardize the gains enjoyed by post-democratic republicans and democrats. Their hostility toward President Obama is utterly inconsistent with his overwhelmingly conservative and militarist economic and military policies; policies which they should fully support. Yet, since the President’s rhetoric serves to weaken authoritarian post-Fordism, they recognize that opposing the President may be their best tool for restoring and strengthening the post-democratic consensus.
The other interesting side-product is what looks to be a self-sustaining and growing cultural consensus among Americans themselves against republican institutions in general (republican in the sense of res publica, common wealth, etc.). It is here that we can see considerable continuity between pre-9/11 and post-9/11. And, yet, it is as though prior to 9/11 the post-democratic advocates of PNAC had a difficult time squaring their own post-democratic policies and values with the inconveniences of democracy at home and abroad. Now, however, there appears to be a solid base, making up as much as 25% of the voting public, who are willing to openly identify themselves as post-democratic. It is highly doubtful that this post-democratic base would have grown so dramatically or would have moved so quickly into the mainstream without 9/11. Now it has become commonplace.
9/11 was a tragedy for its victims and for their families. It was a tragedy for the families of Afghanistan and Iraq. It is a tragedy for Muslims all around the world. But it is a special tragedy for Americans, for whom 9/11 became the occasion for abandoning their highest principles and aspirations.
Americans now view “Obamacare” and corporate deregulation and getting rid of the Fed and getting rid of taxes as one single cultural war, an American jihad. This is the real tragedy of 9/11.