The Politics of Superpower: Managed Democracy

Corporate power is no longer an external force that occasionally influences policies and legislation; it is an integral part of the government. What are the main aspects of its “management” of democracy?

This chapter inquires into some of the political changes that are making Superpower and inverted totalitarianism possible, demoting democracy from a formative principle to a largely rhetorical function within an increasingly corrupt political system. “The crux of these changes,” adds Sheldon Wolin, “is that corporate power and its culture are no longer external forces that occasionally influence policies and legislation. As these have become integral, so the citizenry has become marginal and democracy more manageable. What follows is an account of these developments.”

The amalgamation between state and corporate power has “its own ‘constitution,’ its own ‘more perfect union,'” according to the author. Instead of emphasizing checks and balances and limitations of power, this unwritten constitution is about power itself, more specifically in the form of dominated markets and the prevalence of the military-industrial complex. At the difference of the Roman Empire, for instance, that had to extend the privilege of citizenship on physically conquered territories to maintain itself, “Superpower” exercises its own empire economically, enforcing treaties with comparatively weak client states instead of incorporating provinces.¹ This is the unwritten constitution of the hierarchical and arcane power structures in the corporate and military world. As a consequence, “The insulated status ascribed to imperial affairs, the secrecy and inhibitions beginning to envelop domestic politics and the operations of globalizing corporations have the net result of excluding the public from a deliberative role in each and all of the major preserves of modern power.” Relying on organized science (including psychology and social sciences), technology, and capital, Superpower’s structures evolve on a totally different plane than the democratic ideal of politics as a public debate accessible to all citizens.

Paradoxically, “the powers that exclude democracy from their counsels are eagerly exporting it.” Democracy gains a universal status but as a PR stunt destined to impose American power. This is how, for instance, John Negroponte could announce that the George W. Bush administration would ask its agencies’ “operators” to “forge relationships with new and incipient democracies” to help “strengthen the rule of law and ward off threats to representative government,”² thus promoting the peculiar notion of undercover democracy. “Having domesticated democracy at home, the administration knew the specifications in advance; hence a proven product could be exported, along with expert managers boasting honed skills, tested nostrums, and impressive résumés.” This “democracy” supposed to be exported as a mere product of American ingenuity is a sham. “As one important American adviser remarked in warning against introducing direct elections before safeguards were in place, “If you move too fast, the wrong people could get elected.”³ Voting is a veneer, not the fundamental right of citizens to periodically reshuffle to their advantage the cards of electoral power.

In domestic affairs, Superpower’s unwritten constitution plays itself out through the well-known revolving door kept at the disposal of the elite: “Consider this postmodern potpourri. Politicians resign in order to accept lucrative corporate positions; corporate executives take leave (typically with “delayed compensation”) to run government departments and set policies; and high-ranking military officers are hired by corporations, become TV commentators, join faculties, and run for presidential nominations.” Due to this casual exchange of favors between corporations and government, the private sector has increasingly assumed governmental functions in defense, public health, communication, transportation, or education.

Obviously, the issue is that private mechanisms are largely divorced from popular accountability and, consequently, hardly scrutinized for their coerciveness when being part of governmental power. This is why, contrary to the usual narrative in support of efficient private management as opposed to public administration, “The union of corporate and state power means that, instead of the illusion of a leaner system of governance, we have the reality of a more extensive, more invasive system than ever before, one removed from democratic influences and hence better able to manage democracy.” The question is not a small or big government; the question is a government for who.

The corporate revolution in politics has reshaped the republican ideal in the image of the corporate executive, but “Although managerial elites are typically trumpeted for their ‘objective’ skills, their aura of rational decision making sits uncomfortably with the favors, perks, golden handshakes, golden parachutes, and fraudulent, deceptive practices that have been revealed to go far deeper into corporate culture than the peccadilloes of a few. More than one CEO has ruined his firm while ‘managing’ to emerge unscathed and richer for the experience. Not, one might think, the kinds of qualities desirable in those sworn to ‘protect and defend’ a Constitution of limited powers and checks and balances.”

Before Superpower shaped itself up, the common assumption was that “the government consisted of nonprofit institutions whose basic responsibility was ‘to promote the general welfare.’ The measure of performance was political, not economic; the common good, not the bottom line.”⁴ Today, all three branches of government answer the corporate world. Though in a less direct way than for executive and legislative powers, the judicial branch is systematically subject to efforts trying to “identify, encourage, and educate future court appointees through organizations such as the Federalist Society and so-called judicial education programs financed by business interests and held at fancy resorts.”⁵