THE RULING CLASS and the STATE

The “deep state” has become, in recent years, a common term and the last post wondered whether it could actually applied to the UK – with its very different political system. 

The term to which Brits are more used has been “The Establishment” coined 

by Henry Fairlie in 1955 and whose provenance was explored recently in 

this fascinating long article. The concept was explored in a book edited by 

Hugh Thomas in 1959 - The Establishment 
But it was a journalist who kept the public interest in the country’s elite alive 

from the 1960s through to the new millennium, namely Anthony Sampson 

whose first effort was the subject of a rather jaundiced review in NLR. 

By 2004 Sampson’s work produced Who Runs this place?  the anatomy of Britain 

in the 21st Century 

Owen Jones’ The Establishment (2014) didn’t so much assess the UK’s power 

structure as describe its prevailing ideology of neoliberalism. As one reviewer 

put it -

Jones sees a glaring contradiction and hypocrisy in neoliberalism’s simultaneous 

rejection of the state (sclerotic, bureaucratic, unable to ‘wash the pots’, let alone 

build houses) and embrace of the state (for bailouts, for ‘security’ and for violent 

action where necessary). ‘Despite shades of moderation and radicalism, the British 

establishment’s governing ideology is consistent. The state is a bad thing, and gets 

in the way of entrepreneurial flair. Free markets are responsible for growth and 

progress. Businesspeople are the real wealth creators.’ This, as Philip Mirowski and 

Richard Seymour among others have recently argued, was a ‘contradiction’ that 

didn’t trouble Hayek and his colleagues one iota: it was always part of the totality 

of their theory. However, it was not and is not how neoliberalism is sold to the British 

or American public, and The Establishment is at its strongest when it is detailing 

how vulgar neoliberalism works in practice.

By 2018 Aaron Daviews was wondering in Reckless Opportunists whether the 

term had outlived its usefulness. 

It might be time to question whether the British Establishment still functions. Yes, some members of the elite have become very rich. They are united in their fear and loathing of left-wing ideas and ordinary publics. Their decisions have powerful consequences that are widely felt. But they are also rather less able to exert control or predict what those consequences will be. As a body, they have reached a tipping point. They are no longer coherent or collective or competent. These failings are not only causing larger schisms, inequalities and precariousness in Britain; they also threaten the very foundations of Establishment rule itself.

DOES “THE DEEP STATE” EXIST?

A recent post explored whether the US notion of the deep state makes any sense in the UK – and comes up with a broadly negative answer. It argues that -

• the UK ex-PM who took this line was herself the product of the very 

NGO system she attributed to the deep state

• the US is a federal system – the UK a parliamentary one. Very different!

• Brexit has required a larger civil service - to produce new regulations

• which contradicts the libertarian agenda of the New Right

• indicating the total ideological confusion of the Brexit crew

There haven’t so far been many books on the subject – just four that I’ve 

been  able to unearth - and all focussed on the US where, of course, 

President Eisenhower famously warned of the “industrial-military complex”

The American Deep State – Wall St, Big Oil and the attack on American Democracy 

by Peter Dale Scott 2015
The Deep State – the fall of the constitution and the rise of a shadow government 

by Mike Lofgren 2016
History of the Deep State by Jeremy Stone (2018) 
The Deep State – a history of secret agendas and shadow governments Ian Fitzgerald (2021)

Perhaps that reflects the dubious nature of the term – it smacks so much of 

conspiracy (which is indeed the focus of the third book)

Other countries, of course, have these “shadow governments” – particularly
 ex-communist ones. Romania is perhaps the prime example with its 
infamous Securitate still very much alive – one the best articles on this 
aspect of the country is Romania Redivivus 

The tentacles of the Deep Security State. Meanwhile, beneath the surface 
of democratization, the authoritarian tenor of Ceauşescu’s rule persists in 
Romania’s powerful security forces. The Securitate, the most ruthless police 
force in the Warsaw Pact, has been rebranded and is now run by a generation 
of operatives whose average age is 35, trained at special intelligence universities. 
They are, in many cases, the children of the 16,000 Securitate members who 
provided the backbone of the Romanian state after 1989, having emerged as 
the undisputed winners of the ‘revolution’ of that year. At least nine of these 
new services exist. The predominant one, the Serviciul Român de Informaţii (sri), 
monitors Romanians internally; with some 12,000 operatives, it has double the 
manpower of any equivalent agency in Europe and, with military-grade espionage 
equipment, conducts upwards of 40,000 wiretaps a year.10 The older generation 
of Securitate agents managed the privatization schemes of the 1990s;
they are now shielded by the younger cohort from legal oversight. 
This interlocking of economic influence—four out of the five richest
Romanians have a Securitate background—and legal inviolability—Romania’s
judiciary is too dependent on the sri to prosecute it—allows the deep state 
to operate with impunity.
The security services have vast stakes in telecommunications and
big-data collection. They oversee their own ngos, run their own tv
channels and have their people on the editorial boards of the major
Romanian newspapers and across the government ministries. The
permeation of the state by these networks comes to light only
occasionally. In October 2015, a nightclub fire in Bucharest killed
sixty-four, more than half the deaths due to infections contracted
later at a local hospital. Why? The hospital’s disinfectants,
concocted by a company called Hexi Pharma to which the government had
granted a monopoly"

The State is a strangely neglected subject to which only Bob Jessop has done 

recent justice – this is a recent slide presentation of the complexity which 

lies behind his theories.
Most of us are familiar with the classic definition of the State by Max Weber – 

“the monopoly use of violence” although Susan Strange rather punctured that 

definition with her States and Markets in 1988
Writing on the state goes back ,ore than a hundred years - Harold Laski’s 
The State in theory and practice was published in 1923

In Praise of the Bibliographical Essay

Readers are aware of the rather eccentric stress this blog puts on the importance of books having annotated bibliographies. Penguin have just published Why Politics Fails – the 5 traps of the modern world and how to escape them Ben Ansell (2023) which ends with a rare essay which covers, for each chapter, the key books the author has found essential as themes for the lens through which he examines democracy, equality, solidarity, security and prosperity. 

The only other book I’ve come across with such an essay is Peter Gay’s 680 

page magnum opus Modernism – the lure of heresy (2007) which has a stunning 

32 page  bibliographical essay which, he warned, was “highly selective”! 

Peter Gay was born in Germany in 1923 but his family came to the States via 

Havana in 1941 where he became a prolific US historian – as is evident from 

this Wikupedia entry. One of his books is My German Question: Growing Up in 

Nazi Berlin (1998), a powerful and insightful account of his teenage years in 

Berlin. Another which also has an extensive bib essay is Freud – a Life for our 

Times (1988) whose bib essay extends to 76 pages. The book does, after all, have 

1350 pages! For me, such bibliographical essays are rare gems which offer an opportunity 

to understand an author’s preferences.

  
Why Politics Fails reviews

• https://czechpolsci.eu/article/download/37409/31968/61942 

• https://www.persuasion.community/p/ansell podcast

• https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/17/reith-lectures-miss-point-politics-

• fails-when-avoids-issue-of-class

British "Justice"

 The British public is so appalled at the Israeli genocide going on in Gaza that it has failed to spot the latest negation by the UK Establishment of basic judicial principles. Only Consortium News and Craig Murray have given clear reports on the implications of last week’s Supreme Court’s opaque judgement whose 66 page report can be read here.

Craig Murray’s argument is that -

• Both judges are compromised by their close association with the security 

services and by kinship (Sharp is the brother of the guy who gave a huge loan to Boris Johnson and was subsequently appointed as BBC Chairman)

• The Supreme Court accepts the evidence that the US plotted 

to kill Julian Assange

• forbids Assange’s lawyers to mention this in any future appeals

• has given the US 3 weeks to come up with a form of words which 

reassures the UK authorities that the US will not inflict the death penalty 

on Assange

• but then argues that the UK is not bound (by any of the 150 treaties it 

has signed) to respect basic human rights.

    
Judge Johnson and Judge Sharp accept that there is evidence to the required 

standard that the U.S. authorities did plot to kidnap and consider assassinating 

Julian Assange, but they reason at para. 210 that, as extradition is now going to be 

granted, there is no longer any need for the United States to kidnap or assassinate 

Julian Assange: and therefore the argument falls.
It does not seem to occur to them that a willingness to consider extrajudicial violent 

action against Julian Assange amounts to a degree of persecution which obviously 

reflects on his chances of a fair trial and treatment in the United States. 

It is simply astonishing, but the evidence of the U.S. plot to destroy Julian Assange,

 including evidence from the ongoing criminal investigation in Spain into the private 

security company involved, will never again be allowed to be mentioned in Julian’s 

case against extradition.
Similarly, we are at the end of the line for arguing that the treaty under which 

Julian is being extradited forbids extradition for political offence. The judgment 

confirms boldly that treaty obligations entered into by the United Kingdom are 

not binding in domestic law and confer no individual rights. Of over 150 extradition 

treaties entered into by the United Kingdom, all but two ban extradition for 

political offences. The judgment is absolutely clear that those clauses are redundant 

in every single one of those treaties. Every dictatorship on Earth can now come after 

political dissidents in the U.K. and they will not have the protection of those 

clauses against political extradition in the treaties. That is absolutely plain on 

the face of this ruling.

Miniaturising

In recent years, I’ve taken to creating tables in an effort to summarise the key points of some posts. But BLOGSPOT, the server I use, is no longer able to cope with these tables which, I realise, might be expressed as poems. My model is not one of the guys I’ve so far owned up to – Brecht, Bukowski, Eliot, Graham, McCaig. Mitchell or Sorescu – it’s rather an unknown 90 year old Barry Oshry who has a blog; and several poems such as Encounters with the other

In view of the suffering in Gaza and Ukraine, I’ve chosen some excerpts 

from his The Terrible Dance of power 

Enter the Radicals

A new force develops among the Low-Power people—

a radical force.

The Radicals call for more drastic action—

not accommodation,

but fundamental change;

overthrow the power structure

or separate from the nation.

The Radicals become a "We,"

and all who are not "We"

are "Them."

The High-Power people are "Them,"

but so are the Moderates.

And you can do to "Them"

things you would never do to one another—

you can hurt "Them,"

maim "Them,"

bomb "Them,"

torture "Them,"

annihilate "Them."

The Radicals can do all of this

without guilt or shame

because they see the High-Power people as "Them,"

and they see the Moderates as "Them"—

as lesser,

insignificant,

dirty,

dangerous,

or evil.

Who wouldn't do this to such people?

Enter the Accommodators and the Extremists

In the High-Power group,

there are the Liberals

who want to accommodate the Low-Power people—

redress their grievances,

right their wrongs.

But, in response to the Radicals' actions,

a new force emerges among the High-Power people—

an Extremist force.

Angered by the Radicals,

threatened by "Them,"

the Extremists stand against any accommodation.

The Extremists become a "We,"

and all who are not "We"

are "Them."

The Radicals are "Them";

the supporters of Radicals are "Them";

the Accommodators are "Them."

They are all "Them,"

and you can do to "Them"

things you would never do to one another—

you can hurt "Them,"

maim "Them,"

bomb "Them,"

torture "Them,"

annihilate "Them."

The Extremists can do all of this

without guilt or shame

because they see the Radicals

and the moderates

as "Them"—

as lesser,

insignificant,

dirty,

dangerous,

or evil.

Who wouldn't do this to such people?

Enter the Privileged Radicals

Among the High-Power people,

there emerges a Privileged Radical group—

the privileged sons and daughters of the High-Power people,

who align themselves with the Low-Power Radical group.

The Privileged Radical people

also stand for radical change—

fundamental change in the power structure,

redistribution of wealth, power, and privilege,

or separate homelands

or nations

for the Low-Power people.

The Privileged Radicals see themselves

and the Low-Power Radicals as a "We,"

and all who are not part of the "We"

are "Them."

The High-Power Accommodators are "Them";

the Low-Power Moderates are "Them";

the High-Power Extremists are "Them."

They are all "Them,"

and you can do to "Them"

things you would never do to one another—

you can humiliate "Them,"

hurt "Them,"

maim "Them,"

bomb "Them,"

torture "Them,"

annihilate "Them."

The Privileged Radicals can do all of this

without guilt or shame

because they see the others as "Them"—

as lesser,

insignificant,

dirty,

dangerous,

or evil.

Who wouldn't do this to such people?

Change Partners

Sometimes the Low-Power people win;

they overthrow the High-Power people

and they become the new High-Power people,

seeing themselves as the bearers of a new vision—

a higher vision,

The New Society,

Manifest Destiny,

The New Man,

The Master Race,

The One True Religion,

The Way.

And standing in the way of this vision

are the new Low-Power people—

"Them."

And the terrible dance goes on:

"We" humiliate,

"We" hurt,

"We" kill,

"We" maim,

"We" bomb,

"We" hack,

"We" hang,

"We" mine,

"We" strangle,

"We" starve

"Them."

Always justified in what "We" do,

"We" are the right and the righteous.

Who wouldn't do such things to "Them"?

How can the US be so stupid?

Completely coincidentally, after yesterday’s post, Youtube took me to a fascinating discussion about how post-1968 developments had helped create the right-wing backlash which brought us Trump, Johnson, Orban et al  The focus was journalist Kurt Anderson who has written two fascinating books which offer a highly plausible explanation of US history – going back to the Puritans. First up in 2017 was Fantasyland – how America went haywire; a 500-year history which was followed 3 years later by Evil Geniuses – the unmaking of america; a recent history

Whereas Fantasyland concerned Americans’ centuries-old weakness for the

untrue and irrational, and its spontaneous and dangerous flowering since the 1960s, Evil Geniuses chronicles the quite deliberate reengineering of our economy and society since the 1960s by a highly rational confederacy of the rich, the right, and big business.

I’ve already revealed hom much I appreciate what might reasonably be called “Confessionals” where people have revelatory Damascan moments when they suddenly see the world differently

I’d mostly just read the news, skimmed along day to day and month to month like anybody whose job never required knowing a lot about deregulation, antitrust, tax codes, pensions, the healthcare industry, the legal fraternity, constitutional law, organized labor, executive compensation, lobbying, billionaires’ networks, the right wing, the dynamics of economic growth, stock buybacks, the financial industry and all its innovations—so many subjects of which I was mostly ignorant.

My immersion was revelatory. Reading hundreds of books and scholarly papers and articles and having conversations with experts made me more or less fluent in those subjects and, more, taught me many small things and one important big thing: what happened around 1980 and afterward was larger and uglier and more multifaceted than I’d known. Inequality is the buzzword, mainly because that’s so simple and quantifiable: in forty years, the share of wealth owned by our richest 1 percent has doubled, the collective net worth of the bottom half has dropped almost to zero, the median weekly pay for a full-time worker has increased by just 0.1 percent a year, only the incomes of the top 10 percent have grown in sync with the economy, and so on.

Anderson then goes on to say that -

Evil Geniuses is the book I wish had existed a dozen years ago to help clarify and organize and deepen and focus my thinking and understanding and anger and blame.

Like most people over the past decade, I’d noticed this fact here or that infographic there about inequality or insecurity or malign corporate power, but quickly moved on, flittered off to the next headline. But then I decided to go deep into the weeds in order to understand, then come out of the weeds to explain what I’d learned as clearly as I could. I wanted to distill and gather and connect the important facts and explanations in one compact package, to make a coherent picture out of all the puzzle pieces.

There are lots of facts and figures in here, but not much jargon at all. By chronicling CEOs and billionaires and intellectuals and zealots and operators planning and strategizing for years, together and apart, networking and plotting, even memorializing some plots in memos—so many jaw-dropping memos—I’ve tried to tell a compelling story as well as make a persuasive argument about what’s become of us.

PROJECT 2025

One of the bloggers I most respect is indi.ca - a writer called Indrajit Samarajiva, born in Canada, raised in America and now living in Sri Lanka. He is the first to draw our attention to Project 2025 – mandate for leadership; the conservative promise the 920 page plan the US Heritage Foundation and the Republicans have just released for the US elections later this year. Even more importantly, he has read the documents carefully and summarised it for us all – the first two installments are https://indi.ca/i-read-trumps-plan-so-you-dont-have-to/ and https://indi.ca/trumps-transition-plan-plumbing-the-deep-state/

One of the core ideas of conservatives for generations has been broad executive 

power. The prerogative of the President. Trump I's main problem was whipping a 

recalcitrant bureaucracy into place (what he called the 'Deep State'), and they 

ended up rebelling against him. The whole point of the first section of Project 2025 

is 'never again'. The first section clearly labels what all the important departments 

and personnel are, prioritizes placing loyal political appointees in charge of them 

immediately, and philosophically claims a 'tyrannical' Presidency that 'commands' all 

executive function.
This is actually an interesting political dynamic that conservatives aren't necessarily 

on the wrong side of. One of the weird delusions of liberal democracy is that they 

live in a democracy at all and not an oligarchy. The delusion of liberal democracy 

is that there is one form of democracy and that it fits in bombs. And what is that 

form? Well, Aristotle would more properly call it oligarchy, not democracy at all. 

Which government do you think best describes America, or any of its vassal states? 

As Michael Hudson says about China vs the USA, in China the state controls capital, 

and in America it's the other way around. America is an oligarchy with voting, and 

the voting is increasingly superfluous. They're literally having the same election 

again. America is marketed as Democracy™, but it's really oligarchy most foul. 

This is not a feature, it's a bug. It was founded that way.
America was founded with only property owners able to vote, and the entire system 

of 'checks and balances' is structured that way. It creates a purposefully divided 

government so capital can conquer. American Democrats, who actually believe their 

own propaganda, are fond of calling Trump a tyrant, with little historical understanding 

of what that means. Tyrants were, in Ancient Greece, the people that overthrew 

entrenched aristocracies and oligarchies and saved the people.