Conspiracies vs. Concentrations of Wealth & Power

From Noam Chomsky's blog:

It’s been close to a truism for a long time that as long as there is an enormous concentration of private power, unaccountable to the public, politics will be hardly more than the shadow cast by business over society, as America’s leading social philosopher, John Dewey, put it long ago. In the absence of popular democratic structures—unions, functioning political parties, etc.)—how could it be otherwise.

There are no “conspiracies,” and it has nothing to do with “brutal men.”

Click here for the rest.

This is a point that Chomsky has hit on numerous times: it is far better to understand structures of political and economic power than it is to engage in speculation that our government has been hijacked by bad guys conspiring in secret. Conspiracy theories assume that US power structures are essentially just and fair, but they have been subverted by a few individuals for their own nefarious gain. On the other hand, institutional analysis assumes that there are factors about how power is organized and divvied up that make injustice likely--individuals seek nefarious gain, but it is because power structures allow them, encourage them even, to do so.

American power structures are controlled by wealth. Consequently, we see the government, again and again, screwing the poor while making love to the rich. This is no conspiracy: it makes complete sense that the people who write the rules are going to make those rules such that they always win. Taking on some bad guys will not change this. The power structures that allow injustice will simply allow other bad guys to do the same thing again.

Throwing Nixon out of office back in the early 70s changed absolutely nothing. He was replaced by scores of other Nixons, all smarter and more evil than he was. Liberals thought they had finally won, but the reality is that the man who made the name Watergate enter the English lexicon as a word that describes political corruption in general was simply a sacrificial lamb--getting rid of him made the system seem just, but business as usual has continued in Washington to this day.

Don't get me wrong. There are, indeed, bad guys in Washington. But busting them won't really change much. We need systemic change, and conspiracy theorists simply play into the hands of the wealthy elitists who benefit from our corrupt system.

Generally, I don't even like to talk to conspiracy theorists; it's a waste of time...Of course, I still wonder about what really happened on 9/11.

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