Tuesday, 13 December 2005
 Years ago there was an excellent journal called Propaganda Review
that unpacked the manipulation of reality practiced by the emerging
corporate state, especially the covert funding of the 'arts’, for
example, many of the sci-fi movies of the 50s that had evil 'aliens’
invading the Earth, were actually financed by the DoD. Replace the
'aliens’ with communists and the message was clear; aliens equals
communists equals the anti-Christ.
Around
the same time, Herbert I. Schiller published a book called 'Culture
Inc. – The Corporate Takeover of Public Expression’. Schiller, who has
sadly since died, wrote extremely presciently about the central role
the media and what has become the cultural industries, plays in shaping
our understanding of the world and how it works. This is especially
true of history, especially in light of the current onslaught on our
senses and sensibilities, the 'war on terror’.
Reading
'Culture Inc.’ again, all these years later, one thing is clear, that
of the parallel role that anti-communism played in the struggle for
'hearts and minds’ to the current one played by the 'war on terror’.
Underpinning both campaigns are the economics of capitalism and the
need to undermine and/or destroy all opposition to corporate capitalism.
The
historical parallels between the two campaigns are all too real as are
the techniques used but exposing the relationships is not as easy as it
seems, so deep-rooted are the prejudices that have been created over
the generations, especially the fear created around the word communism,
a fear that has little to do with the former Soviet Union.
Actually,
"anticommunism" had a long and nasty record in American history. The
same spirit was expressed decades before the Russian Revolution under a
variety of labels. Campaigns and vigilantism were undertaken against
those who were called "anarchists," "aliens," "terrorists," and, of
course, "communists." … An editorial, for example, in Harper’s Weekly in 1874 could have been written anytime in the last forty-five years. It read:
"[The]
cartoon on our front page sets one phase of the labour question in a
very clear light, and will serve to warn reflecting working-men against
some of the dangers upon which misguiding leaders may precipitate them
… Communism is a foreign product, which can hardly be made to flourish
on American soil." (p.14)
The
Russian Revolution itself invoked an orgy of vituperation and fear in
the country’s affluent strata, fed by the alarmist exaggerations and
distortions of the American press. (p.14)
The thread that links the process, as the Harper’s
editorial shows, is the need to equate any opposition to the rule of
capital with that of an 'alien’ ideology, communism and by association,
organised labour and eventually all opposition to capitalism.
During
the 1940s and 1950s the 'threat’ of communism reached a fever pitch and
its alleged link to an external threat became central to the propaganda
effort. The 'threat’, if that’s what it can be called was linked
directly to
the
possibility that significant chunks of the excolonial world might break
away from the world business system, adopting some form of socialist
economy. This possibility was transmuted by the governing class and its
enthusiastic accomplices, the media, into the "Soviet threat." (p.15)
…
perhaps the most significant effect of the protracted anticommunism of
the postwar period is invisible and immeasurable. It is embodied in the
muddled debate, the absence of a genuine spectrum of public opinion and
expression, a popular culture saturated with political propaganda, and
a numbing acceptance of a political environment in which the president
of the United States tells anti-Soviet jokes. (pps.16-17)
Sound
familiar? The objective, ultimately, is to create an environment that
makes any alternative to capitalism unthinkable, eventually even the
most minimal of reforms. As Schiller points out, any interference with
the 'market’ is a "perilous step toward concentration camps."
Perhaps
more than anything else, 'Culture Inc.’ gives the lie to the idea that
the 'neo-con’ cabal is some new departure where the reality is that the
ideology of a rampant capitalism, with no organised opposition is now
free to come out into the open. Furthermore, this process was already
well underway by the late 1970s with onset of the Reagan presidency.
The idea that the public has only two choices open to it; either big
government or big business and of course it was and still is, big media
that peddled the propaganda line that big government was bad.
Big
business today is the locus of systemic power. It is the site of the
concentrated accumulation of the productive equipment, the
technological expertise, the marketing apparatus, the financial
resources, and the managerial know-how. It is a tangible reality, not a
metaphor. Moreover, the interests of big business are most powerful in
the formulation of national and international policy. (p.19)
However, big government is only bad when viewed in the context of the
social component, social security, health, housing, education and so
forth. Note that big government is not bad when applied to 'defence’
and 'national security’. As Schiller puts it
The
coercive agencies of big government are the instrumentalities by which
the privileged maintains its grip on the social order. (p.20)
 That
the onslaught on organised labour and anticommunism are intimately
connected is apparent from the activities of the state and big business
in the aftermath of WWII with the advent of the Cold War. Under the
guise of the 'containment’ of communism with the Truman Doctrine, the
leaders of organised labour were coopted into the process, well before
Senator Joe McCarthy. The trade union movement was purged of communists
and 'fellow travellers’ with the able assistance of its leadership. The
Taft-Hartley Act, had union leaders sign affidavits that they were not
members of the Communist Party.
If
they refused to sign the affidavits, their unions lost essential
government protection against employer practices. If they complied and
signed, it was all too likely that would be prosecuted for perjury on
the testimony of government-supplied informers … By the early 1950s,
most, though not all, of the trade unions … had ousted from their ranks
members and leaders who challenged U.S. foreign policy … Once these
ousters had been achieved, the organized component of the labour
movement ceased being a serious source of concern to corporate
management. (p.24)
Organised
labour’s "near-unqualified endorsement" of the Vietnam war was
obviously deeply entwined with anticommunism as was the fact that
anticommunism "set the parameters of discussion and policy: larger
issues of the social order could hardly be expected to receive critical
attention, much less organized action."
This
left big business a free hand to get on with the business of taking
care of the rich. Issues such as basic needs, the environment, nuclear
energy, public versus private interests "received short thrift."
The results of this are all too apparent today just as they were following the defeat of the US in Vietnam.
When
the political and economic tide turned after the defeat in Vietnam and
the international economic boom subsided, organized labour was without
direction and unable to resist its rapidly eroding situation. (p.25)
Big
business, in order to maintain its profits shifted production to
low-wage areas and the public had very little inclination to support
organised labour given its history of collaboration with big business.
Labor’s
corporate business "partners" savagely cut wages, laid workers off,
speeded up the work pace, and demanded "give backs" of gains that had
been won over half a century. (p.25)
Ultimately,
labour’s voice disappeared from the "national dialogue." And in words
that apply exactly to today’s situation Schiller says
A
voice that was formerly influential in agenda setting, that could be
offering alternatives to the deepening socioeconomic crisis and to the
political miasma that engulfs the nation, now is, in fact, practically
inaudible. (p.26)
 This
is the setting that forms the background and context for the bulk of
'Culture Inc.’ for today’s situation would be unthinkable without the
central role of the media and state propaganda in preparing us for the
'war on terror’.
The
essential elements remain the same; an external 'threat’, largely
invisible but nevertheless pervasive, a threat that challenges the
existing social order or, as both Bush and Blair put it, 'Western
civilization’ whereas in the previous period it was communism or the
'anti-Christ’.
The
revolutions in information technology, in their formation during the
time Schiller wrote 'Culture Inc.’ but nevertheless quite apparent even
then, consisted of
[the]
industries that serve as the sites for the creation, packaging,
transmission, and placement of cultural messages—corporate ones
especially—[that] have grown greatly as their importance and centrality
to the corporate economy increases. (p.30)
Actually,
a community’s economic life cannot be separated from its symbolic
content. It’s effects were already apparent. Quoting Jeremy Seabrook on
the general process of commercial production … who notes that although there is greater efficiency, there is a cost, a very high cost!
The
price paid by working people for the 'successes’ of capitalism has been
in terms of the breakdown of human associations, the loss of
solidarity, indifference between people, violence … and a sense of the
loss of function and purpose. (pps. 31-32)
What
is of particular importance in the context of the global spread of the
'market’, led by US capitalism, is the role the so-called cultural
industries play in the selling of the message. This is where 'Culture
Inc.’ is so valuable, even though the processes described by Schiller
were still in formation in 1989, the central elements were long in
place. The new technologies, satellite, cable and the digital domain,
along with the slew of mergers and acquisitions in the media,
communications and cultural industries completed the process that today
is now firmly entrenched globally.
A
process that has been exploited to great effect, most notably through
the lack of political participation that followed the effective
destruction of the Labour movement and of a viable political opposition
to capital and the resultant social vacuum that has been created, a
vacuum that has been filled by the corporate media and the cultural
industries, particularly film and TV.
Reclaiming
the public space that has been appropriated by the corporate class must
figure highly on our agenda, for without it, we are at the mercy of
Schiller's "concentrated
accumulation of the productive equipment, the technological expertise,
the marketing apparatus, the financial resources, and the managerial
know-how" wielded by capitalism.
Culture Inc. – The Corporate Takeover of Public Expression, Herbert I. Schiller, Oxford University Press, 1989. Reprinted 1996. Buy it at amazon.co.uk or amazon.com
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