Discussion on Results of U.S. Elections
• Searching for a Commander in Chief as Deus es Machina
Searching for a Commander in Chief
as Deus Ex Machina
With the election of Barack Obama as President, what Obama stands for on the issue of war is critical. What role will he play in advancing the war aims of the imperialists? How will the role of president as commander in chief be further strengthened? U.S. administrations equate the popular will with their notion of national will and try to get the popular will to submit to them that way. Obama often refers to this notion of national will, as he did in his victory speech saying "we will rise or fall as one nation, one people.” The challenge each presidential candidate faced during the campaign was to give a convincing rendering of the national will in a manner that transforms the power of the U.S. presidency in particular and the U.S. in general into an effective instrument to keep all contenders for that power within the U.S. and abroad under its dictatorship. Obama emerged as the champion of the ruling circles and will now carry forward this transformation. To assist our readers in analyzing how this will develop and the role of the next Commander in Chief in fulfilling U.S. war aims, we post below a paper titled: Searching for a Commander in Chief as Deus ex Machina (a God from the Machine).
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Imperialist war is a burning issue. During the U.S. presidential election campaign great emphasis is placed on war aims and the definition of the president as commander in chief.
As all-around crisis deepens, the U.S. state (including its governing institutions, bureaucracy, military) and political system appear broken, divided and antagonistic to the people. The major political parties and their media are held in contempt by the multitudes, while pervasive disinformation and a general lack of information leave the polity with a deadening sense of anger confounded by indifference, a feature of depoliticization that would leave the people open to the worst demagoguery. A political and economic elite, self-promoted as the 'best and the brightest,' an emendation of an earlier cast natural aristocracy, or the elect, the chosen, etc. claim privileges to rule. Furthermore, this elite grants immunities to itself as protection against incursions on their 'rights' to hold the monopoly on force by which they rule. In the face of this elite and its political establishment, the working class and people stand marginalized within the polity. However, due to their position in society and the fact that their claims on society to meet their needs on the basis of their interests are not satisfied, the working class and people stand in opposition. They are compelled to awaken and break through the morass. In order to do so, they must come to terms with how the establishment came to choose 'the elect' and provide them with a right to the monopoly of force.
In light of the current situation, the powers that be are hard pressed to agree on a savior who can deliver people, bureaucracy and military enthusiastic for an aim consistent with the U.S. ruling elite's demand for world leadership and control. The ruling elites are in search of a Deus ex machina, a god out of the machinery. It is important to focus not so much on the character or personality of a candidate, such as Obama, who is put forward as a messiah-like figure ready to lead the people out of the desolation of the Bush years, but rather to examine the logic of the machinery behind the selection process. The machinery refers to the political system based on the constitution. Therefore, the election of presidential leadership cannot be understood apart from analyzing the U.S. constitution and its political system in the context of the actual historical situation.
At present in the actual historical situation, the conflict between the forces and social relations of production underlie the deepening economic crisis, instability and disequilibrium. The productive forces, including the modern proletariat, exceed by far the bonds of the capitalist social relations of production to which they are putatively ensconced and enthralled. This is especially true of the unfolding scientific, technological and industrial revolutions, whose development is in the main driven by competition among capitals. Without benefit to the people, these productive forces have grown to such an extent that the sustainability of the natural-social environment is threatened. Such threats result from capitalist social relations that fetter the productive powers. Society's fettered productive powers are actually a block to their organization by society to satisfy the claims of its members in order to meet their needs at a level consistent with the stage of social development. If this problem is not sorted out great tragedies face the people. The U.S. government, with its military and bureaucracy, does not have an interest in sorting out these questions to the advantage of the people. A savior from the machinery would act accordingly but must also define the situation and problems of governance in such a way as not to incite opposition from the people.
In the main, only the claims of the owners of capital are deemed legitimate. Whomsoever can lay hold of this monopoly of force also lays claim to legitimacy and the authority to use it in the name of society. The owners of capital place their claims on society by virtue of holding the right to the monopoly of force of the state machinery. Likewise, by claiming legitimacy and the authority to control the right to use the monopoly of force and coercion, the owners of capital restrict and limit the claims of the working class and people. The claims to legitimacy are necessarily undermined if people in their conditions of life are completely restricted in terms of the satisfaction of their needs. On this basis, those who hold the authority that lays claim to legitimately control the monopoly of force in the name of society is called into question.
In an attempt to avoid this situation, large sums of money are expended to maintain the appearance of legitimacy. Billions of dollars are being spent in the current presidential election for this reason. Record amounts of money are 'raised' and spent specifically in search of a savior in a seemingly public manner for a seemingly public office. The search itself is supposed to bestow legitimacy on the selection process. However, the elites are looking for someone who can dress up the demand for monopoly right with a covering of legitimacy. This is a dicey problem. If the governing party and its leadership are seen as working solely in the interests of the owners of capital, the claim to legitimacy will be lost amid cries of corruption and sycophancy. If the promises made to the working class and people go unmet, claims to legitimacy would be drowned out with shouts of hypocrisy and mendacity. The machinery desperately needs a savior with the attributes of stewardship to oversee the relations and arrangements of the vast bureaucracy, military and governing institutions, and stalwartness, the promise of loyalty to the owners of capital as a class. However, in the current crisis-ridden situation, from the perspective of the elites, presidential leadership demands acting and deciding with an "energy" that is pre-emptive, and that has been ascribed to presidential dictatorship. However, a president who is pre-emptive in navigating through unstable conditions in disequilibrium, establishing his presidential time as the defining moment, will not necessarily be stalwart, nor is it possible in the context.
But in these times of crisis with a divided government and the intense conflict among capital this savior needs to be a master conjurer. And all this without confronting the heart of the problem of legitimacy. If those who govern appear as a self-interested clique, the claim of a legitimate authority to wield state power with its monopoly of the instruments of force and coercion begins to look like the usurper's conceit. Sooner or later, other claims to legitimacy will be made. And these claims are not necessarily on the already existing institutions and arrangements. The existence of alternative claims to legitimacy and authority presage a sovereign power that no longer passes for being whole and undivided. In such a situation, neither the governing nor the governed accept the old ways of life and of doing business; neither can continue as before. A condition of civil war appears. This situation might appear farfetched, but this could only be on the basis that the constitutional foundations of the governing arrangements and the productive forces can still be harmonized. However, it might be surmised from the not infrequent use of civil war quotes that the seriousness of the situation does not escape the political elite. An example is Obama's plagiarized line from Lincoln, of America being "the world's last best hope" that might be lost without change. But what will be the conception of this change? Does the 18th century constitution provide the foundations for a political system of such a caliber that it can deal with the all-around crisis emerging from the clash of the productive forces and capitalist social relations? Does the constitution as it emerged from the American Civil War provide for a modern conception of democracy whereby harmonization of the conflicting individual, collective and general interests that emerge in society due to the clash of forces and relations of production can take place? Does the constitution as it emerged from the period of world depression, world war and the defeat of fascism allow for the leadership necessary to deal with the present actual historical situation? Can an anachronistic and archaic constitution as the basis for governance in the face of the modern productive forces avoid the ripping apart of the social fabric? Can the criticism of presidential usurpations as deviations from the received constitutional framework prevent an extreme backlash or will it give rise to its own illusions? Are these questions even confronted in the search for a god from the machinery?
In order to calmly view and analyze the actual historical situation during the on-going electoral campaign the electorate needs to be informed of the state of affairs. An absence of information necessarily prevents an objective consideration. As a starting point information must concern the present situation and what is being revealed. Also, are the arrangements based on the limits of constitutional law even capable of addressing the problems of organizing the productive forces to meet the needs of the people? To date these questions have not been the concern of presidential leadership. The reason for this state of affairs neither lies, in the main, with the mendacity of the candidates or the office holder, nor simply with the greed or "pathology of power" incurred by the system.
In the U.S., various formulae are being tested during the present presidential campaign concerning the linkage of military options and economic crisis. A central tenet of the election campaign is that the president must be the concentrated expression of political authority and force behind the following aspects of governance: revenues, especially access to the manipulation of the Federal Reserve System and the expropriation of the people's money accumulated through taxes in the U.S. Treasury; the military, including overseeing the militarization of the economy and the military industrial complex, and the guaranteeing of "monopoly right" to the detriment of the people's rights and civil liberties. In order to capture and disburse these "jewels" for personal ambitions and the collective interests of the bourgeoisie, the modus operandi of the political system and its party-coalition organization must be well defined so that political authority will not be called into question. However, standing naked, shorn of all its historical accoutrements and rhetorical flourishes of serving democracy, the people and self-government, nothing remains but history itself, ironic and cunning. After 220 years of constitutional government, the American people face the dangers of a standing army, taxation without representation, a judiciary promoting executive supremacy, etc. The president's office in the current situation plays a crucial role in giving definition to the historical conditions and the basis for sorting out contradictions. But now, cloaked as a monarch with royal prerogatives, pushing again for dynasties, etc. the president's office appears in a form clearly recognizable within the constitutional framework. However, it is the very form that the constitution was created to negate. Immediately, opposition surfaces: constitutional checks and balances are destroyed; the separation of the powers is negated; the president's office created with only a tinge of 'necessary monarchical powers,' to act the national leader, is now an emperor sitting atop an empire, the constitution is being shredded, etc. But the standard for criticizing the current developments remains the constitution, which provides the basis for the conceptions of democracy and governance. This rendition of fundamental law is out of date and anachronistic in the face of the complexities of the modern world.
For example, the constitution created the office of the president with features borrowed from the British monarchy that could be exercised in competition with the legislative branch up to its disavowal. In other words, presidential power comes into its own on the basis of seizing authority from the Congress in order to reform the constitutional order at particular historical moments at which point the president can put forward renewed definitions of the political system. This constitutional feature of the presidency is provided in the oath the president takes. On the one hand, the president swears to execute the office of the president. On the other hand, the president swears to the best of his abilities to defend, preserve and protect the constitution. The first half of the oath confers an absolute prerogative (designed on the basis of the royal prerogative of the British monarchy) to "break through the constitutional forms" to the extent that the president can claim the authority to wield political power, capture the immense resources of the military and bureaucracy, and seize the initiative independent of the legislative powers. That is, the holder of the office can lay claim to presidential powers that can "create political order," "affirm political order," or "break political order" up until the point of impeachment and removal. The second half of the oath points to the president's tasks concerning the governing institutions as laid down in the constitution, relative to his "abilities" -- that is, within the system's checks and balances rooted in the separation of powers. And these "abilities" must be applied to the preservation of the state. In other words, the powers to defend the constitution are relative to the president's "abilities."
The stark reality facing the ruling elite is that it has fallen far from its position of majority control of the world's markets and wealth at the end of WWII, leaving U.S. imperialism relative to other powers and peoples in decline, with the real possibility of its demise as an empire builder extraordinaire. The specter of major war involving all the powers is raising its head and, within that head, the thought lurks that the entire capitalist world system can be threatened along with the survival of the U.S. state. (A review of Obama's "national security team" shows that they are responsible for views concerning the decline of America as a world power and leader.) Their prayers turn towards their resurrection through a god emerging from the machinery. However, the machinery is still defined within the limits set by the U.S. constitution and the struggles that were influential to its origin and development. From the beginning the dominant elites, including lawyers, who played a role in the development of the constitution were engaged in problems such as how to escape civil war, modulate the conflict between empire and republic, provide a definition of democracy, rights, civil liberties, etc. The questions emerging today concerning habeas corpus, torture, state 'infaming' (e.g., witch hunts), spying, suppression of freedom of speech, etc. were debated from the period of the origins of the U.S. state, at which time the people, its congress and armed forces were struggling against the British empire and its constitutional monarchy.
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Reason of state, as it is identified in the U.S. with presidential authority and executive power comes into conflict with public opinion, a collective phenomena connected with the polity. The public opinion of the polity is the space in which the clash between the popular will and the legal will takes place. Public opinion, in this sense, is the popular will not yet implemented, an expression of the public interest, comprised of the individual, collective and general interests of society. On the other hand, reason of state is claimed to repose on the legal will implemented and consecrated on the basis of the sanctity of private property, and affirmed as the expression of the national interest or national security, which is said to function in the service of the supreme interests of the state, in defense of its permanent survival. Based on an agenda geared towards executive leadership and supremacy over the law making bodies of the polity, the U.S. presidential elections are not simply concerned with selecting a president but also with arguing out how national interest must trump public interest through innovations involving executive power.
An aspect of the presidency that has come to the fore during the last administrations and figures in the current election campaign, following from the considerations of raison d'etat, is the president as commander in chief. The president as commander in chief puts as its first task uniting, or at least stabilizing, a divided bureaucratic and military machine that is completely entangled with the largest financial institutions and monopolies, which face, with deep anxiety, instability and disequilibrium. In this sense, the establishment needs a leading light and authority that is of and for the military-bureaucratic machinery and not in opposition. Without satisfying this need, an essential raison d'etre for seizing possession of the state machinery is undermined, namely to concentrate political and economic power in the hands of monopoly capital, while depriving the working class and people of all power.
Furthermore, the military bureaucratic machine is the epitome of the conflict of productive forces and social relations of production. Intertwined with finance capital, the organization of the military industrial complex and the militarization of the economy play key roles in everything and in all aspects of the economy and politics. Today, every social question is imbued with a military solution, whether food prices, famines, crises involving natural, energy and human resources, environmental disasters, so-called nation building, democracy, etc. According to the apologists for these current developments, if the war option is not put front and center, it will not be possible for the military and bureaucracy to be stabilized under the control of a centralized authority wielding its concentrated powers, and dread thoughts would spread compulsively among the establishment and its apologists: the continuity of the constitutional order and the survival of the state are called into question. Yet, continuity of the constitutional order and the permanence of the state are undermined by acceding authority for war making powers to the president. The authorities assigned to the office of the president are left particularly ambiguous in the constitution as part of the design to "energize" a republican form of government that, according to the founders, was prone to degeneration, corruption and collapse through the exercise of presidential power. In the current situation, with the claims of a unitary executive as commander in chief promoted first and foremost, the president as leader of the military bureaucratic machine can direct the powers towards the destruction of the productive forces themselves.
According to the constitution, "the survival of the state" is primary and absolute, and this is bound up with raison d'etat. This dual relationship with the fundamental law links the office of the president with its own time consciousness. On the one hand there is a regular election held every four years, with a definite cycle and pattern of re-electing incumbents or removing them from office based on the political tasks set by the governing establishment. [Election cycle does not equal vote. Numerous votes take place within any cycle.] In general it takes several cycles of the presidency to establish a particular bureaucratic and military presence. Once established this bureaucratic and military machinery must either be adapted to further the ends of a new executive or it must be finished off. This rhythm of office is geared towards major changes in regime, their consolidation or their repudiation. In order to set this historical rhythm, different party systems and party organizations have been developed. The president has been a key historical agent for these developments. However, within the rapidly changing historical times, presidential leadership (or what was referred to as "presidential dictatorship") must respond to all the contingent forces and events that appear on the stage of history threatening the "permanence of the state." Underlying these patterns and cycles rooted in upholding or "breaking through the constitutional forms of governing" based on the fundamental law of the constitution is the law of social development, the contradiction of the productive forces and the social relations of production. The clash takes place in historical time periods based on the developments in the U.S. and internationally. 'Constitutional time,' linked to the cycles of the political process, clashes with 'historical time,' linked to the developing struggles among imperialists, imperialism and peoples and nations, capitalists and workers, etc.
The basic contradictions of this epoch remain as do various geopolitical and regional concerns. This reality holds for oppressor and oppressed alike; no individual or collective can escape the inexorable logic of the law of the development of society, the clash between the social relations and productive forces. Arising from this conflict, struggles for independence and against aggression and annexation, along with stirrings of deep discontent among the working class and people exist. However, at the present time, contention and collusion among monopolies, oligopolies and the big powers appears as a principle determinant in world events.
Along with intensifying trade wars, military adventures and annexations, fearful talk of an impending depression appears regularly in the media. Also, the possibility exists of a major war involving all the great powers, putting their survival at risk, while threatening the world capitalist system. In fact, threatened with losing control and ownership of the productive powers, finance capital is quite willing to carry out their destruction through war and other means. It is under the conditions of the uneven development of capitalism and the anarchy of production that competition among capitals and rivalries among big powers can reach such a pitch that the colossal productive powers of society, including whole peoples, are targeted and destroyed by means of arms, financial speculation, etc.
The capitalist social relations form an integument covering over the possibilities, negative and positive, in the actual historical situation. After the fact, some might recognize that the clash between the productive forces and social relations of production resulted in the demise of the bipolar division of the world, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war. The general crisis of world capitalism that dated from the Russian Revolution was finished. However, what might not be recognized is that a much more profound general crisis is in the offing. These historical changes are of decisive importance and demarcate a turning point that is accompanied with great volatility and violence. The immense pressures that arise from this historical development force on to the conscience the fact that no individual or collective can act in the old way. A radical way out of the ensuing crisis must be found by making new arrangements and bringing about a new order. At the same time the owners of finance capital and the oligopolies do not wish for any encroachment on their monopoly of political and economic power exercised through the state. On the one hand, a demand of monopoly capital is for continuity of the status quo and maintenance of the state, while on the other hand the actual historical situation demands change, with the intense competition and rivalries forcing the destruction of all limits and order of the very same state and international relations.
Every attempt at a "balance of powers" between continuity and change wreaks greater violence and anarchy. For example, the achievements and results of the period of World War II and after are dissolving. Active liquidation can be seen at work, as for example in changes to the United Nations, with the big powers using the security council as a force for colonizing and a cover for aggression, in open contradiction to its historical foundations and constitution premised on sovereign nations accepting as their standard opposition to the crimes against humanity, against the peace and genocide. Moreover, the threat of a third world war and the use of nuclear weapons are made by a number of U.S. leaders, while they push for various economic and military blocs, coalitions, cartels, secret treaty arrangements, etc., as do other powers in competition and collusion with the stated mission of the UN. The U.S. president and his office are crucial in defining the international situation and if not opposed this becomes the definition for an historical period, as was the case with the cold war. Within the present context, the president must ensure that the U.S. projection of the preponderance of power remains paramount. (Use of Israel, Taiwan, etc. to smash post WWII arrangements, including threats to withdraw from the UN itself etc.)
In order to bring in new arrangements and to innovate on the political system and process requires an overall aim and the necessary steps for achieving it must be set. Strategy and tactics are established within the actual situation on the basis of historiography, whatever the social force. A grasp of historiography is the basis for predicting the tactics needed for a particular stage of fulfilling an aim. The proletariat has its historiography starting from the present, gathering up what's relevant from the past, in order to focus on the concrete conditions, predicting the tactics needed for opening up a path of progress.
The bourgeoisie has its historiography (that is, among serious scholars, not their irrational apologists), starting from the past and projecting into an imagined future. That is, any social force concerned with political and economic power must make predictions on the basis of historiography in order to work out their general strategy and tactics. The office of the president is devoted to this activity.
Without putting the law of social development at the center of considerations, the fight over war aims and the emphasis on the president as commander in chief cannot be understood as a necessary means for "breaking through constitutional forms." At the same time, it is important to pay attention to the history of the development of the political system and government in relation to its constitutional foundations, which is limiting and conservative in nature. In the contemporary situation, the office of the president and the party organization and system that act as the agency for governing are placed at the nexus of the continuity and preservation of the capitalist state, on the one hand, and of the countervailing forces for changing the form of governance, on the other hand.
In light of this, the Bush administration has not yet "broken through the constitutional forms," but is actually working within the limits, though at the extremes, of the constitutional order of things. What the Bush presidency reveals more than anything is the naked dictatorial nature of executive power allowed by the constitution as long as he and his party establishment are not removed from office. In other words, the Bush administration reveals more than anything else the archaic, anachronistic and backward nature of the U.S. constitution and its governing process. The one possible "innovation" was the development of the Republican Party machinery as the means to unite the bureaucracy. The wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan are not the major wars that earmarked the twentieth century, but the means, as Wolfowitz pointed out, "to unite the bureaucracy." This "unification," a continuation of the Reagan-Bush-Clinton repudiation of the Roosevelt New Deal and party system, leaves ruin and destruction in its wake. It also leaves an opposition drooling at the chance to capture "the unitary executive" of the Bush administration. This has only brought the constitutional order to the point of exhaustion.
The need to search for a god from the machinery extends beyond party considerations. A direct appeal to the people includes calling for sacrificing their claims on society, in order to overcome the 'gap' between government self-interest and interests among people. This is the bourgeoisie's version of direct democracy, an anti-democratic democracy, with the people mobilized to wage war against their own interests. The measure of the "gap" between governed and governing must also take into account the warring factions of the bureaucracies at all levels of the state and the branches of the military interminably connected with finance capital, etc. A "god from the machinery" must seem to rise above all these warring factions, as well as all the seemingly intractable conflicts among the working class and people. In the recent past the electorate was "shrunk" to no contests in a majority of "red and blue states" with organized contests in a few so-called swing states. Those elections were directed primarily to the members of a very extensive bureaucracy in the first place, with others considered irrelevant. The increased conflicts at all levels and the legitimacy crisis force an appeal to an "extended" electorate, which is bombarded with promises of "obliterating Iran," nuclear war, political assassination, civil unrest etc. Promoted as a promised celebration of a new awakening of democracy at a "decisive moment," the selection process appears at this point of a sordid attempt to mobilize "the democracy" directly under a national leader from the office of the President, who inherits all the tools of the executive rule from predecessors, and in the process by-passes the possibility of representative bodies of the people in government.
The Call for Change and the Fight Over War Aims
In the early years of the post-cold war period Clinton ran for president using the slogan of change.
Change was a casualty of the Clinton years. Following Clinton, a key feature of the Bush administration was that anarchy was raised to authority. Based on what's been said so far in the U.S. presidential campaign of 2008 the questions of change and anarchy as authority are still central concerns in the fight for presidential leadership. During the election campaign Obama is making much of the slogan for "change" in this "defining moment." Opposition to Obama, including from McCain, claims that the talk about change is empty rhetoric, mere words, and that "experience" is needed. Since, national security (i.e., reason of state) is a chief concern of the elites, so the argument goes, national interest demands that the U.S. be headed by a president whose defining characteristic is that of a commander in chief. Obama, in turn, has charged that the claim of experience is proof enough that a McCain presidency would be a continuation of the Bush administration, which is strategically taking the U.S. in the wrong direction.
Before considering "what change?" or "what experience?" are being referred to, one thing is clear: debates over war aims and geopolitics are placed front and center. The elites are demanding coherent thinking within the bureaucracy and military in order to establish "world leadership" and domination without competitors. Whether this can actually be achieved is another matter.
Faced with the uncertainties arising from the disequilibrium and instabilities inherent in the post-cold war period, following the demise of bipolar division with its own equilibrium, the U.S. ruling circles are hard pressed to bring all powers into balance and "obliterate" any opposition to this aim (to use Hillary Clinton's threat against Iran). At the present time the projection of an overwhelming "preponderance of power" and military superiority is the chief approach of the U.S. establishment. Hence, the emphasis placed on debates over war aims.
The centrality of war aims to the presidential election campaign can only be understood by grasping the historical context. Underlying the existing circumstances is the conflict of the social relations of production and the productive forces. The sources of knowledge are the struggle of classes (the expression of the social relations of production) and the struggles for production and scientific experimentation (the expression of the productive forces). The source for historiography can be no different. An important question in this regard is how the candidates view the actual historical situation.
At the end of the cold war, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, talk of change was cast in terms of a worldwide "liberal revolution," the completion and perfection of the liberal state and its ideology, "the end of history." According to dominant views within the establishment, the strength of the U.S. was purportedly based on the size of its economy, its future productive potential for growth and the superiority of its military. The past arrangements that dated back to World War II, the defeat of fascism and before, including the system of governance and party system from the time of FDR are a roadblock to a future aggrandized in the eyes of the U.S. ruling circles. The financial institutions, monopolies and oligopolies demand their removal or adaptation to changed circumstances. This is especially true of achievements such as the United Nations. The modus operandi for carrying out these changes under U.S. aegis are none too peaceful, as can be seen with the use of Israel, a creation of the UN whose very legitimacy rests on complying with its edicts, to destroy any chance for peace in the mid-east and the world, while threatening to remove itself from the jurisdiction of the international body.
Any triumphal feelings held by the elites following the collapse of the Soviet Union in which the future could be made hunky dory due to the powerful position of the U.S. in the world, are now dashed. Nearly two decades later new arrangements leading to equilibrium have not been brought into existence. A deepening economic crisis fuels serious discussion about depression. Combined with the fear of the future diminishing potential of its productive powers, U.S. elites entertain the thought of the non-sustainability of their situation. In the intense competition among the biggest monopolies and oligopolies, no matter how much is accumulated by one over another, in relation to the capitalist world market as a whole a shortage of capital appears. And with the great complexity and uncertainty in the world, it is increasingly difficult for the ruling elites to make predictions about which tactics can lead to stability, which arrangements to a new equilibrium, and to whose advantage. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. The epoch remained the same for over a century. Will it continue to do so? Will the capitalist world market continue? Will the states comprising it survive? In light of these factors, a growing strain of thought focuses on the problems posed by the decline of U.S. economic and political power. The debate is not over whether decline is a possibility for the U.S., but rather how profound it will be and whether this change can be halted and reversed? The question of decline is a chief historiographical consideration of the establishment. As such it undergirds the debate over war aims and the talk of who will be the agent of change and experience in the service of preserving the U.S. governing machinery.
The dominant thinking among U.S. elites is known as realism (or realpolitik). It is an important aspect of the debate over war aims in light of the grand strategy of establishing an unquestioned U.S. world leadership and control. An essential concern of realism focuses on the problem of anarchy in international relations. Anarchy, in this way of thinking, is premised on the rejection of any international authority in the form of political association, instrument or law, such as the United Nations. The UN's authority for example arose out of the united efforts of the world's people against fascism. Just as the international front against fascism was converted into an anti-communist front during the cold war, first through the efforts of the U.S. and then the Soviet Union, the UN was converted from an international body directed against imperialist and colonialist aggression into the preserve of the major powers in the Security Council. For the U.S. this activity followed from the fact that even though the Constitution, in keeping with its republican form of governance, deemed any treaty entered into a part of the supreme law of the land, guiding realist thinking posited that no law or treaty could supervene U.S. national interest (or national security), which is under the discretionary powers of the executive.
According to realism, absent international authority and the achievements of the world's people in the struggles for peace, independence and the choice of their own path of development and government, all states face each other in an anarchic state of war. This is premised on the fact that: states have a public monopoly on force that can be used against one another; states uphold their territorial integrity and autonomy, by maintaining internal peace, order and their survival as their prime aim; in order to ensure their future survival, states engage in wars, even if their demise is threatened.
Realism, in this manner, raises anarchy to authority. In practice, realist thinking was "linked" (using the terms of the realists) to the fears of imminent decline. On the one hand, aggressions, such as against Iraq and Afghanistan, are launched in order to unite a divided bureaucracy and military; whip up chauvinism among sections of the people who are disaffected and marginalized; overcome the Vietnam War syndrome; train a new generation of officers and combatants; develop new and test new military techniques and equipment; establish and consolidate networks of bases and flotillas of battle ships dividing the world into spheres of influence to be balanced and controlled; test tactics and work out a grand strategy for a rapidly changing world; use militarization of the economy as a means to sort out severe balance of payment deficits and gain economic, political and military control of the economy; test and probe other powers and forces in the world, etc. On the other hand, a great emphasis is placed on preparing for greater wars, including war involving all the major powers. Such a war would be an attempt to prevent the continued decline of the U.S. and also prevent the appearance on the world stage of major competitors. Such a war would risk the entire capitalist world market system and the states involved. This situation deserves study. It is what is behind the war aims debate and the talk of change.
Notes
Legitimacy
Legitimacy pertains to conformity to law and here we are referring to fundamental law and constitution.
Contra those who argue that the Constitution is being savaged by the current administration, the Bush administration claims, for example, that their actions and thesis of 'unitary executive' are constitutional based on the constitutional oath of office to execute the duties of the office. This part of the oath functions as the extra-constitutional 'escape clause' for presidential dictatorship. Extra-constitutional refers to action taken beyond the scope and control of the institutions established by the constitution. This particular clause grants the president a field of action based on the discretion of his office and not the law making of congress. It is claimed that acting beyond the purview of the constitution is necessary in order to 'save the state or polity' from attack, as in circumstances of either insurrection or foreign aggression. In this sense, saving the state is the prime duty of the President.
On the other hand, with the second clause of the oath, the President swears to the best of his abilities to defend, protect and preserve the Constitution. (Article 2, Section 2 designation of president as commander in chief.) The president claimed enhanced authority following the 2001 Authorization from congress, which not only legitimated war but also in fact suspended the legislative body's law-making functions, including the defense of habeas corpus. With the 'logic' of the unitary executive in place, putatively based on constitutional design of 'separation of powers,' all functions related to executing policy and law come under the direction and control of the executive branch; and this includes use of signing statements, executive orders, etc. as executive law-making. Furthermore, since the activities of the vice president are not proscribed by the Constitution, his office is his to make. In short, the constitution provides the basis for the extra-legal, and therefore arbitrary, exercise of power. Extra-legal refers to acts beyond the law, which nonetheless can be considered 'constitutional' if they are directed towards defending the American state against purported 'enemies,' foreign and domestic. In the clash between legal will and popular will, the popular will can be seen as 'beyond the domain of law making bodies' (i.e., outside parliament or congress), and must be opposed by those 'mandated' to hold 'legal authority' by other means, e.g. torture, 'illegal enemy combatants,' etc.
The activities of the executive propel it to raise itself above the legislative and leave the judiciary as its appendage if it takes the risk to amass its 'energy' and lead the vast bureaucratic and military machinery. In other words, the executive only comes into its full being with its act of being subjugating all other offices and branches.
Presidential Power to Define a Decisive Moment
Legitimacy of the government also pertains to how demands are justified and claims are made lawful.
Historically, it concerns the refusal on the part of governing authorities and their apologists to recognize that the constitution was amended with what came to be called the bill of rights out of the clash of popular will and legal will as part of the struggle against tyranny, arbitrary rule and monarchy in the 18th century; and that at its heart was the definition of governing power resting on public opinion, as expressed in Amendment 1, specifically (speech, assembly, petition, worship and against religious establishment), and developed in 10 amendments taken as a piece. Amendment 2 refers to the people's militias and the people's right to bear arms. In the 18th century context and within its enlightenment movement this could only be understood as an armed people defending public opinion against tyranny.
Further on, the amendments refer to rights retained by the states (recognized as republican polities) and the people. The rising bourgeoisie, in order to consecrate its own independence and to create a nation state in its image, came forward in the name of the people and established its state based on exploitation, slavery, genocide, etc. Now in a moribund state, with great perversity, Amendment 2 is given as private individuals' rights to bear arms in defense of American freedoms against 'enemies' domestic and foreign; and on this basis the government has established the vast mercenary system, including Blackwater, etc., with public money expropriated pouring into private pockets, and impunity promised for every criminal act (murder, torture, pilfering public property), whether in New Orleans, Iraq, the Mexican border, or elsewhere.
This paper was released in preparation for the 8th Congress of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist- Leninist) held in August 2008, © CPC(M-L).