Concentrated Private Power and Other Factors Contributing to the Emergence of the New Fascism | kjl

The broken US political system, which, after the Supreme Court in 1976 decided that limits on campaign expenditures are unconstitutional (Buckley v. Valeo) and then again after its decision allowing for unrestricted corporate contributions to political campaigns (Citizens United, 2010), is now thoroughly infused with the virtually unlimited resources of concentrated private power. More specifically, the political system is effectively under the control of the authoritarian sector of private power, though the potential for reducing the damage of dictatorial rule, for dismantling elite rule in all its forms, and for vastly improving local, regional, and global social relations is inherent and just below the surface in human nature.

Though often suppressed, that tendency—the will for freedom and mutualism—is apparent in the trajectory of the expansion of human sovereignty through history. Progress has been primarily determined by the outcome of popular struggles seeking human rights against the will of multiple factions of competing elites, the largest sector of which tends to embrace authoritarian ideologies, ideologies which are presented to us as the natural order. This worldview is rooted in the false belief that we are incapable of self-governance and need elite guidance and discipline, that we cannot even comprehend the harsh realities of managing a kingdom, a state, or an empire in a world of competing systems of concentrated power. The view that hierarchies of power are entitled to their claim of dominion over universally necessary resources surely originates in the prehistoric past when scarcity of necessary resources, with no agricultural technique and only crude tools, is understandable in its pre-modern context.

Elite authoritarian power in the US has presently acquired the capacity to begin to critically disable public institutions, institutions which have always been only partially democratically managed, although they do, at least for the moment, sometimes express the will of an informed public. The right of an informed society to self-governance, with no person nor entity exercising external controls, is, in my opinion, the necessary condition for humanity to avert looming social catastrophes and to instead flourish.

Movements seeking expansions of individual sovereignty or seeking to improve general social conditions to that end are often met with backlash. As we approach the 2025 US presidential inauguration, we can reasonably expect a period of severity, a contraction of the freedoms and sovereignty of individuals and groups, although by some measures a backlash of a longer arc has been brewing since the first decades of the last century.

Universal freedoms present a challenge to elite rule and its ideology and doctrines. People who look different, whose lifestyles are different, whose languages are different, who are born into lives with little or no human nor material support may suddenly expect to be treated with at least a minimum positive regard, which is to say that they may expect access to food, to medical care, to a home, to education, to fulfilling work, to travel, and the right to enjoy and explore and to improve the world which is, in a fundamental sense, all of ours.

Gains in individual sovereignty have been made through centuries of popular struggle. Take as an arbitrary but familiar starting point colonial American opposition to British rule, a system of power concentrated in a family dictatorship headed by a monarch. When the American colonies became too vocal and defiant in their opposition to dictatorial rule, monarchy was violently rejected in a project led by the persuasion of colonial elites in favor of a constitutional order that included provisions meant to forbid theocratic rule after centuries of sectarian Christian bloodshed in Europe. The US Constitution with its Bill of Rights was an advance, for sure, but elite rule was not dismantled and conditions remained quite severe for large sectors of the population, though the Constitution does distribute power somewhat more widely and allow for amendment and the addition of new principles, at least in written law but sometimes also in actual practice.

Over the course of the centuries following ratification in 1788 and against the dedicated, organized, and fierce opposition of dictatorial sectors of elite power, expansions of individual sovereignty and periods of backsliding occurred. One such period of regression appears to be underway now.

Progress, nonetheless, which can be easy to take for granted, has been made—serious advances, in fact. Partial but significant liberation from slave labor camps was gained for Black Americans. The right of women to vote was gained. The exploitation of destitute children for industrial production was limited. Requirements allowing for time off from work were fought for and won. Workplace safety standards, standards of food quality, limitations on the risks that financial institutions could take with depositors' assets were set, a public retirement fund was created, an expansion of racial minority rights was fought for and won, a horrific war was halted, 18 year-olds gained the right to vote, a major advance in women’s bodily autonomy was established in law, important environmental protections were put into place, non-heterosexuals won the right to exist with legal protections, and some soft drug use was widely decriminalized.

An additional set of advances—human technological progress, especially in agricultural production, which was often disrupted by extreme, senseless state violence even in 20th century Europe, should allow for an end to famine, hunger, and malnutrition. Aside from those crises we tolerate, with the productive technology now available there are no necessary shortages. Most material deprivation is a product of dictatorial ideologies and doctrines that claim possession of all resources within our self-proclaimed masters’ reach. While authoritarianism in its many forms is pervasive in both ideology and practice, continuing to infect the social ethos historically and into the present day, there is no law of nature that requires that anyone be voiceless and left behind. There are no longer any real scarcities besides the widespread recognition that we have the capacity to vastly reduce poverty, crime, and hopelessness by building systems of public empowerment that enable human fulfillment and productivity.

Our right of sovereignty arises from our will for freedom. Our capacity to express our individual sovereignty flourishes in a social environment where mutualism, rather than parasitism and predation, is the standard. Everybody eats, everybody has decent shelter, healthcare is not denied, everyone chips in, technology and its benefits are shared, production is rational and sustainable—everyone counts. No one is left behind; normal human decency, in other words, is allowed to flourish. Freedom and it's corollary—responsibility—are not a gift from above. Liberty and mutualism are gained by popular struggle; and liberty, at least, can be lost, as appears to be happening now in the US.

The 2024 US presidential election was won by a charismatic figure expressing dictatorial intent. Many voters are convinced that an iron fist is necessary to defeat what is characterized as a nation-destroying “invasion” of criminals, among other perceived existential threats. Several currents of the global social environment are relevant.

The US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq on false pretenses resulting in thousands of recruits killed, maimed, and affected by traumas that produced deep cognitive dissonance and bitter resentment among many returning service members and their friends and families, have given rise, once again, to deep grievances and questioniong of the legitimacy of state power.

The unveiling of the many previously closeted sensibilities that many individuals have about their own gender and sexual preference disturb large sectors of the public and add fuel to a nationalist version of Christianity that has always sought to establish an American theocracy and which is energized by violence in the Middle East which, to their eyes, fulfills a prophetic expectation of a final, glorious, world-destroying battle, Armageddon, and of Rapture, their perceived reward.

Against these destructive beliefs is the other core tendency in human nature—the tendency for liberty and democratic cooperation. Both tendencies—for freedom and mutualism and for destruction and dominance—are present in human nature and expressed in ancient texts.

Our social environment has a lot to do with which elements of our nature are expressed. And it is of course true that the picture of individual human nature and the nature of the social aggregate is more complex than what one might conclude from the simple dichotomy I present here. Human beings cannot always work together. We are not always pleasant with one another. We feel righteous anger, rage and hostility at times, the expression of which may be natural, understandable, and predictable under certain circumstances.

Our task, in my opinion, is to organize and to act to avert the crucial looming crises of this period in history which we can say without exaggeration may be the last era of organized human social life on Earth. We live amongst tens of thousands of nuclear warheads. We are dramatically corrupting the environment such that catastrophic climate collapse appears reasonably to be imminent without immediate action. Whatever our differences, these crises and the ongoing underlying crises of unnecessary resource deprivations can and should be addressed.

The authority to resolve fundamental social crises cannot be left to systems of concentrated private power. Those systems are self-destructive to themselves and everyone else. They are inherently primarily predatory and parasitic and only minimally mutualistic. They are doomed to collapse cyclically no matter how persuasive their proclamations of their love of the people. The only question is whether the next collapse destroys everything.

We do not need nor can we afford to tolerate masters. We can govern ourselves at every level. Self-determination, self-governance, mutual aid—these values, arising from our will for lasting freedom, must, in my opinion, be recognized and championed if we are to survive and flourish.