American Theocracy

Before saying anything else, I must urge you to read this book.

Starting with this review, I institute the LETTER GRADING system. This replaces stars on a 1:1 basis. 5 stars is an A, 1 star is an F. I have considered doing this for some time, as it seems to me the letter system is more expressive. Almost everyone is familiar with letter grades, as well as pluses and minuses. Moreover, letters are more easily typed, and allow of possibilities such as FF- for truly bad stuff.

I rate Kevin Phillips' latest work an A- for good reason. This is a thoroughly researched and well documented work; a sourcebook for all those writing on the "decline and fall ..." Phillips substantiates many of the points I made in GSQ about American society. More importantly, it is the rare live report and analysis of hegemonic decline wrtitten by a participant. Jared Diamond's Collapse is historical and retrospective, covering the end stages of many societies. In Collapse and GSQ, we have general theories about social evolution, not specific details. What Kevin Phillips provides is the intermediary glue: he has cemented together specific observations of events with some general factors underlying them. If there is an intellectual ladder, with facts at the bottom and theories at the top (or vice versa), Phillips provides the rungs for our traverse.

There is no doubt that Phillips analogizes today's United States to recent modern empires: Spanish, Dutch and British. Each of these Empires has progressed through similar stages of growth and final collapse. Initially, these were agricultural societies that became urbanized. Urbanization was made possible in each case by mastery of natural forces and conditions. The Spanish (and the Portugese) were first in crossing open oceans using improved navigation and sailing ships. The Dutch tamed wind, water and finance in their homelands and then on the seas, taking over the spice trade. The English learned quickly from the Dutch, developed a better energy source (coal), and soon  owned the world. The United States followed the English pattern, but overpowered all the others, as well as challengers such as France, Germany and Russia,  with an even better energy source: oil. Except the Spanish, all of these Empires underwent an Industrial revolution. Phillips' "financialization" was, in every case, the last stage in the eventual collapse. That is where the United States is now.

It is not clear whether Phillips thinks this progression is inevitable; i.e., whether an Empire can avoid a certain fate. What is clear is that all modern Empires travelled the same road with the similar results. Old Imperial centers became has-beens. They don't have to be destroyed entirely, as was Rome. They just dodder in their old age, enduring increasingly decrepit circumstances. If, later, they are saved from extinction, it is due to external events not of their making. Thus, modern Spain and Netherlands have been rejuvenated by joining the European Union, by becoming part of something else. The British, no matter how much Mr. Blair denies it, have survived being America's poodle since World War II. (The fantasy of British foreign policy is to pretend being the same old Bulldog, or at least to fool as many people as one can, while being the sole pampered Poodle - The Man's Best Friend - on the walk.) The cruelties of ancient time no longer prevail. Once proud Masters of the Universe are allowed their snuff, slippers and lounge chairs, if they assume the position when demanded.

Mr. Phillips has neatly divided the book into three parts corresponding to the major components of the raging American disease: Oil, Religion and Finance. These roughly correspond to the historical order in which the symptoms appeared. Of course, he hasn't written a fourth chapter, The Fall, because that has not happened yet (cf. GSQ). Phillips book is, again, about History in Progress. It answers the Graduate Student's Question, "Whatever where you thinking ..."

I found Phillips book easy to understand, but I suspect many people will reject it altogether or miss the point. I am reminded of online conversations I had in 2003 with a few Southerners about the role of the South in the Democratic party. The Southerners saw themselves as "progressives" and also as "moderates," who were oppressed by Yankees. They inisted upon introducing Southern religion and values into the political conversation. They were unsympathetic with Yankee views about women's rights and, especially, separation of Church and State. They believed in America's place in the world as an Exceptional, Christian country. In short, what they believed was anathema to most Yankees, the non-religious Left and certainly to this Utopian. (Of course, they had no insight into how someone else might see them; they just reject that view out of hand.)

One premise or consequence - I am not sure which - of Phillips' analysis is the Southernization of the United States. As he notes, historian Gary Wills is the original inventor of this scenario in recent times. (I have also thought of it independently, but am happy to give Wills priority.) The idea is simply that the South has actually dominated the United States for most of the country's history. (I have discussed this several times in these pages.) The South held the controlling interest at the formation. With the exception of the Adams' Presidencies, the South was the dominant political and cultural power until Lincoln's election. The economic power of the North triumphed over the South in the Civil War, and dominated during Reconstruction, but faded during the Gilded Age. Theodore Roosevelt's Administration symbolized a temporary resurrection of the North, but the South was again dominant until FDR. The longest period of Yankee rule in American history occurred from 1933 until 1969. During those 36 years, Presidents Truman, Eisenhower and Johnson were from Southern border areas, so the North only ruled with the acquiescence of the South.

This idea, that the history of the United States is more the story of  the South than anything else, is almost certainly rejected by most Americans, most notably Southerners. Yet, I think it is true. That hypothesis explains much of what has happened, such as the invasion of government by fundamentalist religion. It is Southern belligerence that staffs the military and supports the wars. It is Southern apartheid that informs so much of the Conservative movement and the fervent belief that 'the South will rise again.' It is only in the South that The Cause still has hope, despite military and economic defeat about 140 years ago. Many Yankees are only now becoming conscious of the deep divisions within the United States, indicated by Red and Blue States, expressed as "culture wars." From the beginning, the United States was really two countries masquerading as one persona. Southerners knew this all along.

The Southernization of the United States is a word standing for the fact that the South has risen again. It was never defeated. What most Yankees don't appreciate is the extent to which they lost the Civil War, perhaps because the Civil War is forgotten ancient history in most Yankee minds, but fresh experience for Southerners. Phillips points out how Southern attitudes are very much like those of other peoples, in Ulster, Bosnia and the Middle East, who have a very long view of history and nurse ancient grudges. All of these peoples also have in common fundamentalist religion of one sort or another that has a hold over government. Whether it is inspired by immams, priests or preachers, religiously oriented cultures look to the life hereafter and the settling of old scores more than the conditions of this world. Modern technological cultures are not so guided.

What Phillips doesn't say, but which I believe follows from the foregoing, is that fundamentalists are essentially the same sort of people who lived in ancient, Pharaonic Egypt, David's Israel and more recently Suliman's Arabia. More importantly for Europeans and Americans, we should recognize in the fundamentalist cultures ourselves before the Renaissance. In other words - I find this hard to state clearly - fundamentalism is either a continuation of, or a throwback to, cultural mores that have existed for millennia.  Crusades, Jihads, etc are the stuff of those cultures, which I believe have their origin in tribalism. Since life on this Earth is typically woeful, those believers look to the hereafter for their salvation. Since they aren't paying much attention to the here and now, their lives on this Earth never surpass woeful. Culture is a self-fulfilling prophecy for most people. The sparks which lit the Renassance and brought about the ancient Golden Age of Athens are indeed rare phenonema. History so far shows that brief conflagrations of Liberty and (material) Progress are soon extinguished.

So, the present Bandit Administration is simply what one would expect if this were, say, 1317 CE or some other date like that. Or, it might be like a much later Spain, even after Colombus, transfixed by righteous Inquisition. Isabelle authorized and paid for Colombus' expedition to save the souls of the pagans she expected Colombus would find. As Phillips points out, the Spanish successor, King Phillip II, was far more interested in Holy War than whole wheat or woolens (so the Spanish economy declined into nothingness). The Other-Worldly among us are just that. Phillips offers that as an explanation of what has happened under the Bush Administrations, and to some extent under the previous Reagan Administration. There are those who will say it is just Phillips' vendetta against the Bushes that lead to such radical conclusions. While that casts aspersions on Phillips' motives, it does not cloak or refute the hard evidence Phillips adduces. The present American government is soaked through and through with religious influence, especially of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Phillips does not emphasize, but observes, that Democratic Presidents Carter and Clinton are also SBC communicants, even if they are not favored by SBC's ruling priesthood. Thus it is more a question of how much fundamentalists influence American government from time to time, not whether. That influence is part and parcel of the Southernization of America.

Let us review. In the first place, the United States has always been about oil. Phillips thesis seems to be that whoever has the most abundant and efficient energy sources is prepared to assume world leadership, maybe even be the Hegemon. The succession of the Spanish, Dutch, English and American Empires is the story of moving from wood, wind, water and coal to oil. The Bushes are oilmen. This thesis leads Phillips to the conclusion that Iraq is mostly about oil. I concur.

In the second place, Imperial governments are always triumphal. Every one of those historical Empires reached a pinnacle of exultant self-congratulation. Americans believe they are an Exceptional People, and that the United States does Exceptional things. American Exceptionalism is not new: deToqueville reported it. That perspective only awaited the American Century to fulfill its promise. Such feelings are similar to those had by the religious who not only believe in the righteousness of their Cause, but the inevitable Triumph of their Lord. Southern attitudes about their Cause and fundamentalist religion neatly converge with American Exceptionalism. It is the feelings and worldview that are shared, regardless of whether applied to personal or national salvation. Islamics are correct in assessing Washington as having Crusader mentality. Jihad and Crusade know each other well, just as the two faces of Janus share the same brain.

The inflammatory mix of oil and religion power us into the last section of the book, and the last stand of Empire: financialization. Imperial masters try to make good their foreign adventures by extracting trribute from the conquered. Thus it was in Rome, and so it was in Spain, the Netherlands, England and countless other cases. Every warlord perceives victory as justification for whatever was done and proof of the righteousness of The Cause. Thus, in the case of Iraq, it was the Administration's notion that Iraq's oil would pay the expense of liberating that country from Hussein's enslavement. The United States would get the oil, while Iraqis would be favored with a version of Democracy backed up by U.S. troops.

Citizens of the Hegemon invariably discover that quick money and La Dolce Vita are preferable to working for a living. Thus, Empires encourage the growth of a Rentier class: people who don't work, but live off rent and debt. These are the people who receive dividends and interest for money loaned, including money forwarded to the government and major corporations as bonded debt (Bonds). Thus, the Imperial power finds itself with declining industries and an ever growing trade deficit. The Imperium is run on debt, and inevitably defaults on that indebtedness because 'the eyes are bigger than the stomach.' When it is as easy as "charge it," people are turned into non-stop consumers. As a result, an ever increasing portion of their work is handed over to the Rentiers who put up the money for those purchases. Thus Rentiers create wage slaves. Even more seriously, they create political and corporate fiefs: all those in their debt to get elected to public office or anointed CEO.

In another time, we would be describing Aristocracy. But, in our time, we know the Nobility was purged in the Reign of Terror. Thus, we do not see things in that light, even if, in fact, that is the way they are.

I gave Phillips' book an A- because Phillips failed to make a generalization easily available from his work: that the United States is headed for collapse because of its culture. I think Phillips lays more of the blame for the trend on the leadership than the people. In contrast, I claim in GSQ that the problems lie with the people themselves. This is a fundamental diffference in theories which suggests entirely different approaches to changing the course of events. If it is only the leadership which errs, things are more easily righted. The book is dedicated to disillusioned Republicans, so I think Phillips believes the problems will be resolved when Republicans return to their moderate ("centrist") past.

Again, I think this is a "must read" book. It is a New York Times best seller. It is far more worthy than the sort of trash being published by the Conservative press. I hope my discussion whets your appetite for more.