UFPPC (www.ufppc.org) Digging Deeper LXXVI: March 16, 2009, 7:00 p.m.

Michael Parenti, Democracy for the Few (Boston: Thomson Wadsworth/Thomson Higher Education, 2008 [February 2007]). Eighth edition. First published 1974.

Preface. Little is neutral in the study of politics (xi). This book “tries to strike a balance” between criticism and defense of the present system (xi-xii). Parenti emphasizes the importance of corporate capitalism, but also formal political institutions, history, and public policy (xii). Its approach is broadly “structural”; but “[s]ome conspiracies . . . are real” (xiii).

Chapter 1: Partisan Politics. Contrary to the idealized myth of American democracy, “just about every part of the political-economic system . . . serves to maintain . . . the system’s basic class interests” (2; 1-3). “Politics and economics are two sides of the same coin” (3; 3-5).

Chapter 2: Wealth and Want in the United States. The “owning class” and “workers” (6-8). Inequality; the very rich (8-12). Big corporations dominate but do not provide employment proportionally (12-14). Agribusiness (14-15). Profit, not need, orients activity (15-18). “Most Americans actually are working class” (19). About 13% live in poverty (20). That Americans are well-off is a myth (20-21). The lot of the poor: ill health, illiteracy, homelessness, insecurity (22-23).

Chapter 3: The Plutocratic Culture: Institutions and Ideologies. The main function of university boards “seems to be to exercise oligarchic, ideological control over the institution” (28; 27-28). The same holds true of institutions throughout the country (28-31). Conservatives (31-33). Centrists (33-34). Leftists and progressives (34-35). Public opinion is to the left of what is mistakenly regarded as the mainstream (35-36). Parenti defines democracy as “a system of governance that represents both in form and content the interests of the broad populace” (36-37).

Chapter 4: A Constitution for the Few. History of the U.S. Constitution; a combination of elitism and progressive elements deriving from the Enlightenment (40-52).

Chapter 5: Rise of the Corporate State. Violent class struggle with the government “mostly on the side of big business” has marked American history (53-59). The New Deal’s accomplishments, while real, were modest (59-62).

Chapter 6: Politics: Who Gets What? U.S. Government furthers private business interests, sometimes directly (65-68). State and local government, too (68). Taxation redistributes income upward (68-73). “Conservatives” have embraced deficit spending (73-75).

Chapter 7: The U.S. Global Military Empire. Massive expenditures make possible the world history’s largest “global military empire,” associated with vast corporate profits and waste (77-81). Many costs are hidden (81-83). Its goal is to maintain “economic imperialism” (83-89).

Chapter 8: Health and Human Services: Sacrificial Lambs. Limited concessions to human services have been made by the capitalist state (92-99). But the record on safety, education, housing, and transit shows public need is subordinated to private profit (99-103).

Chapter 9: The Last Environment. Privileges for profit in all domains (106-14). Alternative approaches are being cultivated; “Our very survival hangs in the balance” (115).

Chapter 10: Unequal before the Law. As written and enforced, the law favors the very rich (118-28). Sexism favors men and straights (128-30). Children are inadequately protected (131-32). Racism is in endemic (132-34).

Chapter 11: Political Repression and National Insecurity. Organized dissent is often repressed (138-41). Thousands have been political prisoners (141-44) and some have been murdered (144-48). “The national security state’s primary function is to defeat advocacy groups at home and abroad that seek alternatives to free-market globalization” (148; 148-50). The CIA has used the drug trade and other illegal activities for financing (150-53). September 11 has been used to expand its powers (153-55).

Chapter 12: Who Governs? Elites, Labor and Globalization. “Plutocracy” refers to the wealthy who are politically active (160-63). Labor organizations are under pressure from the state (163-66). Globalization is undermining democracy (166-71).

Chapter 13: Mass Media: For the Many, by the Few. Wealthy interests dominate the media; when other perspectives slip through, they are underdistributed (173-86).

Chapter 14: Voters, Parties, and Stolen Elections. The American political system is structured to enable wealthy interests to prevail (188-207).

Chapter 15: Congress the Pocketing of Power. Congress is demographically unrepresentative and is dominated by moneyed interests (210-27). Suggestions for reform (227-28).

Chapter 16: The President: Guardian of the System. The president acts as “promoter and guardian of global corporate capitalism” (230; 230-38). The Electoral College (238-40). The executive has vastly grown in power (241-47).

Chapter 17: The Political Economy of Bureaucracy. What is an endemic problem of modernity, bureaucracy, has been used rhetorically to promote privatization and deregulation for the benefit of big business (250-63). Public powers have been placed in private hands (e.g. the Federal Reserve) (263-65).

Chapter 18: The Supremely Political Court. The Supreme Court protects the plutocracy and neglects the public interest (268-85).

Chapter 19: Democracy for the Few. Pluralism is a myth; while “there is no one grand power elite,” nevertheless the “common interests of the corporate owning class” achieve dominance through “continual communication and coordination” (291; 289-92). Reform has limits (292-93). “Class struggle” exists in the U.S.

but has been downplayed (294-96). But “democratic rights” exist and are “all we have to keep some rulers from imposing a dictatorial final solution” (297). Fascist rule has not been imposed because elites “fear that they could not get away with it” (298). A wish list of specifics (sometimes very specific, e.g. cut 2% from the current 12.4% Social Security flat tax rate and offset it by raising the taxable income cap) “to bring us to a more equitable and democratic society” (298-303). Finally, a call for “some measure of socialism” in the form of “public ownership of the major means of production and public ownership of the moneyed power itself” (303; 303-06).

Index. 13 pp.

[Critique. A disappointing volume. Actually published in February 2007, not 2008. Rambling and conversational. Oddly bland and uninspiring, without drama or sense of actual human experience. References usually to popular press; many assertions are unsourced; some are cribbed from other texts without attribution. No effort to distinguish to fact from opinion. There is no hint of methodological concern or of the genealogy of the discipline or of intellectual history, or, indeed, of historical consciousness. End-of-chapter notes mix ephemeral material with sources of lasting value and are not a reliable guide; for example, Steven F. Freeman and Joel Bleifuss, Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen ? Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count (2006) goes uncited, while a less definitive essay by Freeman is cited; in ch. 16, there is no mention of Arthur Schlesinger’s The Imperial Presidency (1973); in ch. 18, there is no reference to Jeffrey Toobin, Too Close to Call (2001); etc.]

[About the Author. Michael Parenti has a Ph.D. in political science is from Yale and has written twenty books and hundreds of articles. Parenti has described himself as a “recovering academic.” He defines himself not as a Marxist but as a “red-blooded American social scientist” (255). Web site: www.michaelparenti.org. He was born in 1933 to an Italian-American family living in New York; his father worked for his brother’s bakery.]