The Politics of Language and
the Language of Political Regression
By Prof. James Petras
Global Research, May 24, 2012
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31018
Capitalism
and its defenders maintain dominance through the ‘material resources’
at their command, especially the state apparatus, and their productive,
financial and commercial enterprises, as well as through the
manipulation of popular consciousness via ideologues, journalists,
academics and publicists who fabricate the arguments and the language to
frame the issues of the day.
Today material conditions
for the vast majority of working people have sharply deteriorated as
the capitalist class shifts the entire burden of the crisis and the
recovery of their profits onto the backs of wage and salaried classes.
One of the striking aspects of this sustained and on-going roll-back of
living standards is the absence of a major social upheaval so far.
Greece and Spain, with over 50% unemployment among its 16-24 year olds
and nearly 25% general unemployment, have experienced a dozen general
strikes and numerous multi-million person national protests; but these
have failed to produce any real change in regime or policies. The mass
firings and painful salary, wage, pension and social services cuts
continue. In other countries, like Italy, France and England, protests
and discontent find expression in the electoral arena, with incumbents
voted out and replaced by the traditional opposition. Yet throughout the
social turmoil and profound socio-economic erosion of living and
working conditions, the dominant ideology informing the movements, trade unions and political opposition is reformist: Issuing calls to defend existing social benefits, increase public
spending and investments and expand the role of the state where private
sector activity has failed to invest or employ. In other words, the
left proposes to conserve a past when capitalism was harnessed to the welfare state.
The problem is
that this ‘capitalism of the past’ is gone and a new more virulent and
intransigent capitalism has emerged forging a new worldwide framework
and a powerful entrenched state apparatus immune to all calls for
‘reform’ and reorientation. The confusion, frustration and misdirection
of mass popular opposition is, in part, due to the adoption by leftist
writers, journalists and academics of the concepts and language espoused
by its capitalist adversaries: language designed to obfuscate the true
social relations of brutal exploitation, the central role of the ruling
classes in reversing social gains and the profound links between the
capitalist class and the state. Capitalist publicists, academics and
journalists have elaborated a whole litany of concepts and terms which
perpetuate capitalist rule and distract its critics and victims from the
perpetrators of their steep slide toward mass impoverishment.
Even as
they formulate their critiques and denunciations, the critics of
capitalism use the language and concepts of its apologists. Insofar
as the language of capitalism has entered the general parlance of the
left, the capitalist class has established hegemony or dominance over
its erstwhile adversaries. Worse, the left, by combining some of the
basic concepts of capitalism with sharp criticism, creates illusions
about the possibility of reforming ‘the market’ to serve popular ends.
This fails to identify the principle social forces that must be
ousted from the commanding heights of the economy and the imperative to
dismantle the class-dominated state. While the left denounces the
capitalist crisis and state bailouts, its own poverty of thought
undermines the development of mass political action. In this context the
‘language’ of obfuscation becomes a ‘material force’ – a vehicle of
capitalist power, whose primary use is to disorient and disarm its
anti-capitalist and working class adversaries. It does so by co-opting
its intellectual critics through the use of terms, conceptual framework
and language which dominate the discussion of the capitalist crisis.
Key Euphemisms at the Service of the Capitalist Offensive
Euphemisms
have a double meaning: What terms connote and what they really mean.
Euphemistic conceptions under capitalism connote a favorable reality or
acceptable behavior and activity totally dissociated from the
aggrandizement of elite wealth and concentration of power and privilege.
Euphemisms disguise the drive of power elites to impose class-specific
measures and to repress without being properly identified, held responsible and opposed by mass popular action.
The most
common euphemism is the term ‘market’, which is endowed with human
characteristics and powers. As such, we are told ‘the market demands
wage cuts’ disassociated from the capitalist class. Markets, the
exchange of commodities or the buying and selling of goods, have existed
for thousands of years in different social systems in highly
differentiated contexts. These have been global, national, regional and
local. They involve different socio-economic actors, and comprise very
different economic units, which range from giant state-promoted
trading-houses to semi-subsistence peasant villages and town squares.
‘Markets’ existed in all complex societies: slave, feudal, mercantile
and early and late competitive, monopoly industrial and finance
capitalist societies.
When
discussing and analyzing ‘markets’ and to make sense of the transactions
(who benefits and who loses), one must clearly identify the principle
social classes dominating economic transactions. To write in general
about ‘markets’ is deceptive because markets do not exist independent of
the social relations defining what is produced and sold, how it is
produced and what class configurations shape the behavior of producers,
sellers and labor. Today’s market reality is defined by giant multi-national banks and corporations, which dominate the labor and commodity markets.
To write of ‘markets’ as if they operated in a sphere above and beyond
brutal class inequalities is to hide the essence of contemporary class
relations.
Fundamental to
any understanding, but left out of contemporary discussion, is the
unchallenged power of the capitalist owners of the means of production
and distribution, the capitalist ownership of advertising, the
capitalist bankers who provide or deny credit and the
capitalist-appointed state officials who ‘regulate’ or deregulate
exchange relations. The outcomes of their policies are attributed to
euphemistic ‘market’ demands which seem to be divorced from the brutal
reality. Therefore, as the propagandists imply, to go against ‘the
market’ is to oppose the exchange of goods: This is clearly nonsense. In
contrast, to identify capitalist demands on labor, including reductions in wages, welfare and safety, is to confront a specific exploitative form of market behavior where capitalists seek to earn higher profits against the interests and welfare majority of wage and salaried workers.
By conflating
exploitative market relations under capitalism with markets in general,
the ideologues achieve several results: They disguise the principle role
of capitalists while evoking an institution with positive connotations,
that is, a ‘market’ where people purchase consumer goods and
‘socialize’ with friends and acquaintances. In other words, when ‘the
market’, which is portrayed as a friend and benefactor of society,
imposes painful policies presumably it is for the welfare of the
community. At least that is what the business propagandists want the
public to believe by marketing their virtuous image of the ‘market’;
they mask private capital’s predatory behavior as it chases greater
profits.
One of the
most common euphemisms thrown about in the midst of this economic crisis
is ‘austerity’, a term used to cover-up the harsh realities of
draconian cutbacks in wages, salaries, pensions and public welfare and
the sharp increase in regressive taxes (VAT). ‘Austerity’ measures mean
policies to protect and even increase state subsidies to businesses, and
create higher profits for capital and greater inequalities between the
top 10% and the bottom 90%. ‘Austerity’ implies self-discipline,
simplicity, thrift, saving, responsibility, limits on luxuries and
spending, avoidance of immediate gratification for future security – a
kind of collective Calvinism. It connotes shared sacrifice today for the
future welfare of all.
However, in
practice ‘austerity’ describes policies that are designed by the
financial elite to implement class-specific reductions in the standard
of living and social services (such as health and education) available
for workers and salaried employees. It means public funds can be
diverted to an even greater extent to pay high interest rates to wealthy
bondholders while subjecting public policy to the dictates of the
overlords of finance capital.
Rather than
talking of ‘austerity’, with its connotation of stern self-discipline,
leftist critics should clearly describe ruling class policies against
the working and salaried classes, which increase inequalities and
concentrate even more wealth and power at the top. ‘Austerity’ policies
are therefore an expression of how the ruling classes use the state to
shift the burden of the cost of their economic crisis onto labor.
The ideologues
of the ruling classes co-opted concepts and terms, which the left
originally used to advance improvements in living standards and turned
them on their heads. Two of these euphemisms, co-opted from the left,
are ‘reform’ and ‘structural adjustment’. ‘Reform’, for many centuries,
referred to changes, which lessened inequalities and increased popular
representation. ‘Reforms’ were positive changes enhancing public welfare
and constraining the abuse of power by oligarchic or plutocratic
regimes. Over the past three decades, however, leading academic
economists, journalists and international banking officials have
subverted the meaning of ‘reform’ into its opposite: it now refers to
the elimination of labor rights, the end of public regulation of capital
and the curtailment of public subsidies making food and fuel affordable
to the poor. In today’s capitalist vocabulary ‘reform’ means reversing
progressive changes and restoring the privileges of private monopolies.
‘Reform’ means ending job security and facilitating massive layoffs of
workers by lowering or eliminating mandatory severance pay. ‘Reform’ no
longer means positive social changes; it now means reversing those hard
fought changes and restoring the unrestrained power of capital. It means
a return to capital’s earlier and most brutal phase, before labor
organizations existed and when class struggle was suppressed. Hence
‘reform’ now means restoring privileges, power and profit for the rich.
In a similar
fashion, the linguistic courtesans of the economic profession have
co-opted the term ‘structural’ as in ‘structural adjustment’ to service
the unbridled power of capital. As late as the 1970’s ‘structural’
change referred to the redistribution of land from the big landlords to
the landless; a shift in power from plutocrats to popular classes.
‘Structures’ referred to the organization of concentrated private power
in the state and economy. Today, however, ‘structure’ refers to the
public institutions and public policies, which grew out of labor and
citizen struggles to provide social security, for protecting the
welfare, health and retirement of workers. ‘Structural changes’ now are
the euphemism for smashing those public institutions, ending the
constraints on capital’s predatory behavior and destroying labor’s
capacity to negotiate, struggle or preserve its social advances.
The term
‘adjustment’, as in ‘structural adjustment’ (SA), is itself a bland
euphemism implying fine-tuning , the careful modulation of public
institutions and policies back to health and balance. But, in reality,
‘structural adjustment’ represents a frontal attack on the public sector
and a wholesale dismantling of protective legislation and public
agencies organized to protect labor, the environment and consumers.
‘Structural adjustment’ masks a systematic assault on the people’s
living standards for the benefit of the capitalist class.
The capitalist
class has cultivated a crop of economists and journalists who peddle
brutal policies in bland, evasive and deceptive language in order to
neutralize popular opposition. Unfortunately, many of their ‘leftist’
critics tend to rely on the same terminology.
Given the
widespread corruption of language so pervasive in contemporary
discussions about the crisis of capitalism the left should stop relying
on this deceptive set of euphemisms co-opted by the ruling class. It is
frustrating to see how easily the following terms enter our discourse:
Market discipline
– The euphemism ‘discipline’ connotes serious, conscientious strength
of character in the face of challenges as opposed to irresponsible,
escapist behavior. In reality, when paired with ‘market’, it refers to
capitalists taking advantage of unemployed workers and using their
political influence and power lay-off masses workers and intimidate
those remaining employees into greater exploitation and overwork,
thereby producing more profit for less pay. It also covers the capacity
of capitalist overlords to raise their rate of profit by slashing the
social costs of production, such as worker and environmental protection,
health coverage and pensions.
‘Market shock’
– This refers to capitalists engaging in brutal massive, abrupt
firings, cuts in wages and slashing of health plans and pensions in
order to improve stock quotations, augment profits and secure bigger
bonuses for the bosses. By linking the bland, neutral term, ‘market’ to
‘shock’, the apologists of capital disguise the identity of those
responsible for these measures, their brutal consequences and the
immense benefits enjoyed by the elite.
‘Market Demands’
– This euphemistic phrase is designed to anthropomorphize an economic
category, to diffuse criticism away from real flesh and blood
power-holders, their class interests and their despotic strangle-hold
over labor. Instead of ‘market demands’, the phrase should read: ‘the
capitalist class commands the workers to sacrifice their own wages and
health to secure more profit for the multi-national corporations’ – a clear concept more likely to arouse the ire of those adversely affected.
‘Free Enterprise’
– An euphemism spliced together from two real concepts: private
enterprise for private profit and free competition. By eliminating the
underlying image of private gain for the few against the interests of
the many, the apologists of capital have invented a concept that
emphasizes individual virtues of ‘enterprise’ and ‘freedom’ as opposed
to the real economic vices of greed and exploitation.
‘Free Market’
– A euphemism implying free, fair and equal competition in unregulated
markets glossing over the reality of market domination by monopolies and
oligopolies dependent on massive state bailouts in times of capitalist
crisis. ‘Free’ refers specifically to the absence of public regulations
and state intervention to defend workers safety as well as consumer and
environmental protection. In other words, ‘freedom’ masks the wanton
destruction of the civic order by private capitalists through their
unbridled exercise of economic and political power. ‘Free market’ is the
euphemism for the absolute rule of capitalists over the rights and livelihood of millions of citizens, in essence, a true denial of freedom.
‘Economic Recovery’ – This euphemistic phrase means the recovery of profits
by the major corporations. It disguises the total absence of recovery
of living standards for the working and middle classes, the reversal of
social benefits and the economic losses of mortgage holders, debtors,
the long-term unemployed and bankrupted small business owners. What is
glossed over in the term ‘economic recovery’ is how mass immiseration
became a key condition for the recovery of corporate profits.
‘Privatization’
– This describes the transfer of public enterprises, usually the
profitable ones, to well-connected, large scale private capitalists at
prices well below their real value, leading to the loss of public
services, stable public employment and higher costs to consumers as the
new private owners jack up prices and lay-off workers - all in the name
of another euphemism, ‘efficiency’.
‘Efficiency’
– Efficiency here refers only to the balance sheets of an enterprise;
it does not reflect the heavy costs of ‘privatization’ borne by related
sectors of the economy. For example, ‘privatization’ of transport adds
costs to upstream and downstream businesses by making them less
competitive compared with competitors in other countries;
‘privatization’ eliminates services in regions that are less profitable,
leading to local economic collapse and isolation from national markets.
Frequently, public officials, who are aligned with private capitalists,
will deliberately disinvest in public enterprises and appoint
incompetent political cronies as part of patronage politics, in order to
degrade services and foment public discontent. This creates a public
opinion favorable to ‘privatizing’ the enterprise. In other words
‘privatization’ is not a result of the inherent inefficiencies of public
enterprises, as the capitalist ideologues like to argue, but a
deliberate political act designed to enhance private capital gain at the
cost of public welfare.
Conclusion
Language,
concepts and euphemisms are important weapons in the class struggle
‘from above’ designed by capitalist journalists and economists to
maximize the wealth and power of capital. To the degree that progressive
and leftist critics adopt these euphemisms and their frame of
reference, their own critiques and the alternatives they propose are
limited by the rhetoric of capital. Putting ‘quotation marks’ around the
euphemisms may be a mark of disapproval but this does nothing to
advance a different analytical framework necessary for successful class
struggle ‘from below’. Equally important, it side-steps the need for a
fundamental break with the capitalist system including its corrupted
language and deceptive concepts. Capitalists have overturned the most
fundamental gains of the working class and we are falling back toward
the absolute rule of capital. This must raise anew the issue of a
socialist transformation of the state, economy and class structure. An
integral part of that process must be the complete rejection of the
euphemisms used by capitalist ideologues and their systematic
replacement by terms and concepts that truly reflect the harsh reality,
that clearly identify the perpetrators of this decline and that define
the social agencies for political transformation.
