Harry R. Targ
The idea of an “ideology” is a complicated one. For some, ideologies are mere rationalizations of interests and preferences. For others, ideologies are bundles of false, maybe dumb ideas. They can come from religion, popular culture, political parties, or simple principles that are used to explain the universe.
Perhaps the most useful concept of “ideology” is one
that refers to a body of interconnected ideas or a system of thought about how
the world works. These ideas often explain the meaning of life, how and why
society is organized the way it is, and also how it ought to be organized.
However, ideas do not come from the ether. They come from class position and
concrete interests, background, social status, and education by family,
schools, peer groups, and popular culture.
What is important about ideologies goes beyond which
ones are more accurate than others but how ideological clashes might help
explain political conflict. As the long and painful presidential election
season unfolds, it is useful to analyze the three competing ideologies that
dominate current debate. Each has its adherents. Each represents interests.
Each explains how the world works in a different way. And each has a different
vision of a better future.
The dominant ideology in the United States today,
indeed much of the industrial capitalist world, is “neoliberalism.”
Neoliberalism has a long history with roots in the founding of classical
capitalist economic theory. “Neo” refers to the contemporary manifestation of
the classic tradition. Neoliberalism assumes that humankind is comprised of
value-maximizing individuals existing in a competitive, sometimes alien social
world. Society is a constellation of competing economic actors, in our own day
mostly huge corporations and banks. The ideology claims that corporations and
banks engage in economic activity in a marketplace. Through competition some
grow and contribute to society and others are unable to compete. It is through
market competition of economic actors that individuals sustain themselves and
improve their material conditions.
According to neoliberalism, the fundamental
institutions and processes in society are markets that promote competition.
Political institutions are constructed to protect and enhance market
competition. Political institutions must be limited in power, neoliberalism
suggests, such that they do not interfere with the workings of the market.
Since the 1970s, proponents of neoliberal ideology have advocated downsizing
government (except the military), privatizing public institutions, deregulating
how markets work, and liberating the citizenry from controls, constraints, and
safety nets. Neoliberal policies are usually called austerity policies.
In the end, society is comprised of atomized
individuals and corporate economic actors who pursue their own gain and out of
this pursuit, the collective good will emerge. Neoliberal ideology is shared by
mainstream Democrats and Republicans, professional economists, most of the
media, educational institutions, and popular culture.
A new ideology that has emerged from recent electoral debates might be called the
“virtues of wealth” ideology. This perspective suggests that individuals exist
in competitive societies and markets reign supreme. And while this is an
historical inevitability and as a practical matter a pretty good way to
organize society, sometimes the accumulation of wealth fosters greed, avarice,
and stupidity. The political system falls prey to the influence of those with
large wealth who seek to buy elections, bribe politicians, and in other ways
influence the political process by misusing their resources. The ideology about
the virtues of wealth suggests that the corruption of accumulated wealth
sometimes leads to the rise of incompetence in public policy. Unless there are
appropriately wise guardians, accumulated wealth can lead to bad government.
During times of extreme misuse of power, new guardians of the public must
emerge to correct the errors of government and the economy.
The best candidates to reconstruct the state come from
those who are independently wealthy and who do not have to rely on a donor
class to win elections. They are the disinterested wealthy. And in fact, they
have the freedom by virtue of their wealth to challenge economic and political
elites who rule because they secured financial support from others and gained
wealth from participating in government. The virtues of wealth ideology allow
its believers to challenge the economic ruling class and political elites in
such a way as to appeal to the majority who have no wealth or power and who
clearly recognize that they are being lied to by the ruling elite. Finally,
deeply embedded in this ideology also is a sense of how wealth proves talent
and virtue. Conversely those without wealth and privilege lack virtue. In this
way, the virtue of wealth ideology is profoundly
racist. During recenr presidential races Donald Trump has
emerged as the preeminent expression and promoter of the ideology of the
virtuous wealthy.
A third ideology, twenty-first century socialism,
emphasizes that the interconnection of global problems--from environmental
devastation to class exploitation and growing economic inequality, to racism,
sexism, and homophobia, to authoritarianism, and internal and international
violence--are intimately connected to the development of the capitalist system.
Twenty-first century socialism sees the concentration and centralization of
economic power as the driving force in creating a world order dominated by finance
capital, a few hundred multinational corporations, and imperial states.
The ideology of twenty-first century socialism, while
recognizing the historic rise to power of global capitalism also recognizes
that capitalism generates growing resistance and creates demands for change.
The magnitude of resistance varies from epoch to epoch, but the totality of
what is called history is comprised of the drive to hegemony contradicted by
resistance to it. Those who resist engage in education, organization, and
agitation to create human unity.
According to this third ideology, societies are
constituted by communities and the presupposition that being human means being
part of communities of activity. The belief in community is fundamentally
opposed to the neoliberal conceptualization that the basic units of societies,
atomized individuals, can only survive by acting independently of others. The
vision of twenty-first century socialism is based on the proposition that work
should be organized cooperatively and the wealth produced by society should be
shared equitably by everyone who helps produce it. Class exploitation, racism,
sexism, and homophobia are antithetical to the core of this ideology.
The twenty-first century socialist ideology assumes
that building human solidarity, working together to create grassroots forms of
production and distribution, and struggling for the political empowerment of
the people offer the possibility for further human development. Paradoxically
more people in the United States and around the world share the ideology of
twenty-first century socialism than the other two but currently appear to be
the weakest politically of the three ideologies. How to realize the vision
embedded in this ideology is the human project of our time.
