Twisting Ideology
Ideology was first meant to be science of ideas and policy designed to set in motion societal reform. By the Mid 19th century it became emotionally charged by religious and political delusions bereft of systemic philosophic coherence and hardly worthy of political theory as in such likes of Plato, Hobbes, Hegel, Kant and the Federalist Papers. Because he aligned his work with Hegel—thereby erroneously claiming political theory rather than economic ideology—Marx showed contempt for ideologists, accusing them of collective falsehoods.
In modern times we classify ideologues more or less nut cases even though most of us are—whether it be underpinned by religion, class, politics, or economics.
When I call myself an old New Dealer, I am an ideologue, not a philosopher or political theorist. FDR certainly had an intuitive sense of justice from the "Federalists" and the need to protect the weak, but he was not a theorist, rather more driven by pragmatism of design. Reagan had his own sense of justice for the privileged but not for the general will, and driven by the will to undermine institutions and labor that tenaciously competed for a more equitable share. Globally this class struggle has been the dialectic from tribal to civil societies. Hegel made us aware of conflicts of interests that is caught up in a cosmic revolving door. Marx pulled the safety net of economics thereby transcending dialect to a "material dialectic" of capital, labor and state.
Thus, there has been a dramatic emphasis of economic determinism in the dictum of ideology and turning monetary concerns into a highly charged mystifying superstructure.
Most recently, with the advent of the Tea Partyers—motivated primarily by the repulsive reality of a black man in the White House chipping away an imbalanced class society whereby people of color could not be kept in place—they proceeded to absolve anything resembling fairness to the downtrodden. Yet obvious economic injustice does not seem to mean anything regardless of ideology because there is the invisible hand of economics driven by centuries of accumulated wealth that lends, borrows, circulates, deceives, and invests randomly, despite the myth and ado of pre-designed money institutions signifying the advance of a material realm. If it be true that with the return of Steve Jobs in the mid 1990s, Apple’s profits grew 9000%, as many cultists believe, not because of its computer, but on the frivolity of iPhones, Ipads and the integration of countless "apps," that may in part entertain and even inform but primarily to grow websites and advertising, then it is clear that the energy of entrpreneurism has gone awry and leaves little wonder as to why this nation is infrastructurally orphaned. Moreover, it is also clear that the invisible hand swept in with its mysterious capital to jolt the Jobs of the world to the tribal dance of You Tube, Twitter and Facebook in honor of the Wall Street alchemistic monarchy.
While we lionize and tweet the giants of "industry"—a mocking term now—we never see the sweat glands of lowlife labor overseas and the underpaid here even though they are the backbone of obscene profits. Recently, Google had to dispense with a $500 million when the government sued for false advertising. How is it possible that a half billion is but a drop in the corporate bucket, despite the millions of pop up ads each online? [ We never think of the thousands of Mom&Pop ads, along with those of the corporate heavyweights, as embodiments of sweat.] Prudential Finances had a class action suit in the $billions a decade and a half ago, yet the company is still the "Rock of Gibraltar." The reason for this inexhaustible supply is in the immortality of capital as there will always be endless backbreaking labor supply churning out wealth for privileged birth, the gifted, and the financial-industrial dynasties.
It is Adam Smith mythology that the traditional and command societies were substituted by the free market of capitalism. The old central governance and Venetian princes of mercantilism simply shifted their shadows onto the market of the bourgeoisie, thus unleashing numb, expropriated labor into the competitive pits. From the time mankind stepped from the quasi-fairness of primitive communities, it became the commodity for exploiters of its advanced, grasping members. Whether it be the colossal magnates of the previous century or the demigods of now, they all have the gift to skim from the top—not as Adam Smith would call normal profit—but as outlandishly inequitable reward—Ayn Rand’s ideology[ Ron Paul and the Tea Party ] is back full force.
It is, of course, a forgone conclusion that in the system of reward there will always be a vast chasm between rich and poor but with the bridge of the middle class, supposedly the divergence is not as great. In today’s economics the gap is greater than ever but softened by liberal legislation of the past predicated on primitive society’s one for all, all for one, together with the irony of consumer benefits produced by ragtag foreign workers. Modern communications gadgetry has virtually lost its marginal utility by saturated consumption and ever spiraling frivolity, especially related to the Internet. The corporate monsters act as though the paternalistic Henry Ford, in lieu of paying his workers $5 a day, decided to open a factory of Model Ts in Mongolia. Thus Apple and its ilk tagged with laissez-faire ideology will continue to churn through slave labor frivolous goods as long as the price of products are close to zero but when the utility value hits zero corporate greed will no longer drool over American consumption and will have to redirect the appetite to Mongolia.
The corporate stakeholder has yielded to the immediate hunger of stockholders so that whatever communal spirit might have been retained is nullified by short term profits and perks demanded by traders, CEOs and fund managers. The extent of the sense of duty is in a way aesthetic: admire only worthiness. Just as we pamper the poodle and stomp on the cockroach, the economic tone of inequality endures—the talented thrive, the unskilled uncertain but for their lunchboxes.
Currently the housing crisis still exists because foreclosures are still rampant or that little is being done to keep the underwater homeowners in their homes by reducing payments or setting up a makeshift tenant arrangement until the industry regains itself and the owner recovers from his losses. Until now, however, the housing market was actually too great a share of the GDP in lieu of steering construction workers to where they were desperately needed in developing infrastructure, similar now to the magnificence of genius and labor to have finally targeted a deadline for Ground Zero.
Unemployment and underemployment still rages because, laissez-faire enthusiasts—workers even brag about their seventy hours—thumb their collective nose at labor laws by continuing to ignore the forty-hour work week, or shortchanging part-timers who work close to forty hours but without a trace of permanence or security. In jest it is said that there should be a civil rights for the ugly or obese; the truth is there should be workers’ rights for all the non-endowed who are surreptitiously discriminated against. There must be room for those employed to move and make room for the unemployed or underemployed. There is enormous wealth not directed to the common good that could easily create employment and demand if only the privileged class were made to bend a little to think somewhat communally. Though the gifted and talented have earned the right to be rewarded, the extent to which they are monetarily bestowed is lunacy—whether it be sports, business, or entertainment—impeding a fair share to all and a wider circulation of prosperity.
Economic theory cannot be relegated to the horror chambers of narrow ideology; it is too much of a freely sprawling universal of labor and capital forces that needs to be driven by a Marshal Plan against global poverty—the categorical imperative of economics.