[Koran-Digital] James Petras: The Politics of Language and the Language of Political Regression

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.



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