Morbid politics.

These posts explore the themes developed in my monograph, Narcisso-Fascism, which is itself a real-world test of the central concepts of the Biocognitive Model of Mind for psychiatry.

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For eleven years before he died in 1937, aged just 46, the Italian Marxist politician and author, Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), was imprisoned by Mussolini’s Fascist government. He had always been in poor health but there is no question that his treatment in prison accelerated his death. Like a lot of early Marxists, Gramsci was a prolific author but, also like a lot of early Marxists, his work was generally obscure. However, he lives on in one famous quote:

The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.

Even though he died nearly 90 years ago, he could have been writing about today. Wherever we look, the world is in chaos. India and Pakistan are at it again; NATO and Russia are still at it in Ukraine; Israel freely declares its intention to wipe out the remaining 2 million Palestinians; Sudan and South Sudan lurch toward another catastrophe; civil war in Myanmar, Libya, Syria, Somalia; the US bombing Yemen... Does it get worse? Well, of course, given the quality and venality of politicians around the world, things could easily get worse, starting with the US. That country is undergoing an internal coup, there’s no other word for it. Veteran historian and author, Peter Montague, says four groups have joined forces to take control: Trump’s MAGA base; so-called Christian nationalists; Big Money headed by a group of billionaire fantasists; and the Trump “crime family” (his brief but readable article in Common Dreams). Their common goal is to take control of government, the courts, the election process, finance, international affairs … more or less anything, in order to keep themselves in power forever.

In the UK, the Labour Party has been snared by people who are politically to the right of, say, former Conservative PM Harold McMillan. In Germany and France, hard right wing parties are on the verge of winning government. Australia’s recently re-elected Labor government is somewhat to the right of the country’s longest serving PM, Robert Menzies, arch-conservative and devotee of the late Queen. Everything is drifting to the right, except where it’s a stampede. That paragon of political virtue, the “rules-based international order,” is in tatters, alliances are falling apart, even World Health, surely the least offensive and most effective of all agencies, has been cut off at the knees by the US refusing to continue its contributions. The old is dying but there are no signs of anything to replace it. Er, what “old” are we talking about? Without wishing to sound repetitious, the collapsing old order is the neoliberal political-economic racket that has dominated world affairs for the past 50 or more years.

Just as a reminder, neoliberal economics said that the free market is the only mechanism that can efficiently deliver the standard of living that people need/want. Anything, such as government, that interferes with the efficient market must be cut back to size, meaning deregulation and privatization. The free market always distributes goods where they are needed and where they are earned; if you work hard, you will soon get ahead, while the lazy will fall behind and will have to lift their game to keep up. If you are ahead, that means you deserve everything you’ve got and society will reward you with more (if that sounds like “prosperity gospel,” it’s not coincidence). It is not society’s responsibility to look after people who don’t bother to look after themselves, nor to interfere with families who want to look after their own as they can do it far more efficiently than government. There was also something about sound money in the program but that seems to have fallen off somewhere as total world debt is now of the order $320trillion.

But something seems to have gone wrong. Neoliberals predicted the world would enter a “great moderation,” a period of peace and productivity that would lift standards of living world wide. There is some truth in that claim as China’s standard of living has jumped enormously and looks like it will continue, but that had nothing to do with neoliberalism and everything to do with guided socialism. For most people, things aren’t getting better and seem likely to get worse. Except for the rich, of course; for them, life is wonderful and getting better by the day. Which is exactly what neoliberalism was intended to do, push the poor off the welfare books, shove the middle class down to where they struggle to make ends meet, and rechannel the economy so that it mines wealth and sends it to the wealthy. What we are seeing is what Gramsci predicted a hundred years ago. The old order throttles itself and slowly dies but while that is going on, it makes sure nothing coherent can take its place, and chaos reigns.

Unfortunately, this is going to get worse, probably very much worse, before it shows any signs of getting better. Like it or not, the US is a major factor in world affairs. Programs and projects enacted 55 years ago are now starting to bear bitter fruit. American industry has gone overseas as industrialists realised they could make more money that way but, Trump’s bluster notwithstanding, the jobs have gone and won’t be coming back. Wars started to keep the military industries happy have created more enemies than they could resolve. Financial wizardry made more and more billionaires at the expense of the middle and working classes, while their ploy of provoking culture wars over immigrants and transsexual athletes distracted everybody from the real cause of trouble: greed. Most pernicious of all, dumbing down the political class by replacing conscientious and principled legislators with mercenaries who will do as they’re told if the price is right means that Congress is essentially powerless. All of this was predictable but doomsayers were pushed aside in the rush for wealth and power.

Now, as Henry Mencken predicted, the people have got their wish and the White House is occupied by a downright moron. In fact, it was the neoliberals who put him there, even though Trump has no interest in government, as Peter Montague said:

So long as Donald Trump can use his office to acquire gobs of money, push people around, receive endless praise and adoration from his subordinates, and inflict cruel revenge on those who stand in his way, he seems happy.

As they say, his approach to government is transactional, meaning “What’s in it for me?” He doesn’t have any plans, he thinks in terms of grabbing opportunities as they arise to race ahead of the opposition. If something goes wrong, he dumps it and chases after the next chance of success. There is only one principle: winning. Being in front, being biggest, best, most beautiful so everybody will look and go “Ooh, ah, look at him.” He has no friends, he doesn’t get the idea of friendship, so international alliances mean nothing to him. He likes wealth, he likes devotion, flattery and illegal $400million gifts; he likes being seen as No. 1; he hates intellectuals, independent people, questioning or criticism, women and foreigners and being seen as No. 2, and he thinks he can run government like this (an independent, highly-qualified and intelligent foreign woman like Francesca Albanese drives him insane). In short, he is the pin-up boy for narcisso-fascism. Unfortunately, there have been a lot of people, ranging from farmers to workers to billionaires, who thought he would do what they wanted or what was best for them. Together, they got this bizarre and severely disordered individual into power, whereas he thinks he got it because he’s brilliant and amazing and deserves to be No. 1. Trouble is, he’s now dementing.

Donald Trump is dementing but nobody in Washington has the courage or integrity to say it, so he’ll keep running government as a cross between his private piggy bank and his private posse of avenging outlaws until it all falls into a heap. Granted, in his chaotic manner of throwing toys or playmates out of the sandpit or leaning over to grab the next child’s toys, he may actually do some good. For example, the charade of the “rules-based international order” is now well and truly dead so nobody ever need be fooled by it again. That’s not how it started; post-World War II, the goal was to set up an “international legal order,” where there were clearly-defined rules and everybody would follow them. Except the US suddenly realised that invasions were banned, so it replaced the legal order with a “rules-based order” where it wrote the rules. Anyway, as everybody in the world can see in Gaza, it’s gone. Good, we’re better off without the pretence. NATO may be next. For 80 years, the US has menaced the USSR and now Russia which, unsurprisingly, paid back in kind. But if NATO collapses and the threat dissipates, then maybe people will realise that the land of Tchaikovsky and Tolstoy and so much more actually has better things to do and more to offer than pour its resources into the military.

There’s so much more but the problem is, the old neoliberal order is not yet dead, and it will not die peacefully. While the chaos reigns, a new economic order cannot emerge. The haves will not want to give what they have to the have-nots because they genuinely believe, to the very bottom of their shallow souls, that they deserve what they have and others don’t, and they will do everything they can to keep it. It’s the law of entitlement: the more people have, the more they believe they are entitled to, and the harder they fight to take from the poor the little they have.

As Gramsci said, “… in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” We’ve only just started. It is going to get worse, a lot worse, before it gets better.

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PS. Last week, I sat through a seminar on Australia’s defence organised by a group called the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network. The video is available here. There were four speakers, all well-qualified to talk on the topic of this country adopting a neutral or non-aligned foreign policy. I submitted a question and it was jumped to the head of the queue:

What is the nature of the hold of the American military machine over the Australian political establishment?

As background, Australia is the single most important country in the vast overseas web of military bases and alliances the US has built over the past 80 years. The huge spy base at Pine Gap, near Alice Springs, was built about 60 years ago for the purpose of spying on Soviet and Chinese telecommunications. That site, in the middle of the continent, meant that the other side couldn’t intercept the transmissions from the US satellites as they went over Australia. It is the second most important CIA-NSA spy base in the world, after their HQ at Langley, Virginia. Over the years, its role has expanded and it now forms part of the nuclear war system, and also spies on the Middle East and directs bombing raids throughout that unhappy region. There are about eight other major bases here, mostly keeping a profile so low as to be invisible, over which the US has extraterritorial rights. Added to these is the recent nuclear submarine treaty (AUKUS) which, fortunately, is slowly falling apart, but not before it has cost us tens of billions of dollars for nothing except becoming a nuclear target.

My question was given to a retired diplomat, academic and author who certainly has the background to answer it (the question and her response start at 1.20.00). Unfortunately, she didn’t. She talked about the impact of the American stranglehold on Australian politicians and a bit about its history but she didn’t say what it IS. We could also ask the same question re the influence of Zionism on the West. Perhaps I should have submitted this version, asked of a senior politician some years ago:

Given that you firmly believe this country should be an integral part of the American military and political machines, and you are incensed by people who disagree and want them penalised, what do you know that makes you take that position that I obviously don’t know? What can you tell me that would suddenly make me change my opinion that the US military alliance is a disaster for this country? I don’t want you to waffle on about its history, or its extent or its impact or any other irrelevant stuff, I want you to start your answer with “I believe,” and go from there.

No answer. He muttered something about my question being aggressive, and turned to the next question. In fact, it was a little aggressive (I prefer ‘firmly worded’) just because polite and pleasant questions only ever get bullshit answers. I’ll try again and will post the answer here.

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