Sunday, May 5, 2013

The Inertia of the Status Quo

It is often difficult to explain the existence of complex institutional structures, constituted by the collected (not collective) action of “average” people with varying beliefs and goals, when one rules out the implausible case of a small group of elites secretly controlling everything. When one gets to the heart of any organization or industry, one can always find relations of exploitation that support an overarching structure of domination. If this overarching structure is not being coordinated from above, how can it possibly exist?

The cornerstone of effective social analysis, particularly if one truly follows along historical materialist lines, is the understanding that people employ already-existing realities – relationships, ideologies, material structures – to achieve their goals. We are always constrained in the present by the arrangements that have emerged through prior human activity. Thus, current social realities can always be explained to some extent by historical accident. The key is in understanding how historical accident articulates with particular interests and strategies of domination. Several different types of articulation seem plausible – the last one being the most insidious:

Opportunism
Occasionally, authentically new social-material networks are created (with existing material and social resources) in an effort to address certain problems. Say, for example, members of a community want to keep their youth out of trouble and notice that children do not get any kind of after-school support or supervision. So they pull together some resources and start an after-school youth program, operating out of a local library (already-existing resource). The people who are involved may have varying degrees of self-interest (in our example, a woman agrees to direct the program on a volunteer basis because it looks great on her resume), but are all ultimately supporting the original goal. Eventually, someone spots an opportunity for profit, or a business discovers a way to use the network to shift burdens onto the community or to create a new market or to otherwise serve its own interests. Someone comes along and tells the youth program organizers that they know how to raise a lot of money to get them their own building and supplies. Now businesses are donating items with their company logo strategically displayed. All the youth programs needs to do in return is promote messages about personal responsibility and the merits of competition. Then the businesses, who are looking for some way to reduce their tax burderns, realize that, even if all the money they contribute is not spent, they still receive tax exemptions for their donations; so they quietly place their friends in leadership positions and ensure that only a small percentage of their generous contributions are actually spent on anything. Finally, other people realize that the program can be replicated in other locations, and politicians decide to reduce funding for schools on the premise that some of the resources previously provided by the school system can now be provisioned through these private youth programs (and it’s a win for these politicians who are trying to capitalize on the anti-public school sentiments of their base).

Eventually, the after-school youth program becomes an enduring social institution that occupies its own niche, but nevertheless serves other political and economic purposes. The idea was not formulated in some smokey room by a secret ruling class cabal, yet in the end, powerful interests found a way to use it to their own advantage.

Ideological Conformity
Many people’s social awareness is so clouded by hegemonic assumptions that they may inadvertently draw upon and enhance existing power relationships as a direct consequence of the ideologies that they employ. For example, going back to the youth center: say that they haven’t yet sought corporate sponsorship, and they are trying to delineate an educational vision for their program. It may be in the best interest of the youth to receive political/historical education that will allow them to challenge structures of inequality that oppress them. Yet, the directors of the program have bought into the idea that people can raise themselves out of poverty if they just work hard enough. They might decide, totally on their own, without any outside pressure, to use their program to instill values of self-discipline, goal-setting, and financial responsibility. This program now reinforces one of the most powerful ideologies that justifies an inequitable social order – but not through any manipulation by corporate or political elites, simply through the work of ordinary people.

The discourses and ideologies that, through the speed and extent of their circulation, are always close at hand, are the very the very ones that get taken up and reproduced most easily - thus intensifying their circulation (vicious cycle).

Inertia
This, perhaps, may be one of the most powerful, yet frequently overlooked, forces that creates stability in an unjust system. People may have good intentions, but they do not want to think critically about how their own lifestyles and self interests contribute to the global and domestic suffering of which they are dimly aware. People who have built careers in particular industries – like health care or retirement, for example – like to take pride in the benefits they are providing to vulnerable populations, and so they view their role in society, and the inner mechanics of their industries, in simplistic terms (e.g. “I’m helping sick people get healthy again” or “I’m helping middle class America save for retirement”). Furthermore, because their careers sustain them both financially and socially (status), any potential changes to the institutional environment that might, possibly, threaten their careers are resisted. So they band together in industry associations to lobby and oppose regulations that seek to reform their industries. They will not acknowledge the reality that they are really exploiting already vulnerable people, and participating in the profiteering of hospital, insurance, and pharmaceutical executives (health care) or the financial services industry (retirement).

Lifestyle is just as important as career. The middle and upper classes of industrialized societies have so thoroughly absorbed the Ideology of Progress (which assures them that material comforts are a natural outcomes of human progress, not products of exploitative relationships) and so enjoy their luxuries (which they cannot even see as luxuries) that they are utterly resistant to lifestyle changes. At most, they may shop at Whole Foods (corporation) or buy energy-efficient light bulbs – maybe even a hybrid vehicle. The few people who go so far as to grow their own food, forego the latest technology, or live somewhat “off the grid” are perceived as crazy fringe radicals (the type of people who might have Marxist blogs...?). Yet, it is these lifestyles that sustain the global capitalist system – the market is crucial. An equitable social order would preclude any such extravagance. As long as the relatively well-off are unwilling to change their consumption patterns, social change will be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible.

In sum, then, it is obvious that powerful economic and political interests are able to co-opt existing structures and exacerbate inequality. Yet ordinary people also contribute in a very powerful way: through their inability to challenge hegemonic ideas, jeopardize their careers, or change their lifestyles.

No comments:

Post a Comment