According to a report in Newsweek ("The Good Life and its Discontents" Jan. 8, 1996), feelings of disappointment have devastated faith in government and big business. Here are the results of a survey in which which people were asked whether they had a "great deal of confidence" in various institutions:
1966 1975 1985 1994
Congress 42% 13% 16% 8% Executive Branch 41% 13% 15% 12% The press 29% 26% 16% 13% Major Companies 55% 19% 17% 19%
As can be seen, the public's faith in major companies plunged 36% over a 28-year period in the survey, an even worse vote of "no confidence" than that given to Congress (34%).
Some of the feelings of disappointment with government can be blamed on the anti-big-government rhetoric of conservatives and right-wing populists. But such rhetoric is of potential benefit to anarchists as well. Of course the Right would never dream of really dismantling the state, as is evident from the fact that government grew more bureaucratic and expensive under "conservative" administrations than ever before.
Needless to say, this "decentralist" element of right-wing rhetoric is a con. When a politician, economist or business "leader" argues that the government is too big, he is rarely thinking of the same government functions you are. You may be thinking of subsidies for tobacco farmers or defence firms and they are thinking about pollution controls. You may be thinking of reforming welfare for the better, while their idea is to dismantle the welfare state totally. Moreover, with their support for "family values", "wholesome" television, bans on abortion, and so on their victory would see an increased level of government intrusion in many personal spheres (as well as increased state support for the power of the boss over the worker, the landlord over the tenant and so on).
If you look at what the Right has done and is doing, rather than what it is saying, you quickly see the ridiculous of claims of right-wing "libertarianism" (as well as who is really in charge). Obstructing pollution and health regulations; defunding product safety laws; opening national parks to logging and mining, or closing them entirely; reducing taxes for the rich; eliminating the capital gains tax; allowing companies to fire striking workers; making it easier for big telecommunications companies to make money; limiting companies' liability for unsafe products— the program here is obviously to help big business do what it wants without government interference, and to help the rich get richer. In other words, increased "freedom" for private power combined with a state whose role is to protect that "liberty."
Yet along with the pro-business, pro-private tyranny, racist, anti-feminist, and homophobic hogwash disseminated by right-wing radio propagandists and the business-backed media, important decentralist and anti-statist ideas are also being implanted in mass consciousness. These ideas, if consistently pursued and applied in all areas of life (the home, the community, the workplace), could lead to a revival of anarchism in the US — but only if radicals take advantage of this opportunity to spread the message that capitalism is not genuinely anti-authoritarian (nor could it ever be), as a social system based on liberty must entail.
This does not mean that right-wing tendencies have anarchistic elements. Of course not. Nor does it mean that anarchist fortunes are somehow linked to the success of the right. Far from it (the reverse is actually the case). Similarly, the anti-big government propaganda of big business is hardly anarchistic. But it does have the advantage of placing certain ideas on the agenda, such as decentralisation. What anarchists try to do is point out the totally contradictory nature of such right-wing rhetoric. After all, the arguments against big government are equally applicable to big business and wage slavery. If people are capable of making their own decisions, then why should this capability be denied in the workplace? As Noam Chomsky points out, while there is a "leave it alone" and "do your own thing" current within society, it in fact "tells you that the propaganda system is working full-time, because there is no such ideology in the U.S. Business, for example, doesn't believe it. It has always insisted upon a powerful interventionist state to support its interests — still does and always has — back to the origins of American society. There's nothing individualistic about corporations. Those are big conglomerate institutions, essentially totalitarian in character, but hardly individualistic. Within them you're a cog in a big machine. There are few institutions in human society that have such strict hierarchy and top-down control as a business organisation. Nothing there about 'Don't tread on me.' You're being tread on all the time. The point of the ideology is to try to get other people, outside of the sectors of co-ordinated power, to fail to associate and enter into decision-making in the political arena themselves. The point is to atomise everyone else while leaving powerful sectors integrated and highly organised and of course dominating resources." He goes on to note that:
"There is a streak of independence and individuality in American culture which I think is a very good thing. This 'Don't tread on me' feeling is in many respects a healthy one. It's healthy up to the point where it atomises and keeps you from working together with other people. So it's got its healthy side and its negative side. It's the negative side that's emphasised naturally in the propaganda and indoctrination." [Keeping the Rabble in Line, pp. 279-80]
As the opinion polls above show, must people direct their dislike and distrust of institutions equally to Big Business, which shows that people are not stupid. However, the slight decrease in distrust for big business even after a period of massive business-lead class war, down-sizing and so on, is somewhat worrying. Unfortunately, as Gobbels was well aware, tell a lie often enough and people start to believe it. And given the funds available to big business, its influence in the media, its backing of "think-tanks," the use of Public Relations companies, the support of economic "science," its extensive advertising and so on, it says a lot for the common sense of people that so many people see big business for what it is. You simply cannot fool all the people all of the time!
However, these feelings can easily be turned into cynicism and a hopelessness that things can change for the better and than the individual can help change society. Or, even worse, they can be twisted into support for the right, authoritarian, populist or (so-called) "Libertarian"-Right. The job for anarchists is to combat this and help point the healthy distrust people have for government and business towards a real solution to societies problems, namely a decentralised, self-managed anarchist society.