Chapter Review: The Political Emancipation of the Bourgeoisie

Expansion is everything. I would annex the planets if I could. – Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902), capitalist, founder of the African territory of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia), founder of the Rhodes scholarship, and founder of the De Beers diamond company and the De Beers global diamond monopoly, despairing of the obvious economic limits of conquering planet Earth

Antisemitism (not merely the hatred of Jews), imperialism (not merely conquest), totalitarianism (not merely dictatorship) – one after the other, one more brutally than the other, have demonstrated that human dignity needs a new guarantee which can be found only in a new political principle, in a new law on Earth, whose validity this time must comprehend the whole of humanity while its power must remain strictly limited, rooted in and controlled by newly defined territorial entities. – Hannah Arendt, Summer 1950, Preface to the first edition of the Origins of Totalitarianism

This review is of chapter 5 of Hannah Arendt’s book, Origins of Totalitarianism, which is considered by some to be one of the most influential books of the 20th century. The Origins of Totalitarianism is organized in three parts. Part one, Antisemitism chapters 1-4, Imperialism, chapters 5-9, and Totalitarianism, chapters 10-13. Public interest in this book increased sharply after the election of Donald Trump in 2016.

REVIEW: The Political Emancipation of the Bourgeoisie (chapter 5): Chapter 5 opens with the observation that the 30-year span from 1884 to 1914 marked the height of Western imperialism. The imperialist period had characteristics of the rise of totalitarianism. Arendt observed that it “may be justifiable to consider the whole period a preparatory stage for coming catastrophes” in the form of the coming totalitarianisms under Hitler and Stalin. She argues that imperialism’s central event was the political emancipation of the bourgeoisie, “which up to then had been the first class in history to achieve economic pre-eminence without aspiring to political rule.” Emancipation was necessitated once it became apparent that “the nation-state proved to be unfit to be the framework for further growth of capitalist economy.” Once that realization dawned on the bourgeoisie, the “latent fight between state and society” became an open power struggle. During this 30-year period, neither the bourgeoisie nor the state decisively won. The decisive bourgeoisie win came later:

National institutions resisted throughout the brutality and megalomania of imperialist aspirations, and bourgeois attempts to use the state and its instruments of violence for its own economic purposes were always only half successful. This changed when the German bourgeoisie staked everything on the Hitler movement and aspired to rule with the help of the mob, but then it turned out to be too late. The bourgeoisie succeeded in destroying the nation-state but won a Pyrrhic victory; the mob proved quite capable of taking care of politics itself and liquidated the bourgeoisie along with all other classes and institutions.

In the struggle between traditional politicians and the capitalists who wanted state power behind their ambitions to conquer the world, and if they could the planets, the politicians were largely blindsided by what capitalism and the industrial revolution could do. Arendt describes European statesmen as having lost touch with the reality that trade and economic concerns had already entangled every nation in world politics. “The national principle was leading to provincial ignorance and the battle fought by sanity was lost.” The insanity Arendt refers to is the clash between civil society and the insanity of brutal subjugation of colonized populations in the name of wealth accumulation. The imperialist conquest of foreign lands ignites in the subjugated populations national aspirations that were not there to begin with and therein lies the beginning of the end for imperialist conquests. The existing generation of European politicians thought in terms of existing nations and opposed the idea of imperialist expansion. They misunderstood the raw power that the drive for unlimited wealth can exert.

Arendt asserts that “expansion as a permanent and supreme aim of politics is the central political idea of imperialism.” As a political thought, this was new in human history, which is a very rare event. However, she argues this idea is not a matter of politics. Instead, the imperialist ideal is a matter of business, where business expansion backed by state power is nothing more than an attempt to build a permanent broadening of means of production and markets.

How a competition between fully armed business concerns – empires – could end in anything but victory for one and death for the others is difficult to understand. In other words, competition is no more a principle of politics than expansion, and needs political power just as badly for control and restraint.

Of the European powers, only France tried to build an Empire roughly modeled on the ancient Roman Empire. The failure of Napoleon to unite European nations under the French flag was evidence that conquered lands would develop a national consciousness and rebelliousness, leading to successful rebellion or tyranny by the conquering nation. France tried this out of fear of its powerful neighbors, especially Germany. People living in areas such as Algeria that France conquered were envisioned as French citizens who would come to the mother country’s aid in time of need. She saw conquered people as inexpensive cannon fodder for the next war. Arendt took a dim view of how that played out: “The result of this daring enterprise was a particularly brutal exploitation of overseas possessions for the sake of the nation.”

The British attempt to build a commonwealth did not fare much better. Ireland never accepted the idea. “The Irish example proves how ill fitted the United Kingdom was to build an imperial structure in which many different people could live contentedly together.” Perhaps we see echoes of this today in modern Scotland where a local temptation to stay with the European Union is being toyed with as the UK nears Brexit. The imperialists were basically ruthless, immoral businessmen, not statesmen. In this maybe one can see why the bourgeoisie was not much interested in politics until national resources and populations were beginning to limit the growth of profits and there were no good investment opportunities left in the mother land. Expansion by conquest backed by national power was the only option that might render their massive wealth something more than almost useless.

Hobbes and the rise of private interest: Despite her assertion that imperialism is not politics, but is business, Arendt states that political philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) in his book Leviathan anticipated the rise of government based on personal interest instead of national interest.

Hobbes’s Leviathan exposed the only political theory according to which the state is based not on some kind of constituting law – whether divine law, the law of nature, or the law of social contract – which determines the rights and wrongs of the individual’s interest with respect to public affairs, but on the individual interests themselves, so that ‘the private interest is the same with the publique’. There is hardly a single bourgeois moral standard that has not been anticipated by the unequaled magnificence of Hobbes’s logic. He gives an almost complete picture, not of Man, but of the bourgeois man, an analysis which in three hundred years has neither been outdated nor excelled. ‘Reason . . . . is nothing but Reckoning; ‘a free Subject, a free Will [are] . . . . words without meaning; that is to say, Absurd.’. . . . if man is actually driven by nothing more than his individual interests, desire for power must be the fundamental passion for man. . . . . Thus membership in any form of community is for Hobbes a temporary and limited affair which essentially does not change the solitary and private character of the individual . . . . or create permanent bonds between him and his fellow men.

Arendt asserts that Hobbes had anticipated by over 300 years the 20th century rise of an anti-traditional bourgeoisie and its self-centered value of endless wealth accumulation as a new political class. Apparently, Hobbes was one of those uncommonly astute observers of human nature who also had a knack for relentlessly applying cold logic to what he saw. Despite Hobbes, Arendt again argues that this is not a matter of politics, but human nature. In her view, the inevitable death of the individual is a central consideration: “Death is the real reason why property and acquisition can never become a true political principle.” At most, all the capitalist could do to fully secure his wealth is destroy it before he dies.

In Hobbes view, nations are tribes always against one another. There is a perpetual war of all against all, because that is the ‘state of nature’ for man. Arendt sees an inevitable end of the quest for expansion: “If the last victorious Commonwealth cannot proceed to ‘annex the planets’, it can only proceed to destroy itself in order to begin anew the never-ending process of power generation.”

Racism: Despite the insight that Arendt sees in Hobbes’ work, she asserts that he missed one factor, namely, modern racism as a rhetorical tool to stir the passions of the mob. Despite the omission, she argues that Hobbes laid the political groundwork for later racism.

The philosophy of Hobbes, it is true, contains nothing of modern race doctrines, which not only stir up the mob, but in their totalitarian form outline very clearly the forms of organization through which humanity could carry the endless process of capital and power accumulation through to its logical end in self-destruction. But Hobbes at least provided political thought with the prerequisite for all race doctrines, that is, the exclusion in principle of the idea of humanity which constitutes the sole regulating idea of international law. . . . . If it should be proved to be true that we are imprisoned in Hobbes’s endless process of power accumulation then the organization of the mob will inevitably take the form of transformation of nations into races, for there is, . . . . no other unifying bond available between individuals who in the very process of power accumulation and expansion are losing all natural connections with their fellow men. Racism may indeed carry out the doom of the Western world, and for that matter, the whole of human civilization. . . . . For no matter what learned scientists may say, politically speaking, not the beginning of humanity but its end, not the origins of people but their decay, not the natural birth of man but his unnatural death.

Arendt describes the mob as composed of the “refuse” of all classes and not the people as a whole. This class was the by-product of bourgeois society and thus not completely separable from it. She describes the mob as “the riff-raff of bohemians, crackpots, gangsters and conspirators.” Later in her book, she asserts that the mob is where totalitarians first find support as they make their run for power and control.

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cognitive science, social science and the anti-bias ideology: Arendt argues in chapter 6 that in human history, only two political ideologies stood the test of time and persuasive attack. The first ideology interprets history as a struggle of economic classes. The second interprets history as a “natural fight of races.” She argues that these two ideas are deeply embedded in modern thinking and perceptions of reality: “The appeal of both to large masses was so strong that they were able to enlist state support and establish themselves as official national doctrines. . . . . . free public opinion has adopted them [class thinking and race thinking] to such an extent that not only intellectuals but great masses of people will no longer accept a presentation of past or present facts that is not in agreement with either of these views.”

From a sociological point of view, Arendt’s description of class and race thinking describes modern social institutions. In his book, Invitation to Sociology, sociologist Peter Berger makes it clear that, for people who inhabit the institution, social institutions shape both perceptions of reality and the thinking people apply to what they think they see.[1] Berger describes the racism institution of the American South as utterly mesmerizing for its adherents. In this regard, Arendt was correct to believe that race thinking constitutes a subtle but powerful mental trap that makes alternative views simply incoherent at best and a pack of lies at worst.

There is no obvious reason to believe that class thinking is any less subtle or powerful. In this reviewer’s experience, Arendt goes a long way to explain both the harsh anti-capitalist mindset of class thinkers, and the basis for fear and social unease among populist movements that are ongoing now in Europe, America, Brazil and elsewhere. Those populist movements are significantly, probably mostly, driven by race thinking. At least, that is what it looks like to this observer, and there is some empirical evidence to support that belief.[2]

Although Arendt could not have access to the mass of knowledge that cognitive and social sciences generated in the decades after she wrote The Origins of Totalitarianism, what she is describing is largely in accord with current scientific knowledge. Her assertion that people usually do not believe facts that contradict world views is spot on. The evidence on that point is not in dispute among experts. Also not disputed is the power of society and social institutions to trap and narrow what minds see and how they think. Some of Arendt’s facts or arguments may now be open to reinterpretation in light of later scholarship, but she nonetheless did see through her experiences to construct a plausible, probably mostly correct assessment of why and how 20th century imperialism developed.

In terms of political ideology, Arendt makes no proposals in chapter 5. The anti-bias ideology with its four highest moral values advocated here does not seem to fit with either class thinking or race thinking. The ideology is silent on class and race and instead looks to politics where interests compete on the more or less objective merits. Class thinkers, mainly socialists and communists, have criticized the anti-bias ideology because of its lack of explicit consideration for class.

All of this raises a question about whether it is possible for a ‘non-biological’ or race-neutral, and class-neutral political ideology can ever gain much, or any, significant level of public acceptance. It is likely impossible unless a social institution can be built around the concept. Human biology and social thinking and behavior cannot be ignored, nor will they change or go away any time soon. Politics as usual, with all of its lies, deceit and unwarranted emotional manipulation, including irrational appeal to racism, also is not going to go away either. Short of overt violence, all of the dark arts that politicians, partisans, billionaires and blowhards can bring to bear are legal and constitutionally protected. From a cognitive and social science point of view, those dark arts arguably have built social institutions, or something close to it, e.g., the current American vision of conservatism, liberalism, capitalism, socialism and so on.

One last thought. Is the anti-bias ideology a new thought in politics? Arendt correctly points out that there is not much left that is new. What is new is the mass of science knowledge that can be brought to bear. But that begs the question of whether people even want to be at least somewhat less biased and more rational about politics. Politics as it is now is easy and enjoyable because it is usually quite self-affirming. Facing unvarnished reality and applying cold logic can lead to unpleasant, self-denigrating or confusing conclusions. That seems to argue for a need to build a social institution if anti-bias is to ever have any chance of exerting political and social influence.

Footnote:
1. “Society not only controls our movements, but shapes our identity, our thought, and our emotions.” Social institutions are therefore, to a significant extent, “structures of our own consciousness. Sociologists speak of ‘ideology’ in discussing views that serve to rationalize the vested interests of some group. Very frequently, such views systematically distort social reality in much the same way that an individual may neurotically deny, deform or reinterpret aspects of his life that are inconvenient to him. . . . . the ideas by which men explain their actions are unmasked as self-deception, sales talk, the kind of ‘sincerity’ that David Riesman has aptly described as the state of mind of a man who habitually believes his own propaganda.”

2. “Support for Donald J. Trump in the 2016 election was widely attributed to citizens who were “left behind” economically. These claims were based on the strong cross-sectional relationship between Trump support and lacking a college education. Using a representative panel from 2012 to 2016, I find that change in financial wellbeing had little impact on candidate preference. Instead, changing preferences were related to changes in the party’s positions on issues related to American global dominance and the rise of a majority–minority America: issues that threaten white Americans’ sense of dominant group status.”

This reviewer interprets concern over “American global dominance” as possibly including a racial component. The rise of China as a challenger to American dominance arguably includes a perceived Chinese race for at least some race-thinking Americans is a plausible source of unease, conscious or not.

Whether we like it or not, or deny it or not, humans are human. We cannot escape our biological and social heritage.

B&B orig: 1/6/19