Uncategorized – The philosophy of Darryl Naranjit

Truth and Power: Gandhi’s Political Philosophy

Mahatma Gandhi is a revolutionary thinker. Underneath the simple words and phrases that appear almost as platitudes, there is a meaning, a philosophy that challenges modern western thought at its core. This book is written as an attempt to uncover the meanings hidden in those simple words and phrases.

Gandhi used the term satygraha to name the strategy and philosophy he was using. The word satygraha literally translated means ‘truth-force’. On September 11, 1906, in South Africa, Gandhi explained his use of the term. “None of us knew what name to give to our movement. I then used the term passive resistance in describing it. I did not quite understand the implications of passive resistance as I called it. I only knew that some new principle had come into being. As the struggle advanced, the phrase passive resistance gave rise to confusion and it appeared shameful to permit this great struggle to be known only by an English name. Again, that foreign phrase could hardly pass as current coin among the community. A small prize was therefore announced in Indian Opinion to be awarded to the reader who invented the best designation for our struggle. We thus received a number of suggestions. The meaning of the struggle had been then fully discussed in Indian Opinion and the competitors for the prize had fairly sufficient material to serve as a basis for their exploration. Shri Maganlal Gandhi was one of the competitors and he suggested the word Sadagraha, meaning firmness in a good cause. I liked the word, but it did not fully represent the whole idea I wished it to connote. I therefore corrected it to Satyagraha. Truth (Satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian movement Satyagraha, that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth.”

The question is why did he use this term. Was there, in Gandhi’s mind, a power associated with truth, a power that could bring down the British Empire? What is the relationship of truth to power? Nietzsche, arguably one of modern Europe’s most influential philosophers, has examined this relationship quite rigorously. Gandhi, therefore, may be compared with Nietzsche who is perhaps the most radical of modern western thinkers. They are, however, on opposite sides of the fence. Gandhi champions the “moral order” of the universe; Nietzsche dismisses it. Indeed the gist of this book is that Gandhi presupposes a cosmic spiritual struggle between good and evil, a struggle that takes place in the minds of human beings. It is a struggle between two opposing philosophies, two ideas, two world-views – a struggle between light and darkness, truth and untruth.

Nietzsche thinks that truth is merely the intellectualization of the ‘will to power’; he has been considered the foremost ‘philosopher of suspicion’. In comparing these two thinkers, it can be claimed that Gandhi turns the ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’ unleashed by Nietzsche on morality, on its head. This is the key to understanding Gandhi and this is what makes him probably the most revolutionary of thinkers. Whereas Nietzsche excludes himself from the probing light of the ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’, Gandhi subjects every modern position to this suspicion.

Nietzsche’s ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’ had subjected every post-Socratic philosophical position, every philosophical foundation, and all morality, to skepsis. His historical genealogy sought the genesis of morality in the ‘will to power’. All ascetic ideals were attempts to weaken and to destroy the affirmation of life. Nietzsche points to a struggle between life affirming forces and life denying forces, a struggle that occurs throughout history and in the history of thought.

For Nietzsche what is life affirming is all that enhances the ‘will to power’. For Gandhi, life affirmation is the discovery of the self as distinct from the ego. The self is the source of power; this is, of course, the classical Indian philosophical position. Nietzsche and Gandhi thus stand on opposite sides of what constitutes power. For Nietzsche, the ‘will to power’ is constrained and negated by conventional morality. What passes for morality, from this point of view, is a means of weakening the strong. For Gandhi, on the other hand, finding the true self means mastering the ego, and this is the source of power. These opposing viewpoints stem from different ideas about what is real and about what is true, and about the relationship of truth to power.

It is necessary to understand the differing ideas of how truth is related to power in both thinkers. For Nietzsche truth is related to power in the sense that every truth is an attempt of the ‘will to power’ to assert itself. For Gandhi, the self, the atman, is the source of power and of truth. What distinguishes these positions is the position of the will in the search for truth. Nietzsche locates the will prior to knowledge and in a sense directing knowledge, Gandhi thinks that the ego must be “reduced to a cipher” (i.e., the will must be ‘bracketed’, to use a phenomenological term) and truth is found only when the will is removed from the act of knowing, that is, when the self is found. The relationship of truth to power is crucial, therefore in understanding Gandhi’s philosophy.

Michel Foucault, who has been influenced by Nietzsche, has commented extensively on the relationship between truth and power. In his essay “The Subject and Power”, Foucault speaking about the effect of a ‘form of power’ says, “This form of power applies itself to immediate everyday life which categorizes the individual, marks him by his own individuality, attaches him to his own identity: imposes a law of truth on him which he must recognize and which others have to recognize in him.”¹ Truth is intimately connected with power; it gives power its unique intentionality. Power relations “…are imbued, through and through, with calculation…”²Every truth has as its objective – power. In this, Foucault is deeply influenced by Nietzsche. “Nietzsche’s genealogy of the way power uses the illusion of meaning to further self gave him good reason to be critical of hermeneutics both in its form of commentary on everyday life, and in its related form of deep exegesis of what everyday practices cover up.”³

In opposing hermeneutics then, specifically Heideggerian hermeneutics (for Heideggerian hermeneutics results in a critique of the will to power and its relation to truth), Foucault returns to Nietzsche. Heidegger’s philosophy, his attempt to place ‘Being’ beyond the ‘will to power’, is itself subject to Nietzschean hermeneutic suspicion. Has Nietzsche then triumphed over Heidegger, and what does such an overcoming mean? Does it mean that Nietzsche is truly the end point of Western philosophy and that the connection between ‘truth’ and the ‘will to power’ is the final word? Is every ‘truth’ connected to a ‘will to power’, and what is the relationship of all of this to Gandhi’s thought? Does it mean that Gandhi was a naïve premodern thinker unacquainted with the thrust of Nietzsche’s critique?

The author proposes that in fact Gandhi’s thought is a fundamental critique of Nietzsche’s position, in so far as Nietzsche’s thought permeates all postmodern western philosophy. Gandhi’s philosophy is in fact a critique of modern and post-modern western philosophy, in so far as it critiques the fundamental relationship between ‘truth’ and the ‘will to power’ made by Nietzsche. Such an interpretation of Gandhi’s thought attempts to make explicit what is implicit in Gandhi’s philosophy.

In the author’s view, Gandhi had grasped the essence of modern western philosophy. He realized that modern western philosophy denied that there was any objective truth, and instead held that all views about reality originated from particular perspectives (every truth is related to the will to power). To this perspectivism he proposed that there is truth; that truth is being and being is truth. What Gandhi realized was that the view that there was no objective truth was a view that ultimately legitimized and rationalized the western ideology of imperialism and exploitation and was an effective method to silence its conscience. If objective reality, the thing-in-itself, either did not exist or was unknowable, then reality could be subjectively interpreted according to one’s agenda. To Gandhi therefore the view that ‘truth’ was linked to the “will to power” was itself a view created by the ‘will to power’, so whereas Nietzsche would insist that the link between any ‘truth’ and the ‘will to power’ was a fact, itself the only truth, Gandhi would insist that this view linking any ‘truth’ to the ‘will to power’ was itself generated by the ‘will to power’ and would fall victim to its own logic.

This is the inexorable logic of Gandhi’s implicit critique of perspectivism and Nietzsche’s philosophy. Nietzsche himself, considered a ruthless seeker of the truth, is found to be the greatest camoflager of the truth. Nietzsche, of course, wore many masks, he pointed this out himself, so that the problem becomes which is the real Nietzsche, this is part of his strategy, to playfully put on masks and speak sometimes without a mask, so that only the discerning would understand. However, which is the real Nietzsche, and did he not deceive most of all, the “discerning”, was this not also his strategy? Gandhi would hold that all of Nietzsche was masked, particularly his ideal of the connection between ‘truth’ and the ‘will to power’.

This, to Gandhi, would be the greatest mask of all. For in putting this relationship forward, Nietzsche covers up what makes this relationship so necessary – guilt. Nietzsche, who presents himself as this most uncompromising seeker after truth, covers up the motivating source of his ideas – namely guilt. It is the guilt of Europe caused by the conflict between its Christian values and the violence of its actual history, its merciless exploitation and oppression of the non-western world that motivates Nietzsche’s ideas. Guilt, in this sense, would be the awareness of what one has done – the consciousness of one’s actions and the implications of one’s actions. It is a sense of having done wrong and the sense of impending doom or punishment. Nietzsche considered a great psychologist, disguised the psychology of his thought, for in order to remove guilt, Nietzsche has to overthrow a whole system of thought.

For Gandhi, there is truth, and truth is precisely this kind of self-awareness – a consciousness of what one has done. Untruth arises through the covering up of this awareness, through the rationalization that suppresses this awareness. Gandhi acts therefore as a psychotherapist who aims to uncover this awareness. Once awareness of this truth is uncovered, then one has to confront one’s actions without the justifications, rationalizations, etc. This is how truth acquires its power and this is the basis of satygraha or truth-force.

It is this satygraha, this truth-force, which Nietzsche, in a sense, sets out to combat. The truth appearing within man as the ‘good’, the conscience, announces itself as a force, a power that demands a response from man. Nietzsche combats this by labeling this power as a ‘fiction’, a pious fraud. This is his grand strategy. By presenting the ‘good’ as a fiction, and all fictions as generated by the ‘will to power’ Nietzsche can now create a genealogy of this ‘fiction’ and in doing so explain it and further disempower the ‘good’. Nietzsche thus reverses the cause and effect: firstly the cause, the ‘will to power’ then the effect, the fiction of the ‘good’. It is not now the ‘good’ and its effect, the power of the ‘good’, or of the conscience. The inversion of the relationship between the truth, the ‘good’ and the ‘will to power’ enables Nietzsche to disempower the conscience.

However, what is there to exclude Nietzsche from being subjected to a ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’? The only reason is that Nietzsche presents himself as a ruthless seeker after truth whose uncompromising pursuit of truth leads him to reveal its insubstantiality. It is his mask of integrity that puts him above suspicion, but can this be allowed? Nietzsche cannot be above suspicion – can this be why Foucault, in speaking about the hermeneutics of suspicion, claims that it “… dooms us to an endless task …?” ⁴

This suspicion directed towards Nietzsche would be fatal to Nietzsche’s thought since if we question the idea that all ‘truths’ are generated by the ‘will to power’ and claim that this idea is itself generated by the ‘will to power’, then Nietzsche appears as the great deceiver, one whose greatest truth is itself a deception. He appears as one who attempts to cover truth itself. Thus, when Gandhi insists that there is truth, he claims all of this. Nietzsche’s thought and Gandhi’s thought cannot coexist. Nietzsche has a genealogy of morals wherein he examines the psychology that lies behind the adoption of particular moralities. Gandhi can be said, on the other hand, to have a genealogy of immorality and this understanding of Gandhi’s genealogy can be used to critique Nietzsche’s thought.

At the basis of Western ‘materialism’, Gandhi’s term for the western rejection of the idea of ‘the good’, Gandhi sees desire – desire in particular for wealth and power. Gandhi sees this desire for wealth and power as coming in conflict with Christian values, the value system that had shaped medieval western civilization. Beneath the dialectical jousting between modern western thought and Christian thought, Gandhi sees the real motive as the desire for wealth and power. The entire system of modern western ‘materialism’ is therefore driven by the desire for wealth and power. The claim of being objective, of being motivated by the desire for truth, Gandhi would deny as being merely the façade behind which stood the desire for wealth and power.

Gandhi is not claiming here that every stated intention is a façade, behind which lies a hidden deeper motivation, he is not subscribing to a universal hermeneutics of suspicion. Rather he examines each case as a particular instance. It could be that a stated intention is not a façade but describes things as they are. Each instance is particular and must be judged by ‘the fruit that it bears.’

In the case of the West, Gandhi finds that the fruit of western materialism is western exploitation of the rest of the world. Modern western philosophy, its denial of ‘the good’, its rejection of Christianity, is a consequence of the ulterior desire for wealth and power. Gandhi sees this motive behind the entire history of modern western thought. This is what modern western civilization really is – a desire for wealth and power that results in the rejection of true Christianity.

Gandhi would consider Nietzsche thought as the culmination of this whole process – as an attempt to justify and legitimize modern European civilization in the face of the critique that arises essentially from Christianity. This critique sets up the ‘good’ as that which determines the validity of any action. A sense of guilt is the consequence of transgressing the moral order. Even though the whole idea of the ‘good’ and of a moral order had been challenged (sometimes implicitly, sometimes covertly) since Descartes, its power – to paralyze action, to infuse action with doubt, to infuse life with death – still lingered on. Nietzsche attempts to exorcise this power of the lingering idea of the ‘good’.

‘God is dead’ he intones. The ghost of the ‘good’ must be laid to rest; it must be buried so that no reminder may linger on. The effect of this lingering sense of the ‘good’ is nothing other than a sense of guilt. Nietzsche philosophy can be seen there as an attempt to exorcise this sense of guilt: guilt occasioned by the idea of the ‘good’, manifested internally by the conscience. Nietzsche attempts to exorcise this sense of guilt by explaining it away, by tracing the genealogy of morality. What Gandhi does is to analyze the attempt to explain away the sense of guilt. Gandhi attempts to trace the genealogy of immorality so that Nietzsche’s hermeneutic of suspicion is turned against itself.

In doing so, Gandhi is saying that the conscience exists, it is an existential fact and the attempt to explain it away is itself generated by ulterior motives. The conscience, the moral order manifested within man, acts as an obstacle to the actualization of one’s desires, of one’s instinct to the ‘will to power’.

There is a link between this attempt to disempower the conscience and modern civilization – this is Gandhi’s thesis. Modern civilization has disempowered the voice of conscience in order to accomplish its ends. The means of this disempowerment is to connect all morality to the ‘will to power’ so that the hermeneutic of suspicion is turned against morality, ethics, spirituality and the conscience. The way is made clear, in this manner, for a philosophy of ‘hardness’⁵,of elitism, where the man of integrity is he who denies this ‘falsity’ of moral pretension, this claim of acting on behalf of compassionate motives. The truthful man is thus he who acts without this moral pretension, he who acts with ‘hardness’.

This philosophy justifies and legitimizes imperialism, colonialism, and the exploitation of the ‘weaker races’ by modern western civilization. It is a justification of the imperial, of pre-Christian Roman imperialism. It is a philosophy that allowed modern civilization to reject its Christian aspects of love, compassion, and to return to its older imperial and elitist nature, a tendency initiated by Machiavelli in modern times.

Gandhi says therefore, there is truth; truth is the bedrock of his worldview. Man’s relationship to truth is one of responsiveness, one of being responsive to truth as revelation. The subjectivism toward reality is checked, man does not create truth, he must be responsive to it; he must allow it to be revealed through him. Yet at the same time, the danger of distorting truth to serve one’s own purpose is not overlooked. This awareness produces the very criterion for truth – ‘one must reduce oneself to a cypher’⁶, one must be continually aware of one’s motives; one must be continually self-conscious and self-examining.

‘Hardness’ for Nietzsche becomes the mark, the sign, of nobility and integrity. ‘Hardness’ means, within the Nietzschean perspective, the attitude of overcoming the temptation to act with moral deception; indeed, for Nietzsche, all acts of compassion arise out of self-deception, that is, out of a sense of moral righteousness that is merely a cover for the ‘will to power’. The ‘will to power’ disguised appears as compassion, etc., whilst the ‘will to power’, uncamouflaged and true to itself, appears as ‘hardness’. Since all actions, all moral positions are ultimately linked to the ‘will to power’, then the ‘will to power’ undisguised, uncamouflaged is truth. ‘Hardness’ from this Nietschean perspective is linked to truth. Thus, modern civilization justifies itself.

Gandhi by claiming, implicitly though it may be, that this connection between all positions and the ‘will to power’ is itself a product of the ‘will to power’, cuts the ground from below the entire Nietzschean perspective. Truth, therefore, becomes the central point of Gandhi’s philosophy – there is truth, and there is a power associated with truth. Such an idea delinks the statement, or idea proposed, from the motive behind that idea. The whole problem of doubt, introduced by Descartes into modern philosophy in its most radical form, de-links and disconnects man from any reality out there, and thus makes any statement about such a reality ultimately a matter of motives. Nietzsche’s’ philosophy is a direct consequence of the Cartesian epistemology. Gandhi’s challenges it by a more fundamental hermeneutic of suspicion and, having done this, clears the way for the idea of the existence of objective truth.

Gandhi challenges therefore the whole tradition of the subjectivism of truth, which began with Descartes. He does this by unleashing a hermeneutic of suspicion directed against western philosophy, wherein the supposedly unbiased objective search for truth is linked to an attempt to overthrow the conscience and justify actions that are exploitatitive. He is the anti-Nietzsche. Thus, Gandhi enables Christianity, Platonism and philosophies of the ‘good’, to counterattack the Nietzschean offensive; he provides a powerful defense of the legitimacy of non-violence, ahimsa and ethical values.

At the same time, he seems to be saying that the classical values of the West, its Christian values, and what Gandhi calls ‘ethical religion’ (meaning the essential aspects of all religions), have been rejected by the West and have found a new home in the oppressed Third World. What is ironic about Gandhi’s position is that in rejecting ‘modern civilization’, he is in fact championing classical western values and the idea of universal ethical values, for these find resonance in the ancient way. The modern West, according to Gandhi, has rejected these values.

This, therefore, is the dynamic that we must become aware of in understanding Gandhi’s ideas. One the one hand the West, after thousands of years of being the propagator of classical western values, Christian values and universal ethical values (the essential aspects of which Gandhi claims underlie all religion), appeared to have rejected them, whilst the oppressed Third World has become a home to these values. These values coincide with those of the ancient traditions by their emphasis on the ethical, the moral and the spiritual. The torch of civilization itself is being passed on to the oppressed peoples of the world. Gandhi sees his role as reconciling the ancient traditions to the coming of classical western and Christian values and the advent of what he calls ‘ethical religion’.

To accomplish this, Gandhi must reinterpret and reform the ancient tradition; he must uncover its pure form from the slag of centuries of deterioration and decay. In doing so, Gandhi prepares the tradition for its encounter with the West. Gandhi reforms through reinterpretation, one that Gandhi considers to be closer to the original interpretation.

The Post-Truth Society

Introduction

John Maynard Keynes famously said, “The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas.”¹The ideas that give rise to the geist of the age are usually the work of an “academic scribbler” or many academic scribblers who have imprinted their ideas on the intellectual history of a culture. It is illuminating to know those thinkers who have imprinted their ideas on any particular time period. It would help to understand the actions of “practical men” who imagine that they are acting on their own designs yet are the “slaves of some defunct economist” or even more accurately some defunct philosopher or philosophy. Such an interrogation would help us understand our modern age, for example, and when one speaks of the “modern age”, one speaks also of what many have called “post-modernity” with the understanding that “post-modernity” is embedded in modernity as a worm at the core of it.

The essays in this collection of essays attempt to trace some of the important philosophers and philosophy that have shaped our intellectual history and impact on our understanding of the world with regard to the idea of truth and the importance of truth to society. The essays do have a continuity to them in that they look at the various skeptical attacks on the mainstream intellectual tradition of the West and ultimately try to trace the evolution of our post-truth society. What were the important intellectual events that brought about the post-truth society? These essays point out some of those important events along the way.

The first essay is called a “prologue” because it introduces the problem that we are looking at and analyses its earliest tendencies. In that essay, we meet the key personality, Socrates, around whom the question of truth becomes so important. In the prologue, two important “sophists” debate Socrates – Callicles and Thrasymachus. They articulate what can be called “the will to power” doctrine. Callicles’ “will to power” doctrine is remarkably similar to Nietzsche’s ideas. Socrates attempts to refute this doctrine by, in a sense, exposing what this doctrine implies. He uses the method of elenclus, questioning and subjecting what is being said to reason and logic. Observers to Socratic interrogation claim that Socrates seems to paralyze those who are subjected to his questioning. The boldness of his speech throws off his opponents. However it is more likely that it is the logic and the contradictions that arise from illogical statements that paralyzes.

What is justice? – That is the inquiry. The dialogue with Callicles comes from the Gorgias, a book that is supposed to deal with the issue of rhetoric, Gorgias being a renowned expert on rhetoric. Socrates makes a distinction between rhetoric and truth. Rhetoric flatters the listeners in order to win them over; truth lays out the facts as they are without any intention of pleasing the listener. Because of this difference, the rhetorician has to vacillate between conventional opinions, and what is ordained by nature, i.e. between nomos and physis. It is this vacillation that Socrates exploits in his debate with Geogias, Polus and eventually Callicles. This vacillation does not go down well with conventional opinion, with nomos, so that Callicles in spite of the fact that he is rhetorically clever has to express ideas that will not please his listeners. It is this strategy that enables Socrates to overcome Gorgias, Polus and eventually Callicles dialectically.

All pleasures are not equally good, some lead to painful consequences. Accepting this proposition leads Socrates to suggest an ordering of pleasures and of activities that lead to a happy life. It is the ordering of values that makes happiness possible. In The Republic when Socrates debates Thrasymachus, the issue becomes one of finding that right order. Socrates wields his dialectical logic with particular effectiveness against Thrasymachus. In the debate, Socrates gets Thrasymachus to admit that the “will to power” leader of the community, or the shepherd of the flock, has less interest in the welfare of the sheep than in the profits of the job. This exposure of his intentions does Thrasymachus no good, he seems to be on the defensive from that point. Socrates proposes to prove that the just man is happier than the unjust. When Socrates argues that the unjust competes with both with his like and with his opposite, and then later claims that “justice was the peculiar excellence of the mind and injustice its defect” ², Thrasymachus falls strangely silent. He seems to have been charmed like a snake by a snake charmer remarks Glaucon. Whatever the reason, Socrates elenchus prevails.

The second essay, “From via antique to via moderna: The ontological revolution” looks at the medieval Augustinian/Aristotelian intellectual construct of “ordo” , what it meant in terms of the relationship between Church and State and the ontological revolution that swept away the concept of “ordo”. “Ordo” was a word used particularly by St. Augustine to describe the meta-physical, underlying order to the world. It was a system of “right-relations”, at the summit of which was God and which was maintained by all creatures knowing their place and submitting to this order. Man’s unchecked will and desires were the antithesis of this order. Rationality was the intellectual grasping of this order so that through reason we could fit into the order. The Church was the embodiment of this order. The state was the embodiment of unchecked will and desire. The priority of church over state represented the manifesting of “ordo”, the “right-relations” that represented the right order in the world.

To combat this intellectual system, it was necessary to challenge the idea of “ordo” and the metaphysics that sustained it. This was accomplished by Ockham’s “ontological revolution” – the championing of nominalism and the rejection of metaphysical entities, like the Platonic Good and the Augustinian “ordo”. By philosophically questioning the possibility of meta-physical entities, universals, etc., the Augustinian system of “ordo” was overthrown. Marsilio came along and applied the implications of that revolution to politics, if there was to be an order it could only be established and sustained by the State. It was not a matter of submitting to the metaphysical “ordo” as represented by the Church, order came about through the action of the State and it was maintained by the State. The State, therefore, took precedence over the Church in the new philosophical view of things. It, rather than the Church, was responsible for order and peace.

The next essay, “A Commentary on Martin Buber’s Eclipse of God” looks at Buber’s account of Nietzsche’s comment that God is dead. Buber claims that it is not that God is dead but rather he has become hidden from man. An eclipse has come between man and God. The philosophers seek “on the one hand, to preserve the idea of the divine as the true concern of religion, and on the other hand to destroy the reality of our relation to him.” It is the reality of our relation to God that is dead. But the death of God brings about a disquietetude in man and that disquietetude suggests that something is missing. It is that which is missing that Buber tries to articulate.

The relation between man and God is most starkly expressed in the relationship of the ethical to the absolute. Buber traces the history of the relationship of the ethical to the absolute. There were, according to Buber, two great attempts to relate the ethical to the absolute. The Oriental and Greek ancients had spoken about the moral order of the Gods, rita in India, it was a cosmic order to which man had to align himself. There was however in Ancient Greece a discordant note between the bios and the cosmos. Plato sought to reconcile this discordant note through the idea of the Good. Man should attempt to become what he is. This first great attempt to relate the ethical to the absolute, however, did not, according to Buber, succeed.

The second great attempt was accomplished by a group of “cattle breeders” united by their common faith in God. “For these Hebrews or Jews, it was not the cosmic order that was decisive, but its sovereign, the Lord of Heaven and Earth.” This second attempt came to grief, according to Buber, because of firstly the individualism brought about by the Christian attempt to relate to the individual rather than the people and secondly the emphasis placed on grace rather than works. Both weakened the relationship of the ethical to the absolute and made way for the secular envisioning of the relation between the ethical and the absolute.

Buber then analyzes why this weakening and eventual disappearance of the relation of the ethical to the absolute occurred. He traces it to philosophy’s part in objectifying the relationship through the process of reflection. ^“From reflection, to mastery, to conjuration, to annihilation, this is the sequence that results in the so-called death of God, or possible more accurately – the fall of man.” As Buber puts it the “I-Thou” relation became transformed to the “I-It” relation and this was because of philosophy’s tendency to reduce all things to an object of thought through reflection.

The following essay is entitled “A Defense of Philosophy: Martin Buber and the Prison of Umfassung”. Is philosophy guilty of this annihilation of the ethical to the absolute? Is it because of philosophy’s reduction of all things through reflection to objects of thought? This essay questions that assumption. It begins by examining the issues raised by Descartes’ resolution of the problem of doubt. By privileging the subjective as that which provides certainty, Descartes creates a chasm between the subjective and the objective. Buber takes up this problem. Initially he thinks that knowledge of the objective could be obtained through mysticism. The subject imbues the object. Buber however realizes that mysticism cannot work. Either the subject is dissolved in the object or the object is dissolved in the subject. We have either the extinction of the self or the subjectivization of the object.

Buber proposes that the subject-object chasm can be resolved by the I-Thou relation, the Umfassung or inclusion. In the I-Thou relation, the I is held fast by the Thou. There can be no reflection, since reflection can only come about when the I is freed from the Umfassung so that the “bending back” of consciousness can occur. It is when this “bending back” or re-flection of consciousness takes place that doubt can enter into the picture. Doubt enters in that moment of freedom. Buber puts forward the Umfassung as a relationship in which the I is held fast by the Thou. There is no separation, hence no possibility of re-flection, and as a consequence, no doubting. But in order to accomplish this, the Umfassung becomes a prison where separation and freedom are impossible.

Buber makes a distinction between two types of faith – emunah and pistis. Emunah is characteristic of the type of faith manifested in the I-Thou relation. It symbolizes a kind of trust. Pistis is the faith exemplified by a more reflective type of faith. Emunah is more characteristic of the Judaism, pistis is more characteristic of Christianity. Pistis thus leads to that sequence that Buber outlines – from reflection to mastery to conjuration to annihilation – that leads to the death of God. So it seems that for Buber it is Christianity’s alliance with philosophy, with re-flection, that results in the death of God.

In questioning this position, the author points to the example of Job in the Old Testament. The protective fence of God’s presence was taken away to test Job’s faith. But even when he was separated, Job kept his faith. The example of faith in separation, the author uses as that possibility of faith during re-flection. If anything, it demands a greater reserve of faith. So the enemy of belief is not re-flection, it is doubt. The Umfassung is a protective fence that prevents humankind from the test of faith that comes from separation and freedom. What man does when that protective fence is removed is what is important.

The next essay is entitled “Epistemological Skepticism”. It looks at the phenomenon of doubt with particular interest in the mechanics of doubt. In other words, how doubt operates to invalidate one’s idea of what is certain and true and how can this invalidation be itself repudiated. Three models of skepticism are looked at, Descartes, Hume and G.E Moore. Two of these are taken from one of my earlier books – The Righteous State. The purpose of epistemological skepticism and its resolution is to create an accepted discourse of things wherein particular truths are accepted as ‘true’ and other claims are considered discredited, or gauche and passé, out of favour and obsolescent. When a claim cannot be discredited in an absolute sense, it still may be rendered ineffectual and impotent by making it untimely or obsolete.

Epistemological skepticism paves the way for the post-truth society. It questions the possibility of all knowledge; in its most radical form it implies no knowledge is possible. If there can be no truths about reality, then all truths about reality are on the same level of certainty. One perspective about reality is as good as the next. So who determines what perspective or view about reality is accepted? And what mechanisms are operative in this determination? It may be that the ultimate consequence of epistemological skepticism is that a conventional reality of accepted truths is created. A conventional view of reality is propagated and rules the day.

In the case of Descartes, the paradigm of doubt is the evil genius or demon who doubts every assertion that is made. Descartes looks for an assertion, or truth, that cannot be doubted. He finds it in the assertion: “cogito ergo sum” – “I think therefore I am”. This is Descartes’ pivot of certainty. He attempts to move from this one, fundamental truth to validate all that he thinks is certain about the world. But to do so, Descartes needs to prove two things, firstly that there is a God and secondly that God does not deceive him. He accomplishes the first by proofs of God’s existence, most noticeable St. Alsem’s ‘existential’ proof, and having proved God’s existence, he easily counts as God’s perfection, his lack of deceptiveness.

The problem with this is that proofs of God’s existence are not as persuasive to other philosophers as to Descartes. Hume for example completely rejects proofs of God’s existence. Descartes is stuck therefore with privileged access to the subjective aspect of knowledge but debarred from knowledge of the external world. He cannot get out to the objective. As we saw in a previous essay, this was the problem that Buber attempted to resolve – to get out to the external world. Descartes’ philosophy, as Heidegger observed, results in a subjectivism.

Hume rejects Descartes’ rationalism and considers all knowledge as arising from sensations; he champions Lockean empiricism rather than Descartes’ rationalism. Hume puts forward a radical skepticism. There can be no connectivity between events in the subjective domain; any connectivity is just a matter of force of habit. What we perceive are sensations, mental events, and these cannot point necessarily to the existence of external objects; the continued existence of objects is again a matter of an extrapolation based on force of habit; cause and effect are nothing but habitual expectations. Hume attacks the basis of the proofs of God’s existence given by Descartes. Reason cannot prove the existence of anything. From his empiricism he postulates that we can only perceive sensations, mental events, and from these mental events we can say nothing about what is out there externally, we cannot deduce existence from events in our mind. In this way, he sought to undercut the basis of Descartes argument for God’s existence. These were some of the intellectual consequences of Hume’s radical skepticism. As Hume himself said about the effects of his radical skepticism “…I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning and can look upon no opinion even as more probable than another.” ³

There were three basic reactions to Kant’s encompassing philosophical reply to Hume’s skepticism. One came from Hegel and was taken over by the ‘Young Hegelians’ and Karl Marx who turned Hegel’s philosophy on its head and ended up with dialectical materialism. The other led through Schopenhauer to Nietzsche and post-Nietzscheans and led to the idea that truths are generated by the will to power. The third reaction came from Cambridge philosophers such as Russell, Wittgenstein and G.E. Moore and led in general to the idea that philosophy itself has gone off track because of its misunderstanding of how language works. To the radical, skepticism of David Hume, G.E. Moore suggested that we needed to get back to a ‘common sense’ idea of reality.

Moore gave his proof of an external world in this way: (1) Here’s one hand, and here’s another; (2) There are two objects that exist; (3) Therefore there is an external world. The point Moore is emphasizing is that we can know something and yet can’t prove it. However, in a sense, as this essay attempts to show, Moore’s proof is structurally similar to Descartes’ proof of the “cogito ergo sum”. The “cogito” is asserted the more it is doubted, in other words, doubt reinforces thinking, so that the more the “cogito” is doubted the more it asserts itself. How is Moore’s proof of an external world similar to this? The more the “common sense” perception of reality is denied, the more it asserts itself. This can be called the “sociological force” of common-sense reality.

Wittgenstein critiques Moore’s proof of an external reality. He speaks about “hinge propositions”. He considers “Here’s one hand, and here’s another” to be a hinge proposition. A hinge proposition is one which cannot be proved, but it provides a framework wherein discourse takes place. If one accepts the hinge proposition then discourse based upon it is logically coherent. It is a view that seems to be supported by Richard Rorty when he speaks about language as something which is not tied to representing reality but instead it is an autonomous region of coherent statements related to each other. Moore later on in life seems to admit that he cannot prove that the external world existed but his common-sense view of reality won the day in Anglo-American philosophy.

The common-sense view of reality appears to have become the default position of linguistic philosophy. If someone asks about the reality of the external world, then they are using language in a way that it was not meant to be used, linguistic therapy is the solution for this excursion outside the limits of language. Linguistic philosophy thus seems to draw boundaries within which we can speak properly, outside these boundaries we flounder linguistically. There must be clear criteria for determining the truth or falsity of statements. If these do not exist, then we are wandering outside the bounds of proper language. However, for those operating outside this idea of language, Continental philosophers for example, there can be no common discourse about what is true or certain.

In the “Post-Truth Society”, I look at the other stream of thought descended from initially the struggle between science and philosophy which led to an epistemological crisis addressed by Descartes. Hume’s radical skepticism followed and then Kant’s response to Hume’s skepticism enchanted and bewitched philosophy. Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Heidegger followed and outlined what can be called the post-modern stream of thought. It is this stream of thought which is most closely associated with the “post-truth’ society. Nietzsche weaponized the skepticism and turned it against the tradition of Western philosophy initiated by Socrates and Plato. All truths are a product of the will to power. In this view of things, the weak can shortcut the circuit of the strong through an ideology that celebrates and glorifies weakness.

Schopenhauer is a key figure in the turn towards Indian philosophy as an alternative world view that explains and gives an answer to the ‘problem of life’. The noumenon to which Kant referred, Schopenhauer claimed to be the ‘will’. We could know the will because we had direct access to it. We are the will. The will, however, leads us to desire something and when that desire is quenched, we want something else. The will leads us to unceasing desire that led to a sense of continual wanting, an unquenching thirst that produced unhappiness and boredom. Schopenhauer found that Indian thought had recognized this ‘existential’ problem and has solved it through what he thought was the suppression and eventual annihilation of the will. There are problems associated with Schopenhauer’s interpretation of Indian thought in this way. We will say more of this later. Sufficed to say, Schopenhauer’s final solution to the frustrating demands of the will was – annihilation of the will, what Nietzsche later called ‘decadence’ or ‘nihilism’.

Nietzsche was very much influenced by Schopenhauer early on but later repudiated his teaching of salvation through the annihilation of the will. It was this decadence, as Nietzsche puts it – the will preferring to will its own annihilation than not to will – that causes Nietzsche to seek a new answer. It was as a response to this ‘decadence’ that Nietzsche proposed the will to power as fundamental. The will to power is life. Life is more important than truth. Truth should be subservient to life. Truth should be therefore subservient to the will to power. In other words, truth should be sacrificed to the will to power in order that the will to power be justified as being above all things.

Schopenhauer by reducing noumenon to the will opens the way for Nietzsche’s move to put the will to power, “life”, above the annihilation of the will and his move to put the will to power above truth. Schopenhauer utilizes Indian philosophy to confirm or consolidate his ideas, but is Schopenhauer using Indian philosophy as it is understood in the tradition? Swami Vivekananda was one of the first to question Schopenhauer’s understanding of Indian philosophy. There is some confusion in Schopenhauer’s idea of the will. Is the will maya i.e., a false reality, or is it Brahman? If we negate the will to find salvation, then Brahman can’t be the will. Ayon Maharaj asks: “First, does Schopenhauer simply equate the will with Kant’s noumenal thing-in-itself? Second, to what extent is Schopenhauer’s doctrine of the will compatible with Vedāntic philosophy, according to which the holy Ātman/Brahman is the noumenal essence of ourselves and the universe?…Moreover, Vivekananda reproaches Schopenhauer for misinterpreting Vedānta, which conceives the noumenal reality not as the evil will but as the transcendental Ātman/Brahman beyond all willing and suffering.”⁴ Schopenhauer therefore ultimately proposes that the will itself is noumenal reality, a position that is neither Vedantic nor Buddhist.

Ultimately there is a confusion between maya and Brahman, between atman and jiva, between moksha and bondage, Schopenhauer by his ambiguity makes it possible for Nietzsche to seize upon the annihilation of the will as salvation in Schopenhauer and to act as the high priest for life as the will to power, glorifying the will and downplaying the transcendence of the will. As Strauss will later exclaim, Nietzsche champions the devil while denying God ⁵The will to power alone exists. In Nietzsche’s view according to Strauss, the Devil exists, God does not. It is a tragic mistake for man, and it creates a culture where truth is subservient to the will to power, and humankind is returned to the cave in darkness and despair.

The genealogy of the post-truth society can be traced from Schopenhauer’s interpretation of Kant’s noumenon as the will, his misinterpretation of Indian philosophy’s concept of liberation or moksha as the annihilation of the will, Nietzsche’s correcting of Schopenhauer’s annihilation of the will by equating life to the will to power, thereby valuing will to power more than truth since Nietzsche is choosing will to power as fundamental to life and since truth is a function of the will to power.

Nietzsche has arrived then at that position where he can defend and turn back Socrates’ rebuttal of the “evil doctrine” of Callicles and Thrasymachus. Socrates rebuttal depended on his analysis of the “doctrine” showing that the proponents of the doctrine were interested in the final analysis in wielding a selfish power over those whom they were put in charge of. They were using their position of authority to aggrandize themselves at the expense of those they were in charge. Socrates, in other words, exposed them; stripped them of their masks. Nietzsche turned the argument around. Socrates, in this narrative, was the one who should be exposed; it was he who was wearing the mask. Will to power is life; the “evil doctrine” is a life-giving philosophy. Socrates wants to rob those who are empowered with life, of the source of their life.

But the weapon that Socrates wields is the scalpel of truth, the method of elenchus. Socrates uses the dialectical analytics of truth-seeking to uncover what he claims is the truth of what his opponent is saying. To Nietzsche, however, there is no objective truth, all statements are products of the will to power, so Socrates’ truth-seeking is suspect. It is an inauthentic act because it does not profess openly its will to power goal. Socrates truth-seeking is an attempt to disempower those who are authentically expressing themselves. Socrates’ attempt to disempower stems from weakness. Nietzsche claims it stems from his ugliness and all that it sociologically entails. Nietzsche thus turns the narrative around. Socrates is being false because he does not admit the will to power that lies behind his words. His opponents propose the will to power, even though it is disguised, as that which is behind their claims. Socrates in his attempt to uncover the “evil doctrine” just authenticates his opponents. In denying the existence of God while allowing the existence of evil, Nietzsche validates the “evil doctrine”. The Good simply does not exist in this narrative.

But is Nietzsche himself mutilating and distorting the truth? The will to power doctrine is itself suspect. Because if all truths are expressions of the will to power, then the will to power doctrine is itself also an expression of the will to power. It is the will to power trying to justify itself. The will to power doctrine is the “father of all lies”, it generates all lies since at the core of its assertion lies a duplicity. In this view of things, the will to power doctrine is generated by the will to power. It is therefore not a truth about reality, but merely a perspective that attempts to empower philosophically those who proclaim the will to power doctrine. Nietzsche himself falls victim to this logic. Socratic logic outmaneuvers him, the Socratic elenchus remains unscathed. In the post-truth society, however, reason and logic are thrown out, Nietzsche has lambasted reason and logic as the cause of the nihilism of Greek culture; Socratic rationalism – is the cause of the death of Greek culture. Nietzsche has clearly seen what he needs to banish and exile – Socratic rationalism. Ignorance and darkness overcome everything. We are back in the cave.

Endnotes

Keynes, John Maynard. (1964) The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, A Harvest/HBJ Book, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, New York ch. 24, p. 383
Plato. (1985) The Republic, translated by Desmond Lee, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, Penguin Books, p. 100
Lavine, T.Z. (1984) From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophic Quest. New York: Bantam Books, p 168.
Maharaj, Ayon. (2017) “Swami Vivekananda’s Vedantic critique of Schopenhauer’s Doctrine of the Will”.

Strauss, Leo. (1996) Note on a Plan of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil in Laurence Lampert, Leo Strauss and Nietzsche. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Bibliography

Descartes, Rene. (1972) Discourse on Method and the Meditations. Translated by F.E. Sutcliffe. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books.

Hume, David. (1968) A Treatise of Human Nature. ed. E.C. Mossner (originally published 1739) reprinted 1968.

Keynes, John Maynard (1964) The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, New York: A Harvest/HBJ Book, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers.

Lavine, T.Z. (1984) From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophic Quest. New York: Bantam Books.

Maharaj, Ayon. (2017) “Swami Vivekananda’s Vedantic Critique of Schopenhauer’s Doctrine of the Will”.

Plato, (1985) The Republic, translated by Desmond Lee, Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books.

Strauss, Leo. (1996) Note on a Plan on Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil in Laurence Lampert, Leo Strauss and Nietzsche. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Guyana: Ideological Opportunism

The IMF/World Bank Intervention into Guyana

Guyana has had a long and fitful relationship with the IMF and World Bank. In the 1960s, Guyana was hard pressed to obtain foreign aid. Jagan wrote, “Actually, US foreign aid has dropped from US$3.5 billion during the Kennedy period to $1.4 billion in 1969” (Jagan 1968). Aid had been used historically in an attempt to shape the politics of Guyana. In fact aid was used both as a carrot and a stick in an attempt to defang Marxist economics. In the late 1970’s when Burnham was under threat by the WPF, aid was forthcoming in the form of an IMF loan. According to Premdas:

Significantly, the year 1978 was also the year when the Guyana (sic) received a significant loan from the International Monetary Fund. Changes in the U.S.-Guyana relations became identifiable when the U.S. extended a sum of US $24.7 million to Guyana in 1978. In the same year, the IMF agreed to provide the PNC government with a standby loan of US$135 million…From practically losing all U.S. aid by 1975, Guyana, according to U.S. Ambassador George Roberts, was receiving the highest per capita aid from the United States during 1978-1979…The Washington Post noted that the sudden massive aid to the Burnham regime as of 1978-1979 onwards, was part of ‘U.S. efforts to check the spread of leftist influences in the Caribbean’ (Premdas 1995, 131-132).

By the 1980s, however, with the advent of the Reagan administration in the United States, a new philosophy guided the distribution of foreign aid. The Washington Consensus tied aid to the implementation of Structural Adjustment policies. These adjustment policies began in the early 1980s under Burnham and necessitated a reduction in the size of the Public Sector, something that affected supporters of the PNC more than those of the PPP. Burnham led a campaign against the IMF because of the layoffs in the Public Sector and by 1985 Guyana became the first country to be refused access to IMF funds (Ferguson 1995, 54-55). With the death of Burnham in 1985 and the accession of Desmond Hoyte to the Presidency, a new era in relations between Guyana and the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) began. Tyrone Ferguson gives a comprehensive account of the effect of Structural Adjustment (SA) on Guyana. He makes clear the connection between Structural Adjustment and Good Governance under the Hoyte administration.

According to Ferguson, Hoyte was open to instituting economic reform to the socialist model that Burnham had established. “The new administration began in 1986 in unmistakable terms to define a different vision of political economy by articulating its commitment to a project of market-oriented development and the imperative of normalizing relations with the Western financial community” (Ferguson 1995, 56). Ferguson also points to the association of Structural Adjustment with good governance and the impact of its requirements on the politics. Ferguson writes, “a fundamental element of good governance is the implantation of political democratization in those adjusting countries which are, in fact, distinguished by the absence of a tradition of competitive electoral politics, perceived and deemed to be free and fair by domestic participants in, and external observers of, the process” (Ferguson 1995, 204).The requirement for free and fair elections was held out to the opposition PPP as an incentive so that they would become part of the Adjustment process. The opposition forces and the unions had opposed the implementation of SA. The opposition, feeling that the PNC was continuing Burnham’s opportunistic policies, was distrustful of Hoyte’s intentions. SA loans seemed to be just another lifeline thrown out to the PNC to perpetuate their rule. The idea of good governance, however, held out some promise. SA Loans were tied to free and fair elections. Ifill states:

From the early months in 1990, a large number of external actors (both governmental and nongovernmental) brought their individual and combined influence and pressure to bear on the Hoyte regime to force extensive electoral reform. They all publicly and unmistakably alluded to the connection between SAP and electoral democracy. The most significant and influential pressures emanated from the US authorities and culminated in the US government’s decision to discontinue financial support to the ERP in 1991, and the clear association between its resumption and conducting free and fair elections. The British and Canadian governments followed suit, linking potential aid to the holding of free and fair elections. (Ifill 2002)

Not only were SA loans dependent on free and fair elections, the opposition PPP, in order to gain the benefit of free and fair elections, had to accept the free market, SA assumptions. Ifill claims, “It is important to note that explicit support from major Western donor, in particular the US, did not occur until there were explicit statements from the political opposition, in particular Cheddi Jagan, indicating that he had moved away from his radical leftist, anti-capitalist stance and had accepted the principle of laissez-faire in economic affairs” (Ifill 2002).

Jagan was accused by the PNC of pursuing “Machiavellian politics”. Jagan himself said that he had moved away from leftist politics and had accepted free market principles. In an interview with Fred Rosen and Mario Murillo, Jagan said “Let me just say that socialism is not on the agenda in Guyana. We can speak of a period of national democracy” (Jagan 1997, NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol. 31:1. Copyright 1997 by the North American Congress on Latin America). In that interview, he appeared to be saying that his Marxism was a product of the historical circumstances of Guyana, and that one should not be ideological when it comes to economic policy, but do what is best for the country, a philosophy that seems remarkably close to pragmatism. In all fairness to Jagan, at that point he could do little to oppose the IMF/World Bank policies considering the economic crisis that faced Guyana. In this sense Jagan’s turn towards free market economics resembles Michael Manley’s similar conversion.

Ferguson outlines the effect of Structural Adjustment on the exchange rate, fiscal policy, monetary policy and public sector reform among other things and he analyses the consequences on various sections of the populations. There were winners and losers in the post Adjustment Guyana. According to Ferguson, in writing about the IMF-EFF agreement in 1980 and the World Bank SAL programme of 1981 – “These two programmes gave a stronger focus to the supply-side of the economy, but within an ideological context that was concerned to reverse the existing situation of a dominant public sector in economic activities” (Ferguson 1999, 359). The consequences of rolling back the state’s activity in the economic domain “…presented the PNC government with a major dilemma” (Ferguson 1999, 360). It would be beneficial mostly to those opposed to the PNC government. Ferguson makes these observations –

The main losers from any such programme could only be the PNC’s core political support – the urban-based African group which, when sugar was taken out of the equation, provided the bulk of public sector employees… Importantly, also, private sector led growth had another significant implication of prime political import. Its beneficiaries would come primarily from ethnic groups opposed to the PNC government and more directly the East Indian group that was basically aligned with its main political opponent, the PPP. (Ferguson 1999, 360-361).

Ferguson’s observations can be brought into sharper focus – those who benefited in the society by privatization and liberalization were private sector elites, many of them being East Indian, along with Chinese and white businessmen – the latter being the very sector that both PNC and PPP had initially fought against. The political history of Guyana can be recounted as: the domination by elites, the struggle against this domination and the eventual return to precisely that domination by business elites (albeit now expanded ethnically to include numerous East Indians). The ideological change of direction can be taken, from one interpretation, to be an indication of the failure of socialism and nationalism to engender economic well being (or as Manley had put it – to bring about growth), and its replacement by free market principles. However, this study argues that a more accurate interpretation may be that the private sector led liberalization policies promoted by the IMF/World Bank have been ideologically based, and underpinned with a political agenda – the re-colonization of the Third World.

Apart from emasculating the state and benefiting business elites, has this ideologically driven free market reform (as opposed to pragmatic reform) been beneficial to Caribbean people as a whole? Certainly in Guyana some have prospered, however, many have not. In 1993 statistics, the income of the lowest 40% of the population was 17% of the total income of Guyana; the income of the highest 10% was 32% of the Guyanese national income (2000 World Development Indicators). The gap between rich and poor is significant and increasing. The same holds for Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. The elites have certainly benefitted. The middle classes are disappearing. The poor sink into deeper poverty. The cycle of ethno-politicization in Guyana continues with new winners and new losers. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose – one might be tempted to say.

Guyana: Ideological Opportunism

Burnham and the PNC years

Elections were again held in British Guiana in 1957. Jagan’s PPP won nine seats, Burnham’s PPP won three seats, other minor parties, the NLF and the UDP (United Democratic Party) won one seat each. The Jaganite PPP became the government and Jagan became the Minister of Trade and Industry. After the elections of 1957, the ethnic divide hardened. The Burnhamite PPP merged with the conservative UDP to form the PNC (People’s National Congress). The question can be asked – was the split engendered by racism or ideology? According to Garner, “The initial phase of ethnopoliticization in British Guiana was completed in 1956 by the splitting of the nationalist movement (at every level) into two opposing camps within which, one or the other of the two largest ethnic groups were dominant” (Garner 2008, 107). If the distinction between ‘Marxist’ Jagan and ‘socialist’ or ‘moderate’ Burnham is allowed then a case can be made that ideology was indeed a factor. However, if Burnham’s later policies were taken into account, then it is clear than the distinction between Marxist Jagan and socialist Burnham can not hold. Opportunism, in the face of British and American opposition to Cheddi Jagan’s avowed Marxism, would seem to be a more accurate explanation of Burnham’s moderation.

Burnham could be seen, from one perspective, not as a principled socialist or Marxist, but as an opportunistic politician who was not ideologically committed to a particular position but who would adopt whatever political posture that suited his political objectives. The argument could be made, however, that Burnham’s public postures should be assessed as strategic posturing. Hence the idea that Jagan was politically naïve, while Burnham was more ‘politically intelligent’ has been advanced as an explanation. Ethno-opportunism, however, if defined as a community colluding with foreign interests in pursuit of political power, seems to be a more viable explanation in the light of the distinction between word and deed. Ethno-opportunism, however, has its downside. It means that collusion with foreign interests results in a competition for approval from the colonial powers and as the PNC was to discover later – two can play at that game, particularly when the financial persuasion of the IMF/World Bank ‘Washington Consensus’ became utilized.

In the 1961 elections, there were a number of political parties competing, among them were Jagan’s PPP, Burnham’s PNC and Portuguese businessman Peter D’Aguiar’s UF (United Force).The PPP won with 20 seats, the PNC won 11 and the conservative UF won 4 seats. The period after the 1961 elections was characterized by destabilization and violence. An account of that period posted by the US Department of State on the relations between Washington and Jagan and Burnham states:

Jagan believed with good reason that Washington’s opposition was one of his main problems. While these diplomatic efforts were underway, the U.S. Government acted on a covert political plan to defeat Jagan by funneling secret financial support, campaign advice and expertise, and other assistance to the two main opposition parties, Linden Forbes Burnham’s People’s National Congress (PNC) and Peter D’Aguiar’s United Front (UF). (370) Realizing that Burnham, as the leading Afro-Guyanese politician, was Jagan’s most able and by far his most popular opponent, the U.S. Government focused its efforts on him and the PNC. (391, 414) The U.S. Government supplied anti-Jagan films and publications, cut almost all aid to British Guiana, and refused all of Jagan’s overtures for high-level meetings with U.S. officials, hoping to undercut his prestige. (US Department of State, 2005)

After the 1961 elections, the PPP introduced its austerity budget of 1962. This budget advocated a regime of progressive taxation, and a compulsory savings scheme on salaries above G$100 per month. Trade unions antagonistic to the PPP, and as St. Pierre and Garner have claimed, influenced by American trade unions (the AFL-CIO), agitated against the budget (St. Pierre 1999, Garner 2008, 139). St. Pierre writes, “Thus by February 1962, when rioting broke out, American trade union influence was well established” (St. Pierre 1999, 148). The 1962 riots escalated and ethnic violence broke out in many areas. The question uppermost in the minds of British and American officials was how to deal with this jostle for power between ‘communist’ Jagan and ‘socialist’ Burnham and their respective ethnic communal supporters. Jagan, it must be remembered, had been democratically elected in 1953, 1957 and 1961.

There was one school of thought that envisioned weaning Jagan from his communist ways; that Jagan was not a committed communist although there were close associates who were ideologically so defined (Garner 2008, St. Pierre 1999). Another school of thought viewed Jagan as an unrepentant communist who would be another Castro in the Caribbean and who therefore had to be rendered politically impotent. Both Maurice St. Pierre and Steve Garner have detailed the intervention of Britain and America into the politics of British Guiana, and their attempts to keep Jagan out of power, seeing him as representative of that communist threat and another Fidel Castro. Suffice to say, Proportional Representation (PR) was imposed on the country as the best means of keeping Jagan from winning the elections. PR was implemented in British Guiana before the 1964 elections. “On 2 October 1963, COLOFF official R.W. Piper called in an American Embassy Officer to explain that, in an effort to solve the BG constitutional problem, HMG would probably convene a conference on 22 October, during which time Sandys would state that HMG was ‘imposing’ a solution involving a new electoral system based on proportional representation” (St. Pierre 1999, 187).

There were three major parties involved in the 1964 elections held under the new PR format: the PPP, the PNC and the United Force (UF). The results showed that the PPP won 24 seats with 45.8% of the votes, the PNC won 22 with 40.5% of the votes, and the UF won 7 with 12.4 % of the votes. The 1964 elections were conducted under a State of Emergency which continued until December 1966. Since none of the parties had more than 50% of the votes, the PNC and UF formed a coalition government that administered the country from 1964 to 1968. During this time, Forbes Burnham would, according to Premdas, “proceed to erect, slowly initially, a thoroughgoing system of ethnic control in Guyana” (Premdas 1995, 115). The UF, necessary at first to ensure a majority in Parliament, became a millstone around the neck of the PNC in the view of Burnham (Burnham 1970, 153). D’Aguiar’s party represented the old privileged class, who were aligned to Western interests and who were intent on keeping their positions of superiority in the society. After a number of MP’s crossed over to the PNC, the UF was expelled from the coalition and the PNC gained full control of the government (Premdas 1995, 118).

Premdas describes how the PNC consolidated its power after the 1968 elections which “would be incontrovertibly established as rigged elections” (Premdas 1995, 118). The process entailed a radical reformation of the economic structure of the country, which had “favoured big businessmen, large property owners, and foreign companies” and which did not favor his party’s “communal supporters” (Premdas 1995, 119). Burnham’s socialism, in other words, was a consequence of his objective of seizing economic power from “communal supporters” who opposed him and bestowing it on his own supporters. Garner suggests a similar process, adding “militarization” to nationalization as the means of “enabling the PNC to extend it patronage network” (Garner 2008. 157). By 1970, Guyana was declared to be a “Co-operative Republic”. According to Premdas, “From private enterprise, the economy was to be founded on co-operatives as the main instrument of production, distribution, and consumption” (Premdas 1995, 120). Burnham maintained power through rigged elections and through manipulating the legal system to legitimize political authority. The majorities obtained through fraudulent means were used to change the constitution of Guyana. According to Garner:

Between 1968 and 1980, the distinction between the Guyanese state and the PNC was steadily eroded by a series of constitutional amendments, referenda and pieces of legislation. By 1985, the PNC had become the Guyanese state, as Burnham had declared in his 1974 ‘Declaration of Sophia’ that ‘the party should assume unapologetically its paramountcy over the Government which is merely one of its executive arms’. (Garner 2008, 157).

The economy, meanwhile, was undergoing profound changes. John Gafar gives a detailed account of the performance of the Guyanese economy in the period 1960 to 2001 in his book Guyana: From State Control to Free Markets. Suffice to say, while GDP and per-capita GDP rose from 1964 to 1976, after 1976 up to 1990 there was a catastrophic decline in GDP (from approximately G$24000M to about G$16000M) and per-capita GDP (from approximately G$35000 to G$19000) (Gafar2003, 38). Gafar writes that the state of crisis in the economy was due to “falling production, mounting arrears on foreign debt payments and widening trade deficits due largely to inappropriate domestic expansionary monetary and fiscal policies, and financial mismanagement” (Gafar 2003, 43). Ferguson states that “Guyana was in a virtual state of collapse by 1985” (Ferguson 1995, 32). This decline in economic performance had far-reaching political consequences because of its effect on PNC supporters.

While the PNC was facing this economic crisis, the Working Peoples Alliance (WPA), led by one of the Caribbean most illustrious intellectuals, Walter Rodney, organized demonstrations and strikes against the government among traditional supporters of the PNC. Premdas writes: “The PNC regime, especially since 1977, had become embattled. It was attacked by Rodney’s WPA and the other left-wing groups; threatened by the withdrawal of support from the middle class professional group which managed the day to day operations of the government; and bewildered by the demonstrations and strikes mounted by its own supporters in its traditional strongholds …” (Premdas 1995, 131). In June 1980, Rodney was assassinated and Burnham resorted to increased repression to continue his hold on political power. Guyana descended into a reign of terror that was to end only with the death of Forbes Burnham in 1985 and the assumption of office by Desmond Hoyte, who, realizing that the repressive nature of Burnham’s rule had created an explosive social situation in Guyana, decided to initiate changes in the political and economic policies of the government. Melissa Ifill claimed that:

Desmond Hoyte’s accession to the president’s office after the death of Forbes Burnham in August 1985, gave rise to fundamental changes in the political and economic direction of the state by the early 1990s. The Hoyte administration quickly confirmed its desire to institute policy changes in the local economy despite opposition from some influential members within the PNC. Under Hoyte’s stewardship, several strategies and policies were adopted that conflicted with the co-operative socialist ideology that the PNC, under Burnham’s leadership, had espoused. (Ifill 2002).

In fact, the economic crisis was too profound to ignore. Aid was critical if the economy had any chance of being resuscitated. In 1985, Guyana had become the first country to be declared as being ineligible to have access to the resources of the IMF (Ferguson 1995, 55). International Financial Institutions, therefore, had to be assuaged. The relationship between the IMF/World Bank and Guyana had been a strained and erratic one, and it is this intervention of the IMF/World Bank into the Guyanese drama that played out in the 1980s to 1990s that will be looked at next.

Guyana: Ideological Opportunism

Ideology, Pragmatism and Ethno-Opportunism

Ferguson has claimed that Jagan displayed an “essential ‘innocence’” that was responsible for much of his political problems with the United States and the United Kingdom, while Burnham “displayed a clear-headed grasp of the realpolitik of his environment” (Ferguson 1999, xi, xii). In this regard the conflict between political pragmatism and ideological purity needs to be examined. Certainly in the heady days of the 1960’s, when the Third World was aflame with independence and liberation movements, political idealism was not unusual. But the argument holds that Jagan was perhaps carried away by the revolutionary geist and rhetoric of the age.

Ferguson states:

The Burnham-Jagan nationalist coalition of forces in the early 1950’s for a brief moment galvanised the Guyanese people and inspired hope for a unity of purpose in nation-building. But this short-lived unity of the nationalist forces across class and race was irretrievably ruptured and has left in its wake the political debris – including recriminations, attribution of blame, deep personal enmities and the like – for a persisting and intractable alienation of the two major racial groups in Guyana. Stoking the embers of the emergent racial alienation at the time were exceedingly powerful external interests that unabashedly exploited this crucial political divergence in pursuit of their own geo-strategic imperatives, linked to the Cold War.

In this connection, Jagan and the PPP provided the two major and relevant Western powers of the period, the US and the UK, with a ready-made reason for their divisive interventionism. In the harsh Cold war context of the moment, the Soviet-oriented communist sympathies of the PPP’s top leadership were objectionable to them from their strategic vantage-point of the life-and-death struggle with the Soviet Union. This was the basic stuff of realpolitik, conceived as external policy and behaviour linked closely to power and national interests and divorced from considerations of morality and principle. Within the framework of the prevailing global ideological contestation for supremacy, the fate of Jagan and the PPP was effectively sealed. (Ferguson 1999, xi)

The question arises – when does pragmatism dissolve into opportunism? What are the limits of pragmatism and ideological purity? For small, militarily non-powerful, Caribbean states, the question is critical. The PNM’s post-1991 championing of the private sector as the engine of growth, Manley’s conversion to the doctrine of the private sector as the engine of growth, Jagan’s acceptance of the same doctrine, all of this points to the vulnerability of Caribbean states in the American Lake and the success of the “ideological offensive” of neo-liberalism (or neo-conservatism) in the post Cold War age. How is the limit of resistance to the curtailment of autonomy in the region to be gauged? For certainly Ferguson’s comments do not advocate a purely rubber-stamp role to Caribbean governments. They raise a critically important and legitimate issue, particularly in light of the fact that governments in the region, including Guyana, have embraced the doctrine of market led reforms anyhow. The PPP no longer advocates a Marxist state; its policies are avowedly market oriented.

If the question of pragmatism and ideological purity is one way of assessing the history of Guyana from the 1960’s, Ralph Premdas’ study introduces another perspective. For Premdas the history of Guyana since that split in the PPP produced two ethnically based parties, competing in a struggle to the death for dominance. The moment of reconciliation was irretrievable lost. According to Premdas:

The moment of opportunity to build a new basis for inter-group relations and a new society was lost forever it seemed, when the two sectional leaders parted company, formed their own parties and pursued their own ambitions for personal acclaim and power. The moment of reconciliation is a rare event in a multi-ethnic state suffused with all sorts of underlying predispositions for ethnically-inspired behaviour. What makes the loss of that opportune moment even more unbearable is the following sequence of events in which the old divisions embedded in the social structure were exploited and exacerbated by a new form of mass politics. A new type of party emerged, constructed on the discrete ethnic fragments into which the old unified party had been broken. (Premdas 1995, 45)

One may ask – what caused this moment of opportunity to be squandered? If the events leading up to the split in the PPP are analyzed, it is clear that pressure was brought to bear on the publicly proclaimed Marxist PPP by both the United States and the United Kingdom. As Ferguson writes – “The British had their clear strategic concerns in Guyana. Apart from safeguarding their colonial economic interests, a major concern, echoing that of the Americans, had to do with ensuring that Guyana was not ruled by a communist government, closely aligned with the hostile Soviet Union… the Guyana debacle of the early 1960’s was unfolding in the context of the Cold war at its height…” (Ferguson 1999, xii, xiii).

Maurice St. Pierre describes the events after the election of the PPP in 1953 (St. Pierre, 1999, 103-128). British troops were sent to British Guiana in October of 1953 to prevent “Communist subversion of the Government”. A number of PPP government ministers were detained. Tensions between PPP supporters and the colonial administration under Governor Savage escalated. (For a description of these events, see: St. Pierre 1999, 103-128; Jagan 1997, 123-146; Burnham 1970, xix) The constant pressure brought to bear on the PPP exacerbated the fault line between ‘moderates’ and ‘Marxists’. Finally in February 1955 a motion of no-confidence in the executive was moved by the Burnham faction. It was clear that the British government was sending a message that Burnham was a more acceptable leader than Jagan, and that message was having an impact on Burnham and his supporters.

The motion of no-confidence led to a walk-out by the Jaganite faction. At this point a new executive was voted in and Burnham was chosen as leader of the party. The Jaganite faction reacted to this by expelling Burnham and some of his main followers – Jai Narine Singh, and Dr. J.B. Latchmansingh – and disciplining other supporters of Burnham (St. Pierre 1999, 135). Eventually the party split into two factions, one headed by Jagan, the other by Burnham. The pressure put on the party and on the society as a whole by the events following the elections of 1953 and the election of a publicly declared Marxist PPP government was the trigger that fractured the party and the society.

Premdas writes about “triggers” that precipitate ethnic conflict. He claims:

The factors that triggered ethnic conflict were clearly identifiable but occurred at different times during the evolution of the problem. These factors were: (1) colonial manipulation; (2) introduction of mass democratic politics; and (3) rivalry over resource allocation. It is necessary to cumulatively conceive of the problem in which these factors at different points served as precipitating ‘triggers’. At various times, a particular triggering factor deposited a layer of division which in turn provided the next step for the deposit of a new layer of forces to the accumulating crisis. (Premdas 1995, 185).

The pressure put on the government and the society after the 1953 elections by the colonial powers were indeed a form of “colonial manipulation” designed to prevent what these powers conceived to be a “communist subversion”. There is no doubt that the geo-politics of the era was the deciding factor in that intervention. As Ferguson says, “In the harsh Cold war context of the moment, the Soviet-oriented communist sympathies of the PPP’s top leadership were objectionable to them from their strategic vantage-point of the life-and-death struggle with the Soviet Union” (Ferguson, 1999, xi).

The issue becomes then – how do Caribbean governments draw that line between pragmatism and ideology? How do Caribbean governments represent the interests of the masses who elect them in the face of the possibly opposing interests of hegemonic powers? Again the construction of a political language, which allows maneuverability by governments in the region, seems vitally important. Certainly, without that common political language, the distinction between “pragmatism” and “opportunism” is a difficult one to make. Such a distinction can be made only by reference to the actual political outcome of the various political actors time in office, i.e. their deeds.

Guyana: Ideological Opportunism

Guyana – Ideological Opportunism

Introduction

If the spread of the ideology of market fundamentalism took root in Trinidad and Tobago through an evolutionary process among intellectuals and in Jamaica through confrontation with socialist ideology, in Guyana it triumphed because of what may be called ethno-opportunism. Leftist politics in Jamaica, from the 70s onwards, has illustrated the vulnerability of small Caribbean states to the machinations of Western influenced global financial institutions and American intervention. America, particularly with the rise of neoconservatism under Reagan in the 1980s, was taking an aggressive posture towards ‘leftist-speaking’ governments in the region. The invasion of Grenada in 1983 underlined that position. A pragmatic rather than ideological leftist political position seemed a reasonable alternative. A pragmatic approach, however, could evolve into sheer opportunism if the emphasis is on what works in political terms without any regard to underlying principles.

In comparing the extreme ideological views as espoused by the Stalinist interpretation of Marxism and the counter-ideology as articulated by Thatcherism and Reaganomics, Manley characterized the position of the PNP as occupying a middle ground between these “maximalist and minimalist extremes” somewhere from “the middle to the middle-left”. The objectives of social justice should be pursued through pragmatic rather than ideological considerations (Levitt 2005, 284-285). The issue of ideological versus pragmatic positions, which may deteriorate into what can be termed ethno-opportunism, is of particular significance in the case of Guyana.

The politics of Guyana presents a situation that is different from both Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. In contrast to both Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, Guyana has had a history of left wing politics from both political parties. In Guyana from the 1960’s, both major political parties – the PPP led by Cheddi Jagan, and the PNC led by Forbes Burnham – claimed to be socialist or Marxist parties. The struggle, therefore, has not been one of socialist-tending parties versus conservative-tending parties. It has been a case of two ethnically based parties, both espousing some form of socialism, vying for power. In Guyana the issues of ideology, political language, pragmatism, ethnicity and class conflict all seem to meet head on, each seeking its part in the explanation of the problems of that country.

There have been several accounts of this collision of ethnicity, class, ideology and the myriad other issues that define Guyana’s tragic history. These include: Tyrone Ferguson’s – To Survive Sensible or to Court Heroic Death: Management of Guyana’s Political Economy 1965-85 and Structural Adjustment and Good Governance: The Case of Guyana, Ralph Premdas’ study – Ethnic Conflict and Development: The Case of Guyana, Steve Garner’s Guyana: Ethnicity, Class & Gender, Maurice St. Pierre’s Anatomy of Resistance: Anti-Colonialism in Guyana 1823-1966 as well as John Gafar’s Guyana: From State Control to Free Markets.

From its radical socialist beginnings Guyana, like Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, has moved towards an approach that envisages the central role of the private sector in the development process. Cheddi Jagan, for example, in 1997 claimed, “Guyana needs a balanced and integrated Development Programme” based on, among other things, a “mixed economy with the private sector being the engine of growth…” (Jagan 1997, 409). For a politician who championed an ideologically pure Marxism for many years of his political career, this is certainly a radical change. What accounts for this apparent ideological transformation? Burnham also claimed to be Marxist, yet in his struggles against Jagan’s brand of Marxism, he opportunistically (some would say ‘pragmatically’) sided with the capitalist West. In Guyana we see how ideology was confronted by what some term ‘pragmatism’. But pragmatism, when examined in this context, came to look like mere ‘opportunism’, an attempt to gain political power through opportunistically playing up to the requirements and interests of the colonial powers. The reward for this posture of ‘moderation’ or ‘pragmatism’ was support from the colonial powers.

The PPP and Party Politics in Guyana

The history of party politics in Guyana began in 1950 when the PPP (People’s Progressive Party) was formed. It was a multiracial party that included notables such as Cheddi Jagan, Janet Jagan, Martin Carter, Sydney King and Forbes Burnham. Cheddi Jagan was chosen as political leader and Forbes Burnham as chairman of the party. Jagan, in his time as a community organizer and political agitator, had announced his pro-working class and anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist positions, he considered himself a Marxist. In 1946, in writing about the workers strike in America, he stated, “One can only look forward to the time when this strength will permit the working class to become the only true masters in the production and distribution of all wealth” (Jagan 1946).

There were two strands of ideology to the PPP: one a nationalist, anti-imperialist strand and the other an anti-capitalist strand. Both Jagan and Burnham and indeed both major ethnic groups in the country identified with the nationalist stance. There were those, however, both inside and outside the PPP who, though supporting the anti-colonial struggle, were more moderate in their support of Marxism. These antagonistic tendencies were to be exacerbated after the general elections of 1953, which saw the first democratic elections in the country.

In 1953, the PPP won the elections with a total of 18 seats out of a total of 24 seats in the Parliament, the Lionel Luckhoo’s National Democratic Party won 2 seats and independents won 4. Cheddi Jagan became the leader of the House of Assembly and also the Minister of Agriculture, Land and Mines. Forbes Burnham became the Minister of Education. The British Government, meanwhile, had been apprised of Jagan’s left leaning stance. Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of Great Britain at that time, considered Jagan’s Marxist position to be a dangerous precedent for British Guiana and indeed the entire Caribbean region. Within months of his victory at the polls, Churchill sent British troops to depose Jagan in October 1953. In a speech to the House of Commons, John Gutch put forward the reasons for the invasion:

To prevent communist subversion of the government and avoid a dangerous crisis in public order and in economic affairs… The faction in power have shown by their acts and their speeches that they are prepared to go to any lengths, including violence, to turn British Guiana into a communist state. (John Gutch, 1953).

The Constitution was suspended and the Government dissolved in October 1953 and Jagan himself was ordered not to leave Georgetown. Jagan then launched a civil disobedience campaign and was jailed for 6 months when he allegedly disobeyed the orders restricting his movements to Georgetown. During this time the British courted his colleague Forbes Burnham, the chairman of the PPP. In a retrospective look at the political history of British Guiana since that time, Howard D. French claims in the New York Times:

Since the West backed his supposedly more moderate former lieutenant, Forbes Burnham, allowing him to usher in independence in 1966, Guyana has receded into a long isolation and tense racial divisions.

Mr. Burnham, who died in 1985, quickly proved to be anything but moderate. Leading a racially based party composed largely of the descendants of former African slaves, he espoused a Communist-inspired ideology he called “cooperative socialism.” Detractors say it was a thin cover for a thuggish system of personality cult, graft and cronyism.

Mr. Burnham was succeeded by Desmond Hoyte, his handpicked Prime Minister from the governing People’s National Congress. Though his party had long maintained itself in power by rigging a string of elections, diplomats say foreign and domestic economic pressure cornered Mr. Hoyte into accepting the internationally monitored vote this year. (French, 1992).

The strategy of the British Government was clear. Faced with two leaders both claiming to be adherents of some form of socialism, they decided to support the one whose language was more moderate at that time. It was an appeal to Burnham’s vision of himself as a more competent leader, who could navigate the dangers of the independence struggle against the colonial government by his more ‘pragmatic’, ‘moderate’ position. Garner, writing about the Robertson Commission Report of 1954 on the suspension of the Constitution of British Guyana, claimed that “Robertson established a distinction between the party’s two putative tendencies: the ‘Marxists’, grouped around the Jagans, and the ‘Socialists’, linked to Burnham…” (Garner 2008, 101). This distinction, according to Garner, was to play a fundamental role in the “ethnopoliticization” of Guyana. Garner makes a persuasive argument. In the absence of a real distinctive ideological difference between Jagan and Burnham (both claiming some adherence to state dominance of the economy), the other dynamic, i.e. ethnic differentiation, became the primary means of mobilizing support. Garner claims that the report “played a pivotal role in fuelling ethnopoliticization,” as it laid out the implicit ground rules for the years ahead (Garner 2008).

Garner describes how the struggle between the “Marxist” Jagan and the “Socialist” Burnham took form between 1955-1957. He described it as a struggle between the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) which was supported by the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD) and the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) which was associated with communist parties in the West and in the Eastern Bloc. The British Guiana Labour Union (BGLU), Burnham’s union, joined the ICFTU, while Jagan’s GIWU was linked to the WFTU. Burnham’s socialism was seen as reasonable and responsible, while Jagan’s Marxism was seen as extremist and dangerous (Garner 2008, 103). As Garner writes, “Burnham had intelligently and accurately foreseen the attention that the British and Americans were going to lend to the ideological stances adopted by the parties competing for power from 1953 onwards” (Garner 2008, 103). Tyrone Ferguson makes a similar point, pointing to Burnham’s “pragmatism” as opposed to Jagan’s “ideological” position (Ferguson 1999). Rakesh Rampertab, however, describes this “pragmatism” differently. He writes:

Throughout his political reign, Burnham had maneuvered as necessity dictated. Or, as Mr. Partrick Walker (head of a British parliamentary delegation to Guiana in 1953 after the constitution is suspended) noted, Forbes Burnham would “tact and turns, as advantages seem to dictate,” and that “his whole political approach is opportunistic.” In the West Indies and Africa (Burnham, Nkrumah, and some West Indian leaders had met secretly in 1957 [despite Jagan’s initial request to such a meeting, he is ignored], during the independence celebration for a new Ghana), he convinced Black leaders that a PPP government meant an “Indian” state. In Washington and London he criticized the PPP as communist and in Havana and Moscow, Burnham announced himself as an anti-imperialist. He benefited from critical US support while having ties with Cuba. Burnham was, in essence,a politician (Rakesh Rampertab, 2001)

Neoconservatism and Neoliberalism (part 1)

In the Caribbean and Latin America, Structural Adjustment Policies have been ubiquitously associated with neoliberalism. In this study, however, I use the term ‘neoconservatism’ to describe the philosophy as opposed to the economic policy behind Structural Adjustment (SA). Why is ‘neoconservatism’ proposed as a more appropriate term to describe the underlying philosophy associated with SA than ‘neoliberalism’? I think it is important to clarify this position from the outset so that the implications of that distinction are clearly understood.

Although the terms neoliberalism has been used in many different contexts, in this study neoliberalism is taken to be the advocating of economic liberalization, free trade and free markets. It emphasizes deregulation, and the role of the private sector in the economy. Today it is sometimes called ‘market fundamentalism’, which focuses more on the economic aspect of the idea. Neoliberalism, according to Philip Mirowski, came into being as a rethinking of classical liberalism’s postulate that the market would naturally and inevitably bring about the classical liberal state where human nature would be led to adopt the guiding hand of the market because of its clear insight into market forces and the role of the invisible hand (Mirowski and Plehwe, 2009). In other words, classical liberals thought that human nature would incline society towards the adoption of free markets. Neoliberals thought that the adoption of free markets would have to be constructed and helped into being rather than coming about naturally. Neoliberals therefore created a program of steps to bring about the adoption of free markets.

The Mont Perelin Society (which included Freidrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises and Milton Friedman among its founders) enunciated six principles to help in this construction of this ideal society. Among them:

“Methods of establishing the rule of law and assuring its development so that individuals and groups are not in a position to encroach upon the freedom of others and private rights are not allowed to become a basis of predatory power” a 5. “Methods of combating the misuse of history for the furtherance of creeds hostile to liberty” 6. “The problem of creating an international order conducive to the safeguarding of peace and liberty and permitting the establishment of harmonious international economic relations”. (Hartwell 1995, 41-42)

Neoliberalism can be considered an economic weltanschauung that postulates the view that when markets are liberalized and government intervention in the economy is minimized a train of events that result in democratic freedom or liberty is set into motion and this presents an optimal situation for economic growth. In other words, to transform a society we can introduce economic liberalization and one of the consequences will be political liberalization, the dynamic between economic and political liberalization maximizes both economic growth and political freedom. The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) defines neoliberalism as a “view of the world based on the belief that the optimal economic system is achieved by giving free reign to market participants, privatization, minimal restrictions on international trade, and the shrinking of government intervention in the economy. Critics argue that neoliberal policies prioritize corporate profits over the welfare of the working majority and society at large” (AFSC 2011, 7)

Neoconservatism, on the other hand, postulates that the political supersedes the economic. A focus on economic realities, therefore, could possibly contradict political objectives. In the final analysis one has to choose whether the political is of a higher value than the economic otherwise, if presented with a choice, one could conceivable negate political objectives in favor of economic objectives. The neoconservative critique of ‘neoliberal’ thinking would be that in pursuit of its economic objectives, one could place economic interests above that of American interests; say for example, placing free trade above American “nationalism”, or investing in an enemy country because it is profitable.

Neoconservatives focus on American interests, on the “new nationalism”, on keeping America as the most powerful nation in the world, and on essentially the building of an American Empire to safeguard American national security in an increasingly hostile world. Professor Tyler McHaley says this about neoconservatism:

“The underpinnings of this ideology began decades ago when former followers of Trotsky and Strauss transformed into liberal Democrats of the1940s and 1950s. A view of strong national defense in the face of communism and, eventually, potentially threatening Third World governments distanced the views of older Democratic Party stalwarts from what was viewed as the radical leftist threat of the liberal Democrats in the 1960s and 1970s.” (McHaley Tyler 2009).

In An American Agenda: Leo Strauss, Nietzsche and Neoconservatism (Naranjit 2008, 84-87) it was recounted how the New Right in America was able to carry out the process of ‘fusion’ by bringing together the three strands of conservatism, namely libertarianism, social conservatism and foreign policy hawkishness into one unifying agenda. At the forefront of this process were the neoconservatives, who, it can be argued, followed a Straussian philosophy with regard to combating nihilism. The defense of ‘public orthodoxy’ as defined by the values of Middle America was the way to fight off the ‘centaurs at the gate’ and the threatening danger of the values of the counterculture. Bringing together the three strands of conservatism was the method of defending ‘public orthodoxy’. Those believing in the need to minimize government intervention in the economy and the efficacy of the market could be classified as belonging to one of the strands of conservatism, i.e. libertarianism. Neoconservatism was able to incorporate market fundamentalism into it’s more encompassing and comprehensive philosophy.

Neoconservatism and Neoliberalism (part 2)

Professor Wendy Brown, in her article “American Nightmare: Neoliberalism, Neoconservatism, and De-Democratization” describes neoliberalism and neoconservatism as two parallel “rationalities” working in tandem to diminish the democratic nature of society. Neoliberalism emphasizes the market aspect of reality while neoconservatism valorizes its moral aspect. And she asks:

How does a rationality that is expressly amoral at the level of both ends and means (neoliberalism) intersect with one that is expressly moral and regulatory (neoconservatism)?…How does support for governance modeled on the firm and mormative social fabric of self-interest marry or jostle against support for governance modeled on church authority and a normative social fabric of self-sacrifice and long-term filial loyalty, the very fabric shredded by unbridled capitalism? (Brown 2006, 692)

Brown’s answer to this question is that neoliberalism paves the way for neoconservatism. It weakens the institutions of liberal democracy thus making it possible for “neoconservative’s authoritarianism”. It is the combination of these two rationalities that gives rise to an intense “anti-democratic political culture” (Brown 2006, 710). In her analysis of the collusion between these two “rationalities”, however, Brown sees the significant effect as “de-democratization”, I would claim that the more important effect is imperialism, and that “de-democratization” can be seen as a means towards that end.

A critique of Brown’s analysis would question her characterization of neoconservatism as “expressly moral”. I would argue that neoconservatism entails a postmodern critique of morality and that its morality is post-Nietzschean (Drury 1988; Naranjit 2008). Strauss for instance, a philosopher much favored by neoconservatives, sees the problem of morality in the modern age as that of conceiving the very possibility of morality in the face of modernity’s skeptical tenor. Strauss resolves the issue by outlining the exoteric nature of political philosophy. Philosophy defends “public orthodoxy” exoterically even while it esoterically recognizes its “deadly truths” and the skeptical nature of philosophy (Strauss 1953; Naranjit 2008). The express morality of neoconservatism is therefore a cloak that hides its real driving force – the will to power. The impulse towards imperialism is the expression of this will to power which Nietzsche considers as what is fundamental in reality (Strauss 1996).

Kinhide Mushakoji in “Towards a Multi-Cultural Modernity: Beyond Neo-Liberal/Neo-Conservative Global Hegemony” describes the features of what he calls “global colonialism” “The combination of a global neoliberal structure of exploitation with the military/political hegemony can be interpreted within the historical trajectory of colonialism, which we propose to call “global colonialism”(Mushakoji 2010, 3). According to Mushakoji, it has two sides – an economic aspect and a military/political aspect. I would argue that this global colonialism is a fundamental part of the “new nationalism” of neoconservatism. In this study I use the term ‘neoconservatism’ to describe the underlying philosophy behind what Mushakoji calls “global colonialism”, and I argue that neoliberalism is its economic arm.

Ideological Warfare

In September 2008, the financial markets in the United States collapsed. In just two days, the stock market fell by 700 points. Then, beginning October 6 and continuing for a week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell over 1,874 points, or 18%, in its worst ever weekly decline, from both a point and a percentage basis. The Dow, in fact, fell 33.8% in 2008. On September 25, 2008, with Republican Representative Mike Pence of Indiana President Bush, in a Presidential address to the nation, spoke about the crisis and outlined a plan to the American nation for a $700 billion bail out package. On Fox News that same evening, Newt Gingrich described the plan as the introduction of socialism in America. In a discussion about the bailout, Sean Hannity, on the same channel, called it the biggest expansion of government in American history. (Foxnews.com 2008)

All of this was happening during one of the most intensely fought Presidential campaigns in American history between Barack Obama and John McCain. The contest brought two opposing views in stark relief against each other. Obama, during his campaign, disparaged the “trickle down” economic theory of creating wealth, while his opponent John McCain lauded the idea of tax cuts to big corporations as the way to create jobs and prosperity.

In an article, “Comrade Bush and the Banks”, one syndicated columnist wrote:

The current proposal by the US Treasury to spend US$600 billion of tax-payers’ money buying up the worst of the sub-prime mortgages only emphasizes how far we have traveled from the triumphalism of the free-marketeers in just a few months. Just as China has developed a “socialist economy with Chinese characteristics,” so the US is getting a socialist economy with American characteristics…The panicky flight from free-market orthodoxy in the United States is bound to fuel a revival of government intervention and welfare-state policies in the rest of the world. (Dyer 2008).

The crisis in the American financial system brought to the fore the difference between two positions on economic theory after the dissolution of the Keynesian consensus. These positions can be described without much dispute as the ‘liberal’ (as espoused by say, Paul Krugman, and not to be confused with neo-liberalism) or possibly ‘neo-Keynesian’ approach, and the ‘conservative’ (as espoused by say, Milton Friedman) approach to economics. Liberals, for example, feel that government spending is the way to stimulate the economy; conservatives advocate tax cuts, particularly to big business, as the best means of stimulating the economy.

There has not been a consensus on one particular economic paradigm. As such, the debate waged between these approaches can perhaps be accurately described as ideological warfare. Each side brings out its heavyweight economists to validate its position. The weapons utilized in this battle are not so much objective scientific evidence as rhetoric, salesmanship, propaganda and spin. How do we, in these circumstances, determine the worth of the arguments on each side? In fact, can this be done at all or is it a partisan ideological struggle? Certainly, however, the nature of this ideological warfare can be studied and analyzed. Such an analysis will yield a great deal of insight into the reasons why a particular position is taken up.

Ideological Warfare

In the Caribbean, we were faced with our own crisis. In January 2009 in Trinidad and Tobago, CL Financial (originally CLICO – Caribbean Life Insurance Company), one of the islands biggest conglomerates, which controlled approximately 25% of the country’s economy, had to be bailed out by the government. In the Caribbean, however, the crisis has not been defined as the conflict between liberal and conservative economics. There are, however, some common issues. In the 1980’s, Reaganomics became influential in the Caribbean because of the Structural Adjustment policies which were promoted by the IMF and the World Bank in that era – the so-called “Washington Consensus” – which preached privatization, trade liberalization, deregulation and in general neoliberal economics. “Trickle-down” economics, as Reaganomics was called, became the order of the day.

In the period preceding the 1980’s, however, Keynesian ideas and socialist ideas were prevalent in the Caribbean. In Trinidad and Tobago, the PNM, under Dr. Eric Williams had professed a Keynesian model, i.e. a mixed economy; in Guyana, both Dr. Jagan and Forbes Burnham proposed socialist or Marxist models; in Jamaica, the PNP, under the leadership of Michael Manley, also put forward a socialist model; in Grenada, the PRG, under Maurice Bishop installed a Marxist model. So generally speaking, the Caribbean had favored a socialist or Keynesian approach to the economy. Manley himself became an eminent spokesman for the Third World, advocating a New International Economic Order (NEIO).

By the mid 1980’s, however, most governments in the region were adopting some form of Reaganomics that included deregulation, divestment, privatization, etc. In Trinidad and Tobago, the NAR came into power and introduced Structural Adjustment Policies (SAP’s); in Jamaica, Michael Manley was forced to adopt what was called the “zig zag” policy under pressure from the IMF and SAP’s were implemented; in Guyana, under the Hoyte administration, SAP’s were also implemented. Contemporaneously with the introduction of SAP’s, those who championed free-market policies emerged as the dominant voices in the society.

Perry Mars has looked at the rightward change of the Caribbean Left in Ideology and Change: The Transformation of the Caribbean Left. He defines the Caribbean Left as including:

…reformist politics at one end of the spectrum, and radical and revolutionary political movements and activities at the other. The Left, therefore, represents a varied array of agencies which challenge established precepts of the international and domestic status quo, and seeks to initiate change or relevant alternatives to the prevailing class structures within the established political system. (Mars 1998, xiii).

He attributes this change to “the relentless pressures towards ideological conformity stemming from the international capitalist environment, coupled with the consequential elitist and factional tendencies on the part of the Left leadership as a whole, would seem to be the most significant sources of the debacle” (Mars 1998, xiv). This study seeks to investigate in a more detailed manner this rightward shift in the Caribbean of the Left as defined by Mars, and in particular to look at the aggressive ideological warfare waged by the conservatives, who came to power in the Reagan Administration (and I want to deal in particular with those who are labeled ‘neoconservative’). This event, it is argued, transformed the World Bank policies from that based on a liberal worldview to that of one based on a conservative worldview. The result was the “Washington Consensus”, or what is popularly called “neo-liberalism” in the Caribbean. I should state from the outset that ‘Caribbean’ within the scope of this study refers to the Commonwealth Caribbean countries, in particular Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana.

What caused the change in Caribbean societies and Governments that were essentially Keynesian, socialist or Marxist to governments that supported free market policies and right leaning tendencies? What caused this replacement in ideology, from a left-leaning one in the 60’s and 70’s, to a right-leaning or conservative ideology in the 80’s, in the Caribbean – specifically in Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Guyana? This study will seek to answer this question. Other relevant questions posed are: What was the impact of conservatism (more accurately – neoconservatism) on World Bank policy? What were the different processes by which SAP’s were imposed on Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana?