The idea behind the term “Deep State” is important, but the term, as is currently used, seems to function as a propaganda device to justify pro-corporate factions in their struggle against any curtailment of corporate power, or corporate ability to distribute costs to the public, often in the context of climate change. For the idea to regain its use, we might have to replace it with some other term such as the “factional State”
Definition and basic Propaganda Functions
Wikipedia gives the following, apparently unattributed, definition of the Deep State:
a hybrid association of government elements and parts of top-level industry and finance that is effectively able to govern the…. [Nation] without reference to the consent of the governed as expressed through the formal political process.
While this definition gives the impression that the State is a monolithic unity (when it is not unified but full of conflict, as the term ‘factional state’ suggests), it is important to recognise that, in the US and much of the Western World, one of the main drivers of the ‘deep state’ is the commercial sector (“top-level industry and finance”), as the current propaganda use of the terms tends to ignore this part of the definition altogether.
This definition and the propaganda usage, both ignore the different types of power (including military power), and their different ways of operating. (Not to mention the relationship between power and incompetence). This again, serves an ideological function because it makes the State the only form of power, as well as the single and simple oppresive power which needs to be curtailed. In particular, usage ignores the power of wealth, and the way it can operate against freedom, and control most of the other sources of power. It also deletes the idea that ‘the people’ can use, and have used, the State to benefit themselves (even if this involves struggles with other factions).
The role of commerce in the State, and in power relations, is perhaps being ignored because the Right want to get rid of any regulation of corporations, or rules that help protect citizens from corporations. This certainly seems to be one of President Trumps most consistent aims – other than when he thinks he can curtail international trade, for America’s benefit.
In this context, it is also notable that the ‘Libertarian Right’ is always vitally keen on cutting government spending which benefits (or could benefit) ordinary citizens, but generally has little energy to agitate for cuts to military spending, perhaps because most of that spending is subsidy of large parts of the corporate sector.
The pro-corporate propagandists probably also do not want the commercial sector to be held responsible for any wars held to capture or defend oil, labour and markets for US business, which was pereviously quite a well known idea. It seems unlikely that the propagandists do not recognise that increased military spending, such as the massive increases boasted of by Trump, is likely a prelude to the actual use of the material in war or threat of war. However, they certainly behave as if they do not recognise this.
Some of the Possible Factions in the Factional State
The “factional State” idea suggests multiple forces are involved in the State, not only pro-corporate forces, or malicious hidden actors, are at work, and we don’t have to assume all corporations have exactly the same interests and are completely unified, either. Some forms of possible factions include bureaucrats in various departments, pro-science factions, foreign affairs, intelligence, military, economic and political party factions. Not all of which are intrinsically harmful.
The State depends for continuity on bureaucrats who try to maintain that continuity while protecting their place in the State. These bureaucrats may tend to try to protect the State and the nation from mad, or overly-idealistic, kings or emperors. This is why the Roman State survived so long after madness and incompetence seemed the hallmark of rulers. In an extreme form, this illustrates the ‘Yes Minster’ theory of the State, in which the civil service obstructs both politicians’ fantasy, and their good ideas.
As part of this State faction, there may be dedicated public servants who try and stop corporations from poisoning, or otherwise maltreating normal citizens, and are thus also identified as enemies of business, and who need to be removed. This faction might also represent what we might call, the “green State,” the “humanitarian State” or the “useful State.”
There are also other public servants who favour the pro-corporate line, and who welcome the possibility of making transition into much higher paid jobs in the private sector, while using contacts to influence State action. Again the point is that the State is factional, and a site of struggle between factions. The State is not unified or uniform.
At one time there might have been somsething we could call techno-scientific factions in the State. These were composed of the people who made sure there was money for State-useful research that was unlikely to be done by the private sector, or done properly by the private sector. They also advised on energy, water, satellites, disease control, and what we call ‘infrastructure’. They would also try and persuade the State to keep the infrastructure functional. Again, it is improbable there would be complete unity here. Medical experts, Physics experts and others would compete for finance, priority and influence.
There are also the diplomats and foreign affairs people who might try and keep relationships with other States concentionally ‘functional’ despite the rantings of local politicians who would happily insult other rulers or threaten war to raise local support. Again, it seems probable that some of these people would recommend support for different other States, different levels of support for other States, different levels of military threat (either way) and different forms of covert action. There would only rarely be unity.
Intelligence people would try and find out what other States where actually doing and sometimes undermine those efforts to keep things “smooth.” It is not hard to imagine them trying to undermine dissent in the State itself and support establishment politics, but that is an uncertain field. During the cold war, it seems to be well documented that in the West intelligence agencies kept a “strong eye” on left wing politicians and dissenters, and it seems doubtful they have changed.
It seems highly probable that the English-speaking State’s economic experts have been largely captured by pro-corporate, pro-free market, pro-development, pro-growth forces. This is a rare moment of unity. These theories seem more or less unchallengable, although there is some dispute between more humanitarian factions and more stringent ‘sacrifice the poor and workers’ factions. This also seems to have been well documented. Such economism may be resisted outside the State, but it seems usually to be popular with establishment politicians as it provides justification for the increase of corporate wealth and power.
Politicians are another faction in the State. Long standing politicians, in particular, will have built up alliances with other long standing actors in the State (including other politicians), they may even have selected them. Politicians are likely to have relationships with those who finance them, and will fight to support the interest of these financers and the interests of commercial power in general. This is one of the powers of wealth; representatives can be bought. Politicians can also be run by ideology, and may have little experience in the day to say running of the State, so the Nation and the State may be harmed by their actions. Ultimately, politicians can seem to be able to force the State to behave as they wish. The Government, or even the President, can declare war against the advice of foreign affairs, intelligence, military and treasury. The government can change relatively successful economic policies against advice. The government can ignore scientific advice to favour their backers as with climate change. And the government can direct offices to find information which matches with political ideology, but does not match with reality, and the departments be left to sort out the mess.
The existence of different factions does not mean there cannot be alliances between them which work against one side of the political faction, but these are likely to be opposed by other alliances. And it is rare for any political party to hold the support of much more than 55% of the population, and thus even those who claim an overwhelming mandate should accept the presence of opposition and be willing to try and justify their position by ‘facts,’ persuasion, and acceptance of advice from others, rather than aim for total victory and destruction of opposition (which could be considered tyranny).
Destruction of Continuity by Ideology: More use of the ‘Deep State’ idea
It seems to be becoming more and more common for Politicians and governments to deploy a version of the American system whereby the heads of departments and high level advisors are political appointees with prime loyalty to the incoming President or government (ie one group of politicians), rather than loyalty to the State or nation iself. These appointments break continuity, break knowledge, break experience, break up convention, break up resistance to stupidity and ideology, and establish the relative dominance of the political factions for the time they are in power.
The Trump transition was apparently remarkable for its lack of interest in what the State actually did for the US and non-corporate citizens (See Michael Lewis). This seems to have been part of an ideological drive to demolish the ‘useful’ State while keeping the oppressive state. President Trump, while erratic, is fairly coherent on his project of support for parts of the corporate sector, via tax cuts, increased military spending, and reduction of red tape and restrictions on corporate victimisation of ordinary people. He especially seems to desire to cut back controls on pollution and environmental despoliation, and I have frequently seen this portrayed as part of Trump’s fight against the Deep State, who are supposedly against business (another reason why the propagandists want commercial input into the state not to be mentioned). This is probably why he gets such huge support from the Republican Party despite his levels of random incompetence. Indeed a competent, well connected and popular President might be the pro-corporate state’s nightmare.
It is useful to the Right to suggest that people are hostile to Trump, not because of his incompetence or tyrannical moves, but because of Deep State plotting. By a careful use of the term “deep state”, it can be implied that attempts to hold Trump responsible to the consitution and for his acts, are profoundly undemocratic. They can also imply that the reason Hillary Clinton was not prosecuted, was not because Republicans could find no coherent evidence against her despite years of trying, but because she was protected by secret elites. The State must be made evil to justify its cutback and promotion of unregulated corporate abuse.
Secondly, the term reinforces the attempt to ignore experts who give scientific reports that disagree with Politicians’ ideology; the reports can be dismissed as just the deep state working against people.
Another part of the propagandist use is to suggest that wars are brought about the intelligence agencies, controlling the President through misleading information – hence it does not have to be a concern that it is widely reported that President Trump ignores this information. However, it is also clear that Intelligence agencies may not always want war. This was demonstrated during the build up to Bush Jr’s Iraq war. It perhaps depended on the media you read at the time, but it was pretty obvious the US and British Agencies were leaking profusely, trying to give people the information they needed to see through the Republican media lie machine and its reports of “weapons of mass destruction”. The Agencies were warning about the likely spread of war to other countries and its destabilising consequences. All of which happened as predicted. They appeared not to want to be blamed for the disaster they thought the war would be. However, they were completely unable to control the President or his ‘war machine’.
[I also remember reading but cannot remember were, so this might be rubbish, that Bush Jr and friends also ignored the advice of the military not to go into Iraq.] They definitely, and completely, ignored the military’s contingency plans for what they should do after victory. In fact they seemed not to have any plans for what to do after victory.
Later the Republicans somehow seem to have managed to lay the blame for the war on the Intelligence agencies rather than on themselves, perhaps because the media naturally tends towards that party or because intelligence agencies make for easy villains. The idea of the Deep State was part of their avoidance of responsibility. They used the term to try and convince people that the Right was not a party of war, or at least not worse than the other side, so they could be tolerated despite the mess they got the world into.
Interestingly, during the time that the Arab Spring looked successful, many Republicans seemed to be claiming that the war in Iraq had worked and their decision was justified. The point is that it seems far more likely that Republican politicians won the struggle within the Factional State, and were mistaken in their anticipation of the results and course of the war, rather than they were taken in by secretive actors within the State.
Summary
The State is not unified, it is a site of struggle between different factions, and that often includes struggles with the ruling politicians and their supporters (particularly financing supporters) – who find this resistance annoying. Supressing the conflicts and distinctions between factions, amounts (in the current day) to supporting the corporate-military State at the expense of everyone else.
Comparison between Deep State theory (DS) and Factional State theory (FS):
1: DS) The state is monolithic and unified
Vs
FS) The State is a site of struggle involving many factions
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2: DS) The State is bad (unless it supports the Corporate sector)
Vs
FS) Whether the State is useful or not, depends on the results of struggle between factions.
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3: DS) There is only one source of oppressive power; the State.
Vs.
FS) There are many forms of power. Whether they are oppressive or not depends on how the power is wielded, and often who by. The State is not the only oppressive force.
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4: DS) The state is only responsible to itself
Vs.
FS) The State is potentially responsible to many factions, including the political faction
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5: DS) The State always ignores the views of the people
Vs.
FS) The State can ignore the views of the people, but it does not have to. It is likely to respond more speedily to the views of the ruling class (in the US this is the Corporate class), but it can be used to curtail the acts of the rulers – this may lead to it being attacked by the rulers and their representatives, and those they manage to persuade.
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6: DS) The Deep State is to blame when ‘our’ policies do not work, or our view of reality seems not to deliver the results we would like.
Vs
FS) The States is a complex system, within other complex systems. It is natural for results of policies and actions to be partly unexpected. This does not have to be explained by resistance alone. Neither will eliminating the State mean that a political party’s vision of reality is correct, and only good things will result.
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