1st Edition
Who Owns Democracy? The Real Deep State and the Struggle Over Class and Caste in America
This book uniquely reverses today’s MAGA conspiratorial concept of the deep state to reveal how a very real “deeper state” is evident throughout history, back to the founding of American democracy.
Class and caste-based elites and their political allies have held dominant power in the US. Large corporations, Wall Street and other sectors of the capitalist class outsource day-to-day governance to the mainstream political parties, which can compete vigorously and create a credible veneer of civil liberties and electoral democracy, disguising and legitimating the deep state. But it is a “shallow democracy,” since the deep state sets boundaries on policies and choices to serve itself. It also denies a universal franchise and obstructs the voting rights of people of color, the poor and other communities threatening to the deep state. Moreover, the deep state constrains civic governance in the workplace and community, denying virtually all working people democratic control over their economic and social life.
Shallow democracy has a long history. Two embryonic deep states - a Northern capitalist deep state and a Southern slave-based deep state - came together in a tense and unstable union to create and govern the US. While the Confederate deep state, which we call proto-American fascism, was defeated in the Civil War, it left a deep imprint on the culture and politics of millions of Americans, and has resurged again in Trumpism. The shallow democracy of the capitalist deep state has survived previous challenges, but it lacks the deep roots that guarantees its survival.
The authors point to prospects for meaningful change arise from the extreme economic chasm dividing the nation economically and racially, and from existential crises of the survival of democracy and of a sustainable planet. They discuss strategy that might finally move the nation beyond MAGA toward deep democracy.
Introduction: A conversation about democracy
1. America’s democratic veneer: capitalism, fascism, and democracy
2. Birth of a nation: how two deep states created America
3. Robber baron democracy: big money, populists, and fascist ghosts
4. Progressives for democracy? Managing change from the top
5. The deep state in depression: the New Deal, failed capitalists, and deep democrats
6. Guns and butter: Wall Street and suburbia, American empire, and the Cold War against democracy
7. Deep democrats against the deep state: from the New Left to the silent majority in the Vietnam era
8. Born again: corporate globalists unite with the New Right in Reagan’s war on democracy
9. Trumped! Cowboy capitalists, the Christian right and how identity politics fuelled the assault on democracy
10. What is to be done? How we can take ownership of democracy
Biography
Charles Derber, Professor of Sociology at Boston College, has written 26 books on politics, democracy, fascism, corporations, capitalism, climate change, war, the culture wars, and social change. His bestselling books include The Pursuit of Attention and the Wilding of America. He writes for and has been reviewed in the NY Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, Truthout, and other leading media. His books are translated into 14 languages. Derber is a public intellectual - shortlisted in 2006 by the American Independent Booksellers Association for Hidden Power, the best book in current affairs - who believes that serious ideas should be written in an accessible style. His most recent books include Dying for Capitalism, Welcome to the Revolution, Moving Beyond Fear, Sociopathic Society: A People's Sociology of the United States; and Capitalism: Should You Buy It?.
Yale Magrass is a Chancellor Professor of Sociology at University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. He is the author/coauthor of nine books, most co-authored with Charles Derber, and eighty articles. His books include Bully Nation, Glorious Causes, and Capitalism: Should You Buy It? He has served on the board of professional and scholarly journals and associations including “The Library of Social Science, “Humanity and Society,” and “The Bimonthly Review of Law Books.” His work focuses upon how militaristic capitalism distorts everyday life as it promotes inequality, bullying, environmental devastation, and war.
“In this timely and urgent book, readers are invited to pull up a chair and listen in. This is “My Dinner with Charlie and Yale,” a riveting conversation between two sparkling thinkers, who refreshingly don’t agree about everything. Through their dialogue, we are exposed to a deeper understanding of what democracy means, its historic ebbs and contractions, and its possibilities going forward. We learn about the historic and hidden power of the “corporate deep state,” and the legacy of authoritarian and fascist strains in US history and culture rooted in class and caste disparities. Through the book’s unique conversational format, we’re also exposed to an exemplary practice of democracy, as Derber and Magrass model how to both articulate one’s position but also to respectfully listen well to one another.”
Chuck Collins, author of Altar to an Erupting Sun and Born on Third Base, and director of the program on extreme inequality at the Institute for Policy Studies
“With their emphasis on not one, but two, “deep states” in America, both of which are very different from the “deep state” that Donald Trump and his supporters talk about, the sociological duo that wrote this engaging and provocative book is clearly hoping to encourage ongoing thoughtful discussions among students, scholars, and the general public who might otherwise be hesitant to express their views on the complex issues the country faces. And by creatively presenting their panoramic views on democracy, race, and corporate power as part of a lively back-and-forth conversation between the two of them, in which they sometimes disagree with each other, they provide an inviting and reassuring way to make extended discussions of these volatile issues possible.”
G. William Domhoff, author of Who Rules America
“How are we to understand the paradox that increasing immiseration and precarity has resulted in rebellion taking a right wing hue, partnering unorganized working people with the very forces responsible for their decline? Adopting democratic methods of analysis and exposition, Magrass and Derber take us into the deep history of the American state and the complex interplay between class and caste that HAS brought us to the present, fraught moment. And yet they are hopeful, channeling as they do past ruptures with the oligarchic order and even contemporary moments in which Americans take “ownership” of their democracy. It is therefore a must-read effort for those wishing to right historical injustice and recover hope for a more humane future.”
Suren Moodliar, Managing Editor of Socialism and Democracy
“In this remarkable conversation, Charles Derber and Yale Magrass explore the complex depths of unaccountable and unrepresentative power as it has evolved through the history of the United States, and where it might go next. The two do not agree on all points, and neither will you, but this rich history -- shockingly different from what you were likely taught in school -- provides not a simple to-do list, but a guide to acting even in a future we cannot yet know the shape of."
David Swanson, author of War Is A Lie and director of World Beyond War
