February 1, 2006
by Russell Cole

You have to admit that there appears to be a systemization or logic to the unintended consequences of social actions enacted by disciplinarians in society.  Individually, none of the disciplinarian agents consciously realizes his or her contributions within the context of the terrifically complex system to which he or she contributes.  At the same time, they might attempt to maximize their own individual interests.  However, where do you think that the interests of the disciplinarian agents in society originate in the first place?  The interests, or desires, are implanted into their bodies, through their own indoctrination into the system through processes of disciplining and punishment in society.

This is why I have never understood game-theory, or rational-choice theory, or classical economics in general.  The evaluation of objects that an agent pursues through his or her projects is a derivative of the various cultural codes that circulate throughout society.  Therefore, the possibilities in the fields of horizon that an agent projects into his or her perception are a product of something more than the individual agent; something that transcends the being of the individual.  Agency, itself, is not a product of the individual's being; rather, it is generated from Being, in the sense Heidegger gave to the term in his later writings.  We cannot reduce culture to a monadic, atomistic, understanding of social reality, which is merely a product of the consequences of the actions performed by individual agents.   To borrow a trite expression from Gestalt psychology, the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts.

The question is not if there is a Power Elite.  It is how you conceptualize power.  I just do not think that it is fruitful to understand the dynamics of power - control and discipline - in a pre-Foucauldian fashion.  I do not think there is necessarily a collaborative effort on the part of the elite in society to coordinate their actions in an ongoing effort to preserve their status in society.  The implementation of power results from a complex process that involves a system that extends beyond the individual agents involved in propagating the imposition of structure upon the populace. 

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The grammar school teacher who practices discipline and punishment over the subjects of his or her pedagogical practices is surely not cognizant of the consequences of his or her actions beyond the scope of their immediate effect.  Nevertheless, the unintended consequences of the grammar school teacher are to implant the subjects with behavioral dispositions, which homogenize the population in order to render individuals docile and conformative and skilled.  In other words, ripe for the exploitation of the processes involved in the various modes of production in society. 

However, if power in society circulates in such a fashion, and the interests of the elites extend to every crevasse our lives, through the operations of those we do not necessarily want to blame, then towards, whom do we direct our energy, in opposition?  Journalists?  CEO's?  Lou Dobbs?  Grammar school teachers?

Globalization, which is spurred by free-trade and other universalistic discourses, is merely proliferating the discipline and punishment, which is tantamount to the concrete manifestations of power, that effectively maintain Empire.  What I am proposing would help to diminish the supply of fuel that energizes Empire, which relies on an ever increasing number of subjects for the purposes of exploitation.

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Russell Cole [send him email] is a contributing author to the Populist Party of America, and is the coordinator for the Populist Party's Midwest Alliance, the Midwest Populist Party.  Read more from Russell Cole at the Midwest Populist Party blog.