New Leviathans
In concept of Hobbes leviathan, a national government is a social contract that creates a powerful entity to provide peace, stability and security to society. People give great power to a government to enforce the law so as to prevent civil conflicts and anarchy in society. Government in a modern state (concept envisioned starting around 16th century) is powerful entity necessary for preservation of civilization. Throughout past centuries, various concepts of government emerged - Monarchy & authoritarian, Feudal lordships, Communist state, Constitutional republic, Democratic state etc. By the mid 20th century, much of the world adopted the model of Democracy & constitutional republic.
However, the nature of leviathan has changed today. Theoretically, the government is all powerful guardian of state but the real power lies with oligarchy or plutocracy that owns the government. This became possible when oligarchy became extremely powerful. They control the Capital, industry, trade & commerce, means of production & employment. They control the media & social media, the internet, the communication channels and information outlets of society. They shape public opinion with their media empires and mind bending algorithms in cyberspace. They have enormous wealth with which they finance and make/break careers of political elites. They control private armies, militias/PMCs & security apparatus that once was exclusive domain of the state. The political elites, without the support of Oligarchs, have no standing of their own.
So leviathans of today are people like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Rupert Murdoch & Peter Thiel, and transnational corporations like BlackRock, Amazon, JP Morgan, Fox empire and Tesla. How did this change came about? Neoclassical and Neoliberal philosophy was a contributing ideological factor. Under neoclassical thinking, the state shall not intervene with forces of laissez-faire. The best interest of society are served by forces of self regulating markets which balance the dynamics of supply and demand, and allots every person a share of income of what they deserve (too bad if you starve). These ideas allowed (encouraged) accumulation and concentration of capital, establishment of monopolies and ultimately concentration of power in hands of handful of corporations and individuals.
Fast forward to today, the state or the political elites have little power of their own. They have to pander to plutocrats and their enterprises for political financing, media platforms and state security. All this is neither surprising nor any secret. The government itself has very little power of their own and cannot exist without oligarchical enterprises. Take example of Elon Musk’s Space X which is an indispensable asset for Pentagon. Similarly, the Starlink network of Musk which owns two thirds of all satellites orbiting earth.
Musk’s Satellite empire
Defense systems of America are built by corporations like Lockheed Martin. Private Military contractors (mercenaries) are increasingly used for warfare like Raytheon and Blackwater (which now goes by different names). This also is nothing new. Eisenhower warned about undue influence of military industrial complex many decades ago.
The government itself has no capital (with exceptions of public services & state assets). The production is mainly done by transnational corporations and they are also the main centers of employment nationally & internationally. While theoretically government is monetarily sovereign with control over the purse but with rise of finance capitalism and hyper-financialization, the Wall Street institutions create their own financial instruments out of thin air. This is due to decades of financial deregulation and creation of speculative casino economy. Even the treasury secretaries (finance ministers) appointed by governments are mostly CEOs of big Wall street banks. Private think tanks like Peterson institute and now DOGE dictate the spending policies of government. The legitimate functions of government are either encroached or fully subsumed by private interests.
Sovereign money power of government may now be further diluted by Tech bros who want government to back their fictitious Crypto currency. Today, the government doesn’t have a sovereign policy even during emergency. Like during Covid pandemic, the government gave vaccine monopoly patents to big Pharma companies thereby creating new billionaires. US is the only nation in the world which spends the most on healthcare but gets worst health service in comparison to other developed nations. This is because there is a giant private healthcare & insurance industry that sucks out all the money.
A modern state has various functions and government responsibilities. But now these functions are in the hands of giant private enterprises and Oligarchs. Capital, Production & means of employment, state security, infrastructure, communications, essential services etc - all critical functions that were once in the ambit of state or under its proper regulation have gone to the Oligarchs. This is not an anomaly of the system, this is internal feature of Neoliberal system which monopolizes capital, wealth & power in hands of few corporations. Galbraith elaborated this in his work many decades ago and much of the heterodox economists (institutionalists, Post Keynesians, Marxists etc) understand this dynamics of our economic system.
Today, American pundits like Timothy Snyder are suddenly discovering the dangers of American Oligarchy after Trump victory (western pundits had long maintained that oligarchy is sui generis to nations like Russia & China). But Oligarchs, the all powerful leviathans are endogenous variables - that means they are net outcome of our failed Neoclassical/Neoliberal economic system. In such systems, social Democracies are not possible, a point well elaborated by Yanis Varoufakis. All the pundits and experts who continue to harp about sanctity of Democracy need to acknowledge the failed economic model of nations which create mass inequality and powerful oligarchs.
The Oligarchy, the power of plutocracy and hollowing out of Democracy are not a new development. This has been going on since many decades and accelerated in 80s and 90s. The mainstream pundits, the peddlers of conventional wisdom like Timothy Snyder who’re now alarmed by oligarchy’s power were mostly asleep in past decades. So what changed in America? The Oligarchical force in past decades were undoubtedly malignant but they mostly maintained a degree of decorum, political etiquette, and most importantly they operated discreetly. They mostly stayed behind the curtains, manipulating everything but maintaining a mirage of sanctity of Democratic society.
The oligarchs of today are fanatics, maniacs, dangerous and highly destructive as i explained in past article. They now brazenly meddle in politics with impunity. They’re dictating foolhardy policies and they have no inner restraints. And political elites are now characteristic of Pathocracy and Kakistocracy - the most incompetent, unfit and psychologically unstable people. Even some of the disciples of conventional wisdom are alarmed by today’s extraordinary circumstances. But mind you that seeds of today’s crisis were sown decades ago. US created this Frankenstein’s monster of leviathan oligarchs that may destroy its maker, meaning the government and concept of modern state.