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How Propaganda Works: Undemocratic Policies & Propaganda in the USA

More thoughts following up on the question “Are alleged liberal democracies now exploiting confusion between democratic values and managerial values to advance antidemocratic policies?” from “How Propaganda Works” by Jason Stanley.

Stanley provides two example cases in the book answering the question with a resounding yes. One example is from the US, the other from the EU. I’ll talk about the US example here. In 2011 the republican state legislature of Michigan passed Public Act 4 - a bill that allows for the installation of an emergency manager during “a financial emergency”. This emergency manager is empowered to replace local democratically elected officials to make decisions about “expenditures, investments, and the provision of services by units of local government,” including “modification or termination of contracts”.

In 2012 the citizens of Michigan voted to repeal Public Act 4. How did the legislature respond? With Public Act 436 - an act that basically reinstated 4 wholesale. By the end of 2012 the new bill had been signed into law, essentially overriding the will of the people.

3 months later (March 2013) the same governor who signed the bill into law appoints an emergency manager over the city of Detroit. Here’s where things get dicey. By July the manager (Kevin Orr) has Detroit file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy. Stanley points out that bankruptcy is not an issue of long term debt, but one of cash-flow shortfall. In the case of Detroit the short-fall was $198 million. Instead, Orr claims that Detroit has $18 billion dollars of long term debt - a number that the Demos think tank report calls “irrelevant to analysis of Detroit’s insolvency and bankruptcy filing, highly inflated and, in large part, simply inaccurate.” Orr promptly proceeds to make Detroit citizens feel the brunt of the supposed financial crisis by slashing city services.

Orr institutes a policy that any water customer who is two months late and owes more than $150 gets their water shut off. Over 40% of Detroit households were delinquent and in danger of water shutoffs. As many as 141,000 Detroit households had their water shut off. Detroit sits above the world’s largest reserve of fresh water - The Great Lakes. Getting water to citizens should not be a problem. So why water? The Demos report says “The biggest contributing factor to the increase in Detroit’s legacy expenses is a series of complex deals it entered into in 2005 and 2006 with banks.” These deals are widely regarded as suspicious. Why not start there? Or why not attack the state’s decision to invest $250 million in a new hockey arena in Detroit? Stanley points out that during this time golf club debts and hockey arena debts are largely ignored while delinquent water customers are targeted. The reason for targeting water is a plan to privatize the water utility. The Guardian called it a “prized resource worth billions” and said the shutoffs were “a way to make the balance-sheet more attractive in the lead up to its privatization.”

So here we have financial efficiency over and against the public good. A clear example of managerial values over the democratic values of the people. Removing access to water is an aggressive restriction of freedom, even if it can be described as financially efficient. Financial efficiency does not care about what is best for actual people, and those who are the most vulnerable are the most negatively impacted.

Stanley says:

In general, one can expect that the most draconian possible interpretation and execution of the legal code will be carried out if the goal is to maximize profit and the mechanism for public accountability is lifted.

I think that’s a fair assessment.

So we come back to a quote I shared earlier:

A society ruled by technocrats who make decisions on behalf of the masses is, since Plato’s time, regarded as a system that is opposed to democracy, rather than one exemplifying it.