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From International Socialism (1st series), No.51, April-June 1972, p.31.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The Greening of America
Charles Reich
Penguin, 40p.
Charles Reich’s book seems to have two aims. One is to analyse the development of American society from the pioneer days to what Reich describes as the modern corporate state, and the other is to propose, on the basis of this analysis, some perspective for radical social change. As this is the task that Marxists set themselves, such an attempt by a non-Marxist is most interesting. When the attempt has been a bestseller in the United States for some thirteen weeks, it is extremely important to understand how its arguments relate to Marxist analyses.
The development of American society, says Reich, can be characterised by three general levels of consciousness, which he designates I, II and III. Consciousness I was shown in the attitudes of the early Americans, in the importance they attached to individual enterprise and the self-made man. As American capitalism developed, the idea that individual hard work alone made the world go round (or the Protestant Ethic as sociologists used to call it) became more and more removed from the reality. By the 1930s, it was the gigantic private corporations rather than the hard working individual that determined the direction that the United States was to go in. Along with this development went poverty and financial crises, and the need to reform the system. The crucial reform programme was the New Deal, and from this came Consciousness II; a reformist consciousness, but a totalitarian one, committed to the Hobbesian view of the need to regulate men. The state created a vast number of public corporations, as it was felt that they would balance out the private ones and make reforms possible, but instead of balancing, the public and private corporations merged and consolidated their power.
Because it must adapt ordinary citizens to its own needs, the corporate state alienates them. It tries to transform them, through education and social institutions, so that they serve its interests, and thus estranges them from their own interests and from themselves. But the state machine is destroying itself, particularly in the false consciousness of affluence that it sponsors. As the myth of affluence wears thin, so dissatisfaction grows. Because the power of the state lies in its control of men’s consciousness, rather than in the force of arms, the state will lose control if the people’s consciousness can be changed, and will be overthrown bloodlessly and simply. This is the revolution of consciousness. And men’s consciousness is changing. There is developing, especially among young people, a new consciousness, Consciousness III, that is overcoming their alienation, rejecting the old values, ignoring the corporate state and so removing its control. Because its only control, that over consciousness, will disappear as Consciousness III spreads, the state will become impotent and wither away.
That, at any rate, is the argument, and it does contain some truths. Reich’s historical treatment provides a fairly sound basis for understanding the development of American society in recent years, and the alienation that he describes certainly exists, although it is a pity he didn’ t discover it earlier. Large corporations do not create alienation, they merely intensify it. What Marxists will really want to question is his conclusions. As far as Reich is concerned, the revolution will be brought about simply by educating people along the lines of Consciousness III, and because state control depends only on its control of consciousness, this change in consciousness will bring about the collapse of the state.
State control does, of course, involve the control of consciousness, through ideology, education, and other social institutions, but this is only part of the mechanics of control, it is not the basic. The basis of state control is its economic dominance, not in itself, but as the executive arm of the ruling class. The central means of control is its dominance of the legal system, and in the last analysis in its capacity to exert physical force. This is not just rhetoric. Reich should have understood the importance of American legislation on industrial relations, the significance of the brute force used by the state in the black areas, and the legal violence at Kent State University. He could then have seen that the state is not some abstract thought-controller, but is something very real that affects the lives of every American, every day, controlling schools, work, police, prisons, universities, and a thousand other real, material things.
It is quite incredible that a radical American can virtually ignore the importance of workers’ struggles and of struggles in the black ghettoes, because it is in these struggles that the majority of American people experience the power of the state and come to understand its nature. The only workers’ actions that Reich seriously considers are the negative ones of idleness and absenteeism. There is no talk of the positive struggles to gain control of the wages system, -and for some, to gain control over their whole working environment. He can ignore all this, however, because of his false analysis of the power of the state, and his gross overemphasis on consciousness. Marx’s dictum that it is social being that determines social consciousness, rather than vice versa, provides us with the key to understanding this point. Only a small minority of young Americans will ever have the opportunity to drop out and reject conventional life-styles. For the great majority of Americans, there will be no choice but to work, and to battle against the state whenever it gets in the way. It is their social being as workers, as blacks, and as exploited consumers that will determine their social consciousness, and it is from this consciousness that a social revolution will develop in America.
The Greening of America is a sad but dangerous illusion. It is not the first of its kind, and neither will it be the last.
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