The Deep State
Whilst each generation create their own identity and
concepts, it is very difficult to change entrenched human attitudes and
behaviour. The deep state as a concept is a relatively modern concept to
describe the exercise of power by those who are not in front line politics. In
his book “Deep State”, Mike Lofgren (ISBN 0525428348, 9780525428343) gives the
modern version of this term in the USA.
According to Lofgren, today we look at the big social media
and internet companies to understand the deep state. But this is nothing new,
in 1961 President Dwight D. Eisenhower was warning the world about the “military–industrial
complex” that will influence public policy for private vested interests. The
operating key for us is “vested interests”.
However, there is a big problem with having an accurate
insight into the deep state for the simple reason that the insiders of the deep
state also control the information about the deep state. And if that was not
enough, the deep state is not a single hydra creature but rather a disjointed
grouping each with a vested interest that is unique to them. We can, therefore,
understand the deep state not from the structure and constitution of some
institution or group of people but rather from a similar behaviour pattern by
some people based on the principle of vested interest.
A second issue that is relevant here is to attempt to
disentangle the functions of the state: legitimate activities of the state, the wheeling and dealing people connected or
working for the state get into to make things happen and, of course, the
illegal and criminal activities.
When we cross the road, when the traffic lights turn green
for us, make an appointment with the doctor, buy goods made in a different
country, or make a telephone call all these things are part of the business of
the state to make sure they happen. And a stable and democratic state will
continue to function even if at the cutting edge of democracy (front line), that is the
political government and parliament, things are unstable or unsettled. This is
also not the deep state, but it is the function of a society where law and
order and progress are the key to prosperity and justice. It is not that we
cannot become rich and prosperous in Hobbes’s wild state, but rather it is not
clear why someone should bother to wake up early in the morning to turn off the
street lights. Contracts have no meaning in the wild state but also
constitutions have no meaning when the legitimate state is over run by a
criminal deep state.
The concept of deep state is not new and we’re not deprived
for terminology. In Britain we are familiar with the idea of the
“establishment” and even more common is the term “state within the state”. This
makes our interest more difficult because we are dealing with an evolving “meme”
that is evolving in a historical dimension, in language terms and behavioural activities.
For us a key issue is: how do we recognise the legitimate
function of the state from the illegal activities of the deep state? By definition if we want to identify the
illegal activities of the people involved in the deep state we have to go
beyond the face value of the stories the illegal deep state actors disseminate through
misinformation or by make information to access and process extremely difficult.
We have a saying that goes like this: if something is too
good to be true, it probably it too good to be true. Meaning that if someone is
intentionally or by accident offering you the bargain of the century there is
probably something wrong with the item you are interested in. Politicians and
members of the state are very common practitioners of this “promise”.
What matters for us is not so much to discover the empirical
facts of the illegal activities of the deep state, but rather to identify the
flaws and unusual thinking of the people trying to hide the illegal activities
of the deep state. It is the job of investigative journalists and international
prosecutions to discover the empirical facts, ours is to find the flaws in the
thinking and language of the deep state.
The narrative today is that the west needs to exert pressure
on Middle Eastern countries to protect their oil supplies to the world. Some
might remember the oil crises of the 1973 oil crisis and how this created a
hostile environment ever since between the Middle East and the West (ie the
USA). Some have even argued that the US invaded Iraq for their oil. No doubt a malicious
deep state would easily put forward this argument to arm the Middle East
countries especially to arm allies and friendly governments. The illegal deep
state would want allies to spend more money on arms than on social wealth
creating activities such as education.
Remember our mission is to identify flaws in the logic
(including of course inductive logic) and thinking of the illegal deep state.
Now look at this headline from the CNN Business July 5, 2016 : U.S. has more
untapped oil than Saudi Arabia or Russia. (https://money.cnn.com/2016/07/05/investing/us-untapped-oil/index.html).
This is where we come in as philosophers: why would a country with one of the
highest oil reserves (264 billion barrels as per article) go to war with a
country that has a reported 142 billion barrels of reserves (Iraq: Wikipedia)?
Indeed the article does point out that countries do not
necessarily report the real figures of their reserves, but this is not too
relevant for us. What matters is that from basic economics when supply is much
less than the demand the price goes up. Surly by having an oil rich region in
constant chaos with uncertain oil supplies the price of oil of the other countries
who also have reserves will go up. Incidentally, turmoil in the Middle East
also influences the price of Russian oil reserves.
This looks like a plan maybe even a conspiracy, but we don’t
even need to go there. An unstable Middle East directly benefits the “military–industrial
complex” as mentioned above. What matters here is that whether by design or by
correlation (think babies and storks during the nesting time of storks) the
military complex is doing quite well with the developing and testing of new
weapon system.
But there is another benefit from all this: the players at
what I called the “cutting edge of democracy” that is politicians, are today in
the USA very busy rejecting and playing down Climate Change. If we had to
really tackle Climate Change all that money sitting in oil reserves would all
of a sudden disappear.
Of course, I am not saying, as I said before, that there is
some sort of concerted conspiracy. All I am saying is that once we investigate
the logic and rhetoric of the state including the deep state, we can boost our
view of applied political philosophy from black and white vision to 4k full
colour vision.
Best Lawrence
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