Musical Beds

From a story in the November 22nd edition of The Independent -- "Iraq's oil: The spoils of war" -- excerpted below, we learn the current Iraqi government is "already negotiating contracts with oil companies in parallel with the constitutional process, elections, and passage of a Petroleum Law." The story also makes reference to a BBC Newsnight report from earlier this year that claimed to have "uncovered documents showing the Bush administration made plans to secure Iraqi oil even before the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US."

As per my post of yesterday, I question the appropriateness of the term "Bush administration" (or the "Iraqi government" for that matter, but let's just stick to the first misnomer for now). Sure, this "administration" terminology has been used to describe U.S. governments for a very long time, e.g., the Clinton administration, the Eisenhower administration, etc. But, as I argue in my previous post, there is no Bush "administration" in the sense that we have historically used this term as a referent for the US government under the stewardship of a given president. Instead we have a military energy industrial government complex which sets policy based on sales development goals.

This is a difficult concept for many of us, myself included, to grasp. Back in the 60s and 70s we American kids were taught that business and government were separate entities. We learned that it was the job of one entity (the government) to regulate the other (business). This was because it was generally recognized that business sometimes became overzealous in its pursuit of profits and could occasionally do bad things that might harm the nation's citizens. Some examples back then were flammable pajamas and DDT. So, anyway, that's when the government would step in to sort things out. The government would do this because not only was it the right thing to do, but because there were some old timey theories of government that said that a government had to be seen by its citizens to be "legitimate." It had to do something with proving it had citizens's best interests in mind because sometimes governments would have to call on citizens to make the "ultimate sacrifice" -- fight and die in wars.

So one way the government could prove it was legitimate was to stick up for its citizens when businesses tricked citizens and stole their money or made them work for hours and hours without breaks or days off. Another way to prove its legitimacy was to keep the US out of wars unless it became absolutely impossible to avoid them. That's because if the government spent the lives of its citizens unwisely -- like for reasons involving the making of money -- then some citizens might question the "legitimacy" of the government. And, if they got angry enough, these citizens might get rid of that illegitimate government. (Of course the big legitimacy problem in the 60s and 70s was the legitimacy of the government because of the war in Vietnam. That crisis actually proves my larger point: that government and business were semi-independent entities back then. Government got into the war in Vietnam without much assistance or prodding from business).

We did learn in school of a few scattered scandals where government did the bidding of business instead of the other way around. There was mention of the Teapot Dome Scandal in the Harding administration which had something to do with government owned land oil leases, and a scandal in the Grant administration with some financiers named Jay Gould and Jim Fisk that had to do with gold. These scandals were portrayed as rare occasions that happened so long ago and were so minor as to be of historical interest only -- morality tales designed to show the general incorruptibility of the US government, to reinforce its claim to legitimacy.

Okay. So now here's the hard part. Like I said before, there is now no "government" in the United States of America. I'll say it again: There is now no "government" in the United States of America. Okay. Good. Harder than I thought, but I'm already feeling better, more clear-headed.

Instead of a "government," there is now a single entity which I'm today calling the military energy industrial government complex. In this complex the employees work for themselves, their stock portfolios, their current, former or future companies in the defense, intelligence and energy industries. They work in conjunction with current, former or future employees of those same companies who are now working in government buildings and whom we would formerly refer to as "government officials." These "government" employees work to find ways to give taxpayer money or taxpayer funded institutions to the energy, defense, or intelligence companies they used to work for, currently work for, or plan to work for in the future. Not government at all like we were taught.

Maybe a good way to think about how this works now is that old analogy of the government and business nexus as like a big game of musical chairs, where money and power means you always get to have a chair. Sometimes the chair is in the House of Representatives or the White House. Sometimes it's over at Halliburton or Exxon Mobil. Sometimes it's at the Pentagon, other times at Lockheed Martin. Sometimes it's in the CIA and sometime it's in a "security" firm. This analogy nicely shows how contingent all these arrangements are, contingent temporally and spatially, and most importantly, contingent on the getting and giving of money.

But the tonality of the analogy is wrong: musical chairs is a children's game, and while it may describe the contingent, positional nature of today's power structure, it fails to describe the nature of these dealings, these double and triple and quadruple dealings.

We could imagine something a bit more grown-up. We could imagine that government and business are "in bed with each other." This expression has the right implication of secrecy, corruption, and stealth. And it somewhat salaciously suggests the two entities closely entwined with each other in a beneficial and satisfying embrace -- the beast with two backs, to get Rabelaisian on you or a moment.

But while the tonality is right, I'm afraid the "together" part is dated. Although descriptive and, yes, suggestive, we really must break ourselves of the habit of thinking of business and government as separate entities, conjoined in mutual congress. I would say instead that the more appropriate way to think about the ruling structure in the US these days is to picture in that enseamed bed one monstrous multi-limbed entity entwined with itself in a singularly satisfying embrace.

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Iraq's oil: The spoils of war
The Independent
By Philip Thornton, Economics Correspondent
Published: 22 November 2005


Iraqis face the dire prospect of losing up to $200bn (£116bn) of the wealth of their country if an American-inspired plan to hand over development of its oil reserves to US and British multinationals comes into force next year. A report produced by American and British pressure groups warns Iraq will be caught in an "old colonial trap" if it allows foreign companies to take a share of its vast energy reserves. The report is certain to reawaken fears that the real purpose of the 2003 war on Iraq was to ensure its oil came under Western control. …

Yesterday's report said the use of production sharing agreements (PSAs) was proposed by the US State Department before the invasion and adopted by the Coalition Provisional Authority. "The current government is fast-tracking the process. It is already negotiating contracts with oil companies in parallel with the constitutional process, elections and passage of a Petroleum Law," the report, Crude Designs, said.

Earlier this year a BBC Newsnight report claimed to have uncovered documents showing the Bush administration made plans to secure Iraqi oil even before the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US.