85% - work in progress

85% of policy is in the possession of a deep state and is out of reach of partisan politics. It can and does move as power shifts in the political economy but is unaffected by any given election. The 15% which remains is significant. Some of the money and discourse expended in the course of a campaign is entered into the battle over this 15%. Much of the money is for private ends not, strictly speaking, policy at all.

Obviously, I have made this number up and won’t defend its validity. I will defend the validity of the concept of the deep state. The number you assign to its holdings depends on how you quantify power. What is crucial for party politics as now conducted is that the percentage of policy put in contest is just what is sufficient to stabilize the political system and protect the underlying relations of production. This slice must be capable of adaptation. The coincidence of numerous failed policies at the conclusion of the previous administration opened up the field in the last election, evidenced by expanded participation on the part of Democrats. The Republican primaries appeared to show a widening of the slice to the right but now, instead, serve to illustrate the gravitational pull of the deep state. Those interests which are left out of the deep state, and these arise from several directions, pull at the boundary. But they are normally recouped by the flexibility of the system. It is not the struggle to open the process which determines the opportunity given the applicant but the threat that they pose to the underlying relations of production.


The flexibility of the system is constrained by the economic potential at hand. That we have entered a period of diminishing potential would explain the increased tension, ideological and physical, around the political opening; the increased fealty of all parties to an underlying program and, necessarily, the increased partisan bitterness, required to distinguish the parties within a narrowing field.

On the one hand then, important pieces of policy are put to question. It is not true that who is elected is of no importance. On the other hand the process itself serves to stabilize the deep policies which are responsible for the state of permanent crisis we flounder in. Even within the options allowed we do not elect the policies that we think we are. I always recall my fellow parking attendant who, during the 1980 election, allowed that he would, all things considered, have to vote for Reagan if only to bring down the deficit.

These, then, are the poles from which the working class is suspended. Important policy options, within strict limitations, are being contested. But the real political struggle will eventually have to be against a deep state that is, meanwhile, reinforced by the energy and money expended in the contest. A Republican victory will embolden the positions of the dominant class but weaken their grasp of political movement within the working class. A second Obama term will solidify and stabilize the project of austerity which has been agreed to worldwide.