honor's paper on "empire" by hardt and negri
People are losing their homes. Those that aren’t are in no better shape, barely scraping by, forced to pinch pennies in any way possible in order to keep a roof over their families’ head. Deaths are occurring all at the excuse of saving a few dollars here and there and yet the ones responsible only care about getting that extra deal on the product of their choosing. The unemployment rate is skyrocketing with each passing day and there seems to be no real end in sight. In a cruel twist of fate, simultaneously the prices of even the most basic of goods are rising, as it seems the highest of the high cannot hear the defiant screams of a frustrated public.
Sadly, this type of imagery can be used for multiple points of the American existence, including but not limited to today’s current economic recession as well as the stock market crash of 1929 that resulted in the Great Depression. Both situations came about through years of deregulation and poor financial management, exhausting the public’s faith in the political system, which led to immense changes in the three major branches of government. In 2008, Barack Obama was elected as the first African-American President of the United States; his election was fueled by the economic downturn that society went through during the latter parts of the campaign, as those who voted for him cited John McCain’s similarities to our current commander-in-chief and felt as if our country could not handle four more years of the same economic policies that had gotten us to the point we’re at now. The same can be said for Franklin D. Roosevelt, the man who was elected president when the depression was at its zenith and steered the country from its breaking point into the world power that it has become.
The global disciplinary state came about through the New Deal, Roosevelt’s most famous achievement as president and one of the most (some would say) heroic ever passed in American legislature. Through the creation of various social programs and social agencies, regulation was heightened and the economy was stood back up after being on the ground for several years; it stressed reformist capitalism and imperialist vocation. The response to the New Deal had society shifting toward capital and the state; instead of focusing on the greater good or various social policies, society was geared toward capitalistic production. This so-called “factory society” stresses the concept of discipline and participation by the population in the process of accumulation; simply put, in the new society under Roosevelt, the people had to take an active role in building the economy back up from where it was and through their circulating capital and increased visibility in the social scene, society will be “reborn”, so to speak. The New Deal became a global phenomenon when America entered (or technically was “forced”, due to the increased international competition that the New Deal would have created) into the second world war, which introduced certain concepts for the first time to certain nations; the world saw how success and transformational the New Deal policies were and thus they were implemented, giving birth to what we know as the “global disciplinary state” (or the “social state). In the global disciplinary state, society dreams of every worker being an interchangeable part of the “global factory”, so to speak. When this occurred, the dollar was at the top of the currency hierarchy, as many saw the power that the American economy had, in terms of rising from the ashes, winning a war, and becoming a world power again all within an extremely short matter of time.
Thanks to the rise in technology that accompanied an ever-expanding post-war economy, the global market began to grow immensely; due to the exposure that other countries had to a post-New Deal economy that saw the American economy grow in leaps and bounds, they began to follow suit and adopt more “American” ideals began to seep their way into the global marketplace. Subsequently, this sudden intensity with which the rest of the world was following our every move caused new technologies to be implemented in America, in order to stave off competition and keep our newfound dominance in tact. The global markets and institutions were a double edged sword for America; though their power and dominance seemingly “inspired” their competition, they had to somehow increase productivity in order to keep up, ratcheting said productivity up through the processes of Taylorism and Fordism.
One of the main concepts that has been drawn into the global disciplinary state is the concept of Taylorism, one third of the modern welfare state and concerning the organization of labor; in Taylorism, generalizations and traditions are eschewed for precise measurements and careful decision-making. It was projected as being one of the pivotal elements of a vital economy; the way that Taylorism spread throughout Europe was the prevalence it had in dominant countries. Smaller or less well-off countries saw that dominant countries had Tayloristic ways of organizing their labor. Taylorism is one of the more technical aspects of the modern global disciplinary state, as science and order were the two main focuses. Each job was to be carefully planned out and have a “science” developed for it; that is to say that Taylorism took out a lot of the surprise elements that could have disrupted the flow of the system and made it so that those in charge can monitor the progress as well as the failures of the system. To put it simply, Taylor felt as if there was “one best way” to go about doing just about anything. This kind of fine tooth combing does not stop at the job itself; bright, capable workers who have abilities best suited to the job are hired and trained to be the most efficient, diligent workers they can be. With Taylorism, you cannot simply stop at putting the workers in their places and letting them go; you have to give them reason to keep the system in tact; in a sociological sense, Taylorism would be a sister to the fundamentalist way of thinking as well as a part of the sociology of regulation.
Going along with Taylorism is the concept of Fordism, named for the automobile impresario Henry Ford, another third of the modern welfare state, and concerning wages. Fordism was a term used to describe a period of time with highly mechanized production and a massive consumption of productions; one could say that it will undo the concept of Taylorism, as Fordism is more concerned about the bottom line than about worker competency or product safety. The expanding of the production led to greater consumption (the more products are out there, the more people will continue to buy, as well as the fact that America’s economy was booming from the post-depression bounce), which in turn increased worker wages, as the homogenization of the work itself was a deterrent for even the most strident of workers. The higher wages were posed as a reward to the workers for accepting the discipline that went along with the system. The system of Fordism cooled off by the time the 1970s and 1980s hit (as there was another economic crisis) and was subsequently replaced by post-fordism, which relied less on the repetitive, menial tasks and assembly lines and more on flexibility specialization (i.e. diverse product lines) and new information technologies.
The concept of the sublime by Jean Francois Lyotard can be applied to the global disciplinary state theory; he uses it in relation to (mostly avant garde) art, though it can be geared towards other concepts. Sublimity is a mixture between pleasure and pain when you first experience a stimulus; anytime there is a reaction to said stimulus, however muted or guttural it may be, Lyotard would consider that piece of art to be sublime. For Lyotard, the concept of being sublime is extremely subjective, as two people can look at the same thing and react to it in completely different ways; sublimity takes into account individual differences.
Lyotard borrows some of his thinking about the sublime from Kant, including the fact that the sublime can be divided into two categories: the dynamically sublime and the mathematically sublime. With the mathematically sublime, there is always a reaction; to be mathematically sublime is to simply be different enough in order to catch our eye. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a positive or a negative reaction, though, as any reaction would suffice. When you see something that conflicts with something you already had in your mind and you don’t know how to internalize it and process the information that you have just been exposed to, that is mathematically sublime. Reason is the central focus and if something cannot fit into your already developed schema, you have to take a step back and re-analyze it, as taking something in as a whole is too much for the mind to handle. For example, when one views an abstract painting, generally they do not immediately understand it. When walking through an art gallery, you will see people come up on paintings, stop, and take a step back trying to take in each element; they are not only trying to decipher its meaning but they are showing that the painting is sublime.
With the dynamically sublime, the reaction is much more visceral; if the mathematically, more analytical sublime can be considered the “pleasure” aspect of the greater concept of sublimity, then the dynamically sublime can be considered more along the lines of the “pain” or the “fear” aspect. When something is dynamically sublime, the mind realizes that there is something much greater and much more powerful at work, though one’s spirit will not be dwarfed. Something dynamically sublime is on a deeper level that something mathematically sublime; dynamically sublime objects make the viewer take into account all aspects of the self, not just the physical. Mathematical sublimity is moreso related to curiosity; when there is something that causes a disturbance, you do not cower yet you do not automatically assimilate. With dynamic sublime objects, there is an element of fear as the introduction of the stimulus has a resounding effect on the viewer’s psyche; there is more power in the stimulus than we originally anticipated and it has the ability to inspire the type of large scale thinking that the mathematical sublime just isn’t equipped to. For example, something like a hurricane or a volcano inspires a type of morbid fascination that almost mesmerizes the average person; when watching the latest news coverage of a natural disaster, you generally give extremely strong reactions but buried in there is the realization that this is something much stronger than you are, thus making them dynamically sublime.
Not only can the concept of the sublime be found in the art world, but it can also be seen in the global marketplace and has an effect on the global enterprise, as well. Through the concept of the sublime, there is always some sort of resistance associated, though there are varying degrees of intensity to which it is experienced. Globalization is no different; whenever a country has taken a while to make a decision that has global consequences, you are witnessing the sublime in action. Anytime you see deals being made and different relationships being formed, you are witnessing the sublime in action. The sublime resists the imperatives of globalization, as the public has demanded some sort of fiscal responsibility from its leaders and has not allowed the political machine to run rampant. Globalization has a lot of roots with laissez faire economics and free trade agreements, both of which tend not to work as well in the world as they do on paper, so when they are implemented by corporations in order to try to increase (their) profit, the sublime becomes even more apparent. However, this does not stop the sublime from being a necessary part of global enterprise, due to the fact that it stops rash decisions from being made and that it allows for reflection. Something as immense as globalization is certainly related to the sublime; the average citizen may not understand the concept of globalization (i.e. the transforming of local phenomena into global ones) and it may cause fear or doubt. When the word globalization is uttered, you generally get responses of confusion and angst; this would be considered a product of the dynamic sublime, as we see globalization as something tremendously bigger than any one of us and it is something that we feel could swallow us whole, so to speak.
Jean Francois Lyotard and Hardt & Negri aren’t that far off from one another, as Lyotard’s concepts of the sublime can interlock with Hardt & Negri’s thoughts on the global enterprise, globalization, and the global disciplinary system; Lyotard’s thoughts enhance Hardt & Negri’s theories and draw out a lot of the social implications that may not have been as explicitly stated as before. Not only are Lyotard’s concepts essential for the global disciplinary state to prosper, but they tend to push against the imperatives of globalization and challenge the system. The sublime holds globalization accountable for its actions, which makes the system that much stronger and more efficient. Just like the human body, global systems need to be challenged in order to get better. Therefore through the combination of the dynamic sublime and the mathematical sublime, one can better understand the arguments of each global system. Time will only tell if Barack Obama can produce a New Deal-sized program the way that Roosevelt did, but if it happened once and in one of the most desolate times in American history (to bring our country to the point that it was at its peak and still remains one of the premiere global powers some 70 years later), it can surely happen in today’s day and age, restoring the American economy to the stable, productive, and healthy state to which most have become accustomed.