The purpose of this essay is to assess whether or not the United States
is a polyarchy. We will look at the Bush Presidency and the
characteristics it possessed which are suggestive of a polyarchical
system, the media as a possible system of support for a polyarchy, and
the economic structure as symptomatic of such a system. A single essay
cannot prove conclusively that the political system is a polyarchy, but
it will no doubt be thought provoking.
First
of all, we need to accept a definition of polyarchy. James Madison, the
“Father of the Constitution”, once said that the role of the government
“ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent
against the majority.” In other words, the government should protect the
wealthy from the poor. Madison’s
vision is not far from it, though it wasn’t until the 1950s that Robert
Dahl described the concept: polyarchy, a system in which two or more
political parties – who represent powerful interest groups – who compete
with one another to govern. These powerful groups usually exercise
influence on the two parties through their capital and act egoistically.
The public does have a role in this system, which it would not in a
dictatorship, the role of voting. In such a system, politicians face a
dual constituency – the needs and wants of the poor versus the needs and
wants of the rich. Dahl’s theory of a polyarchy may explain why voters
have to choose between the Democrats and Republicans and nothing seems
to change no matter who they elect.
Although,
it was in the 1950s that Dahl introduced the concept, it could be
argued that in practice polyarchy is nothing new to the US. It has been said
that the “Founding Fathers” feared dictatorship, but that they also
feared democracy. A polyarchal system may have seemed more practical and
realistic to the “Founding Fathers” than a dictatorial or a democratic
system. The flaw of democracy, as Madison
saw it, was that it might lead to the majority of the population,
specifically the poor, using their voting power to initiate land reform.
Such reform was viewed as an infringement on the rights of the wealthy
minority to own and accumulate private property. This was not the first
time that people had faced this dilemma. Aristotle considered the same
dilemma. In his book Politics, Aristotle considers the different
forms of government and evaluates them. He concluded that democracy was
the “least bad” option. Aristotle noted a problem with democracy. If the
poor of Athens could
use their voting power, they might seize the property of the rich. But
Aristotle proposed that inequality should be ended, so that the flaw of
democracy would be no more. Madison, on the other hand, proposed that we should limit democratic procedures without becoming tyrannical.
It
could be argued that a lack of political pluralism is symptomatic of a
polyarchical and undemocratic, partly because it lacks the genuine
political pluralism that is essential to democracy. Without a wide range
of political parties, the people of the country could lack viable
options in changing society in accordance with their needs and wants. In
a sense, it is also more likely that the two parties are
unrepresentative of the majority of Americans. Though, there is an
objection to this claim.
Even
though, the two main political parties appear to represent a narrow
political spectrum, they are comprised of powerful factions, and thus
may not be homogenous. It could be argued that, the Democrats consist of
several factions, most famously liberals, social democrats and
progressives, as well as moderates and a conservative wing. Similarly in
the “GOP”, which is known primarily for its conservatives both fiscal
and social, there are also libertarians, the Christian Right, moderates
and neoconservatives. Therefore, the United States
political system may not necessarily be polyarchal and could be
representative of the American people. Because the two main parties
consist of a multitude of factions, it could be argued that there is
pluralism internal to the two main parties. It may be added that in an
advanced democracy the political factions most popular with the civilian
population may be lumped together into two or three main parties. The
plurality internal of the two parties could reflect a degree of choice
which would not exist at all in a totally undemocratic and possibly
polyarchical system.
It could be argued that these two parties are not monolithic, but that does not mean the US
isn’t a polyarchy. As the plurality of factions could exist in a
polyarchy, these factions are not parties and are subject to the same
influence of political donors as the rest of the party. Even when taking
into account these factions, the political spectrum that is represented
by the two parties is still narrow. Where the political spectrum in Europe
would consider a politician such as John Kerry firmly right-wing, the
American political spectrum would place Kerry on the centre-left. Most
politicians in the US
are labelled either “liberal” or “conservative”. Occasionally,
moderates and libertarians are mentioned. Dennis Kucinich and Ralph
Nader are deviations from this set of vague labels and are usually
referred to as “far-left”. Labels such as “socialist” and “fascist” come
up in discourse and are usually used by politicians to vilify each
other. But the use of these terms in bouts of “mudslinging” is
deceiving, leading many to believe that there is a great deal of
diversity. Even if the likes of Ron Paul and Kucinich as examples of the
“diversity” of US
politics, such diversity may not contradict the concept of a polyarchy.
But only two parties remain dominant and their members are
predominantly “liberal” and “conservative”, it could be said that there
is little diversity. In practice, it could be said, Bush and Kerry did
not differ greatly on policy.
Before
examining the actions of the Bush administration, it is imperative that
we first look at the circumstances which ushered them into office and
the similarities between the candidates of the 2000 Election. The
Democratic candidate was Al Gore and the Republican candidate was George
Bush. Both of them stood in opposition to universal health care and
strict controls on environmental damages. Neither proposed a plan for
extensive low-cost housing. Both candidates favoured a strong military
establishment and protectionist economic practices. The death penalty
and the growth of prisons were opposed by neither Bush nor Gore. Al Gore
had made a name for himself as a supporter of environmental causes and
chose Joe Lieberman, a well known conservative, as his running mate. For
instance, Lieberman voted to limit punitive damage awards in cases of
product liability. Lieberman was popular with the military industrial
complex, which received $8 billion in contracts for a submarine during
his stint as senator for Connecticut.
On the other hand, Bush was primarily known for his connections in the
oil industry and his unprecedented record for executing convicts while
he was the Governor of Texas. Bush chose Dick Cheney as his running
mate, who had been involved in the administrations of Bush I, Ford and
Nixon.
A
polyarchy would feature a skewed representation of wealthy groups, as
opposed to being subjected to the will of the people at a grass-roots
level. Because such groups have access to the capital required to have
an effect on the political process, through lobbying and campaign
funding. In the election of 2000, it could be said that, even the voting
machinery was “skewed” in the favour of the wealthy. The electoral vote
was so close that it was left to state electors to decide the outcome
of the election. Gore had received hundreds of thousands of votes more
than Bush, but this did not result in a landslide victory for Gore.
Victory had to be determined by the electors of each state, due to
stipulations in the Constitution. But many votes in Florida
had simply not been counted, voting ballots and machines had been
disqualified on technical grounds. Most of these votes had been made by
poor African-Americans. There was a recount, which was rushed and did
not take into account every one of the disputed ballots, which concluded
Bush had won the election by over 500 votes. This is evidence of the
inadequate representation of blacks in America,
and a testament to the neglect of the poor in the country, which points
to a system tilted to whites of wealthy backgrounds. The Republicans
took the case to the US Supreme Court – which consisted of five
conservatives and four liberals at the time – who in turn overruled the
Florida Supreme Court and prohibited anymore recounts. Possibly, the
conservative judges acted to elect the politician favoured most by
“Corporate America”, as opposed to the candidate favoured by the people.
It
could be argued that the American people have a disposition towards
conservatism. It is imperative that we look at the Election of 2000 from
a conservative point-of-view. What people have forgotten is that at
that time Al Gore represented, what was widely regarded as a discredited
administration. The Clinton
administration had been elected on a mandate for “hope” and it was seen
to have accomplished little in two terms. Not only had the
administration failed the American people, but it was viewed as an
embarrassment by many. This would have had an influence on the voters at
the time. Even without the record the Clintonites had, it is a rarity
in American politics to see the people give a third-term to a party.
This is especially true when the candidate was a member of the
administration throughout its tenure. Bush, on the other hand, was a
“new face” and appeared folksy to the public. Bush ran on a platform of
compassionate conservatism, which may have appealed to many moderate as
well as conservative voters. At the same time, Ralph Nader ran for
President and proposed far more progressive policies than Bush and Gore.
It has been argued by the Democrats that Nader’s candidacy had created a
“spoiler effect” during the election and may have cost Gore the
election. Nader won a little less than 97,500 votes in Florida,
therefore it could be that Nader cost Gore the election since Bush won
by 500 votes. If the voting system had not been for the fiasco
surrounding ballots in Florida it could be argued that there may have been a clear cut Republican victory.
Despite the controversy surrounding the election, Bush was inaugurated as demonstrations were held in Washington and Florida
rejecting his victory as illegitimate. Once in office the Bush
administration began pushing for tax cuts for the rich and opposing
regulation which could limit environmental damage. The administration
sought increases in the military budget, which is beneficial to
high-tech industry as a lot of the funding for the military is used to
subsidise the private sector. The administration made plans to privatise
Social Security, to put the retirement funds of American citizens on
the stock market. It could be said that these policies are not
representative of the people. The majority of the white working-class
voted on two areas gun ownership and religiosity, policies on abortion
and gay rights. At the same time, upper-class voters tend to vote on
economic issues related to taxes and health-care. This is the dual
constituency, as indicative of a polyarchy, we looked at previously.
Bush tried to appeal to both classes, by opposing gun control and
abortion while seeking vast tax cuts for the rich. It would appear that
even if Bush’s first term was legitimate, it would be predicated on many
people voting against their interests. It would also appear that this
may be the way politicians aim to resolve the problem of the dual
constituency – the rich and the poor – by ensuring that the electorate
vote against their own interests.
The
amount of corporate support a candidate for public office has is
reflected by the sum of funding which was received during their
campaigns. The Bush campaign managed to raise $220 million in funding,
whereas the Gore campaign received $170 million in funding. In 2004,
when Bush and Cheney were campaigning for re-election they received just
over $367 million and spent around $345 million. On the other hand,
John Kerry received over $328 million and spent around $310 million. If
we look at the most recent Presidential election in the US,
we can see that this trend continues. Obama received around $745
million in funding, spent around $730 million, while the McCain campaign
received $368 million and spent less than $350 million on his campaign.
There appears to be a consistent pattern in American politics,
particularly over the last 30 years, that corporate funding of campaigns
has increased and the winners of elections tend to those who received
the most funding. In the case of the 2000 Election, this may have meant
that even a politician not supported by a majority of the population
could take office purely on a firm base of corporate support.
Many
members of the Bush administration had been successful in the private
sector. The five years Dick Cheney spent as a CEO, of the major
corporation Halliburton, is perhaps the most infamous instance of this,
but not an exceptional example. The President himself had been involved
in energy companies, Arbusto Energy, Spectrum 7 and Harken, in the late
70s right up until the 90s. Condoleezza Rice had worked for
corporations, like the Carnegie Corporation and Hewlett-Packard, but
most notably the energy company Chevron. Donald Rumsfeld became involved
in the pharmaceutical corporation Searle after leaving the Ford
administration. After playing the roles of CEO, President and Chairman,
Rumsfeld profited from the sale of Searle to Monsanto in 1985. All the
while, he remained a part-time role in the public sector. He was
involved in a string of corporations up until 2001 when Rumsfeld was
made Secretary of Defence. Andrew Card, a member of the White House Iraq
Group, had been the President of the American Automobile Manufacturers
Association until the trade association dissolved. Then he was President
of General Motors until joining the administration in 2001. Henry
Paulson had been involved in Goldman Sachs for over 30 years by the time
he was appointed to Secretary of the Treasury. Arguably, it is likely
for such a government, consisting of people who have worked in business
for decades, to be swayed by elite interests.
American
foreign policy could reflect the way in which state-power can be swayed
by elite interests. Despite massive opposition around the world, the US government led the invasion of Iraq with the stated aim of removing a brutal dictatorial regime, to bring democracy and freedom to the Iraqi people. Iraq is a major oil producing country, second only to Saudi Arabia,
and many members of the administration had worked in the private
sector, some specialising specifically in the energy industry. Oil is
often the most cited reason the country was invaded today, and we now
know that around 80% of Iraqi oil went to British and American energy
corporations. Facts like these are unsettling for many, as they seem to
imply a conflict of interest on the part of the Bush administration and
“Corporate America”, as many members of the administration had been
involved in the energy industry.
Oil
could have been one reason for the invasion, it could be argued that
there were many other reasons. Once the invasion had been completed, and
fighting continued throughout much of the country, the American
government, through the Coalition Provisional Authority, initiated
economic “shock therapy” consisting of a series of free-market reforms.
The mass-privatisation of industries and services in the public sector,
followed by the deregulation of the markets, the aim was to create an
ideal market economy. The Iraqi people were denied the freedom to
unionise, as they had been under Saddam Hussein. Corporation tax in Iraq
was lowered from 40% to 15%, to encourage investment, and such
corporations were also allowed to transfer 100% of their profits out of
the Iraq
tax free. Corruption had became a serious problem in the country, as
over 10% of the $350 billion in funds allocated for reconstruction were
siphoned off by American corporations. If there was a functioning
polyarchy in the US,
at that time, these facts could be viewed as signs of the exertion of
state-power for the benefit of multinational corporations. Possibly, a
further indication that the US is a polyarchy.
The
awarding of no-bid reconstruction contracts, in some cases by executive
agreement, have been viewed by some as a form of this use of
state-power, for the benefit of private companies. Halliburton and
Bechtel are two corporations that were awarded no-bid reconstruction
contracts. Bechtel was awarded $35 million contract, a condition of the
contract stated that it could provide for funding up to a sum of $680
million. Though, Halliburton is the most infamous case, as it was once
run by Dick Cheney. Halliburton received numerous no-bid reconstruction
contracts through executive agreements. By 2004 Halliburton had around
$10 billion worth of contracts in Iraq.
There were also allegations of corruption against Halliburton, as well
as claims that the corporation had sought excessive charges from the
government to cover costs. In 2006 the Pentagon’s auditors found over
$250 million were potentially excessive or unjustified charges.
Nevertheless, all but $10 million of those contested costs were covered
by the American government.
The
purpose of the media is supposed to be that of an impartial distributor
of important information to the public on a daily basis. Unfortunately,
it is possible that media can act as subservient institutions to
private-power. The manner in which the media acted under Bush, in the run-up to the Iraq
war is important, as the coverage appealed to the average American’s
need for security and safety. The media widely disseminated the idea
that Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass-destruction” and failed to
challenge the Bush administration on the accusations they were making –
all of which later turned out to be untrue. In doing so, it could be
said that the media supported the invasion, which would later see 80% of
Iraqi oil go to the energy corporations. The behaviour of the media in
the run-up to the war could be viewed as symptomatic of a polyarchy.
This is so because political parties, in a polyarchal system, would have
to at least appeal to the population on some level even though their
policies are skewed toward serving the interests of wealthy groups. In a
dictatorship there would be no need for even the pretence of
representing the people, as government can do as it pleases and simply
repress any dissent.
Fox
News was the first news channel that declared Bush the winner in the
contested election. Although, the Fox News channel is often criticised
for it’s consistently right-wing slant on social and economic issues.
Though, as Christianity has been politicised, the discourse has been
turned towards “moral issues” like abortion, gay rights etc. and away
from issues like health and wages. Rival news channels soon fell in line
with Fox and declared Bush the President-elect. These news channels
probably did so in order to avoid losing ratings and to avoid the common
accusation that they represent a “liberal bias” in the media. In the
early days of the war with Afghanistan, Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly called on the military to "bomb
the Afghan infrastructure to rubble—the airport, the power plants,
their water facilities, and the roads." Whether or not it is right to
bomb the infrastructure of a country there should have at least been
debate regarding this tactic, as opposed to simply its advocacy. We
might expect this kind of conduct from Fox News, a channel with a
reputation for supporting conservatives, but it is also media outlets
that are often accused as having a “liberal” or “left-wing” bias that
have behaved in similar ways to Fox in the past. It was the New York
Times and the Washington Post that are supposedly liberal news outlets
and yet they did not oppose either the Iraq war or the invasion in Afghanistan.
If
we take the view that the American people tend to lean towards
conservatism, and that this is the reason behind the lack of political
pluralism rather than polyarchy, we should acknowledge that the same could be said of the media.
The reason for the conservative slant on many stories, even in papers
with liberal reputations like the Washington Post and the New York
Times, maybe that the readers identify with the conservative viewpoint.
Newspapers and news channels with right-wing dispositions are more
popular. The forces of the free-market would remove any media outlets
that are unsuccessful, leaving only the papers and channels providing
the information that the public favours most. Consequently, media
outlets with such leanings are more successful and outdo competing media
firms that do not share these leanings. As a consequence, there are
more channels with a right-wing perspective than there are with a
left-wing slant. In this view, this is the reason left-wing commentary
is confined to outlets dependent on public funding. On the other hand,
right-wing commentary has flourished in the private sector since the
late 1980s. But this begs the question, do the media reflect public
opinion?
There
have been other explanations proposed, to explain the tilt in media
coverage, one being the “propaganda model”. Propaganda was once used
openly to refer to methods of manipulating the public. The term
propaganda developed negative connotations because similar methods had
been utilised by Nazi propagandists. The PR industry used to be referred
to as propaganda, until Edward Bernays invented the term “public
relations”. Bernays believed that humans are driven by irrational
forces. Therefore, it is likely that people can make “wrong decisions”
and want “wrong things”. To Bernays, the public is a “bewildered herd”
and that the only way to deal with them is by appealing to their
unconscious desires and fears. In his book Propaganda, Bernays wrote: “The
conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and
opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.”
Plausibly, these manipulative practices are undemocratic. Bernays dubbed
this “intelligent manipulation” the engineering of consent. Years
before he had done so, Walter Lippmann had given it another label the
“manufacturing of consent”. A phrase later borrowed by Chomsky and
Herman, in their book which presented the “propaganda model”. This model
consists of five editorial filters, through which
information passes before being presented to the public as news. These
filters include: 1. The size, ownership, owner wealth and
profit-motivated nature of the mass-media. 2. The dependence of media
firms on advertising. 3. The reliance of the media on the government,
business and experts funded by these primary sources of power. 4.
“Flak”, the means of managing public information, negative responses to a
media statement. 5. Ideological bias, for instance anti-communism. We
can’t cover all of these so let’s look at the relevant filters – the
second and the fifth.
The
second filter, the dependency of the media on advertising revenue as a
way in which media outlets interact with the business community which
can affect the content of news. Advertisements cover the costs of
writing and producing newspapers, which ultimately drove down the price
of the paper. Without the support of advertisers, newspapers and
channels are not practical to run. As a result of the increasing
dependency on advertising revenue, the radical press has been weakened
considerably since the mid 19th Century as it could not
compete. The readers of such papers tend to be of humble backgrounds,
the newspapers that had more advertising were cheaper for them to read
on a regular basis. Most of the working-class press has either gone out
of business because of this or has become dependent on public funding.
In a sense, it is true that the right-ward leaning of the media is a
product of supply and demand, but only in relation to advertising
revenue and not sales revenue. The bias of the media may not simply be a
partisan agenda, like that which Fox arguably has with the “GOP”, but
an ideological prejudice that transcends parties. This brings us to the
fifth filter.
The
fifth filter is anti-communism as a control mechanism. The widely
publicised and documented history of abuse in communist states had made
anti-communism an ideological principle in Western politics. It could be
said that communism was portrayed as the “ultimate evil” over decades.
Chomsky and Herman argued that it was anti-communism that was used to
mobilise the masses against enemies. Thus, leftists could be vilified by
commentators, as on the side of the enemy, but social democrats and
progressives also became the subject of this vilification. Michael
Dukakis was called a “card-carrying member of the ACLU” during his
campaign for office in 1988. The term “card-carrying” implies membership
to the Communist Party. Though, it should be noted Chomsky and Herman
were writing in the late 1980s prior to the collapse of the USSR.
Therefore, it may be fair to assume that the kind of ideological bias
today may differ greatly to that of the media during the Cold War. The
Republicans accused Al Gore of appealing to “class warfare” in the
election campaign and more recently there has been a spate of
red-baiting during Obama’s campaign. Arguably, this is part of an
ideological disposition to notions of freedom and individualism in
general. Notions such as the free-market and social mobility, on the
basis of merit, also appear to be prevalent. In fact, this disposition
has a long history, predating the Cold War and possibly back to the
Founding Fathers. The depth of this ideological disposition is reflected
in speeches made by politicians, one such instance is Bush’s statement “I believe freedom is the future of all humanity.”
We
will now look at the economic system, as it has changed over the last
four decades. The last 40 years are important as this was the time that a
major change occurred, putting the social democratic ideas of Roosevelt
behind and moving on to neoliberalism – which emphasises economic
growth, a minimal state and a free-market. Milton Friedman, the leading
monetarist economist, once said “A society that puts equality before
freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality
will get a high degree of both.” Friedman’s words fit well with the
ideals of the US,
individualism and freedom, as well as his theories which have been
highly influential in the years up to the financial crisis of 2008. This
could be part of the ideological disposition we discussed previously.
Debatably, this disposition may have left Americans ill-equipped to deal
with the problems of inequality. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans
shocked many, as the slow reaction from the Federal government drew
accusations of negligence. Since a polyarchy is a system which functions
to stifle radical political change and maintain the concentration of
great wealth, from which the upper-classes derive their power, it would
make sense that inequality would be a symptom of an economy suited to
particular elites rather than the majority of Americans. The disaster
highlighted the poverty rife, especially in the black community, in New Orleans and the lack of a sufficient safety net for lower class Americans.
John
Maynard Keynes once said “that nothing less than the democratic
experiment in self-government was endangered by the threat of global
market forces.” As Keynes understood it, the deregulation of finance
diminishes political pluralism and by extension diminishes the influence
of grass-roots participation in elections, as greater power is placed
in the hands of investors and lenders. Perhaps this is reflected by the
consistent increase in corporate funding to political campaigns. But
there are ways that corporations can exercise power over a state.
Corporations have the power to abandon and ostracise a country where
government policy is contrary to their business practices. The capital
controls and fixed currencies of the post-war Bretton-Woods system,
which was praised by Keynesian economists as it imposed financial
regulation, served to enable political change such as the New Deal. The
system was dismantled in the early 1970s under the Nixon administration.
Since, the Bretton-Woods system was dismantled there has been a growing
increase in the gap between the rich and the poor. Inequality increased
during the Reagan years, slowing only slightly under Clinton, before increasing steadily under the second Bush administration. However, this trend began under Carter.
Over
the same period of time, the implementation of neoliberal policies has
led ultimately to the financialisation of the economy. Wages for people
with a high school education have either stagnated or gone into decline
over the last 30 years. All as working-hours have increased. Though, an
economy based on consumption couldn’t maintain high levels of consumer
spending as wages fell. This is the reason that household debts relative
to income, doubled between 1982 and 2008. There was a massive surge in
corporate profits from the early 1980s until the late 1990s, and by 2007
the ratio of financial assets to GDP had doubled since the early 80s.
In 2000 that 1% of the population owned over 40% of stock, and the
bottom 80% of the population own less than 10% of stock. This is
indicative of the vast gulf between rich and poor in the US.
At the same time, social benefits have plummeted and any attempt by
American politicians to increase such benefits through government
spending is dismissed as "socialism".
It was under Bush, that 1% of the populace made around $1.6 trillion dollars in less than a decade. Though,
the tax cuts under Bush are not unique, they are part of a consistent
pattern over the last five decades or so, which we might expect as a
result of a polyarchy. The rate of tax on citizens earning over $400,000
used to be at 91%, until the Kennedy administration cut the rate down
to 70% in the 1960s and increased tax breaks for those same high
earners. After the Bretton-Woods system was dismantled, the rate was
chiselled down to 50% by the Democrats in Congress and the Reagan
administration soon pursued further cuts. By 1986 the rate of income tax
on the rich had been chopped down to 28%. The
common justification for such economic policies is the trickle-down
effect, which was also utilised famously by the Reagan administration.
The theory stipulates that by cutting corporation tax and the top rate
of income tax, the government can encourage expansion by entrepreneurs,
leading to job creation and thereby decrease unemployment. In spite of the popularity of this theory in Washington,
these policies did not result in massive job creation. The result being
the stagnation and decline of wages for working-class people, the loss
of $840 billion in tax revenue and 1% of the population accumulating $1
trillion between 1978 and 1990.
After completing my research on this topic it would be easy to conclude that the US
is a polyarchy rather than a democracy. As the intermingling of the
political establishment, the mass-media and “Corporate America” appears
to have resulted in an economic system structured to benefit a wealthy
few. But a single essay cannot prove conclusively that the US
is polyarchical. In spite of that, this has been a thought provoking
look at American politics. We can say with confidence, that there
appears to be a pattern during the Bush Presidency, as well as in the
media and the economy, that elite interests are of great importance and
may have been for a long time.
Bibliography:
Books:
Aristotle: Politics.
Bakan, J (2005): The Corporation Constable & Robinson Ltd, London.
Bennett, A. (2009): US Government and Politics 3rd edition Phillip Allan Updates.
Bernays, E: Propaganda.
Chomsky, N – Herman, E (1994): Manufacturing Consent Vintage Books, London.
Chomsky, N (2004): Hegemony or Survival Penguin Books, England.
Elliot, L – Atkinson, D (2008): The Gods that Failed The Bodley Head, London.
Lippmann, W: Public Opinion.
Wilkinson, R – Pickett, K (2009): The Spirit Level Penguin Books, London.
Zinn, H. (2009): A People’s History of the United States 3rd edition Pearson Longman.
Periodicals:
Left Business Observer
Websites:
Documentaries:
Curtis, A (2002): The Century of the Self.
Curtis, A (2007): The Trap.
Moore, M (2004): Fahrenheit 9/11.
