The Library: the First Five

NinaIllingworth November 7, 2019November 17, 2022 Allen Dulles, Books, CA4, CC3, CIA, Corporate Fascism, Corporatism, David Talbot, deep state, democratic socialism, elite rule, FA1, fascism, foreign policy, forever war, Ibram X Kendi, Imperialism, Inventing Reality, Left Wing Books, market fundamentalism, Marxism, Media, media bias, Michael Parenti, Milton Friedman, Naomi Klein, neoliberalism, Nina Illingworth, Noam Chomsky, permanent war economy, Politics, power, Racism, racist ideas, Rec Reads, Recommended Reading, Reviews, Social Justice, Socialism, ST2, Stamped From the Beginning, The Devil's Chessboard, the economics of racism, The Library, the propaganda model, The Shock Doctrine, Trump Doctrine, Understanding Power, war, WD7

Editor’s note: while I would have preferred to publish this on my book-focused blog at “Can’t You Read” the limitations of the Tumblr framework itself make it hard to publish posts with internal images and I wanted my little book icons to put links behind, because I’m a nerd. Although I have recently been sidelined with a back injury, I’m also a little annoyed at precisely how long this article took me to write – hopefully regular readers will find it to be worth the wait.

Stepping Stones

When I originally decided to include The Library page on this website, I was mostly responding to a reoccurring interaction on social media; in the course of discussion about recent events, I’d reference things I’d read in several books and eventually someone would ask me for book recommendations. Unfortunately, and possibly even because I read so many books, I usually found myself giving substandard, on-the-spot recommendations of whatever book I’d last read. After a little while, I got sick of feeling like I was telling “little lies of convenience” and decided to just throw my entire library up online with some reviews by people who aren’t me, so folks could get a better idea of what each book was about – thus, The Library was born.

To be clear, even when I first put The Library together it wasn’t designed to be a list of all the “relevant” books I’ve ever read; not only would such a list be pretty useless (for example, when I was about fourteen I thought Ayn Rand had a unique and interesting perspective on how the world should be run; today I’m less interested in “literally fucking fascism but with many smaller Hitlers rooted in the power of private industry”) but frankly, I couldn’t possibly remember them all off the top of my head. Furthermore, as time went on and my collection grew it rapidly became unreasonable to expect people to read more than a hundred books to grasp the foundational knowledge needed to have a more complicated discussion. This in turn then lead to a new ubiquitous question, namely “oh gosh, were do I start?”

This article then is an attempt to answer that question. In selecting which five books to include on this list, I’ve done my best to look towards titles that examine the connecting points that bind seemingly separate issues on the surface, that are all inherently tied into the fight against both reactionary ideology and what I’ve taken to calling “globalized neo-feudalism” in the Pig Empire. In a global environment dominated by “the West” which is itself in turn dominated by big business owned by elite capital, the anti-democratic, anti-labor class influence of this particularly reactionary brand of capitalism can be seen in so many aspects of our society that understanding how these issues intersect becomes a vital starting point for the would-be amateur scholar. Of course it should be noted that these selections merely represent my studied opinion at this exact moment in time; the books I’ve chosen come from my current collection and who is to stay I won’t read something more suited to the task at hand tomorrow? You can only write about what you know after all.

Finally I should note that I’ve chosen these five books at least in part because of their accessibility and focus on real world events. While I certainly do think it behooves everyone to read at least a little bit of Karl Marx, I think it’s safe to say that ideologically and theoretically focused political science and economics texts aren’t always an easy sell for the beginning reader. My rational here is that by focusing on five easy to digest, broadly focused texts that leave a lot of paths for further exploration open after a single read, the aspiring scholar can then pick and choose which of these threads interest them already and dive deeper into the rabbit hole that is neoliberalism, the power of the ruling classes and ultimately the utter dominance of capital over all of human existence; a dominance reflected in the fact that we’re currently working to kill off the species at high speed rather than allow oil and gas companies to pass into the rubbish bin of history.

Let’s look at the books:

The Transformative Two

The Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein – this may seem like an odd place to start in that the Shock Doctrine is now twelve years old, but in all of that time I have never encountered another book that so thoroughly deconstructs why globalized, deregulated capitalism is a waking nightmare; while Klein often refers to the installation of this construct as “disaster capitalism” it is known better today in America as the standard function of “neoliberalism” and in Europe as the rightfully dreaded “austerity.” After all, in a War on Terror post-2008 Financial Crisis world, there’s no longer a need to justify installing rule by capital with a disaster; the crisis is ongoing and never ending. Touching on subjects as diverse as why fascist governments use torture, the disastrous consequences of adopting Friedmanite “libertarian” economic theories as government policies, the role of globalized financial instruments (like the IMF) in maintaining western neoliberal hegemony, the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the corporate exploitation of post-Katrina New Orleans and the globalized looting of post-tsunami Sri Lanka, The Shock Doctrine explores the lies behind the installation of, the violence inherent in maintaining and the catastrophic consequences of, globalized, hyper-capitalist neoliberalism.

Of course, it’s certainly fair to point out that The Shock Doctrine is not a perfect book; while many of the criticisms Klein’s work has endured are openly dishonest defenses of elite capital masquerading as book reviews, there are still some problems with the text. Far from being too harsh on capitalism and capitalists, Klein’s laser-like focus on the installation phase she calls “disaster capitalism” actually obscures how many of the horrifying aspects of neoliberalism are largely “business as usual” in the post-New Deal, globalized capitalist order. Furthermore the central thesis with which Klein ties the entire book together, the “shock” aspect and its relationship to literal electric shocks and torture, really doesn’t hold up all that well and feels kind of stapled on top of Klein’s excellent analysis of each of these individual pieces; a conceit that feels included simply because the structure of a book required it to exist. Finally in some contexts the “scattershot” nature of The Shock Doctrine could be perceived as a drawback; although it’s fair to point out that this shotgun-blast approach to examining neoliberalism is precisely why this book made our introductory list here.

In the time since she wrote The Shock Doctrine, author Naomi Klein has become one of the leading anti-climate catastrophe voices in the mainstream media, having seemingly mastered the trick of injecting small doses of anti-capitalist thought in the public discourse while still maintaining a largely “respectable intellectual” posture in the establishment liberal sphere of influence. As an unfortunate consequence of this position, some of Klein’s later work has suffered from a “feet in both worlds” problem; that’s not an issue in The Shock Doctrine, where we find Klein at the height of her powers and openly condemning the global capitalist order – this isn’t just Klein’s finest work, this book is one of the finest modern works of anti-capitalist thought.

In terms of where reading the Shock Doctrine can lead us in further study, it might be more interesting to ask where it doesn’t lead. If you like Klein’s particular writing style, subsequent works about the capitalist roots of climate catastrophe (This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate) and opposing Trump’s particular brand of fascism (No is Not Enough: Resisting the New Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need) are both excellent books. I’ve yet to read her most recent work “On Fire: The Burning Case for a New Green Deal” but obviously I’m expecting it to be worthwhile based on my experience with Klein’s work. One could also look backwards to her highly-praised anti-capitalist movement bible “No Logo” for additional sources of information.

As far as other authors go, the book obviously points towards other books about neoliberalism and elite rule in the west including David Harvey’s “A Brief History of Neoliberalism,” Chrystia Freeland’s “Plutocrats: the Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else,” Anand Giridharadas’ “Winners Take All: the Elite Charade of Changing the World,” Philip Mirowski’s “Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown” and other books from my collection like “The Corporation: the Pathology and Pursuit of Profit and Power” by Joel Bakan, or “The New Confessions of an Economic Hitman” by John Perkins. Although I don’t personally own any books about the post-Katrine neoliberal swindle of New Orleans, you could look towards books like “The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit” by Thomas J. Sugrue, “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City” by Matthew Desmond or “The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy” by Anna Clark.

Going a little bit deeper, Matt Taibbi’s classic “Griftopia: A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History” has several chapters covering the folly of Friedmanism and its founder’s ideological cohorts Ayn Rand and Alan Greenspan (sort of), while those interested in studying the effects neoliberalism had on the occupation of Iraq could look towards “Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone” by Rajiv Chandrasekaran or “Blackwater: the Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army” by Jeremy Scahill. There is also a decent synergy between Klein’s work and the writings of investigative journalist Seymour M. Hersh that might point readers towards “Chain of Command: the Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib” or “The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House” depending on which parts of The Shock Doctrine they’d like to explore deeper.

Finally of course the book itself is full of numerous source notations that can point readers to other books Klein used to help establish or fortify her arguments.

Understanding Power: the Indispensable Chomsky by Noam Chomsky – if Klein’s The Shock Doctrine is a buffet serving of the horrible consequences of the bipartisan adoption of a hyper-capitalist ideology spread across numerous areas of study, than it would be fair to say that Noam Chomsky’s Understanding Power is a similar buffet serving but for the bipartisan support of elite rule in fields like politics, academia and the media. Reading just these two books together will go a long way towards helping you understand the basics of how the world actually works and thus open up numerous avenues for further study; including a number of works by Chomsky himself that are available for free online.

Presented in the form of one hundred and thirty eight answers to random audience questions during a variety of discussions featuring Chomsky, Understanding Power: the Indispensable Chomsky covers an even more staggeringly diverse array of topics than the previous book on this list. Prodded by both skeptics and supporters, Chomsky offers concise and easily digestible analysis of issues as divergent as the successes and failures of organized activism, the open bias towards power in virtually all societal institutions and in a subject that’s very dear to to my own heart, the ideological underpinnings of anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism. Moving away from the theoretical, Chomsky also gets down to the nitty-gritty by answering questions about important historical events like the U.S.-backed genocide in East Timor, the tragic effects of the Reagan years on American society and the brutal NATO intervention in Bosnia.

While a great deal of ink has already been spent on explaining the importance of Noam Chomsky’s often-ignored ideas, I would also like to note that often-reinforced media image of Chomsky as an inaccessible left-wing egghead idealist whose work is difficult to comprehend for the layman is wholly false. Not only is Professor Chomsky’s extremely frank style of communicating very accessible for the non-academic, but his constant efforts to root his theoretical arguments in documented events and sources also promote a “fact-based” type of left wing analysis that is altogether too uncommon in the world of theorists and “big thinkers.” Reading Noam Chomsky’s Understanding Power won’t just make you more informed, but it’ll make you smarter too – by teaching you how to think seamlessly about both the theoretical nature of power in our society and its direct practical applications in the real world.

Much like The Shock Doctrine, Understanding Power: the Indispensable Chomsky provides an embarrassment of riches in terms of directions for further study; even the footnotes for the book itself represent a treasure map for related knowledge. Obviously, you can pick up literally any book in The Library written by professor Chomsky and dive right in but two in particular stand out as hard recommendations from me: Chomsky’s overarching historical look at U.S. imperialism in “Year 501: the Conquest Continues” and his groundbreaking collaboration with Edward Herman “Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media” – a book that remains arguably the most important study of the U.S. corporate media’s subservient relationship to establishment power.

I’m going to leave further studies of media bias for our next entry, but two obvious areas of additional exploration that would flow out of reading Understanding Power might include American foreign policy and the nature of elite rule in academia and intellectual discourse:

Virtually all modern left wing, or even left-leaning scholars who examine foreign policy in the Pig Empire have been influenced by Chomsky’s writing but the best of my collection probably includes books like Eduardo Galeano’s “Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent,” Greg Grandin’s “Empire’s Workshop: Latin American, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism,” William Blum’s “Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II,” Stephen Kinzer’s “Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq,” Max Blumenthal’s “The Management of Savagery: How America’s National Security State Fueled the Rise of Al Qaeda, ISIS and Donald Trump,” Andrew J. Bacevich’s “America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History,” and “The Pentagon Papers: the Secret History of the Vietnam War” mostly written by Neil Sheehan.

As for critiques of academia and mainstream intellectual discourse there’s obviously a tremendous amount of synergy between Chomsky’s work and that of his contemporary cohorts Edward Said and Howard Zinn; suggested selections from my collection might include Said’s “Orientalism” as well as “Culture and Imperialism,” while Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” is a mind expanding must-read and I also found his book “Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology” to be quite enlightening. The number of modern political theorists who’ve been influenced by Chomsky’s work is probably too numerous to list here but from my collection a few good places to start might be Chris Hedge’s “Wages of Rebellion: the Moral Imperative of Revolt,” Thomas Frank’s “Listen Liberal: or Whatever Happened to the Party of the People?,” Sheldon S. Wolin’s “Democracy Inc.: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism,” Owen Jones’ “The Establishment: And How They Get Away with It” as well as admitted Chomsky fanboy/protege Matt Taibbi’s “The Divide: American Injustice and the Age of the Wealth Gap,” and “Insane Clown President: Dispatches from the 2016 Circus.”

Three for Threading

Inventing Reality: the Politics of the Mass/News Media by Michael Parenti – having established the basics in our first two examples, it’s time to start breaking down the specific horrifying institutions that maintain the global order of neoliberalism and the ruthless power structure it serves; if we’re still trying to maintain a broad base of introductory knowledge, there is no better Pig Empire institution to begin with than the corporate media because the propaganda it peddles touches on virtually every other aspect of our study. I think you could make a reasonable argument for Chomsky and Herman’s “Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media” or even Matt Taibbi’s brand new “Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another” (which was originally conceived as a modernization and extension of Manufacturing Consent) in this slot, but I’m going with Parenti’s Inventing Reality for variety, accessibility and originality. If it wouldn’t be cheating, I might be inclined to suggest readers check out all three of them as each one oddly compliments the other two despite the vast ideological differences between all three authors.

What makes Parenti’s work in Inventing Reality stand out is his simple and yet brutally effective point by point deconstruction of the corporate media’s bias towards establishment power as directly exemplified by its behavior. In particular, the author is tremendously adept at identifying the times when sheer adherence to the profit motive should cause the media to briefly side against establishment power, but this institutional bias towards that very same establishment power ensures that it does not; even at the cost of profit for the media corporations. This unique technique in turn leads to unique insights; for example it was Parenti among all of his contemporaries who observed that if corporate media’s abuses were simple mistakes, these mistakes would not invariably occur in favor of the powerful and against the marginalized, or less powerful. Unlike many of the liberal-leaning scholars in The Library who’ve written books about the obvious bias towards power, or at least wealth, in corporate media, professor Parenti (a communist) doesn’t assume this bias is a static result of an elaborate filtering process in the industry, but rather examines the media’s bias in the overall context of an ongoing and deliberate class war – a class war that is if anything being more openly waged today in 2019, than it was in 1986 when the author first released Inventing Reality.

Furthermore, Inventing Reality is just a lot of fun to read because Michael Parenti is a very talented writer. Like many of the great Marxist critics who survived Reagan’s America, Parenti is gifted with the ability to present complex concepts in plain and concise language that does not condescend towards the reader, nor dumb-down the material being presented; no “Ivory Tower” liberal academic, the professor is here to explicitly discuss the media’s war on the truth within the context of elite capital’s war on the labor class, for labor class readers – the difference in tone and conviction alone will likely be a refreshing breath of air for scholars raised on stale academic liberalism.

Naturally if you like Parenti’s work in Inventing Reality there’s a pretty good chance you’ll like his other books; the author has an extensive bibliography but out of my collection in The Library, I found “The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People’s History of Ancient Rome” to be wildly entertaining, if wholly unrelated to the subject matter at hand. Additionally, if Parenti’s ideological embrace of Marxism and communism aren’t a barrier for you, it might be time to drift over to the Marxism, Anarchism and Liberation Ideology page after all; it’s never a bad time to explore Karl Marx’s “Capital” for example.

While obviously the previously mentioned “Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media” and “Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another” are excellent choices for further study of corporate media bias, I’d also be inclined to recommend “Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times” by Robert W. McChesney, Doctor Roy Eidelson‘s “Political Mind Games: How the 1% Manipulate Our Understanding of What’s Happening, What’s Right, and What’s Possible” or even the Marshall McLuhan classic “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man” – frankly, you might just want to bookmark the entire Media & Propaganda page.

Stamped from the Beginning: the Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi – if the now ubiquitous neoliberal political and ideological order has ultimately produced a nightmare exploitative economic system with many similarities to high tech colonialism, and the rule of elite capital is to be maintained by purposely sowing our discourse with misinformation and divisive ideas, it certainly behooves us to study the propaganda by which that exploitation is justified and that animosity is amplified to prevent the building of diversified labor class power in our society. Passionate, direct and meticulously sourced, Kendi’s truly exceptional book Stamped from the Beginning examines the purpose of, methods employed to spread and effectiveness (on behalf of hierarchical power) of employing racist ideas to justify and codify the already preexisting exploitation of African Americans throughout the history of the United States. Once again I’ve opted to rate accessibility and writing quality highly in making my choice for this entry; despite representing a truly exceptional work of scholarship, Stamped from the Beginning is still a highly-readable book and Ibram X. Kendi himself comes across as both knowledgeable and inspiring throughout the work – it’s pretty damn hard to make a book about the propagation of ignorant and at times horrifying ideas for the purpose of racialized exploitation “exciting to read” but somehow the author manages to get there; Stamped from the Beginning is a legitimate page-turner.

In the not too distant past, I’ve written a little bit about both Stamped from the Beginning and the economic, exploitative and ultimately financial purposes of anti-blackness and open racism in American society, so I won’t repeat those comments again here, but I still feel obligated to point out the foundational value of reading Kendi’s excellent work in the context of understanding how the world we live in really works. Not only is a functional knowledge of the history of racist ideas, racialized exploitation and specifically anti-blackness a necessary tool for understanding politics and socioeconomic conditions in America, but the same motivations, methodology and mass dissemination techniques Kendi explores in relation to racism against African Americans have been consistently applied (primarily by capitalists) to an endless number of marginalized, minority or otherwise “out” groups in society across the broader Pig Empire; once again, to maintain and justify (often post-facts on the ground) the economic exploitation of those groups as well. As such, reading Stamped from the Beginning can function as a skeleton key for unlocking a wider understanding of the economic and hierarchical role marginalization, isolation and “othering” of out-groups in a capitalist society truly serves and perhaps more importantly, who it truly serves – the wealthy and powerful.

Like the other books on this list, reading Stamped from the Beginning opens up a lot of avenues for further exploration in nonfiction analysis; from The Library for example, two obvious choices would be Theodore W. Allen’s two-volume “The Invention of the White Race” and Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.” Focusing on the intersection between racist ideas and economics we could examine Douglas A. Blackmon’s “Slavery by Another Name: the Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II,” Robin D.G. Kelly’s “Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression,” Chris Hayes’ “A Colony in a Nation,” or Luke Bergmann’s “Getting Ghost: Two Young Lives and the Struggle for the Soul of an American City” as well as the previously mentioned titles “The Divide: American Injustice and the Age of the Wealth Gap” by Matt Taibbi, “The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit” by Thomas J. Sugrue, “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City” by Matthew Desmond or “The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy” by Anna Clark.

Readers looking to explore the judicial and political ramifications of anti-black racist ideas in America might be encouraged to check out titles like “Assata: An Autobiography” by Assata Shakur, “I Can’t Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street” by Matt Taibbi, “Stokely Speaks: from Black Power to Pan-Africanism” by Kwame Ture, “Superpredator: Bill Clinton’s use and Abuse of Black America” by Nathan J. Robinson, or “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.” Aspiring scholars more interested in the intersection of racist ideas and colonialism should start with classics like “The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution” by C. L. R. James, “The Wretched of the Earth” by Franz Fanon, “King Leopold’s Ghost: a Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa” by Adam Hochschild or “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” by Walter Rodney. The Library of America “Writings” collection for W.E.B. Du Bois is a great source of some of the finest writing about racism and racialized colonialism in the history of American literature, as is the matching LoA “Collected Essays” hardbound edition for James Baldwin.

Finally, readers who are interested in studying the cross-demographic application of racist ideas, for example in America’s genocidal exploitation of indigenous peoples, may consider checking out books like “Killers of the Flower Moon: the Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI” by David Grann, “Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West” by Dee Brown or “An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States” and “Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment” both by the excellent Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.

The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government by David Talbot – all work and no play make Jill a pretty boring lass, and if your idea of fun is examining one powerful man’s maniacal quest to maintain American advantage in the Cold War by any means necessary (including breaking Nazi SS officers out of prison to staff West German intelligence, drawing the U.S. into multiple secret wars against the will of its people and perhaps even green-lighting the assassination of a U.S. President who grew weary of the Cold War) then The Devil’s Chessboard is the book for you. In my opinion it is entirely impossible to understand how deep the Pig Empire rabbit hole really goes without studying the history of the *real* American deep state as well as its relationship with the CIA, the political influence of corporate and aristocratic power as expressed through the permanent war economy, and the longstanding embrace of fascist ideology in U.S. discourse to criminalize left wing thought under the guise of anti-communism or “national security” – for reasons that become apparent if you read The Devil’s Chessboard, the life of former CIA Director Allen Dulles stood at the perfect intersection of all three of these phenomena.

It’s important to note that The Devil’s Chessboard is not a “conspiracy theory” book; David Talbot is not only the founding editor of Salon, but he’s also an extremely diligent researcher. Drawing on thousands of since released government documents, stories published in the mainstream media and interviews with people involved in the life of Allen Dulles (both public and private), The Devil’s Chessboard may well be the single most scholarly examination available of what Talbot calls “the American secret government” but is more commonly known to Chomsky devotees as “the deep state.” This is ultimately a book about elite, private sector influence on public policy, militant xenophobic imperialism and the installation of a parallel, objectively corporatist government inside the American state; the fact that Talbot makes a reasonable (although never directly stated) case that Allen Dulles may have been instrumental in the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy is really just icing on the blood-cake here. As for Dulles himself, it would be difficult to cover the sheer depths of the former CIA Director’s paranoia and batsh*t schemes on behalf of Pig Empire hegemony in this review, but let’s just say that I don’t think it would be much of an exaggeration at all to suggest that Dulles (and to a lesser degree his brother) might be at least the most obvious super-villain in American history.