Conspiracy theories are now mainstream

[YoungDemCA]

Sadly, conspiracy believers think that they are the right ones, but they are unfortunately victims of exploitation. I want to emphasize that this does not make them stupid or unintelligent.

According to an article by the Skeptical Inquirer entitled “Crazy Beliefs, Sane Believers: Toward a Cognitive Psychology of Conspiracy Ideation,” Preston R. Bost notes that “conspiracy ideation has not been linked to lower levels of education, conspiracy ideation does not appear to reflect an inability of disinclination to think critically. In certain cases, education may enhance conspiracy ideation.”

Education may enhance? What does that mean? When I was taking my generals in college, I learned about the Tuskegee experiments, and that was indeed a conspiracy and a cover-up. I’m not arguing that conspiracies do not exist -- they have happened. However, this doesn’t mean that the government is going to round us all up and throw us in a FEMA camp. Thinking critically doesn’t automatically make you a conspiracy theorist, and asking questions isn’t what the problem is.

According to Bost, as human beings we have the characteristic of suspicion, and conspiracy ideation is related to that. Suspicion is an adaptive trait that is relied on to promote equity in the matter intrinsic to social living. Having attention to others' motives is an element in everyday social interaction. A person without the ability to be suspicious is a target for exploitation, and the necessary seed of suspicion that exists in all of us may go into hyperdrive under the right circumstance. “Seen in this light, conspiracy ideation represents not an irrational departure from reality but perhaps a rather intensified focus.” Bost wrote.

What’s the harm in people having these beliefs? They aren’t hurting anyone by having them, right? “What’s the harm” fallacy is what it is -- a fallacy. Unfortunately, these sorts of beliefs have had impacts on our society with very real consequences. When the horrible tragedy of Sandy Hook happened in 2012, Alex Jones drummed up the alarm of a conspiracy in which the government was behind all of it and the grieving parents were actors. His followers took heed and harassed the parents and defaced memorials of the children who were lost in that senseless act of violence. In the ’90s, a man who believed that there was a government conspiracy surrounding the infamous Davidian Compound in Waco went ahead and bombed Oklahoma City as an act of revenge. This brought attention to the beliefs of the militia movement in the ’90s, fears of black helicopters coming to take people's guns away, New World Orders and FEMA camps. Timothy McVeigh, who was a little too intense for some militia groups, was inspired by the racist dystopian novel “The Turner Diaries” to blow up a building, killing innocent people. Does conspiracy belief always lead to acts of violence? Not necessarily. However, beliefs in Big Pharma vaccines causing autism, when it has been proven to be completely false, making some parents stop vaccinating their kids altogether, has revived diseases like measles and others that had been eradicated, endangering not only children but adults too. Beliefs that global warming is a conspiracy and denying all the science that points to the contrary is already having impacts. It’s not just the beliefs that are causing these problems, it’s the actions that accompany them, and that is holding all of us back.

Some of you may be reading this and thinking, “Well, I’m a skeptic so this doesn’t apply to me. They are the ones that are crazy.” I’d like to share some more quotes from Carl Sagan: “The chief deficiency I see in the skeptical movement is its polarization: Us vs. Them -- the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all these stupid doctrines are morons; that if you're sensible, you'll listen to us; and if not, to hell with you. This is non-constructive. It does not get our message across. It condemns us to permanent minority status.”

It’s ironic how both skeptics and conspiracy theorists find themselves identifying with this. This quote is relevant to everyone. We mustn’t polarize and dehumanize. That has never gotten us anywhere; it only divides us and actually affirms others’ beliefs so they hold on to them even harder.

“In the way that skepticism is sometimes applied to issues of public concern, there is a tendency to belittle, to condescend, to ignore the fact that, deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, who, like the skeptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what our role in it might be. Their motives are in many cases consonant with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped.” -- Carl Sagan

http://hpr1.com/index.php/feature/news/conspiracy-theories-are-now-mainstream/

[OnyxCollie]

1. Was the Iraq war a conspiracy?

A miscalculation stemming from bad intelligence, or a collusion between corporations and government to obtain resources and open new markets, carried out under a false pretext?

[YoungDemCA]

6. Neoconservative ideological hubris, combined with poor planning

The neoconservatives in the Bush-Cheney administration realized after 9/11 that Saudi Arabia was a deeply problematic ally in the Middle East. They wanted to put pressure on Iran and indirectly, Russia. Iraq was judged to be a good country to test the idea of "spreading democracy" (which meant, in practical terms, a state that was friendly to American interests ) because Saddam Hussein was a brutal authoritarian dictator who had previously planed to develop weapons of mass destruction (and had used chemical weapons on his own people in the 1990s). Furthermore, Saddam was weak and isolated enough at the time of the Iraq invasion that it would be "easy" to bring him down. Course, they didn't really plan for what would happen after Saddam was deposed - again, hubris.

They wanted to open up a new market, as you say, a new source of oil and resources for America. For these people, neo-liberal capitalism is a necessary condition for a liberal, Westernized democratic state. That may seem ridiculous to us, but it's actually a very common view in the foreign policy Establishment of the U.S.

9/11 was the catalyst for all of this, but the neo-cons' attempts to tie al-Qaeda to Saddam were patently absurd. Unfortunately, too many Americans can't tell the difference between Muslims and Sikhs (let alone, Sunnis and Shiites), and many of Bush's supporters in the U.S. didn't care to learn the difference.

[OnyxCollie]

8. So, conspiracy? Yes or no?

[truedelphi]

9. The Iraq War can only be considered a conspiracy if

An individual is familiar with the standard definition of the term "Conspiracy."

[OnyxCollie]

15. It's only a conspiracy if you know it.

Last edited Fri Oct 9, 2015, 02:32 AM - Edit history (5)

conspiracy
{kuh n-spir-uh-see}

1. the act of conspiring.
2. an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot.
3. a combination of persons for a secret, unlawful, or evil purpose: He joined the conspiracy to overthrow the government.
4. Law. an agreement by two or more persons to commit a crime, fraud, or other wrongful act.
5. any concurrence in action; combination in bringing about a given result.

Let's expand on this.

The problem with conspiracy theories is that they lack real theory.

Comment: Why conspiracy theories aren’t harmless fun
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/06/26/comment-why-conspiracy-theories-arent-harmless-fun

Academic discussions of conspiracy theory tend to focus on long-lived varieties, the ones that attract large numbers of adherents around a relatively stable core. It’s that duration that allowed Steve Clarke to analyse these theories using the framework of progressive and degenerating research programs, borrowed from the philosopher of science Imre Lakatos. In science, progressive research programs explain more and more observations and make successful predictions. When confronted by data that seems to disconfirm the theory, they posit ‘auxiliary hypotheses’ that actually strengthen the theory, by allowing it to explain and predict even more.

Degenerating research programs, by contrast, are stuck on the defensive: they don’t explain any new observations, nor make successful predictions, and are constantly having to defend themselves from new data that contradicts the theory. Clarke is right that most conspiracy theories are like that. If the various US shootings are government false flags designed to help Obama implement gun control, why is it taking so long? Shouldn’t at least one whistleblower have come forward?

A conspiracy theorist, led by the inexorable logic of their tradition of explanation, might double down at this point: the conspiracies we think we know about are just covers for the real conspiracies, while the reason conspiracy theory never seems to yield results is that the conspirators are making sure it doesn’t. Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence: it’s proof positive of a conspiracy.

~snip~

To believe in conspiracy theory, you must believe in conspirators. To maintain a conspiracy theory for any length of time, you must claim that more and more people are in on the conspiracy. Clinging to degenerating research programs of this type involves making more and more unevidenced accusations against people you know nothing about. That’s not without moral cost. Suspicion should always involve a certain reluctance, a certain forbearance from thinking the worst of people – a virtue that is sacrificed in the name of keeping the conspiracy theory going. In the process, real human tragedy is made into a plaything, fodder for feverish speculation that does no real epistemic or practical work.

Let's change that.

Sunstein and Vermeule (2008) describe a conspiracy theory as “an effort to explain some event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have managed to conceal their role” (p. 4).

Sunstein (2014) admits that while some conspiracy theories are true, he stresses that it is the false conspiracy which often permeates society.

Cass Sunstein On Conspiracy Theories
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/04/02/sunstein-conspiracy-theories

SUNSTEIN: Yes. I would use the word conspiracy theory, the term, just as a description and not build into it another word, false. So Watergate, as you say, that was a conspiracy theory that turned out to be true. And so we need to have a general category, aware that often false conspiracy theories go viral, and sometimes they can create tragedy or political polarization. But it's good in a free society for people to have their ears pricked and to be alert to the possibility that something that you can't quite see is behind it.

For many, conspiracy theory is a pejorative term which denotes a faulty epistemology, rumors, and speculation. Furthermore, it is asserted that such analysis overestimates the ability of government bureaucracies to carry out “sophisticated and secret” (Sunstein & Vermeule, 2008, p. 6) plans in an open society.

According to Parenti (2010), the term conspiracy theory can be used to dismiss: “(1) the idea of a conscious design by policy makers; (2) a hidden, but knowing intent; (3) a secret plan; (4) a secret interest.”

Kindleberger, C.P. (1981). Dominance and leadership in the international economy: Exploitation, public goods, and free rides. International Studies Quarterly 25(2), 242-254.

I have a strong bias against conspiracy theories of history. I do not believe in the notion that the extreme left, the extreme right, the power elite, the establishment, oil companies, professoriat, military-industrial complex, and so on, can be regarded as single decision-making units with detailed programs for imposing their will on the unsuspecting world. (p. 249)

Parenti (2010) quoting Karp (1973) dismisses the need for a theory entirely:

When it can be established that when a number of political acts work in concert to produce a certain result, the presumption is strong that the actors were aiming at the result in question. When it can be shown that the actors have an interest in producing these results, the presumptions become a fair certainty- no conspiracy theory is needed.

Sunstein and Vermeule (2008) concede that governments themselves may be purveyors of conspiracy theories.

Jacques Ellul (1973) calls the type of propaganda designed to incite revolution or to undermine existing regimes the "propaganda of agitation." Ellul also describes another type which he believes to be much more important than agitation propaganda for people living in developed nations. Every modern social system uses what Ellul calls the "propaganda of integration" to promote acceptance and support among its citizens for that system.

Integration propaganda is important because no modern society can function for long without at least the implicit support of most of its citizens. Integration propaganda is promulgated not in pamphlets put out by small groups of subversives or in broadcasts made by foreign powers, but in the main channels of communication - newspapers, television, movies, textbooks, political speeches etc.-produced by some of the most influential, powerful, and respected people in a society. It is therefore difficult to recognize despite (or perhaps because of) its omnipresence, particularly because it is based upon ideals and biases that are accepted by most members of the society.

It is important here to point out an assumption that may be disputed by some psychologists that underlies all propaganda analysis: That beliefs, attitudes, and cognitions play a crucial role in the determination of political opinions and behavior. Propaganda researchers should participate in determining the exact role played by ideas in politics, but few scholars would become actively involved in propaganda analysis if they did not believe that what people read, hear, see, and think is an important determinant of their political actions.

Do personality variables or styles of cognitive processing affect susceptibility to propaganda? Ellul (1973) claims that contrary to popular belief, as a result of their increased exposure to propaganda, highly educated, well-informed citizens of modern societies are more, not less, open to propaganda than are people who receive less information.

Silverstein, B. (1987). Toward a science of propaganda. Political Psychology (8)1. 49-59.

Book Excerpt: ‘Conspiracy Theories’
By Cass R. Sunstein
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/04/02/sunstein-conspiracy-theories

In many nations, rational people end up believing crazy things, including (false) conspiracy theories. Those crazy thoughts can lead to violence, including terrorism. Many terrorist acts have been fueled by false conspiracy theories, and there is a good argument that some such acts would not have occurred in the absence of such theories. The key point—and, in a way, the most puzzling and disturbing one—is that the crazy thoughts are often held by people who are not crazy at all.

Sunstein and Vermeule (2008) assume a well-intentioned government may decide to defuse conspiracy theories “if and only if social welfare is improved by doing so." Parenti (1993) suggested that the beneficiaries of said social welfare may be an entire class interest. Following this reasoning, conspiracy theories may be eliminated to prevent exposure of particular factions, or they may be furnished to enable a certain objective.

For this analysis, let us identify who may be involved in a conspiracy, what their intentions are, and how they avoid detection. The Iraq war, the U.S. Attorney firings, domestic surveillance, and the 2002 - 2006 elections will be our case studies.

Were the George W. Bush Administration rational actors who sought and obtained "power," i.e., an objective monetary incentive, resources, and security, by acting as surrogates on behalf of the petromilitary industrial complex who have, in effect, "captured" government?

Was the Pentagon directed, upon advice from the Office of Legal Counsel, to begin an all-encompassing PSYOPS campaign, using "message force multipliers" bearing an undisclosed conflict of interest, to influence the mass public to accept gross violations of law; domestic and international, statutory and natural?

Was a massive domestic surveillance apparatus and a corrupt Justice Department used to advance Republican candidates and remove Democratic candidates?

It is these questions which pose a problem for analysis, as they rest on activity which infers collusion, deception, and fraud perpetrated by economic and political elites; in effect, a conspiracy. Parenti (1993) offers three options for analysis: The first option is the “conservative celebration,” whereby economic gains achieved by corporate entities would appear only as corollaries to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Profits obtained were simply the result of deft management skills and wise investments when opportunities were presented. The second option is the “liberal complaint,” a failure of an otherwise good system due to mismanagement through some flaw in human character. The third option is a more radical analysis that studies the structural mechanisms that exist between corporate and government powers which allow for the accumulation of wealth and power for a privileged class. It is these structural mechanisms, embodied in culture-producing institutions, which determine the laws and norms of society, and in turn, the life chances of those whom they affect. The third option will be used for this essay.

The use of such an analysis is not without its consequences. By using a radical analysis, one crosses an imaginary line into an area of uncomfortable potentiality, where widely-held and readily-accepted beliefs are challenged. A radical analysis must face challenges on two fronts; the first being the beliefs of those who accept the “official” conspiracy theory, and the second being the information provided by those in power to squelch any theories contrary to the status quo.

Before this analysis can begin, it is necessary to evaluate our investigative process.

Let us begin by defining what is meant by a “theory.”

Theory obviously cannot explain the accidental or account for unexpected events; it deals in regularities and repetitions and is possible only if these can be identified.

A theory is a depiction of the organization of a domain and of the connections among its parts. A theory indicates that some factors are more important than others and specifies relations among them. In reality, everything is related to everything else, and one domain cannot be separated from others. But theory isolates one realm from all others in order to deal with it intellectually.

Waltz, K.N. (1988). The origins of war in neorealist theory. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 18(4), 615-628.

The social sciences do the same as the natural sciences. They collect factual material and then attempt to discover regularities, that is, to order and analyze the material data. That data falls into several categories. The first is the sum of daily experiences and observations that more or less everyone has at his disposal. Should one study social science by diving into such materials? No. For the unanalyzed facts are dumb. They are the result of many causes and many countervailing forces. They can be explained in very diverse ways. They are unmasterable as given. We need to consider them, divide them into their elements, and form a judgment regarding the function of each of these elements. That is to say, we must analyze and isolate the various sides of social phenomena. Only then can we begin to discover what is essential and what is incidental, only then does true scientific work that promises to produce valid knowledge begin.

~snip~

We have to dissolve phenomena into their elements and consider each of these elements. Only then do we see the otherwise invisible regularities. So, too, in the social sciences. That is called engaging in “theory.”

~snip~

Lastly, let the beginner keep in mind that any particular theory is never valid in itself, but is always a part of a theoretical structure and can only be understood as such. One cannot grasp a particular proposition outside of its theoretical framework and discuss it as such. One has to understand it in its relationship to the other links of the chain to which it belongs.

Schumpeter, J. A. (2003, March)*. How does one study social science? Society, 57-63. *Date of translation

So soon as we have realized the possibility of ideological bias, it is not difficult to locate it. All we have to do for this purpose is to scrutinize scientific procedure. It starts from the perception of a set of related phenomena which we wish to analyze and ends up-for the time being-with a scientific model in which these phenomena are conceptualized and the relations between them explicitly formulated, either as assumptions or as propositions (theorems). This primitive way of putting it may not satisfy the logician but it is all we need for our hunt for ideological bias. Two things should be observed.

First, that perception of a set of related phenomena is a prescientific act. It must be performed in order to give to our minds something to do scientific work on-to indicate an object of research -but it is not scientific in itself. But though prescientific, it is not preanalytic. It does not simply consist in perceiving facts by one or more of our senses. These facts must be recognized as having some meaning or relevance that justifies our interest in them and they must be recognized as related-so that we might separate them from others -which involves some analytic work by our fancy or common sense. This mixture of perceptions and prescientific analysis we shall call the research worker's Vision or Intuition. In practice, of course, we hardly ever start from scratch so that the prescientific act of vision is not entirely our own. We start from the work of our predecessors or contemporaries or else from the ideas that float around us in the public mind. In this case our vision will also contain at least some of the results of previous scientific analysis. However, this compound is still given to us and exists before we start scientific work ourselves.

~snip~

Now, so soon as we have performed the miracle of knowing what we cannot know, namely the existence of the ideological bias in ourselves and others, we can trace it to a simple source. This source is in the initial vision of the phenomena we propose to subject to scientific treatment. For this treatment itself is under objective control in the sense that it is always possible to establish whether a given statement, in reference to a given state of knowledge, is provable, refutable, or neither. Of course this does not exclude honest error or dishonest faking. It does not exclude delusions of a wide variety of types. But it does permit the exclusion of that particular kind of delusion which we call ideology because the test involved is indifferent to any ideology. The original vision, on the other hand, is under no such control. There, the elements that will meet the tests of analysis are, by definition, undistinguishable from those that will not or-as we may also put it since we admit that ideologies may contain provable truth up to 100 per cent-the original vision is ideology by nature and may contain any amount of delusions traceable to a man's social location, to the manner in which he wants to see himself or his class or group and the opponents of his own class or group. This should be extended even to peculiarities of his outlook that are related to his personal tastes and conditions and have no group connotation-there is even an ideology of the mathematical mind as well as an ideology of the mind that is allergic to mathematics.

Schumpeter, J. (1949). Science and ideology. The American Economic Review(39) 2, p. 346-359.

Moravcsik, A. (1997). Taking preferences seriously: A liberal theory of international politics. International Organization, 51(4), 513-553.

It is widely accepted that any nontautological social scientific theory must be grounded in a set of positive assumptions from which arguments, explanations, and predictions can be derived.

The utility of a paradigmatic restatement should be evaluated on the basis of four criteria, each relevant to the empirical researcher: superior parsimony, coherence, empirical accuracy, and multicausal consistency. First, a theoretical restatement should be general and parsimonious, demonstrating that a limited number of microfoundational assumptions can link a broad range of previously unconnected theories and hypotheses.

Second, a theoretical restatement should be rigorous and coherent, offering a clear definition of its own boundaries.

Third, a theoretical restatement should demonstrate empirical accuracy vis-a'-vis other theories; it should expose anomalies in existing work, forcing reconsideration of empirical findings and theoretical positions.

Fourth, a theoretical restatement should demonstrate multicausal consistency. By specifying the antecedent conditions under which it is valid and the precise causal links to policy outcomes, a theory should specify rigorously how it can be synthesized with other theories into a multicausal explanation consistent with tenets of fundamental social theory.

In an effort to be parsimonious a game analogy will be used whereby players compete according to a set of rules in order to achieve an objective. It is not synonymous with game theory and it is not intended to provide a probabilistic formula to determine action. Simply put, a player may secretly collude with another player to cheat and win, justifying their actions by providing false, but readily acceptable, explanations to other players (who may be operating under a limited understanding of the rules.) Actors escape punishment through evasion (failing to provide required information to an overseeing authority with full rule comprehension) or through avoidance (by affecting circumstances through legitimately-recognized bureaucratic methods whereby the overseeing authority is effectively neutralized.)

The players in this game are rational actors and the Rational Choice theory will be applied to this analysis. MacDonald (2003) described Rational Choice theory by its three components: purposive action, consistent preferences, and utility maximization. Purposive action asserts that an actor’s behavior is directed toward goals which represent a perceived self-interest, the most common being the desire for survival. Most social outcome can be explained by this goal-oriented action, rather than non-rationalized elements, i.e. habit, tradition, or social appropriateness. Not only is survival the most common preference, it also ranks as the highest among ordered preferences.

The behavior of rational actors is directed by a set of ordered preferences determined by the rationality applied within the social interaction. These choices are developed through a method by which the actor’s preferences are ordered and evaluated to determine which will provide the greatest utility and what course of action should be taken to achieve them (Monroe & Maher, 1995).

Levine identified four different forms of rationality:

(1) Instrumental rationality is the rationality of adopting the best means for the given ends. (2) Value/substantive rationality is the rationality of choosing actions that are consistent with value commitments. (3) Conceptual rationality is the formation of increasingly precise and abstract concepts. (4) Formal rationality is the creation of methodical, rationally defendable rules (Levine, 1985, p. 210 as cited in Wright, 2002).

These forms of rationality can each be further defined as either symbolic rationality or organizational rationality. Failing to know that what they know is wrong, players may operate “rationally” under a faulty epistemology.

Rational Choice theory is not without its critics, who claim that people are inconsistent, complacent, and often make mistakes in their reasoning. MacDonald (2003) addresses this issues through the “as if” response. The “as if” assumption assumes that people behave “as if” they were following the rationality assumption. MacDonald argued that it is less important to question whether people behave rationally than whether the hypotheses generated by Rational Choice theory are found to be empirically valid.

Another point of contention is the self-interest assumption. MacDonald (2003) presented two different viewpoints, thick-objectivist and thin-subjectivist, in response. The thick-objectivist view states that “all actors maximize {the} same set of consistent preferences and that these individuals should be permitted to assign value only to elements that are ‘objective characteristics of the environment external to the choosing agent’” (p. 557) and that by focusing on ends which are objective, material, external, and do not vary in the population, hypotheses can be created that are clear, testable, and generalizable. Furthermore, the establishment of a common value to ends reduces the need to assign preferences to actors in an ad hoc manner. This essay will apply the thick-objectivist view to the formal and conceptually rational economic and national security hypotheses.

Alternately, the thin-subjectivist view suggests that not everyone shares the same preferences and that actors should be allowed to have preferences over anything, including nonmaterial values (MacDonald, 2003). This is more realistic, and provides an explanation for efforts affected by pride or altruism.

Following Weber’s conceptual menu, the players in this game are class, status groups, and party (Wright, 2002). Players in this game operate within different “spheres” or “order” of social interaction; class operates within the economic sphere, status groups operate within the communal sphere, and political parties operate within the political sphere. Characteristic of the players is the degree to which each has a subjective identity and is inherently motivated to lead collective action.

Wright (2002) described class locations not as associations of people delineated by physical boundaries, but as “the way people are related to the material conditions of life under conditions in which their economic interactions are regulated in a maximally rationalized manner” (p. 836). Class has no subjective identity. According to Wright, both Marx and Weber believed objectively definable material interests to be the impetus by which class locations affect social action. Weber (1922 {1978}, as quoted in Wright, 2002) argued that these material interests function as a probabilistic determinant to influence actual behavior:

According to our terminology, the factor that creates “class” is unambiguously economic interest, and indeed, only those interests involved in the market. Nevertheless the concept of class-interest is an ambiguous one: even ambiguous as soon as one understands by it something other than the factual direction of interests following with a certain probability from the class situation for a certain average of those people subjected to the class situation (p. 928, 929 {840}).

Thus, there is a strong tendency for objectively definable material interests to appeal to self-interested economic advantage in class situations which frequently determine the direction of actual behavior by most people. It should be noted that Weber saw ideological motivations as possible, though unlikely, determinants of action.

Members in status groups are aware of having a subjective identity, and this identity is recognized by others in the sense of having a positive or negative estimation of honor (Wright, 2002). Status groups may engage in collective action.

Weber argued that the input of the mass public is limited to electing leaders, and that certain status groups within the mass public had influence in affecting the direction of government:

The demos itself, in the sense of an inarticulate mass, never 'governs' larger associations; rather it is governed, and its existence only changes the way in which the executive leaders are selected and the measure of influence which the demos, or better, which social circles from its midst are able to exert upon the content and the direction of administration activities by supplementing what is called “public opinion” (Gerth & Mills, {Eds.} 1946, p. 224-226, as quoted in Selznick, 1951, p. 326).

Political parties, by their very essence, imply collective action. According to Weber, “As over against the actions of classes and status groups, for which this is not necessarily the case, party-oriented social action always involves association. For it is always directed toward a goal which is striven for in a planned manner” (1922 {1978}, p. 938, as quoted in Wright, 2002, p. 835).

When members of a class realize they share a similar identity, they become a status group. When they organize based on that identity, they become a party (Wright, 2002).

According to Weber (1922 [1978], as cited in Wright, 2002), class has no subjective identity and entails no participation in collective action. Nonetheless, Weber accepted that certain conditions could lead to collective class action, although it is often interpreted that the workers, rather than the capitalists, would lead the collective class action. These conditions include a readily available economic opponent, easy organization, and clearly defined goals articulated by an intelligentsia.

CONFIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM
Attack on American Free Enterprise System
DATE: August 23, 1971
TO: Mr. Eugene B. Sydnor, Jr., Chairman, Education Committee, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
FROM: Lewis F. Powell, Jr.

Dimensions of the Attack

No thoughtful person can question that the American economic system is under broad attack. This varies in scope, intensity, in the techniques employed, and in the level of visibility.

There always have been some who opposed the American system, and preferred socialism or some form of statism (communism or fascism). Also, there always have been critics of the system, whose criticism has been wholesome and constructive so long as the objective was to improve rather than to subvert or destroy.

But what now concerns us is quite new in the history of America. We are not dealing with sporadic or isolated attacks from a relatively few extremists or even from the minority socialist cadre. Rather, the assault on the enterprise system is broadly based and consistently pursued. It is gaining momentum and converts.

~snip~

Sources of the Attack

The sources are varied and diffused. They include, not unexpectedly, the Communists, New Leftists and other revolutionaries who would destroy the entire system, both political and economic. These extremists of the left are far more numerous, better financed, and increasingly are more welcomed and encouraged by other elements of society, than ever before in our history. But they remain a small minority, and are not yet the principal cause for concern.

The most disquieting voices joining the chorus of criticism come from perfectly respectable elements of society: from the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians. In most of these groups the movement against the system is participated in only by minorities. Yet, these often are the most articulate, the most vocal, the most prolific in their writing and speaking.

Moreover, much of the media -- for varying motives and in varying degrees -- either voluntarily accords unique publicity to these "attackers," or at least allows them to exploit the media for their purposes. This is especially true of television, which now plays such a predominant role in shaping the thinking, attitudes and emotions of our people.

~snip~

Responsibility of Business Executives

What specifically should be done? The first essential -- a prerequisite to any effective action -- is for businessmen to confront this problem as a primary responsibility of corporate management.

The overriding first need is for businessmen to recognize that the ultimate issue may be survival -- survival of what we call the free enterprise system, and all that this means for the strength and prosperity of America and the freedom of our people.

The day is long past when the chief executive officer of a major corporation discharges his responsibility by maintaining a satisfactory growth of profits, with due regard to the corporation's public and social responsibilities. If our system is to survive, top management must be equally concerned with protecting and preserving the system itself. This involves far more than an increased emphasis on "public relations" or "governmental affairs" -- two areas in which corporations long have invested substantial sums.

A significant first step by individual corporations could well be the designation of an executive vice president (ranking with other executive VP's) whose responsibility is to counter-on the broadest front-the attack on the enterprise system. The public relations department could be one of the foundations assigned to this executive, but his responsibilities should encompass some of the types of activities referred to subsequently in this memorandum. His budget and staff should be adequate to the task.

Players in this game of power follow a series of rules. When rules are based on ascriptive characteristics, tradition, or superstition, they are operating under non-rational conditions. When rules allow for precise calculations and an increase, rather than a decrease, in efficiency, they are operating under rational conditions.

Each player has an awareness of the rules and understands that the other players may share their knowledge. This is called intelligence. Further defined, intelligence is the player’s understanding that other players are operating rationally, thereby allowing to rationalize from a competitors’ standpoint. Thus it is necessary to analyze both the ideology of the elite actors and the “crippled” epistemology of the mass public to fully interpret the motivations of all players in the game. As Schumpeter (1922 {2003}) stated:

Few people who research the life circumstances of workers will fail to try to empathize with the worker’s thoughts. But fewer people understand that it is just as necessary and difficult for the observer to empathize with the circumstances and thoughts of those social strata that stand above his social and economic level (p. 61) (Italics in original.)

Sunstein and Vermeule (2008) state that the acceptance of conspiracy theories relies on what people know and what they believe. This will be a game of incomplete information where the rules are not common knowledge to all the players. Chatterjee (1972) argued that most real world games are games of incomplete information for three reasons: first, the players are unlikely to know the motivations of the competitors, whether they are guided by profits or some other objective; second, players are unlikely to know what feasible sets of actions are available to their competitors; finally, players’ knowledge of the world varies. Sunstein and Vermeule (2008) acknowledge that most people know very little, and what little they know is wrong.

We Are All Confident Idiots
http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/confident-idiots-92793/

The American author and aphorist William Feather once wrote that being educated means “being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.” As it turns out, this simple ideal is extremely hard to achieve. Although what we know is often perceptible to us, even the broad outlines of what we don’t know are all too often completely invisible. To a great degree, we fail to recognize the frequency and scope of our ignorance.

In 1999, in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, my then graduate student Justin Kruger and I published a paper that documented how, in many areas of life, incompetent people do not recognize—scratch that, cannot recognize—just how incompetent they are, a phenomenon that has come to be known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. Logic itself almost demands this lack of self-insight: For poor performers to recognize their ineptitude would require them to possess the very expertise they lack. To know how skilled or unskilled you are at using the rules of grammar, for instance, you must have a good working knowledge of those rules, an impossibility among the incompetent. Poor performers—and we are all poor performers at some things—fail to see the flaws in their thinking or the answers they lack.

What’s curious is that, in many cases, incompetence does not leave people disoriented, perplexed, or cautious. Instead, the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge.

This isn’t just an armchair theory. A whole battery of studies conducted by myself and others have confirmed that people who don’t know much about a given set of cognitive, technical, or social skills tend to grossly overestimate their prowess and performance, whether it’s grammar, emotional intelligence, logical reasoning, firearm care and safety, debating, or financial knowledge. College students who hand in exams that will earn them Ds and Fs tend to think their efforts will be worthy of far higher grades; low-performing chess players, bridge players, and medical students, and elderly people applying for a renewed driver’s license, similarly overestimate their competence by a long shot.

Before making a move, players make assumptions as to how other players will respond and consider how their opponent’s actions will affect their own utility and advancement in the game. Waltz, quoting John McDonald, asserts, “Everybody’s strategy depends on everybody else’s.” This is called interdependence.

Like Rational Choice theory, deterrence theory is a “useful fiction” (MacDonald, 2003, p. 551) to create hypotheses to test theories. Deterrence theory as applied here is not synonymous with the probabilistic formulas of game theory used in international relations, rather it assumes that: the players must be aware of the rules; that the consequences of violating the rules, thus upsetting the game’s equilibrium, are present, undesirable, and must be avoided; and that these consequences can affect the rational and non-rational sources of power held by the players, i.e., material resources, social honor, and authority (Walker, 1985; Becker, 1964, as cited in Daboub, Rasheed, Priem & Gray, 1995).

Constraints may be overcome by (1) evading prosecution through refusal to provide information to appropriate overseeing authorities by which suspect actions can be evaluated for rule compliance; or (2) avoiding prosecution through an appropriate overseeing authority which may be overwhelmed, incompetent, or has a conflict of interest. For this analysis there are two kinds of restraints, internal and external.

An internal constraint is the monitoring of actions, whether it be by the branches of government upon each other (checks and balances) or by the mass public. (Monitoring can also be done among states on an international level, but the scope of this essay will focus on a domestic level.) External constraints are norms, treaties, constitutions, laws, rules, and regulations.

The problems related with deterrence theory are the uncertainty of impact and unintended consequences of external constraint implementation, as well as the resulting social stigma (or lack thereof) associated with the penalty (Walker, 1985).

CORRUPTION IN THE PROCUREMENT PROCESS/OUTSOURCING GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONS: ISSUES, CASE STUDIES, IMPLICATIONS

PROF. NIKOS PASSAS
{Shortened version prepared by W. Black}

REPORT TO INSTITUTE FOR FRAUD PREVENTION
NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY, BOSTON
FEBRUARY 2007

This report emphasizes what criminology teaches about fraud and corruption by elites that have substantial governmental power or economic power (typically as CEOs). Often, of course, they have both forms of power simultaneously. Elite criminals (what Black refers to as “control frauds”) have far greater ability than non-elites to act dynamically to optimize the environment for fraud while “neutralizing” their crimes psychologically and obtaining substantial impunity. The first level of dynamism is that elites are able to choose to operate wherever the legal, political, economic and cultural environment is most criminogenic and the payoffs to abuse the greatest. The second level is that elites are able to change the environment to increase the “asymmetries” and make it far more criminogenic. Normally, thieves face a fairly symmetrical environment: to steal more they have to take greater risks of detection, prosecution and sanction. But elites can often produce an environment in which engaging in massive fraud and corruption increases one’s political power and status and greatly reduces the risks of detection and prosecution. Elite criminals optimize by creating fraud networks that help them maximize this asymmetry of risk and reward.

Daboub, A. J., Rasheed, A. M., Priem, R. L., & Gray, D. A. (1995). Top management team characteristics and corporate illegal activity. Academy of Management Review, 20(1), 138-170.

-differential association theory. This sociological theory of crime was developed by Sutherland (1939, 1947) and later modified slightly by Sutherland and Cressey (1978). According to this theory, "crime" is defined as such by society. Some individuals live in accordance with these definitions; others do not. Those who do not are seen as "criminal" in that their definitions of acceptable behavior are deviant. An example of differential association would be a group of executives who have defined a regulatory agency, e.g., the EPA, as antibusiness and a hindrance to U.S. industrial competitiveness. Violation of EPA rules could then be viewed by them as patriotic and supportive of free enterprise.

-Ermann and Lundman (1987: 8) suggested that organizations can produce deviance in at least three ways: (a) the structures of large organizations may limit the information and responsibility of position holders and thus reduce control; (b) organizational elites can indirectly initiate deviant actions by establishing particular norms, rewards, and punishments for members at lower levels; and (c) elites can consciously initiate deviant actions and use hierarchically linked positions to implement them. The first source of deviance corresponds to the "authority leakage" (Vaughan, 1983) that results from organizational size and complexity. The other two sources ultimately reside in top management.

-Thus, top managers may actively direct and participate in, or may enable and passively acquiesce to, illegal activities (Kriesberg, 1976). When a corporate illegal activity comes to light, top management usually disowns any knowledge of it. In many cases, however, top managers can "arrange patterns of reporting so that they cannot find out (or at least, if they do find out, they find out in such a way that it can never be proved)" (Stone, 1975: 53).

-Gross (1978: 71) concluded that "persons who will engage in crime on behalf of the organization will most likely be the officers of the organization, its top people."

By using intelligence to rationalize from the mass public’s viewpoint, elites can manipulate idea-elements in abstract concepts to squelch outrage and diffuse concern, leading the mass public’s attention away from the player’s rule violations and towards more desired pursuits. As James Madison had written in a letter to Thomas Jefferson on May 13, 1798:

The management of foreign relations appears to be the most susceptible of abuse, of all the trusts committed to a Government, because they can be concealed or disclosed, or disclosed in such parts & at such times as will best suit particular views; and because the body of the people are less capable of judging & are more under the influence of prejudices, on that branch of their affairs, than of any other. Perhaps it is a universal truth the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad (Madison, 1798).

The legal-rational authority of the government is constrained by the rules prescribed in the national constitution. However, their interpretations and applications may lead to unintended results. In determining whether national constitutions affect a regime’s willingness to use repressive measures, Davenport (1996, p. 632, 633) laid out four ways of reading a national constitution: First, by seeing what rights are noted, i.e., freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of expression, it is expected that governments will recognize their importance and uphold these rights. This is the “constitutional promise” argument. Alternately, governments may see these rights as a threat to their existence and may choose to repress them. This is the “constitutional threat” argument.

Second, a government may decide that circumstances warrant a suspension of rights. Should a government grant itself the license to repress citizens’ rights during times of crisis, acknowledging how many rights are repressed and which rights in particular is useful in determining a regime’s commitment to non-repressive rule.

A third way to read a constitution concerns the suspension of multiple rights during states of emergency or martial law. This, too, may be interpreted as a constitutional promise argument or as a constitutional threat argument. By noting clauses of martial law, a regime may be seen as wanting to include suspension of rights into its “guiding principles” (Davenport, 1996, p. 632). Hence, a constitutional promise argument. The regime may see these rights as a threat, however, and feel necessary to suspend them, thereby producing a constitutional threat argument.

Finally, restrictions on states of emergency or martial law indicate the regime is concerned about regulating repressive behavior (constitutional promise) while a lack of restrictions indicates the regime may repress rights for as long as it wants (constitutional threat). According to Davenport (1996), the most common right mentioned in national constitutions was freedom of the press (77%), which also held the distinction of being the most frequently restricted (29%), followed closely by freedom of expression (13%). These rights were more likely to be mentioned than state of emergency clauses, and as such, regimes choosing to restrict these rights place curtailments on their ability to do so. Additionally, it was demonstrated that mentions of civil rights and the right to declare states of emergency resulted in lower rates of repression. Thus, it was determined that constitutions do affect the behavior of governments to repress civil rights. It is to be noted, however, that during exceptional circumstances, “when governments are ‘truly threatened,’" constitutions may be rendered immaterial (Davenport, 1996, p. 650).

Klieman (1979) argued that the Constitution is an insufficient guide in national emergencies, lacking express provision for the exercise of extraordinary authority in times of crisis, aside from the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in times of rebellion or invasion. Klieman suggested a few motives for the founding fathers’ failure to include emergency measures in the Constitution: first, the authors may have been either too afraid or too prudent to make an exhaustive list of emergencies and to determine the extent of powers to handle them; second, the authors may have presumed that although the Constitution did not explicitly provide emergency measures, it would be able to accommodate actions by the three branches of government to do what is necessary in the face of national security threats. Regardless, what has resulted from this inadequacy is an ad hoc set of emergency policies taken by the executive branch through a broad interpretation of constitutional provisions.

......

I could go on for over 300 pages. Interested?

[YoungDemCA]

11. If it was a conspiracy, it wasn't a very hidden one

More like a public relations/propaganda campaign IMHO, with the support of much of the media and a terrified, gullible public.

[OnyxCollie]

16. See post 15 for a theory of conspiracy.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1016&pid=134032

[villager]

2. Bound to happen when your government lies to you routinely for a half-century or more...

...and is also working at the behest of elite economic interests.

Citizens are left to "guess" at what's really going on...

[Oneironaut]

3. The "you don't believe conspiracies exist" strawman has to be the most tiresome.

The argument is:
"A: There's no evidence of a conspiracy here."
"B: You don't think any conspiracies exist."

The other way is a (often used) non-sequitur:

"A conspiracy happened sometime in history. Therefore, this conspiracy is true."

[Faux pas]

4. With all the

crapola going on in the world, conspiracies have nowhere to go except mainstream. Just MHO.

[Hortensis]

5. FWIW, Preston Bost does not seem to be eminent in this field.

On scanning I didn't notice any discussion of personality, and a disposition toward a preference for occult conspiracy theories over mainstream thought is strongly personality-related. That's why it does not correlate strongly with lack of education or inability to think.

Look at Dr. Ben Carson. He has a very good intellect that he can turn on and off, switching over to faith-based religious and conspiracy beliefs, even those emphatically contradicted by science, whenever he wishes to.

That's also why any article that generalizes about humans as if we're all like the Jade Helm goofuses or Dr. Carson, instead of identifying specific, prone populations, is very flawed.

[bemildred]

7. RIght, for critical thinking you have to be open minded.

You have to consider all the possibilities.

And then if you do that, you get called a conspiracy theorist, and that is pretty much what the term means, you are thinking forbidden thoughts.

[truedelphi]

10. I knew I could count on you

To say so concisely what needs to be said.

[bemildred]

14. Thank you.

[Nitram]

12. bemildred, it depends on how you look at it.

Conspiracy theorists tend to be very close-minded about any evidence that contradicts their theory once they've decided their conspiracy must be real. The problem is that conspiracy theories usually form around events about which there are different narratives and not enough information to determine conclusively which narrative is correct. No reliable witness or videotape.

[bemildred]

13. Hi Martin.

Last edited Wed Oct 7, 2015, 06:17 PM - Edit history (1)

The problem is that whether something is a conspiracy, or something else, and whether it is true or not, are separate questions.

People who babble on about conspiracy theorists in public are generally trying to shut someone else up

There are people who go bonkers over convoluted conspiracy theories, we have a paranoid streak in us that may have had evolutionary value at one time, but in dense societies causes trouble.

And we are territorial about beliefs, once we accept them, we don't like to give them up, it means we were wrong. That is when things start to get strange because the "anomaly" now needs to be explained too.

If you want to engage in critical thinking you have to give that territoriality up. Get your ego out of the way, it's biased. You are wrong a lot, everybody is, because the future is very indeterminate, and a lot of what we believe is convenient bullshit or too simple to represent the relevant factors. As you point out, we have incomplete information to start with.

And everything you say I agree with too.

[CJCRANE]

18. The term "conspiracy theory" is subjective.

I have a friend who says that "conspiracy theory" just means stuff about elves, Elvis, aliens etc. However, IMO it means someone who goes against the mainstream or official opinion.

This same friend of mine doesn't believe in man-made global warming, which to me, means that he is a conspiracy theorist (whether he's right or wrong is another matter). Of course, he disagreed with me, but that just proves my point that it's in the eye of the beholder.

Also, if a conspiracy theory is now in the mainstream surely it now loses the negative connotation?

So surely those who disagree with the erstwhile conspiracy theorists are in fact the real conspiracy theorists (in the derogatory sense of the word) as they are now in the minority?!

[CJCRANE]

17. "Conspiracy" is just a synonym for "plan".

The things we see happening in the world are either planned or accidental.