In Der Arbeiter, Ernst Jünger wrote in some length about how the State of Total Mobilization must participate in the education and upbringing of the next generation. The goal of the State’s involvement is to instill the Figure of the Arbeiter and its way of life into the next generation. Everyone, no matter their personal background, will be trained to become Arbeiter in their own unique way. Although Jünger recognized the significance of the national educational system, he also mentioned that the family plays an especially important role:
“The affectional upbringing, thought through in every detail, of a specific breed of humanity in special communities, in sea and mountain landscapes or in wide forest belts, represents the highest task for the state’s educational will. In it lies the possibility of creating, from the bottom up, a line of civil servants, officers, captains, and other functionaries bearing all the signs of an order marked by the greatest uniformity and consistency imaginable. This, and not, for example, the relocation of city dwellers, will be the surest way to raise a reliable reserve of colonists and their companions to be settled within or beyond the nation.
We could recall here the specific role of cadets in the old army, in which the son of the French immigrant received a training no different from that of the Brandeburg Junker, as well as the theological seminaries whose influence could be read in the faces of their products, or, again, those Oriental guards within whose ranks none had known their fathers or mothers. The principle to which the family is the foundation of the state is now so old that it has become unquestionable – one need only spend a little time in Sicily to see how bonds of kinship can be fully absorbed as bonds to the state.”
It is important to realize that when Jünger was describing the State of Total Mobilization, he was not just referring to actual States that exercise National Sovereignty over their nation. The Figure of an Arbeiter or any other Figure and its Gestalt does not require an actual governmental entity insofar as there can be polities existing alongside or outside the State. Political parties, labor unions, religious congregations, multinational corporations and people’s communities are all valid examples. Even the “family” is cited another possibility, except here Jünger does not necessarily mean an actual family of grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren and extended relatives. Given the reference to Sicily, it is clear that Jünger was also referring to how organized crime tends to create its own parallel states by pursuing a virtual monopoly on all manner of criminal activities.
There is something fascinating about the implications of what Jünger is implying because fiction and non-fiction authors had entertained them without ever realizing their relationships with the State of Total Mobilization. A multinational corporation wielding State-like powers is a trope from Cyberpunk, a subgenre in Science Fiction, whereas a criminal organization wielding State-like powers is a trope from Crime Fiction. Both concepts share the same theme of a non-State organization trying to present itself as being an equal to the actual State. Under normal circumstances, such entities either do not exist or are kept in check by the State. Their success in attaining the powers of the State was preceded by a decline in the social bonds between Totality and State as the political legitimacy of the latter became increasingly called into question.
How should a State respond to a multinational corporation or a criminal organization with capabilities matching their own? A State would try to curtail their power or, in some cases, bring it under control. The latter, as Jünger mentioned elsewhere in Der Arbeiter, is perceived by the Neoliberal mindset as “irrational” and “immoral,” yet this was the sort of decision-making that also occurred in Latin America in the latter half of the 20th century. I am of course referring to the War on Drugs, whose effects are still ongoing and continue to affect the entire world as of late.
Starting in the late 20th century, Latin America saw the emergence of a distinct form of Capitalism that sought to coexist between Neoliberalism and the Socialisms of the time. This “Narco-Capitalism” assumed its proper form by cultivating and processing narcotics for mass distribution throughout the Empire of Liberty and these United States in particular. Drug cartels between the 1970s and 1990s sought to foster ties with various governments in the Americas for political protection from actual States.
“Narco-Capitalism” is an interesting deviation from the usual conceptions of Capitalism, as it is understood by the likes of John Maynard Keynes or Milton Friedman. It is not like Liberal Capitalism precisely because it defies the moral and rational expectations of Neoliberalism and it is also not like State Capitalism either because the criminal organizations involved are trying to usurp the State’s claims over National Sovereignty. Where Narco-Capitalism ultimately differs from those two is that it views narcotics as a genuine source of Kapital for the sake of encouraging economic development under a non-State polity, even if doing so means waging drug wars with actual States convinced that such activities endanger their own Totalities. Kapital in Narco-Capitalism is neither Fiat Currencies of Fractional-Reserve Banking Systems nor Gold and Silver as in Bimetallism but the actual narcotics themselves.
One ought to ask whether a conception of Capitalism could challenge another conception of Capitalism. The War on Drugs is an instructive model of how opposing conceptions of Capitalism profit from each other, even when they are fighting each other, and why appeals to any other economic model of governance here becomes as absurd as trying to fight fire with more fire. As far as this Author is concerned, the War on Drugs is an example of what I believe Junger meant when he mentioned in Der Arbeiter that non-State polities can and will challenge the State’s claims over National Sovereignty.
Categories: Philosophy
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