Sixth Cause of Noir: Gangster Democracy

One meaning of this term is literal: when gangsters take over governments.  Remember the elements we saw in the opening clip of The Glass Key. 

Madvig, the amiably sociopathic mob boss, plans on becoming governor as a "reformer."

Noir is connected to a broader, second meaning: elected politicians running things as they see fit, with little accountability and plenty of deception.  The philosopher of this mode of rule was Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), author of The Prince and Secretary of the Florentine republic. 

 Lest you think this classic doesn't apply to large democracies, remember that some of the most successful political consultants in modern history have read it religiously, particularly Lee Atwater, who worked for the Bush family, and who mentored Karl Rove, senior advisor to George W. Bush and mastermind of many national Republican electoral victories.

Here's the summary slide you would have seen last Tuesday if the Cave Fire hadn't canceled lecture.  Read it slowly!

Normally we think that in a democracy people go into politics not to enrich themselves or amass power, but to promote well-being, social justice, progress, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Well, at least some of us do.  Machiavelli thought that was sentimental nonsense--as do most of the rest of us. He narrowed the scope of the "prince" or ruler's activities from  pursuing self-interest (money, power, estates, etc) to pursuing the subjection of all others.  The prince's only job is to dominate, to have power superior to others, to compel obedience. All the other stuff, like building infrastructure or cutting income taxes, is an attempt to trick people into subjecting themselves.

Noir Cause 6 is the tendency of people in organizations, even when nominally democractic, to seek to subject others to their will--and to lie and deceive in order to do this. 

The literal realization of this is corrupt government.  As noir literature and film took off in the 1930s, many people were worried about mob control of government officials for the sake of getting contracts and other favors.  We talked about Chandler's cynicism about corruption in the police. Same for Mosley in a  different way.   Here's another slide about this.

 Do the munchkins rule? That is, small property owners, as Easy Rawlins wanted?  Gilens and Page conducted a big study that compared voter preferences to actual policies.  What they found is on the next slide.

The point is that the US isn't a democracy in the classical sense, in which the preferences of majorities of ordinary voters decide policy.  It also isn't run by gangsters, exactly.  Outcomes are most influenced by well-organized elites.  Democratic procedures don't yield democratic outcomes.

The term that the political scientist Jeffrey Winters uses for this is "civil oligarchy." He describes the U.S. this way. It's a system of laws, but the laws systematically favor elites over ordinary people.  Another term that is sometimes used is "post-democracy"--a political system that is democratic in form but elitist in outcome.

Machiavelli would have predicted this.  It's a norm in noir culture-- in the US, and elsewhere.

Here's our full list of Noir Philosophers, in chronological order: