Love for the Master

Once established, asymmetric, unbalanced, and hegemonic power relations which are of a social nature and which in turn constitute both the economic and social organization of society are soon conceptualized and transformed into a dynamic and general situation whereby “love for the master” coincides with “the desire of the masses for fascism.” This dynamic and general situation is also evinced by certain statistics, which show that now, only about 3 percent of the American population cares for ‘democracy.’ And as Foucault wrote: 

“The non-analysis of fascism is one of the important political facts (of recent decades and years). It enables fascism to be used as a floating signifier, whose functions is essentially that of denunciation. The procedures of every form of power are suspected of being fascist, just as the masses are in their desires. There lies beneath the affirmation of the desire of the masses for fascism a historical problem which we have yet to secure the means of resolving.” 

Hence, it becomes all the more important to dismantle, restructure, and transform the hegemonic social relations which determine economic, political, and social organization before these hegemonic social relations are conceptualized and transformed by certain elements in society to the point of fascism. 

But as Noam Chomsky argued, the approach towards the dismantling, restructuring, and transformation of hegemonic social relations and hegemonic structures also has to be pragmatic in nature, in the sense that state institutions do not have to be dismantled or eliminated in order for there to be greater popular participation and popular shareholding in these state institutions. In a sense, the dismantling and transformation of hegemonic social relations and hegemonic structures does not have to translate into societal chaos and the disintegration of the basic social order which the state is tasked with upholding and for which the state exists. 

Nevertheless, and as Foucault suggested: “The will of individuals must make a place for itself in a reality of which governments have attempted to reserve a monopoly for themselves, that monopoly which we need to wrest from them little by little and day by day.” Moreover, corporate domination would perhaps lead to the dismantling of state institutions before they are subjected to popular participation and popular shareholding and are wielded by the people. Arguably, corporations would rather have state institutions dismantled and eliminated before these state institutions are brought under the authority and sway of popular will. 

And in a sense, the restructuring and transformation of hegemonic social relations revolves mainly around the issue of control over the “means of production” and “wage slavery” as certain scholars have argued, given that ancient social relations gave way to feudal social relations, and feudal social relations gave way to modern capitalist social relations. 

As long as there is no popular or worker’s buy-in or popular and worker’s say in how the “means of production” are allocated and used, then arguably, the hegemonic social relations will remain intact until these hegemonic social relations are then conceptualized and transformed to the point of fascism by certain cunning and opportunistic elements in society. In the most basic sense, the switch from a feudal system to a capitalist system where the “means of production” are in the hands of the few rather than the many prompted “a new and unanticipated system of injustice” which then fostered a social order and a set of discourses and institutions which aimed to sustain this system. But as mentioned before, the “means of resolving” the basic problem of the very nature of the social relations themselves have yet to be secured, which in turn gives way to a whole different set of dilemmas and problems of a political and social nature.