A couple of generations ago, the Western political establishment worried about Communist propaganda seducing the masses and subverting democracy. Today, in the absence of a significant threat to capitalism, it is anti-capitalists who are more likely to talk about the menace of propaganda emanating from corporations and subtly entrenching their power to the detriment of democracy.
Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy: Corporate PR and the Assault on Democracy is a collection of essays on the pernicious influence of corporate spin and lobbying, edited by William Dinan and David Miller. They are also authors of A Century of Spin: How Public Relations Became the Cutting Edge of Corporate Power. Their books neatly embody a significant and ultimately conservative strain running through contemporary left-wing thought. Talking up the alleged ascendancy of ‘neoliberalism’ is a common but unconvincing way of spinning the collapse of the left at the end of the last century, and the consequently diminished significance of ideology across the political spectrum. Similarly, their preoccupation with corporate propaganda and spin conveniently obscures the left’s failure to develop an engaging critique that can mobilise a substantial movement in today’s political circumstances. There is no shame in that failure, but blaming it on Svengali-like corporate mind control doesn’t help.
In their introduction to Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy, Dinan and Miller suggest the success of recent films like The Constant Gardener, Syriana and Thank You For Smoking, all of which feature villainous corporate lobbyists, is ‘a welcome sign that the ideas in this book are penetrating the mainstream’. In fact, despite being an archetype of big business itself, Hollywood has always shown a certain disdain for capitalism and its functionaries. And there is little in Dinan and Miller’s book that would shock anyone who reads and watches mainstream media, and is familiar with scares about genetically modified food, stories about the machinations of Big Tobacco and Big Oil companies, and the general idea that PR types are pretty sleazy. The question perhaps is whether a book like this can go beyond popular cynicism about big business, and at least point the way towards an analysis of the relationship between capitalism and how it is represented, endorsed and critiqued.
Rather than analysis, though, most of the chapters comprise seemingly endless lists of the names of PR firms, lobbyists and their clients, and especially the manifold interconnections and associations between them. The prevailing attitude is one of exposure rather than critique, as if simply joining the dots to connect the various players constitutes a searing indictment of contemporary capitalism. In fact, these passages are often reminiscent of the boring bit in Book 1 of Paradise Lost, where Milton catalogues the demons holed up in Hell with Satan, and we wonder when the action is going to kick in.
