Re: YOU "heard" it first here

On Wed, Jul 22, 2026 at 07:23 AM, Anthony Teso wrote:

> 
> Here I part company with Marv in one respect. The grumbling of sections of
> capital is not attachment to democracy, and it is not merely the ordinary
> liberal wing of a split ruling class. Weber saw the problem a century ago:
> patrimonial rule is structurally hostile to rational capital accounting.
> Capital requires calculable law, predictable administration, and exactions
> fixed in advance. What it gets from a patrimonial executive is tariff
> rates set by mood, carve-outs sold as favors, golden shares, shakedowns of
> law firms and universities, and the treatment of regulatory power as an
> instrument of personal tribute.

The political behaviour of both the liberal and conservative wings is not “attachment to democracy”, Tony, and I’ve never said or implied as much. Both parties are, however, very attached to *bourgeois* democracy. The divisions between them have always been strategic - how to best defend and advance the interests of the system (austerity vs Keynesian demand side economics, political cooptation vs repression) although the lines are fluid and each has borrowed from the program of the other depending on circumstances.

The problem I have with your concept of patrimonial Bonapartism is that it almost entirely focuses on Trump’s corruption and favourtism. It ia unable to cite examples where Trump, much as he might wish to do so, has exiled or imprisoned Democratic party leaders, shut down or censored liberal and other independent media, replaced the AFL-CIO with a fully compliant union body appointed and controlled by the administration, and prohibited opponents from speaking out and demonstrating against his leadership.

You would not be editing Tempest and we would not be having this discussion on Marxmail if Trump were heading a Bonapartist or fascist regime.  As I’ve insisted, these are the integral and destructive features of a one-person or one-party dictatatorship. Corruption is incidental and not inconsistent with a bourgeois democratic or any political system. In fact, AFAIK, Weber’s patrimonial theory did not derive not from 19th century Bonapartism but from pre-capitalist Chinese, Ottoman, and European absolutist depotisms, none of which provide an especially useful theoretical framework for our understanding of 20th and 21st century history.

Following the financial and other media IMO provides a more accurate picture of Trump’s political ancestry and power relationship between his administration and the capitalist ruling class which it serves rather than commands. I earlier posted a WSJ editorial reflecting corporate pushback against his tariff rates. Today’s Financial Times carries another story about bipartisan congressional oppostion to Trump's use of the War Powers Act against Iran, drawing a parallel to congressional opposition to Nixon’s abuse of undeclared war powers and classified information which resulted in passage of the Act in 1973.  It still remains to be seen whether capitalist impatience with Trump's management of the system is sufficient to help swing support to the Democrats in the midterms.


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