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There Are No Conspiracies
By G. William Domhoff, March 2005
Many people seem to believe that America is ruled from behind
the scenes by a conspiratorial elite with secret desires, i.e., by a
small secretive group that wants to change the government
system or put the country under the control of a world
government. In the past, the conspirators were usually said to be
secret Communist sympathizers who were intent upon bringing
the United States under a common world government with the
Soviet Union, but the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991
undercut that theory. So most conspiratorial theorists changed
their focus to the United Nations as the likely controlling force in
a “new world order,” an idea which is undermined by the
powerlessness of the United Nations and the unwillingness of
even moderates with the American power structure to give it
anything but a limited role.
For a smaller group of conspiratorial thinkers, a secret group of
operatives located within the CIA was responsible for many
terrible tragedies and assassinations since the 1960s, including
the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Problems with a conspiratorial view
There are several problems with a conspiratorial view that don't
fit with what we know about power structures. First, it assumes
that a small handful of wealthy and highly educated people
somehow develop an extreme psychological desire for power
that leads them to do things that don't fit with the roles they
seem to have. For example, that rich capitalists are no longer
out to make a profit, but to create a one-world government. Or
that elected officials are trying to get the constitution suspended
so they can assume dictatorial powers. These kinds of claims go
back many decades now, and it is always said that it is really
going to happen this time, but it never does. Since these claims
have proved wrong dozens of times by now, it makes more
sense to assume that leaders act for their usual reasons, such
as profit-seeking motives and institutionalized roles as elected
officials. Of course they want to make as much money as they
can, and be elected by huge margins every time, and that can
lead them to do many unsavory things, but nothing in the
ballpark of creating a one-world government or suspending the
constitution.
Second, the conspiratorial view assumes that the behindthe-scenes leaders are extremely clever and knowledgeable,
whereas social science and historical research shows that
leaders often make shortsighted or mistaken decisions due to
the limits placed on their thinking by their social backgrounds
and institutional roles. When these limits are exposed through
stupid mistakes, such as the failure of the CIA at the Bay of Pigs
during the Kennedy Administration, then conspiratorial theorists
assert that the leaders failed on purpose to fool ordinary people.
Third, the conspiratorial view places power in the hands of only a
few dozen or so people, often guided by one strong leader,
whereas sociologists who study power say that there is a
leadership group of many thousands for a set of wealth-owning
families that numbers several million. Furthermore, the
sociological view shows that the groups or classes below the
highest levels buy into the system in various ways and support it.
For example, highly trained professionals in medicine, law, and
academia have considerable control over their own lives, make a
good living, and usually enjoy their work, so they go along with
the system even though they do not have much political power.
Fourth, the conspiratorial view often assumes that clever experts
(”pointy-headed intellectuals”) with bizarre and grandiose ideas
have manipulated the thinking of their hapless bosses. But
studies of policy-making suggest that experts work within the
context of the values and goals set out by the leaders, and that
they are ignored or replaced if they step outside the consensus
(which is signaled by saying they have become overly abstract,
idealistic, or even, frankly, “pinko”).
Finally, the conspiratorial view assumes that illegal plans to
change the government or assassinate people can be kept
secret for long periods of time, but all evidence shows that
secret groups or plans in the United States are uncovered by
civil liberties groups, infiltrated by reporters or government
officials, and written about in the press. Even secrets about wars
and CIA operations—Vietnam, the Contras, the rationales for
Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003—are soon exposed for everyone
to see. As for assassinations and assassination attempts in the
United States, from McKinley to Franklin D. Roosevelt to John F.
Kennedy to Martin Luther King, Jr., to Robert F. Kennedy to
Reagan, they have been the acts of individuals with no
connections to any power groups.
Because all their underlying assumptions are discredited by
historical events and media exposures, no conspiracy theory is
credible on any issue. If there is corporate domination, it is
through leaders in visible positions within the corporate
community, the policy planning network, and the government. If
there is class domination, it is through the same mundane
processes that social scientists have shown to be operating for
other levels of the socioeconomic system.
More on illegal government actions
Even though there are no conspiracies, it is also true that
government officials sometimes take illegal actions or try to
deceive the public. During the 1960s, for example, government
leaders claimed that the Vietnam War was easily winnable, even
though they knew otherwise. In the 1980s the Reagan
Administration defied a Congressional ban on support for
anti-government rebels in Nicaragua (the “Contras”) through a
complicated scheme that raised money for the rebels from
foreign countries. The plan included an illegal delivery of
armaments to Iran in exchange for money and hostages. But
deceptions and illegal actions are usually uncovered, if not
immediately, then in historical records.
In the case of the Vietnam War deception, the unauthorized
release in 1971 of government documents called The Pentagon
Papers (which revealed the true state of affairs) caused the
government great embarrassment and turned more people
against the war. It also triggered the creation of a secret White
House operation to plug leaks (the “Plumbers”), which led in turn
to an illegal entry into Democratic Party headquarters during the
1972 elections, an attempted cover-up of high-level approval of
the operation, and the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon
in the face of impeachment charges. As for the Reagan
Administration's illegal activities, they were unraveled in widely
viewed Congressional hearings that led to a six-month
imprisonment for the president's National Security Adviser for his
part in an unsuccessful cover-up, along with convictions or guilty
pleas for several others for obstruction of justice or lying to
Congress. The Secretary of Defense was indicted for his part in
the cover-up, but spared a trial when he was pardoned by
President George H. W. Bush on Christmas Eve, 1992.
It is also true that the CIA has been involved in espionage,
sabotage, and the illegal overthrow of foreign governments, and
that the FBI spied on and attempted to disrupt Marxist third
parties, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Ku Klux Klan. But
careful studies show that all these actions were authorized by
top government officials, which is the critical point here. There
was no “secret team” or “shadow government” committing illegal
acts or ordering government officials to deceive the public and
disrupt social movements. Such a distinction is crucial in
differentiating all sociological theories of power from a
conspiratorial one.
Claims about the Council on Foreign Relations
(CFR)
The group said by many conspiratorial thinkers to be at the
center of the alleged conspiracy in the United States, the Council
on Foreign Relations, is in fact a mere policy discussion forum. It
has nearly 3,000 members, far too many for secret plans to be
kept within the group. All the CFR does is sponsor discussion
groups, debates and speakers. As far as being secretive, it
issues annual reports and allows access to its historical
archives. Historical studies of the CFR show that it has a very
different role in the overall power structure than what is claimed
by conspiratorial theorists.
More information
For my responses to an interviewer on the issue of conspiracy,
see http://www.publiceye.org/antisemitism/nw_domhoff.html.
For more about conspiracism, including links to other resources,
please read Chip Berlet's excellent article on PublicEye.org,
“Conspiracism as a Flawed Worldview”.
This document's URL: http://sociology.ucsc.edu
/whorulesamerica/theory/conspiracy.html
All content ©2006 G. William Domhoff, unless otherwise noted.