Timothy Mitchell, Rule of Experts: Egypt,
Techno-politics, Modernity. 2002
“But for the present age, which prefers the
sign to the thing signified,
the copy to the original, representation to reality, appearance to
essence
. . . truth is considered profane, and only illusion is
sacred. Sacredness is in fact held to be enhanced in proportion as truth
decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes
to be the highest degree of sacredness.”
— Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach, Preface to the
second edition of The Essence
of Christianity
Timothy Mitchell’s book stands as a
critique of separation at the service of ideology. The separations that he describes and critiques—ones that
shout scientific truths but ignore nature, abstract “the economy” from the
activity of those who then must serve it, make cartoons out of peasants, and
call a vortex of debt “development”—are seen as false and necessary. False for all the hidden and often
violent social dynamics that these separations try to overrun, and necessary
for a phase of capitalist development that relies on the organization of
appearances, one that must maintain at least the semblance of the idea that
people are ruled for their own good.
Mitchell documents the opening up of these separations,
these false oppositions, revealing a regime of dubious experts in the fields of
engineering, chemistry, social science and economics. For example, we see how human engineering jumps on a chance
to justify itself as rescuer—from both drought and disease—but how the framing
of its projects in terms of “man versus nature” (or “technology vs. natural
limits”) serves not to accomplish the stated goals but to establish “techno
–power” (an essential for the modern state) on a national scale. We see how the demands of
“development” employ the expert language of social science to separate
exoticized and maligned peasants from their presumably modern benefactors, in
order to literally separate them from the land. And we see how this same “development industry” separates itself
from the social and economic processes
involved in the maintenance and exploitation of inequality, hiding the contradictions of
privatization schemes that actually strengthen the power of the state that will
enforce them.
In one of the final chapters Mitchell critiques the
separation inherent in thinking about capitalism as an all-encompassing force,
one that must absorb “nonmarket factors” as part of the affirmation of its
“unitary and universal nature.”
But although it may be wise to avoid thinking of capitalism as
Leviathan, and while Mitchell does give a good sense of alternative social
values, his theoretical inquiry into perceptions of “market forces” is not
consistent with the studies in his book that point directly at the fully
self-conscious institutions and individuals that carry out the expropriations,
evictions, marginalizations and repressions of “what we call capitalism.”
To describe these events as a swath of global capitalism is
not to ignore traditional practices, provincial political forces, or
cooperative social values but to acknowledge what they are up against.
Capitalism does not have to be the “larger story” if we consider the whole
history of humanity, but its logic and ideology must be confronted in a way
that not only challenges its claims to universality, but also opposes the
implementation of this logic on an undeniably global scale.
But Mitchell’s actual treatment of
this world-system itself is a weakness of the book; in fact there is a general
hesitancy to reach concrete conclusions, and a tendency to refer to the
exercise of power in somewhat ethereal terms. For example, Mitchell’s exposition of the complementary role
of anthropology in Cold War intelligence operations is compelling but his
conclusion that the most important issue raised by it is “the structure of
academic expertise” that enabled the racist fabrications of certain scholars is
weak. When hasn’t this structure been subject to official intervention
and manipulation?[1] One can appreciate Mitchell’s broad
critique of expertise while at the same time recognizing that the apparatus by
which official representations are disseminated (and others, such as the Chagos
Islanders, are hidden) is one that has the power of representation over all
aspects of life, not just our perception of peasants.
In the same vein, repeated
references to “discourse” as an agent of history (e.g. “Development discourse
wishes to present itself...” p242) obscures the person-to-person and other
material relationships that are made so lucid elsewhere in the book. Mitchell sometimes gives the impression
that the “development industry” is simply misguided, as if it was made of
people who simply carry out its directives, stuck in some unfortunate
“discourse.” Is it only a literary
convenience to say that “International development... depoliticizes
[inequality] and transforms it into a question of the proper management of
resources”? (p226) Because, for the actual human beings responsible for the
exchanges of this “development”, inequality is simply a question of resource management, with poor people included as
“resources.” Their goal, which
Mitchell alludes to but never actually states, is not to promote economic
equality but to grease the wheels of global capitalism for the benefit of an
international class (who are also only hinted at by author). The dominant ideology of capitalism is
what stands behind “development discourse,” and, for all its periodic crises,
there is a logic and a coherence
in it. The directors of
international banks are not just bureaucrats, they are also investors- they use a discourse, a discourse does not use them.
[1] For a
detailed description of this in relation to the history profession: Peter
Novick, That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American
Historical Profession. 1988.
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