Commentary: Conspiracy theories serve the market, not the marginalized

Conspiracy theories tell the stories of real reality in apocalyptic tones that assure people that the world in its present form is coming to an end and freedom from it is at hand. They are stories of the end of the world and liberation of the excluded, tales of freedom to come. Conspiracy theories, however, are not just cognitive mapping of the world; they are political instructions for making the world livable for the excluded. They are, in other words, plans for class insurgency: the mutiny of the excluded against the always-included ruling class.

However, what they mean by “class” is not social relations that have an economic base. Conspiracy theories strip class from all its material economic ground and remakes class as the “elite.” In conspiracy theories, the oppressing class is not the 1 percent, the oligarchs, but the educated, the liberal, and the progressive whose ideas about transgender, abortion, health care, and taxes have upended the identities of the excluded.

Conspiracy theories are believed by the excluded. They are the map of their identities; they assure the “deplorables” that they matter, that they may be excluded by the elite but are included in another, more desirable community.

The real beneficiaries of conspiracy theories, however, are the very people who exclude the excluded: the ruling class that dominates the current economic order. Conspiracy theories divert class anger away from the ruling class and redirect it toward an elusive elite. The universities — not GM, banks, or hedge funds — are the real oppressors.

In place of exploitation (economic) of workers that is the source of profit for capitalism, conspiracy theories put domination (power). The economic dictatorship of capital is displaced by the cultural power of the elite. The economic relations are replaced by power relations because it is much easier for the excluded to imagine a world in which power can be changed, or at least challenged, by people’s counter-power than to conceive of the world without capitalism, which provides jobs, and in which they know they are exploited through their wages, which they need to subsist. Conspiracy theories are lessons by which people learn how to live with economic exploitation and rebel against cultural oppression — to live with dignity but without health care.

In the current pandemic, when conspiracy theories have found a fertile ground, it is the “mask,” for instance, that is seen as the sign of domination. Unmasking is a class insurgency against the power of the elite—what we call maskarchy. Resisting masks is an instrument not of liberation but of rebellion against government regulation. It is a struggle by the excluded but arranged by the 1 percent. Investigative reporting by The Wall Street Journal found the insurrection of January 6 was paid for by capitalists.

The ostensible goal of conspiracy theories is cultural freedom of the individual. This is what is the true believers believe. The actual function, however, is an economic one: to use the disaster to free capitalism from regulations. Anti-mask rebellion is not about masks, pandemic, or health; it is a lesson of rebellion against state power as regulator of the market.

Similarly, conspiracy theories are not about the individual liberty of the common citizen. They are cultural instruments for the economic freedom of the market from the regulatory power of the state.

Robert Faivre, of Saratoga Springs, is an English professor at SUNY Adirondack Community College. Julie Torrant, of Saratoga Springs, is an independent scholar.