Whole of Society

Jacob Siegel has an interesting Tablet piece on the need to understand American politics via the term “whole of society.”

Learn This Term: ‘Whole of Society’
You cannot understand what’s going on with American politics today without it

To make sense of today’s form of American politics, it is necessary to understand a key term. It is not found in standard U.S. civics textbooks, but it is central to the new playbook of power: “whole of society.”

The term was popularized roughly a decade ago by the Obama administration, which liked that its bland, technocratic appearance could be used as cover to erect a mechanism for the government to control public life that can, at best, be called “Soviet-style.” Here’s the simplest definition: “Individuals, civil society and companies shape interactions in society, and their actions can harm or foster integrity in their communities. A whole-of-society approach asserts that as these actors interact with public officials and play a critical role in setting the public agenda and influencing public decisions, they also have a responsibility to promote public integrity.”

In other words, the government enacts policies and then “enlists” corporations, NGOs and even individual citizens to enforce them—creating a 360-degree police force made up of the companies you do business with, the civic organizations that you think make up your communal safety net, even your neighbors. What this looks like in practice is a small group of powerful people using public-private partnerships to silence the Constitution, censor ideas they don’t like, deny their opponents access to banking, credit, the internet, and other public accommodations in a process of continuous surveillance, constantly threatened cancellation, and social control.

The whole piece is well worth reading as a useful angle on managerialist trends which are also familiar here in the UK. It is already obvious enough that Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are on board.

One can imagine a President Kamala Harris using the whole-of-society push to enact various equity initiatives, which she has championed in the past. But, equally, if Trump wins in November, the same tactic will be used to coordinate the “spontaneous” resistance movement of government groups, media outlets, and billionaire-funded nonprofits who carry out the functions of the party state. It is this party-state itself that is incompatible with democracy. And the whole of society is what it demands.