The Pornification of Everything: Patricia Nilsson’s Guilty Pleasure and the Limits of Liberal Critique

Patricia Nilsson’s Guilty Pleasure (Allen Lane, 2026) has garnered respectful praise from the British press, which often reserves such recognition for books that seem provocative but ultimately uphold existing ideologies. Critics have labelled it as “intelligent,” “necessary,” and even “brave.” In reality, Nilsson has compiled evidence with implications far more provocative than she is willing, or allowed, to acknowledge explicitly. The book's true importance lies not in its conclusions, which stay within the Financial Times' liberal confines. Still, it offers raw material for a genuinely radical critique of the digital economy.

Nilsson’s main argument is straightforward and accurate: the commercial pornography sector was not just a marginal side activity alongside the internet’s growth. Instead, it served as a testing ground where key platform-capitalism techniques were developed, tested, and perfected. Features like recommendation algorithms, targeted ads, seamless payment methods, high-definition streaming, and the design of addictive engagement- these innovations were first implemented on porn websites before spreading to Silicon Valley. She contends that the porn industry “wrote the code” for today’s internet.

This insight is substantial. Its importance isn't about moral contamination of technology by sex, as Nilsson suggests, but rather about how the porn industry illustrates the application of capitalist logic to the most personal aspects of human life, subsequently influencing everything else. Pornography didn't distort the internet; it revealed the economic forces that would come to shape it.

Nilsson traces the industry’s development through three stages. The first is the pre‑internet era of print and video, dominated by figures such as Hugh Hefner and Larry Flynt. Here her tone becomes oddly nostalgic, as if the exploitation of women in the Playboy mansion or the coercive labour conditions of 1970s porn sets were somehow more “authentic” than what followed. This soft focus obscures the continuity of exploitation across all phases of the industry.

The second stage, characterised by the emergence of 'tube sites', is where Nilsson’s reporting is most compelling. These platforms, built on user-uploaded pirated content, perfected a business model that now underpins the entire platform economy: exploiting the labour of millions, monetising their attention, and selling it to advertisers. Content creators received no payment; their work was stolen. A few anonymous owners, operating through offshore holding companies, took the profits. Pornography not only foreshadowed Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok but also served as their prototype.

Nilsson describes the third stage, the “creator economy” exemplified by OnlyFans, as the “commodification of the self.” While she correctly identifies this trend, she doesn't explore its implications enough. Amid declining real wages, unstable jobs, and the breakdown of social safety nets, millions of young people are compelled to turn their personalities, bodies, and private lives into commodities. OnlyFans is not an anomaly; it vividly illustrates a broader pattern: turning the self into a source of income.

Nilsson also highlights the new industry's owners: financiers, private equity firms, and “tech nerds” with little interest in pornography. Porn has become just another asset class, managed and traded like care homes or water utilities. This lack of concern for the product is not surprising but is, in fact, the defining trait of finance capital.

Nilsson’s critique effectively ends at the boundary of property relations. She recognises the odd aspects of online life but interprets them as psychological effects of technology, rather than manifestations of capitalist social relations. Smartphones are not the root cause of the alienation she describes; instead, alienation is inherent in labour itself, now extending into personal intimacy and inner life. Nilsson provides compelling evidence, but she leaves the reader to interpret the findings.

From Hefner to the Hedge Fund: The Industrialisation of Desire

Nilsson categorises the industry's history into three stages, clearly highlighting the strengths and limitations of her framework. The first stage covers the pre-internet period, featuring print and video, and is exemplified by figures like Hugh Hefner and Larry Flynt. In this phase, her tone takes on a surprising nostalgic quality, suggesting that the exploitation of women at the Playboy mansion or the coercive working conditions of 1970s porn sets were somehow more genuine than later developments. This reflects a common liberal tendency: romanticising the past to portray the present as unusually pathological, and framing exploitation as a series of colourful personalities and cultural acts of rebellion. Hefner is depicted more as a disreputable showman than as an employer profiting from women’s commodification; Flynt is portrayed as a First Amendment hero instead of a businessman benefiting from highly unequal labour practices. Nilsson’s perspective inadvertently perpetuates the industry's own mythologies.

The second phase- the emergence of "tube sites” really highlights Nilsson’s investigative work. These sites, mainly fuelled by user-uploaded pirated videos, perfected the business model that now underpins the entire platform economy. They exploited millions of creators' labour, monetised user attention, and sold it to advertisers. They didn't pay content creators; they stole their labour. Profits went to a small group of anonymous owners operating through offshore companies, avoiding public scrutiny and legal responsibilities. Nilsson’s detailed account of MindGeek, the leading conglomerate in the tube-site industry, reveals a complicated web of shell companies, tax havens, and obscure ownership meant to maximise profits and avoid accountability.

It is difficult to imagine a clearer demonstration of the real meaning of “user‑generated content.” The porn industry did not merely anticipate the logic of Facebook, YouTube and TikTok. It provided the prototype. The same mechanisms- algorithmic sorting, attention capture, frictionless consumption, and the conversion of human behaviour into monetisable data- were first tested on porn audiences, whose habits offered a vast, unregulated laboratory for behavioural engineering. Silicon Valley did not invent the attention economy; it inherited it.

The third stage, exemplified by OnlyFans, is the “creator economy.” Nilsson calls this the “commodification of the self,” which is accurate, but she doesn't fully explore its implications. Amid declining real wages, unstable employment, and the erosion of social security, countless young people are compelled to turn their personalities, bodies, and private lives into marketable products. The gig economy has already normalised the necessity for workers to constantly craft personal brands, develop online identities, and monetise every facet of their lives. OnlyFans starkly illustrates this trend: turning the self into a source of income.

Nilsson’s interviews with creators highlight the contradictions within this model. Creators mention autonomy, flexibility, and direct earnings, yet they also face constant pressure to produce content, engage subscribers, and share more of their private lives to sustain their income. The platform’s typical 20 per cent take acts as a rent on the commodification of intimacy. Marketed as empowerment, it is actually a highly individualised form of labour discipline, where the worker is both product and producer, bearing responsibility for all aspects of their exploitation.

Nilsson does not fully recognise that this “creator” model extends beyond sex work. It is increasingly pervasive across the digital economy, affecting influencers, streamers, gig workers, and freelance creatives who are all driven to monetise their identities, foster parasocial bonds, and transform their personal lives into content. The porn industry is not an exception but a leader in a wider shift where the line between work and life completely blurs.

Changes in ownership structures underscore this point. The once flamboyant showmen have been replaced by financiers, private equity firms, and “tech nerds” who lack particular interest in pornography. Porn has become just another asset class, optimised, leveraged, and traded like care homes, water companies, or local newspapers. The detachment of new owners from their product is not surprising, but a key characteristic of finance capital: profits generated without involvement, value extracted without responsibility. Nilsson’s depiction of Bernd Bergmair, the reclusive Austrian banker who managed the Pornhub empire for ten years, exemplifies this trend. Pornography is now more a financial instrument than a cultural industry.

Across these three stages, the through‑line is clear: the porn industry has served as the testing ground for the techniques of capitalist extraction that now dominate online life. What changes is not the underlying logic but the scale, sophistication and anonymity of the mechanisms involved. Nilsson’s narrative captures this evolution but stops short of naming its cause. The problem is not pornography. It is capitalism.

The New Owners: Pornography as an Asset Class

A key part of the book explores who owns the industry today. The once flamboyant showmen have been replaced by financiers, private equity firms, and “tech nerds” who lack a specific interest in pornography—Nilsson’s depiction of Bernd Bergmair, the reclusive Austrian banker who managed the Pornhub empire for ten years, is illustrative. Today, pornography is seen as another asset class to be optimised, leveraged, and sold. The industry’s current owners are not libertines, provocateurs, or cultural rebels. They are portfolio managers. Their connection to the product is strictly utilitarian: pornography is just a source of revenue.

This change is deliberate and reflects the fundamental idea of financial capitalism. Marx observed that the bourgeoisie’s only link to individuals is through self-interest and monetary transactions. Today’s internet sex trade, with its intricate corporate structures, hidden ownership, and algorithm-based profit strategies, illustrates this concept in the modern context. What was once a rebellious subculture has been absorbed into global capitalism, removing any ideas of erotic rebellion and turning into a powerful way to monetise human behaviour.

Nilsson observes the new owners’ indifference to their product, viewing it as a curiosity. In reality, this attitude exemplifies a key aspect of modern capitalism: the detachment of ownership from production and profit from actual human needs. The financiers behind the porn conglomerates are unconcerned with what is produced, who produces it, or the conditions of production. Their primary focus is on the financial return. The content itself is insignificant; cash flow matters most. This phenomenon isn't unique to the porn industry but reflects a broader pattern of capitalism at its most advanced stage.

Nilsson reveals the ownership structure of offshore trusts, shell companies, and private equity, reflecting how every sector of the economy has become financialised. Care homes, water utilities, newspapers, and housing associations have all been turned into tradeable assets that are bought, stripped, and resold. Pornography is just another part of this extraction network. The guiding principles are the same: maximise profits, reduce liabilities, and hide responsibility with layers of corporate opacity. Nilsson’s detailed coverage of MindGeek’s intricate corporate setup shows how modern capital operates through anonymity, complexity, and distance.

What makes the porn industry particularly revealing is the nature of the commodity being traded. Here, the product is not merely labour but intimacy itself. The financialisation of pornography represents the financialisation of desire. The owners of the major platforms do not produce sexual content; they extract value from the interactions between performers and consumers. They monetise the circulation of images, the compulsive scroll, the data trails left by millions of users. The commodity is not sex but attention. The labour is not erotic performance but producing engagement metrics. The platform is not a publisher but a machine for converting human impulses into profit.

Nilsson hints at this transformation but doesn't fully explain its significance. The owners' disregard isn't just personal preference; it's structural. Finance capital remains indifferent to the actual content because it considers only the flow of value, not human needs. Whether dealing with a care home or a porn site, the logic remains the same: maximise extraction, minimise investment, and exit when profits fall. The porn industry is not uniquely exploitative; rather, it illustrates a broader pattern.

Workers such as performers, producers, and technicians face predictable consequences, including precarious jobs, algorithmic oversight, and the constant risk of deplatforming. Because owners are detached from the actual product, they lack motivation to improve conditions, ensure safety, or address exploitation. Their primary focus is on managing legal, reputational, and financial risks. Nilsson’s interviews with performers suggest this, but she does not explicitly identify the root issue: how all production aspects are subordinated to the needs of capital accumulation.

The ownership structure of the porn industry also exposes the ideological emptiness of liberal criticisms of “Big Tech.” Nilsson’s book examines a niche part of the internet, but the patterns she highlights are widespread. The same investors who control porn sites also own social media platforms, data brokers, gambling apps, and delivery services. The line between “respectable” tech companies and the pornography industry is misleading. They operate on the same principles, are owned by the same elite, and share a common goal: extracting value from human behaviour.

Nilsson’s analysis suggests a conclusion she cannot fully endorse: the core issue isn't pornography or technology itself, but private ownership. As long as capital controls the digital infrastructure, it will influence it to serve its interests. The porn industry isn't an anomaly but a reflection of the system that manages the internet and, more broadly, many parts of social life.

The Limits of Liberal Critique: Alienation Without Class

Despite its strengths, Guilty Pleasure stays within the Financial Times’ ideological limits. Nilsson recognises the “weirdness” of online life- the endless scrolling, feelings of isolation, and the diminishing of intimacy. However, she views these issues mainly as psychological impacts of technology, not as reflections of social relationships. The discomfort she notes is genuine, but her approach stops short of pinpointing its root cause. The FT can describe the symptoms but not the underlying system that causes them.

Smartphones and algorithms do not cause the alienation she mentions. Instead, they serve as channels through which alienation manifests. Nilsson's term “weirdness” describes how workers become alienated from each other and from the products of their labour, a phenomenon that now extends into leisure, sexuality, and inner life. Compulsive scrolling isn't a technical error; it's the result of a social system that prioritises profit over human activity. The erosion of intimacy isn't a psychological anomaly; it reflects a cultural shift where relationships are increasingly mediated by platforms that treat every interaction as data to be collected.

A technology capable of connecting billions and giving access to all human culture has become a tool for capturing attention and collecting data. This shift is not due to engineers studying porn sites or because pornography has a uniquely corrupting influence on digital design. Instead, it reflects the fact that private corporations control the internet and prioritise profit. The porn industry pioneered techniques like algorithmic sorting, seamless consumption, and behavioural nudging methods now prevalent online. Structural factors drive the spread of these techniques, as capital consistently seeks the most efficient ways to extract value, regardless of the initial domain.

Nilsson’s critique ends precisely at the threshold of property relations. She effectively describes the compulsive nature of digital consumption but doesn’t explore why the internet has been designed to foster such behaviour. While analysing the business models of porn platforms, she avoids questioning the legitimacy of private ownership itself. She uncovers the anonymity of offshore holding companies but refrains from asking why these structures exist or whom they benefit. The ideological boundaries of the FT- its dedication to markets, private property, and the sanctity of profits- serve as the invisible limit of her analysis.

The narrative presents technology as a standalone force shaping human behaviour rather than a collection of tools within an economic system. Nilsson suggests the internet could have evolved differently if different design decisions had been made. However, these choices were not random; they were driven by capital accumulation. The porn industry didn't deform the internet; it exposed its fundamental logic. Silicon Valley didn't imitate pornography out of mere salaciousness, but because it was profitable.

By treating alienation as a psychological condition rather than a social relation, Nilsson inadvertently reproduces the ideological mystification she seeks to dispel. The “weirdness” of online life is not a cultural accident. It is the lived experience of a world in which every human need, including the need for intimacy, becomes an opportunity for accumulation. The internet feels strange because it was built to serve interests hostile to human flourishing.

Nilsson assembles important evidence. But her material demands conclusions about ownership, class power, and the capitalist organisation of digital life that remain unstated. The reader must draw them.

The Censorship Trap: How the State Weaponises Moral Panic

Nilsson rightly cautions that fears about pornography are being exploited to justify broad “online safety” policies. Authorities in Britain, the U.S., and Europe have used this issue to implement age checks and mass identity verification. These steps won't safeguard children; instead, they'll establish infrastructure for state surveillance of internet activity and curb political expression. The political elite has realised that moral panic is an effective tool for expanding surveillance powers that might otherwise face opposition. The porn industry provides a convenient excuse: a realm already stigmatised, linked to danger, and portrayed as threatening to the vulnerable. Such pretexts allow governments to deploy systems that could later be used against a wide range of content.

The irony is clear. The surveillance methods perfected by the porn industry, such as tracking, behavioural profiling, and seamless identity verification, are now being transferred to the state under the guise of morality. Nilsson hints at this risk but doesn't fully address its political consequences. The liberal media fails to acknowledge that the same governments calling for censorship are also responsible for economic policies that push millions into the creator economy. The state claiming to protect youth from pornography is also the one that has overseen decades of wage stagnation, housing insecurity, and the erosion of stable jobs. It has normalised insecure labour, fragmented social connections, and encouraged many to monetise their private lives online. The moral panic over pornography isn't about addressing exploitation; it’s a distraction from its root causes.

Nilsson’s analysis is confined within the ideological limits of the Financial Times. She describes the growth of regulatory powers but doesn't explore why governments are so eager to expand them. She highlights the risks of mass identification yet fails to link these to the broader authoritarian tendencies of capitalist states. While warning about censorship, she doesn't acknowledge it as a structural necessity for governments trying to control a society divided by inequality, insecurity, and political unrest. The liberal perspective views surveillance as an unfortunate mistake rather than a vital tool for maintaining social stability during a crisis.

The “online safety” agenda is really about maintaining control, not safety. Age-verification systems collect biometric data, IDs, or verification tokens, and once established, they can be expanded to censor political extremism, misinformation, or dissent. The infrastructure designed to regulate pornography will most likely be repurposed for political suppression. Nilsson alludes to this but avoids explicitly stating that the true motive behind online regulation is political rather than moral. The government aims to control information flow, observe social behaviour, and prevent collective activism.

The porn industry’s surveillance-driven business model serves as a template for state power. What initially aimed at generating profit from sexual content has evolved into a system for monitoring citizens. The line between corporate and government surveillance blurs, with data moving seamlessly between platforms and authorities. Users thus become subject to both economic and political forms of control.

Nilsson assembles the evidence but cannot draw the conclusion her material demands. The problem is not pornography, nor even the platforms themselves. It is the convergence of corporate and state power in a system that treats both intimacy and dissent as threats to be managed. The “online safety” regimes are not a moral project. They are the next stage in the political economy of surveillance.

What Is to Be Done?

Nilsson’s subtitle promises an account of the pornification of “everything else,” and in this sense the book succeeds. It shows that the degradation of online life is not a cultural problem but an economic one. In a system where every human need becomes an opportunity for accumulation, intimacy becomes content, desire becomes data, and the self becomes a commodity. The porn industry is not an aberration but a magnifying lens: it reveals, in its most concentrated form, the logic that governs the entire digital economy. What appears as a cultural shift is, in fact, the extension of capitalist social relations into the most private dimensions of human experience.

Nilsson’s reporting makes clear that the techniques developed within the porn industry- algorithmic sorting, behavioural nudging, frictionless payment systems, the engineering of compulsive engagement- were not adopted by Silicon Valley because they were salacious or transgressive. They were adopted because they were profitable. The porn industry pioneered the most efficient methods for extracting value from human behaviour, and the rest of the digital economy followed. The “pornification” of everything is not a cultural contagion but a structural process: the universalisation of a business model built on surveillance, expropriation and the monetisation of attention.

The way out lies neither in nostalgia for Playboy nor in regulatory tinkering by capitalist governments. Nostalgia is politically useless. The pre‑internet porn industry was no less exploitative; it simply operated on a smaller scale and with more theatrical personalities. Regulation, meanwhile, cannot change the fact that private corporations own and control the internet and aim only for profit. Governments may impose age‑verification systems, content filters or “online safety” regimes, but these measures do nothing to challenge the underlying property relations. They merely add new layers of surveillance and control, often expanding the very powers later used to police political speech.

A genuine alternative requires abolishing private ownership of major technology and media corporations, socialising digital infrastructure, and giving the working class democratic control of online platforms. Only then can the internet become what it should have been: a collective resource for human development rather than a machine for extracting profit from loneliness. The internet’s potential to connect billions, make the whole of human culture accessible, and facilitate global collaboration has been systematically subordinated to the imperatives of capital. Reclaiming that potential demands a transformation not of interface design or content moderation but of ownership and control.

Nilsson’s material points toward this conclusion even if she cannot state it. Her account of the porn industry’s evolution from flamboyant showpeople to opaque financial conglomerates illustrates the broader trajectory of digital capitalism. Her analysis of tube‑site business models exposes the structural theft at the heart of “user‑generated content.” Her discussion of the creator economy shows how precarious labour and falling wages have pushed millions to monetise their private lives. Her warnings about “online safety” regimes show how moral panic becomes a vehicle for expanding state surveillance.

But at each point, her critique stops where it must: at the threshold of property relations. She can describe the symptoms, but not the cause. She can expose the mechanisms, but not the system. She can analyse the pornification of everything, but not the capitalist totality that makes it inevitable. Nilsson has assembled important evidence. Her readers must draw the conclusions she cannot draw.

Articles and Bibliography for Guilty Pleasure Review

I. Marxist Theory, Alienation & Commodification

• Karl Marx – Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844: Foundational text on alienation, labour, and the commodification of human activity. Essential for framing the “commodification of the self” and the transformation of intimacy into a revenue stream.
• Karl Marx – Capital, Vol. I–III: For analysis of commodity fetishism, surplus value, and the separation of ownership from production—central to the critique of finance capital’s role in the porn industry.
• György Lukács – History and Class Consciousness: Key for understanding reification and how capitalist social relations penetrate consciousness and everyday life.
• David Harvey – A Brief History of Neoliberalism: Useful for contextualising the rise of precarious labour, gig work, and the economic conditions driving millions into the creator economy.
• Nancy Fraser – “Behind Marx’s Hidden Abode” (2014): On social reproduction and the extension of capitalist extraction into intimate life.

II. Digital Capitalism, Surveillance & Platform Economy

• Shoshana Zuboff – The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The definitive account of how data extraction became the core business model of the internet. Essential for the argument that porn pioneered techniques later adopted by Silicon Valley.
• Nick Srnicek – Platform Capitalism: A concise theoretical framework for understanding tube sites, OnlyFans, and the broader platform economy.
• Christian Fuchs – Digital Labour and Karl Marx: Directly relevant to analysis of unpaid labour on tube sites and the expropriation of user‑generated content.
• Jodi Dean – Blog Theory: On communicative capitalism, compulsive engagement, and the political economy of online behaviour.
• Evgeny Morozov – The Net Delusion. Useful for your section on “online safety” regimes and the state’s appropriation of surveillance tools.

III. Pornography, Sex Work & Internet History

• Gail Dines – Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality. A cultural critique of pornography’s mainstreaming; useful for contrasting liberal moralism with your economic analysis.
• Chauntelle Tibbals – Exposure: A Sociologist Explores Sex, Society, and Adult Entertainment. Empirical research on labour conditions in the porn industry.
• Katrien Jacobs – Netporn: DIY Web Culture and Sexual Politics: Early analysis of online porn communities and user‑generated sexual content.
• Sarah Banet‑Weiser – Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny. Relevant for the ideological framing of the creator economy and “empowerment” narratives around OnlyFans.

IV. Finance Capital, Ownership Structures & Corporate Power

• Nomi Prins – Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World: For understanding the broader context of financialisation and the rise of opaque ownership structures.
• Brett Christophers – Rentier Capitalism: The argument that platforms extract rent from human behaviour rather than producing anything themselves.
• Grace Blakeley – Stolen: How to Save the World from Financialisation. A clear account of how private equity and offshore finance shape contemporary industries—including porn.
• Quinn Slobodian – Crack-Up Capitalism: On the proliferation of zones, havens and extraterritorial corporate structures like those used by MindGeek.

V. State Surveillance, Censorship & “Online Safety” Regimes

• David Lyon – Surveillance Society: Foundational text on the political logic of mass monitoring.
• Cory Doctorow – The Shakedown (2024): On regulatory capture, platform monopolies and the dangers of state‑mandated identification systems.
• Ben Tarnoff – Internet for the People: A socialist argument for public ownership of digital infrastructure—directly aligned with the concluding section.
• Zeynep Tufekci – Twitter and Tear Gas: On how states weaponise digital platforms to suppress political organisation.

VI. Recommended Articles (for citation in the review)

• “MindGeek and the Financialisation of Porn” – Wired Investigative reporting on Bergmair and the corporate structure behind Pornhub.
• “The Creator Economy Is a Trap” – The Atlantic: On precarious labour, monetised identity and the pressures of constant self‑commodification.
• “Age Verification Laws and the Future of Online Privacy” – Electronic Frontier Foundation. On censorship and surveillance.
• “Tube Sites and the Theft of Labour” – JSTOR Daily: A concise academic‑style overview of the expropriation model.

 

Hitler: The Führer and the People: J.P. Stern and the Origins of the “Ordinary Germans” Thesis

When J. P. Stern released Hitler: The Führer and the People in 1975, it appeared to fit a well-known genre: a literary scholar’s exploration of political disaster. Stern, a respected Germanist, examined Hitler not as a political leader or tactician but as a cultural figure, whose influence seemed to challenge standard political explanations. His main inquiry- how someone of apparent intellectual and moral mediocrity could garner the loyalty of millions in a modern industrial society- was seen as a puzzle involving mentality, myth, and collective imagery. Initially, the book seemed a compassionate, liberal effort to understand the psychological and symbolic factors through which Hitler built a connection with “the people.”

Half a century on, Stern’s work appears differently. It represents an early, formative example of an interpretive shift that has come to dominate Western scholarship on National Socialism since the late 1970s: the idea that the Nazi regime was based on a genuine, largely voluntary relationship between leader and people, and that understanding fascism’s catastrophe depends mainly on the attitudes, desires, and ideological beliefs of ordinary Germans. In this view, the key factor was not the structural crisis of German capitalism, the political paralysis of the workers’ movement, or the ruling class's strategic choices, but rather the German people's cultural and psychological inclination to accept Hitler’s message. Stern did not originate this viewpoint, but he helped articulate its early coherence and credibility.

This significantly enhances the importance of his book. Stern did not defend fascism. Born in Prague in 1920, he escaped the Nazi occupation, served in the RAF’s Czechoslovak squadron, and dedicated his academic career to studying German literature, culture, and political ideas. He demonstrated his anti-fascism through his actions, not just his words. The book, Hitler: The Führer and the People, has notable strengths: a nuanced analysis of Hitler’s rhetoric, an insightful exploration of the Third Reich's symbolic economy, and an avoidance of reducing the dictator’s appeal to coercion or mass hypnosis alone. Because the book is intellectually rigorous and morally earnest, its methodological choices and their implications warrant careful examination.

For Stern, understanding Nazism involved analysing how modern mass politics combined with ancient ideas of community, destiny, and leadership. He believed Hitler’s rise stemmed from his skill in creating a mythic connection with “the people,” a relationship that transcended class boundaries and offered hope through unity. This focus on mentality and myth foreshadowed later studies that described the Third Reich as a “consensus dictatorship,” a regime held together not just by fear but by widespread identification with its ideals. In Stern’s view, the relationship between the Führer and the Volk became the key to explaining the regime.

However, this interpretive approach had drawbacks. By emphasising the cultural and psychological factors behind Hitler’s appeal, Stern inadvertently minimised the structural forces enabling fascism: the economic crisis of German capitalism, the political confusion among the petty bourgeoisie, the strategic interests of industrial and financial elites, and the failures of workers’ parties. By focusing on “the people,” the book shifted away from class analysis and framed a political and economic crisis as a cultural narrative. This introduction prepares for a critical review of Stern’s argument not to undermine his scholarship, but to explore how a compassionate, anti-fascist thinker contributed to a paradigm that ultimately limited the scope of explanation.

The “politics of the will”

Stern argues that Hitler isn’t just a demagogue or a puppet of conservative elites. Instead, he contends that Hitler expressed existing German desires: a leader who embodies the nation’s will; authentic politics based on sacrifice, struggle, and emotion; and relief from parliamentary frustrations. According to Stern, Hitler’s appeal was not fabricated, but recognised; he succeeded because he echoed sentiments already widespread among Germans.

To support this, Stern analyses Hitler’s speeches, Mein Kampf, and his table talk through a literary critic's lens. He identifies recurring themes such as will, destiny, struggle, and the idea of the lonely leader misunderstood by lesser minds, tracing them back to elements in German cultural history like Romantic irrationalism, the cult of Erlebnis (lived experience), and simplified aspects of Nietzschean philosophy. Stern argues that Hitler’s rhetoric resonated because it reflected familiar cultural patterns. The relationship between the Führer and the Volk was therefore mutual. Hitler did not merely impose his will on the nation; he embodied what a significant part of the German people desired.

As literary analysis, much of this is insightful. Stern astutely highlights the hollowness of Nazi ideology, noting its dependence on symbols rather than rational argument, its replacement of truth with perceived sincerity, and its theatrical use of emotion. He correctly dismisses the postwar myth that a small group of criminals hypnotised an otherwise innocent nation. Instead, he recognises that fascism engaged genuine social segments and built on authentic ideological traditions. His keen attention to language, symbolism, and cultural meaning lets him illuminate aspects of Hitler’s allure that conventional political histories often miss.

However, Stern never seriously addresses the crucial question: who mobilised whom, and in favour of which class? By viewing “the people” as a single cultural entity, Stern overlooks the social conflicts that enabled fascism to emerge. His perspective assumes a uniform national community sharing common aspirations. Yet, early 1930s German society was far from culturally unified; it was deeply divided by class and undergoing severe economic and political turmoil. The Depression devastated millions, radicalised many in the petty bourgeoisie, and led the ruling class to doubt that parliamentary democracy could protect its interests. Meanwhile, the organised working class, through the SPD and KPD, represented a formidable political force whose potential for unified action alarmed industrial and financial elites.

Stern’s framework cannot account for these dynamics. By focusing on cultural motifs and psychological dispositions, he treats the Führer–Volk bond as the primary explanatory factor rather than as an ideological expression of deeper social processes. The longing for unity, sacrifice, and “authentic” politics did not arise spontaneously from the German soul; it emerged from the disintegration of the petty bourgeoisie, the desperation of ruined shopkeepers and clerks, and the fears of agrarian and industrial elites confronting a militant working class. Hitler’s rhetoric resonated because it offered these groups an escape from crisis, not through cultural catharsis, but through destroying the labour movement and reasserting capitalist order.

Furthermore, Stern’s emphasis on reciprocity between leaders and the populace masks the ruling class's crucial role in bringing Hitler to power. The Nazis didn't take control of the state through cultural appeal; instead, they were positioned there by conservative elites who believed Hitler could crush the workers’ movement and secure capitalism. Events like the Preußenschlag, the behind-the-scenes manoeuvres of Papen and Schleicher, and the financial support from Thyssen and Kirdorf are not minor details but key elements of fascist rise. Stern’s cultural perspective makes them seem secondary or accidental because he focuses his explanation elsewhere.

The narrative portrays the German people as the main agents of their own disaster. At the same time, the broader issues of capitalism's systemic crisis and the ruling class's strategic choices become less prominent. This voluntarist view would later evolve into the “consensus dictatorship” model, which emphasises popular support as central to Nazi rule. Stern’s book differs slightly from that later scholarship but foreshadows its key shift: replacing class analysis with a focus on mentality, culture, and collective desire.

Acknowledging Stern’s literary expertise does not imply agreement with his historical judgments. Hitler’s rhetoric was significant, but primarily because it expressed and helped shape the interests of particular social groups within a crisis-driven capitalist society. The Führer–Volk connection was not an unexplained cultural phenomenon; it was a political alliance forged through class conflict, economic failure, and deliberate ruling-class action. Any analysis that views “the people” as a single unified cultural entity inevitably overlooks the forces that enabled fascism to emerge.

“The people” as an abstraction

Stern’s book is fundamentally limited by its title. The phrase “the people” appears throughout as a single, undifferentiated entity with a common psychology, will, and susceptibility to Hitler’s rhetoric. In reality, the German nation during the Weimar period was far from this idealised notion. It was a society fractured by class conflicts, political divisions, and economic turmoil. Referring to “the people” as a unified whole overlooks the complex social realities that facilitated the rise of fascism.

Germany's working class was the largest, most politically aware, and best-organised in Europe. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Communist Party (KPD) consistently outperformed the Nazis in elections. Even at Nazi support's peak, the working class stood as the main obstacle to fascism. The electoral results alone challenge the idea of a nation rallying behind its Führer. In the July 1932 Reichstag election, which marked Nazi support's height in a free vote, the NSDAP received 37.3 per cent of the vote. This was a plurality, not a majority, suggesting desperation among the petty bourgeoisie rather than broad popular support. By November 1932, Nazi support declined to 33.1 per cent, losing two million votes, and the party faced a crisis severe enough that some leaders feared it might collapse.

Popular enthusiasm did not fuel Hitler's rise to power. Instead, the German ruling class, facing economic collapse and fearing the working class, adopted fascism as a tool for political control. On 30 January 1933, President Paul von Hindenburg, Franz von Papen, and conservative nationalists made a behind-the-scenes deal that installed Hitler as chancellor. This was not a democratic choice but a strategic move by elites seeking to dismantle the labour movement and restore capitalist dominance. Key support came from heavy industry, the Junker aristocracy, and the military leadership. Even the March 1933 elections, held amid intimidation, with Communist deputies detained, leftist press banned, and SA violence widespread, failed to give the Nazis an outright majority.

This is well known and appears in every comprehensive history of the era. However, in a book focused on the connection between the Führer and the people, this point becomes less prominent, emphasising cultural and psychological factors over economic and class explanations. This creates an idealist perspective in which ideas, myths, and shared aspirations drive history, separate from the material conflicts that fuelled them.

This idealism isn't coincidental. It stems directly from Stern’s choice to view “the people” as a cultural unity rather than a class-divided society. When the working class, petty bourgeoisie, and ruling class merge into a single psychological entity, Weimar Germany's political crisis shifts from social structures to mentalities. The desire for unity, sacrifice, and “authentic” politics then emerges as a national mood, not merely an ideological stance rooted in specific class interests. Consequently, Hitler’s appeal transcends politics and becomes a cultural phenomenon rather than a tactic aimed at dismantling the labour movement.

Stern’s literary sensitivity traces themes like will, destiny, and struggle back to Romantic irrationalism and a simplified Nietzsche, yet paradoxically distorts them. By emphasising the symbolic role of Nazi rhetoric, he regards the Führer–Volk relationship as the main explanation. However, rhetoric is always connected to social relations. Hitler’s speech resonated because it expressed the fears and hopes of specific social groups: the devastated petty bourgeoisie, farming elites, and industrial magnates, who saw fascism as a means to restore profits and suppress the working class. The Nazis did not rally “the people" universally; instead, they mobilised particular classes with aligned interests in destroying the workers’ movement.

Stern’s framework falls short here. His concept of “people” is too abstract, overly unified, and psychologically cohesive to capture the real divisions in German society. A cultural haze obscures the working class, which has millions of members, is politically organised, and can often take decisive action. Meanwhile, the ruling class appears as a background presence rather than the influential force that helped bring Hitler to power. The petty bourgeoisie, which played a key role in the social radicalisation fuelling fascism, is blended into a generalised national desire for unity and sacrifice.

The outcome is a narrative where ideas drive history. Hitler succeeds because he articulates the nation’s will; the people follow out of a desire for authenticity; the disaster occurs because collective psychology makes it possible—material factors such as economic collapse, class struggle, and political paralysis become less important. Fascism transforms into a cultural drama rather than a political fix for capitalism’s crisis. Highlighting this weakness does not dismiss Stern’s literary insights but emphasises that cultural analysis alone cannot replace social explanation. The bond between the Führer and the Volk was not a psychological mystery but a political relationship formed through class conflict and elite strategies. Any explanation that views “the people” as a unified entity tends to hide the underlying forces that enabled fascism.

What the Marxists understood

Trotsky’s critique of fascism provides not just an alternative to Stern’s approach but a fundamentally different perspective on what needs explaining. While Stern focuses on "the mentality of the people,” Trotsky approaches it from the societal structures, specifically, the conflicting classes that drove the Weimar crisis. He documented his analysis not years later with hindsight but during the rise of National Socialism. This contemporaneous perspective gives his account a clarity and immediacy that later cultural-psychological views often miss.

Trotsky described fascism as a mass movement originating from the petty bourgeoisie: small shopkeepers driven out by competition, peasants burdened by debt, artisans replaced by industrialisation, white-collar workers facing proletarianization, and former officers unable to reintegrate into civilian life. Shattered by war, inflation, and depression, these groups became desperate. Their anger stemmed from social realities, not abstract ideas. The capitalist system they upheld was undermining them. Fascism presented a false solution, redirecting their anger downward, against the organised working class, instead of addressing their core issues.

Large-scale capital investment funded and ultimately directed this movement as a powerful tool. Trotsky famously described fascism as raising the “human dust” of society, illustrating its social makeup and historical role: to fragment the proletariat, destroy trade unions and parties, and establish the dominance of finance capital when parliamentary systems no longer managed the class conflict. Fascism was not driven by national patriotism; rather, it served as the ruling class's political instrument during an unresolved crisis.

This analysis does not deny Hitler's widespread support; it explains its origins. Stern highlights the “politics of the will”, including the desire for a charismatic leader, the cult of sacrifice, and anger at parliamentary paralysis, reflecting the mindset of a fearful middle class trapped by the existing system. These feelings did not represent 'the people' as a whole but were the ideological expression of a particular class in crisis. Their desperation made them vulnerable to the appeals of unity, authority, and national rebirth.

Trotsky argued that the key issue was whether the working class could provide a revolutionary alternative to the middle class. It failed to do so. The SPD held on to the bourgeois state until it was ultimately destroyed by it. While advocating for the Weimar constitution, its leaders overlooked the threat posed by presidential decrees, emergency powers, and the increasing influence of the military and big businesses, which weakened it. Meanwhile, the KPD, adhering to Stalin’s disastrous “Third Period” policy, called the SPD "social fascists,” refused Trotsky’s call for a united front, and regarded the Nazis as just another form of bourgeois reaction. This created political paralysis. Although the working class was large and organised, it was divided at the crucial moment.

Hitler didn't conquer the working class. He didn't have to. The working class was disarmed, betrayed, and suppressed. Without a revolutionary alternative, the petty bourgeoisie supported fascism. The ruling class, looking for a way out of crisis, put Hitler in power. This disaster wasn't due to national psychology; it resulted from a political failure rooted in class conflict.

Stern does not consider this a key element in his explanation. Its omission is deliberate. Without class dynamics, the only remaining factor is “the people,” and the disaster must be attributed to internal qualities like culture, traditions, or collective spirit. The desire for unity becomes a national characteristic; the craving for authority becomes a cultural legacy; and the failure of democracy is seen as a psychological issue rather than a political failure.

Stern’s book centres on this idealism. He simplifies society as an undivided “people,” turning fascism into primarily a cultural issue rather than a class conflict. This approach erases the working class, diminishes the ruling class, and merges the petty bourgeoisie into a unified national sentiment. In contrast, Trotsky’s analysis reintroduces the real factors that Stern overlooks: the material struggles, political conflicts, and class interests that enabled fascism to emerge.

A precursor

Today, Stern’s book is seen not as an isolated work but as the beginning of a wider historiographical movement. The questions he raised concerning Hitler’s charm, the symbolic link between leader and populace, and the cultural and psychological roots of dictatorship gradually became core themes in scholarship from the late 1970s onward. What was once tentative in Stern became normative: the idea that Nazism should mainly be understood through the mindset of ordinary Germans, with the Führer image serving as the key unifying force of the regime.

Ian Kershaw’s 'The “Hitler Myth"' (1987) deepened this topic with more empirical evidence. He examined how Hitler’s public image served as a central unifying symbol within the regime, binding various social groups. While he considered repression, coercion, and social differences, he did not view the dictatorship as only driven by popular support. Instead, the focus shifted to the Führer image- its portrayal, how people received it, and its emotional impact- as the key explanation. Germany's social makeup, class interests that influenced the regime, and the ruling elites' political tactics still played a role, but as background influences rather than primary forces.

The trend advanced further when Daniel Goldhagen’s 'Hitler’s Willing Executioners' (1996) took the explanation to its extreme, linking the Holocaust to an alleged widespread “eliminationist antisemitism” among nearly all Germans. This offered a national cultural rationale for genocide, criticised by reputable historians but popular in the media, that reduced class, political, and state factors into a singular, undifferentiated collective mindset. Although Goldhagen’s claim was simplistic, it thrived within a framework Stern established: the idea that Nazism represented the will of “the people,” and that explaining the catastrophe required focusing on culture rather than class or power struggles.

Robert Gellately’s 2001 book, Backing Hitler, emphasised the role of popular consent in consolidating power. By focusing on the regime’s dependence on denunciations, voluntary cooperation, and daily involvement of ordinary people, Gellately suggested that terror played a less dominant role than once thought. The clear message was that the dictatorship thrived on widespread social support. In this view, the roles of the Gestapo, SS, and the industrial and military elites are minimised, while the actions of 'ordinary Germans' take centre stage.

Götz Aly’s *Hitler’s Beneficiaries* (2005) introduces a new perspective by depicting the Third Reich as a racist welfare state that secured loyalty through redistribution funded by plunder and conquest. The emphasis shifts from the ruling elite to society as a whole. Corporations that gained from rearmament and forced labour, industrialists who financed the Nazi Party, and military leaders and officials who enabled the regime tend to blend into the broader population. Responsibility becomes dispersed throughout “society,” as if the dictatorship was simply an expression of a unified national community.

Stern was more nuanced than Goldhagen, more cautious than Gellately, and considerably less reductive than Aly. He avoided proposing a simplistic theory of national guilt or asserting that all Germans shared a murderous ideology. However, he played a key role in shaping the conceptual landscape where such theories could develop. By viewing “the people” as a collective psychological entity, emphasising cultural symbols and collective aspirations, and downplaying class dynamics, Stern helped shift historiography. This shift made Nazism increasingly seem like an expression of the German people’s collective will.

The result was a compelling yet idealistic framework: a history shaped more by culture and mindset than by the material conflicts that underpinned those cultural forms. Stern’s book thus signals the start of a lengthy intellectual journey, one that gradually shifted focus from class, crisis, and political strategy to an understanding of fascism centred on the perceived unity of “the people.”

Why it matters and Why They Are Back

This historiographical shift matters beyond academia. If fascism is seen as a result of a specific national psychology, a cultural trait linked to “the Germans”, it appears as a contained phenomenon, a pathology of a particular group at a specific time. This allows moral judgment, mourning, and dismissal as a historical anomaly. However, if fascism is understood, as Trotsky argued, as the political reaction of a ruling class facing a crisis it can no longer resolve through parliamentary means. The threat is not limited to one country or period. Instead, it is a structural risk that appears whenever capitalism faces a breakdown, middle layers are pushed into despair, and the working class becomes politically immobilised. Therefore, the stakes in interpreting fascism are not just historical but also contemporary.

This question remains critically important. Throughout Europe and the U.S., far-right parties garner widespread support. Their platforms differ, but their social base remains consistent: parts of the petty bourgeoisie devastated by economic instability, segments of workers confused by years of neoliberal policies, and some members of the ruling elite open to authoritarian measures. Mainstream left parties, now disconnected from socialist ideals, enforce austerity, promote nationalism, and push anti-immigrant policies. A revitalised workers’ movement has not filled the political gap created by their rightward shift; instead, it has been occupied by groups that redirect social anger into xenophobia, conspiracy theories, and resentment.

In these conditions, the lessons from the 1930s remain relevant. They involve the ruling class, which, during crises, tries to maintain its power by any means. They also address the social breakdown of the middle classes, whose desperation can lead to either reactionary or revolutionary movements. Most importantly, they highlight the effects of the working class's political inaction. When labour organisations support the current system, defend discredited institutions, or refuse to oppose threats, they allow forces promising radical solutions from the right to gain ground. Fascism doesn't succeed because “the people” fall into collective madness, but because the only organised opposition fails to act.

These lessons are more applicable today than any theory of national character. The idea that fascism originates from cultural predispositions such as traditions, collective mentalities, or ingrained national traits provides comfort because it shifts the issue away from politics. It suggests that fascism is something others are susceptible to, not a risk that can develop wherever social crises and political failures intersect. This view turns a structural threat into a moral story.

Stern’s book is still valuable for its literary analysis of the language, symbolism, and self-presentation of Nazism. His keen awareness of rhetoric and myth illuminates Hitler’s appeal beyond what statistics can show. However, as a guide to how Hitler gained power and what his regime entailed, the book misdirects, and subsequent scholarship has followed this incorrect path. By depicting “the people” as a single psychological entity, emphasising cultural themes over class issues, and viewing the ruling class as part of a homogeneous society, this historiographical approach conceals the complex forces that enabled fascism.

Understanding fascism requires examining classes, parties, leadership, and the historical failures that enabled the rise of the twentieth century's most perilous movement, rather than focusing solely on “the Führer and the people.” It is essential to recognise that fascism was not a reflection of a national spirit but a result of a political crisis rooted in capitalism. Furthermore, the conditions that gave rise to fascism still exist today. These persistent conditions require clear analysis, not soothing myths.

Bibliography

Primary Marxist and Trotskyist Sources

• Leon Trotsky, The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany (1930–33).
• Leon Trotsky, What Next? Vital Questions for the German Proletariat (1932).
• Leon Trotsky, The Only Road (1932).
• Leon Trotsky, Bonapartism and Fascism (1934).
• Daniel Guérin, Fascism and Big Business (1936).
• August Thalheimer, On Fascism (1930).
• Nicos Poulantzas, Fascism and Dictatorship (1970).

Current Historiography

• J. P. Stern, Hitler: The Führer and the People (1975).
• Ian Kershaw, The “Hitler Myth”: Image and Reality in the Third Reich (1987).
• Ian Kershaw, Hitler (2 vols., 1998–2000).
• Daniel Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners (1996).
• Robert Gellately, Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany (2001).
• Götz Aly, Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State (2005).
• Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men (1992) is important for contrast with Goldhagen.
• Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History (2000).
• Richard Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich (2003); The Third Reich in Power (2005).

Class‑Analytical and Structural Histories

• Tim Mason, Nazism, Fascism and the Working Class (1995).
• David Abraham, The Collapse of the Weimar Republic (1981).
• Dick Geary, Hitler and Nazism (1993).
• Pierre Broué, The German Revolution 1917–1923 (1971).
• Eberhard Kolb, The Weimar Republic (1988).
• Henry Turner, German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler (1985).
• Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction (2006), economic foundations of Nazi rule.

Contemporary Far‑Right and Crisis Studies

• Enzo Traverso, The Origins of Nazi Violence (2003).
• Geoff Eley, Forging Democracy (2002).
• Wolfgang Streeck, Buying Time: The Delayed Crisis of Democratic Capitalism (2014).
• Ruth Wodak, The Politics of Fear (2015).
• Cas Mudde, The Far Right Today (2019).

  

Intelligence, Capital, and the Road to World War: The Meaning of David S. Cohen’s Program for the Corporate State

 A Programmatic Statement of the American Ruling Class

In September 2026, the Council on Foreign Relations' flagship journal, Foreign Affairs, published an article whose importance goes beyond the immediate policy debate it seems to address. Its author, David S. Cohen, is more than an academic or minor commentator. He has a career that places him at the heart of the connection between Wall Street, the intelligence community, and the Democratic Party: he was deputy director of the CIA under Barack Obama and Joe Biden, served as Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, and is now a senior partner at WilmerHale, a leading Washington law firm. Cohen’s background makes it hard to dismiss his words as mere speculation or bureaucratic quirks. Instead, they represent a clear statement from the American ruling class during a serious crisis.[1]

Cohen’s argument is stark and remarkably frank. He advocates that the CIA and NSA should be officially incorporated into the profit-driven activities of American companies. He argues that these intelligence agencies should collect proprietary data overseas and pass it directly to US businesses in key sectors such as semiconductors, AI, aerospace, and weapons production. Essentially, the spy agencies should act as R&D arms of corporate America, providing exclusive intelligence to firms whose success is critical to the strategic competition with China.

This proposal signals a new phase in the decline of American capitalism and the rise of global conflict. It reflects how an imperialist power, facing economic downturn, tries to offset this by deploying its coercive tools—military, intelligence, and financial assets. As the U.S. can no longer sustain leadership through industrial or technological edge, it increasingly depends on its unmatched coercive measures: its military strength, surveillance systems, and dominance over global finance. Cohen’s idea encapsulates this strategic change.

The article's importance lies not in its novelty but in its honesty. Over many years, the US has used its large surveillance networks to collect intelligence that supports American corporations. The European Parliament exposed the ECHELON network in the late 1990s; it intercepted communications from European companies that competed with US firms. In 2000, ex-CIA Director James Woolsey confirmed that the US monitored European businesses. The 2013 Snowden revelations revealed NSA efforts to target Petrobras, hack Huawei’s servers, and follow trade negotiations. At the time, WSWS noted that NSA actions against Huawei resembled Washington's accusations that Huawei was spying on the US.

Cohen proposes to openly acknowledge what has long been practised: removing the pretence that intelligence gathering and sharing with private corporations like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, or Nvidia are separate. The supposed distinction was always a fiction. Now, Cohen insists on discarding this illusion. This change signals that the American ruling class is preparing society for the acceptance of intelligence agencies operating on behalf of private corporations, which is a characteristic indicator of imperialist decline.

View this development within the wider context of American capitalism, the evolution of the intelligence sector, and the international crisis of imperialism. Cohen’s suggestion is not an anomaly but a natural outcome of long-standing trends: the merging of finance capital with the state, the militarisation of economic policy, and the adaptation of intelligence agencies into tools for corporate strategy.

The United States faces a world where its economic dominance is diminishing. China has overtaken the US in manufacturing and leads in several industrial sectors, while rapidly advancing technologies vital to military strength. The American elite sees this not as a challenge to address through investment, planning, or social reforms, but as a threat that requires coercion. The “all tools” approach Cohen mentions reflects war-preparation language. The sectors he highlights—semiconductors, AI, aerospace, weapons systems—are exactly those central to the Pentagon’s planning for potential conflict over Taiwan.

Cohen’s proposal signals more than a policy change; it clearly declares intent: intelligence agencies will serve corporate interests directly, and the corporate sector will become part of the war effort. The lines between the state and capitalism, foreign policy and corporate strategy, national security and profit are blurring. To understand the full significance of this shift, we need to consider the historical role of intelligence agencies, the structural crisis facing American capitalism, and the global spread of imperialism. Cohen’s article highlights a deeper process: turning the United States into a war economy and undermining democratic rights both domestically and internationally. In this context, the purpose and risks of Cohen’s proposal become apparent.

The Myth of “Self‑Prohibition”: The Historical Record of US Economic Espionage

Cohen’s central claim — that the United States has nobly refrained from economic espionage — is not merely misleading but demonstrably false. The historical record leaves no room for ambiguity. For decades, the US intelligence apparatus has been systematically deployed to gather proprietary information abroad for the direct benefit of American corporations. This is not an aberration or a matter of isolated incidents; it is a structural feature of US imperialism.

The ECHELON surveillance network, exposed by the European Parliament in the late 1990s, revealed that the US and its Five Eyes partners intercepted communications of European firms competing with American companies for major contracts. US corporations received intelligence gleaned from ECHELON, giving them decisive advantages in international bidding processes. In 2000, former CIA Director James Woolsey openly admitted in the Wall Street Journal that the US spied on European companies, justifying the practice as “levelling the playing field.” His admission was remarkable not for its content — which had long been suspected — but for its brazenness.

The 2013 Snowden revelations provided further irrefutable evidence. The NSA targeted Petrobras, Brazil’s state‑owned oil giant, infiltrated Huawei’s servers, and monitored trade negotiations. These operations were not conducted for abstract “national security” reasons but to secure strategic advantages for American firms and shape global markets in line with US interests. The WSWS documented that the NSA was doing to Huawei precisely what Washington accused Huawei of doing to the United States.

Against this backdrop, Cohen’s claim of a “self‑prohibition” collapses entirely. The distinction between intelligence gathered to “shape policy” and intelligence handed directly to Boeing, Lockheed Martin, or Nvidia was always a fiction — a fig leaf designed to obscure the reality of state‑corporate collusion. Cohen’s proposal removes the fig leaf. It is not a new departure but an open avowal of longstanding practice, now elevated to official doctrine.

ECHELON and the European Parliament’s Investigation

In the late 1990s, the European Parliament launched a formal investigation into the ECHELON network, a global surveillance system operated by the United States and its closest intelligence partners—the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—collectively known as the Five Eyes. ECHELON had long been rumoured to exist, but the investigation was the first systematic attempt by a major political body to uncover its scope, purpose, and implications. The inquiry revealed a surveillance apparatus far more expansive than anything Washington or London had publicly acknowledged, with operations extending well beyond traditional national‑security concerns.

The European Parliament’s report concluded that ECHELON was not merely a tool for intercepting diplomatic or military communications. It had been used to monitor the commercial activities of European firms competing with American corporations for major international contracts. The program intercepted, analysed, and—crucially—passed telecommunications data, satellite transmissions, and private corporate communications to US companies. This intelligence gave American firms privileged insight into competitors’ bids, pricing strategies, and technological capabilities, giving them a decisive advantage in securing lucrative deals.

The investigation highlighted several concrete cases. European aerospace companies, for example, repeatedly lost contracts to US rivals under circumstances that raised suspicions long before ECHELON was formally scrutinised. The Parliament’s findings confirmed what many suspected: US intelligence agencies were deployed not simply to protect national security but to advance American corporations' commercial interests. The line between state power and private profit had blurred to the point of being indistinguishable.

The ECHELON revelations were politically explosive. European governments protested, and the Parliament issued warnings about the implications for sovereignty, privacy, and fair competition. Yet Washington responded with denial and deflection. US officials insisted that any intelligence gathering was aimed at combating corruption—specifically bribery by European firms—rather than securing commercial advantage. This justification was as self‑serving as it was implausible. The notion that the CIA and NSA acted as global anti-corruption watchdogs strained credulity, especially given the documented pattern of intelligence flowing directly to American corporations.

The ECHELON affair exposed a fundamental truth about US intelligence operations: economic espionage was not an aberration but a structural component of American imperial strategy. The United States possessed unparalleled surveillance capabilities, and it used them not only to shape geopolitical outcomes but to tilt the playing field of global capitalism in favour of its own corporations. The intelligence agencies functioned as instruments of state‑corporate power, gathering information that could be weaponised in commercial competition.

This historical record directly contradicts David S. Cohen’s claim that the United States has nobly refrained from economic espionage. The ECHELON investigation demonstrated that such restraint never existed. What Cohen calls a “self‑prohibition” was always a fiction—a rhetorical device designed to obscure the reality of state‑sanctioned corporate espionage. The distinction between intelligence gathered to “shape policy” and intelligence handed directly to American firms was a fig leaf, and ECHELON tore it away.

ECHELON's significance lies not only in what it revealed about past practices but in what it foreshadowed. By the end of the 20th century, the fusion of state surveillance and corporate interests was already well advanced. Cohen’s proposal in Foreign Affairs does not mark a new departure but formalises a long‑standing reality. The intelligence agencies have been serving corporate America for decades; Cohen merely demands that this relationship be openly acknowledged and institutionalised.

James Woolsey’s Admission

In 2000, former CIA Director James Woolsey published an extraordinary article in the Wall Street Journal in which he openly admitted that the United States routinely spied on European corporations. The admission was not surprising in substance—by that point, allegations of US economic espionage had circulated for years—but its brazenness was striking. Woolsey did not deny the practice, minimise it, or cloak it in diplomatic euphemism. Instead, he justified it outright, presenting US surveillance of foreign firms as both necessary and morally defensible.

Woolsey’s argument rested on a simple claim: European corporations engaged in “bribery,” and therefore the United States was merely “levelling the playing field.” According to Woolsey, American firms were at a disadvantage because they supposedly adhered to higher ethical standards, while their European competitors secured contracts through illicit payments. He insisted the CIA was not stealing commercial secrets to benefit US corporations but exposing corruption abroad. This framing allowed Woolsey to recast economic espionage as a form of global public service—an anti‑corruption crusade rather than a tool of imperialist advantage.

The justification was as self‑serving as it was implausible. The notion that the CIA and NSA were acting as international guardians of business ethics strained credulity, particularly given the long history of US intelligence agencies supporting dictatorships, coups, and covert operations that had nothing to do with moral rectitude. Woolsey’s argument was a classic example of imperialist ideology: the United States presents its own predatory actions as defensive, reluctant, or altruistic, while depicting the behaviour of its rivals as inherently corrupt or illegitimate.

More importantly, Woolsey’s admission confirmed what many already suspected: the US intelligence apparatus was deeply involved in gathering proprietary information for the benefit of American corporations. His article appeared after the European Parliament’s investigation into the ECHELON network revealed that the US and its Five Eyes partners intercepted communications of European firms competing with American companies for major contracts. Woolsey’s intervention was clearly intended to defuse the political fallout by reframing economic espionage as a moral necessity rather than a violation of sovereignty and fair competition.

The brazenness of Woolsey’s argument reflected a deeper truth about US imperialism. By 2000, the fusion of state power and corporate interests was already well advanced. Intelligence agencies did not operate independently of American capitalism; they served it. Woolsey’s article made explicit what had long been implicit: the CIA’s activities were not confined to traditional national‑security concerns but extended directly into the realm of commercial competition.

His admission also exposed the hollowness of the claim—repeated endlessly by US officials—that the United States refrains from economic espionage. Woolsey did not deny the practice; he defended it. The “self‑prohibition” invoked by figures like David S. Cohen two decades later was already a fiction in 2000, and Woolsey’s article demonstrated that the US ruling class had no qualms about discarding it when politically expedient.

Woolsey’s intervention matters not only for its content but also for its timing. It appeared as globalisation accelerated, competition between American and European firms intensified, and the US began to confront the rise of China as a major industrial power. Woolsey’s argument foreshadowed the more aggressive posture the US would adopt in the decades to come, culminating in the open calls—such as Cohen’s—for the intelligence agencies to serve as direct instruments of corporate strategy.

In retrospect, Woolsey’s article marks an early shift: the intelligence apparatus transformed into a tool of economic warfare, deployed not merely to defend US interests but to secure the commercial dominance of American capitalism. It candidly admitted a practice that would soon become central to US geopolitical strategy.

The Snowden Revelations

The Snowden disclosures of 2013 provided some of the most damning and irrefutable evidence of US economic espionage to date. When former NSA contractor Edward Snowden released internal documents detailing the scope and operations of the American surveillance apparatus, the revelations shattered the carefully maintained fiction that US intelligence agencies confined themselves to “national security” concerns. Instead, the documents exposed a sprawling global surveillance system that targeted not only foreign governments and military organisations but also major corporations, trade negotiators, and industrial sectors central to other countries' economic development.

One of the most striking examples was the NSA’s targeting of Petrobras, Brazil’s state‑owned oil company. Petrobras was not a terrorist organisation, a military threat, or a conduit for espionage. It was a commercial entity whose strategic importance lay in its control over Brazil’s vast offshore oil reserves. The NSA’s surveillance of Petrobras had no conceivable “security” justification. It was economic espionage in its purest form: stealing proprietary information from a foreign corporation to benefit US strategic and commercial interests. The operation demonstrated that the intelligence agencies were prepared to deploy their most sophisticated tools against any entity whose activities intersected with American geopolitical or economic objectives.

Even more politically explosive was the revelation that the NSA had infiltrated Huawei's servers, the Chinese telecommunications giant. At the time, Washington was waging a propaganda campaign accusing Huawei of acting as an arm of the Chinese state, stealing intellectual property, and embedding “backdoors” in its equipment to facilitate espionage. Yet Snowden’s documents showed that the NSA was doing precisely what the US government claimed Huawei was doing: penetrating the company’s internal networks, accessing its communications, and gathering intelligence on its technological development. The hypocrisy was staggering. The WSWS documented extensively that the NSA’s operations against Huawei mirrored, almost exactly, the accusations levelled against the Chinese firm.

The Snowden files also revealed that the NSA monitored international trade negotiations, including communications between diplomats and economic ministries. These operations were not aimed at preventing terrorism or safeguarding national security. They were designed to give the United States an advantage in shaping global trade rules, securing favourable terms, and undermining other countries' negotiating positions. In other words, the intelligence agencies were directly intervening in the global economic order on behalf of American capitalism.

Taken together, these revelations demolished the claim—repeated endlessly by US officials—that the United States refrains from economic espionage. The NSA’s targeting of Petrobras, Huawei, and trade negotiators showed that economic intelligence gathering was not an aberration but a core function of the surveillance apparatus. The distinction between “policy‑shaping intelligence” and intelligence used to benefit American corporations proved to be a fiction.

The Snowden disclosures therefore provide essential context for understanding David S. Cohen’s proposal. What Cohen advocates openly today—the formal integration of the intelligence agencies into the profit‑making operations of US corporations—was already being practised covertly a decade earlier. Snowden revealed the reality; Cohen now demands its official codification.

The Fig Leaf of “Policy‑Shaping Intelligence”

The supposed “self‑prohibition” was never more than a paper distinction—a bureaucratic fiction designed to obscure how the American intelligence apparatus has long operated. For decades, US officials have insisted that while the CIA and NSA gather information relevant to “policy formation,” they refrain from passing proprietary intelligence directly to American corporations. This claim has always been untenable. The boundary between “policy‑shaping intelligence” and intelligence used to benefit Boeing, Lockheed Martin, or Nvidia was so porous it was practically nonexistent. The distinction served a political purpose: it allowed Washington to maintain the pretence that its surveillance apparatus was guided by national‑security imperatives rather than the commercial interests of American capitalism.

Cohen now proposes to remove the fig leaf entirely. In Foreign Affairs, he argues not that the United States should begin engaging in economic espionage, but that it should openly acknowledge and formalise what it has long practised. He insists that intelligence agencies must be integrated directly into the profit‑making operations of US corporations, supplying them with proprietary information gathered abroad. In effect, Cohen demands that the CIA and NSA become institutionalised components of corporate strategy — research‑and‑development arms of firms deemed essential to the geopolitical struggle against China.

This is not a departure from past practice but the open avowal of it. The ECHELON revelations, Woolsey’s admissions, and the Snowden disclosures all showed that the US intelligence apparatus has long been used to secure commercial advantages for American firms. What is new is a senior figure in the intelligence establishment's willingness to declare this openly, in the pages of the ruling class’s most authoritative journal. Cohen’s proposal signals that the American elite no longer feels compelled to disguise the fusion of state surveillance and corporate profit. The ideological cover is being discarded.

The significance lies in the public declaration. When a former deputy CIA director calls for the intelligence agencies to serve openly as instruments of corporate America, it indicates a shift in the political climate. The American ruling class is preparing the population for the normalisation of intelligence‑agency operations on behalf of private corporations — a hallmark of imperialist decay. In periods of capitalist crisis, the separation between state and capital collapses. The state's coercive apparatus is mobilised directly to secure monopoly capital's interests, and the ideological justifications that once masked this relationship fall away.

Cohen’s proposal must therefore be understood as part of a broader transformation: the militarisation of economic policy, the integration of corporate America into the machinery of war, and the erosion of democratic norms. The intelligence agencies, once nominally confined to foreign threats, are being repurposed as instruments of economic warfare. Their operations will increasingly target not only foreign competitors but domestic dissent, labour struggles, and any activity deemed inimical to the interests of “strategic” corporations.

The removal of the fig leaf marks a new stage in the crisis of American capitalism — one in which the ruling class prepares for war abroad and repression at home, and seeks to legitimise both through the language of national security.

The Fusion of Finance Capital and the State: Lenin’s Framework

Cohen’s proposal must be understood within the framework Lenin developed in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Lenin’s analysis remains indispensable because it identifies capitalism's structural tendencies at its highest stage—tendencies that do not depend on political leaders' subjective intentions but arise organically from the concentration of capital, the domination of finance, and the global struggle for markets. In the epoch of imperialism, Lenin wrote, the fusion of finance capital with the state apparatus becomes the defining feature of economic and political life. The state ceases to function as an arbiter between competing social interests and instead becomes the direct instrument of monopoly capital. Conversely, monopoly capital becomes inseparable from the state, relying on its coercive powers—military, diplomatic, and intelligence—to secure markets, suppress rivals, and maintain profitability.

This process has reached a new stage in the United States. The integration of intelligence agencies into American corporate operations is not an aberration but the logical expression of the fusion Lenin described. The CIA and NSA, once nominally confined to foreign policy and national security, are now being openly repurposed as instruments of corporate strategy. Cohen’s proposal does not introduce a new relationship between state and capital; it merely codifies and legitimises one that has been developing for decades.

The transformation of the US state into the executive committee of finance capital is visible across every domain of policy. The Pentagon’s partnerships with Silicon Valley, the CHIPS Act’s subsidies for semiconductor firms, and the Treasury Department’s weaponisation of financial sanctions all show how the machinery of the state has been mobilised to secure American corporations' interests. The intelligence agencies are the final component of this apparatus to be openly integrated into the corporate sphere. Their vast surveillance capabilities, once justified in the name of national security, are now being redirected toward the commercial battlefield.

Lenin emphasised that imperialism is characterised by monopoly dominance and the export of capital. In the contemporary United States, these monopolies are concentrated in sectors such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, aerospace, and weapons manufacturing—the very industries Cohen identifies as “strategic.” These firms do not compete on market forces alone; they depend on state intervention, subsidies, and coercive power. Cohen’s proposal reflects the reality that American capitalism can no longer maintain global dominance through economic means alone. Its industrial base has eroded, its share of global manufacturing has declined, and China increasingly challenges its technological supremacy.

In this context, the fusion of state and capital intensifies. The intelligence agencies become instruments of economic warfare, gathering proprietary information abroad and delivering it directly to American firms. The state mobilises its coercive apparatus to compensate for the decline of US industrial competitiveness. Cohen’s proposal therefore marks a new stage in imperialist decay: intelligence operations become tools of corporate profit, and the boundary between state power and private capital erodes.

State Capitalism and the Strategic Industries

The Trump administration’s equity stakes in Intel and other “strategic” firms, the Biden administration’s CHIPS Act subsidies, and the Pentagon’s increasingly direct contracting with Silicon Valley have already created a form of state capitalism in the United States. These developments show that the fusion of state power and monopoly capital—which Lenin identified as the hallmark of imperialism—is not an abstract theoretical tendency but an active, accelerating process. The American state is no longer merely regulating or supporting private industry; it is becoming structurally intertwined with it. Cohen’s proposal would complete this fusion by integrating the intelligence agencies themselves into the corporate profit‑making process.

The CIA and NSA would no longer function, even nominally, as institutions concerned with foreign policy or national security. They would become instruments of corporate strategy, deployed to secure the commercial dominance of American firms in sectors deemed essential for geopolitical supremacy. Cohen’s vision is explicit: the intelligence agencies should identify vulnerabilities in foreign competitors, map supply chains for sanctions and sabotage, steal proprietary research, and provide privileged intelligence directly to US corporations. These are not hypothetical tasks; they are the operational functions of an intelligence apparatus repurposed for economic warfare.

This is not “industrial policy.” Industrial policy implies state planning, investment, and coordination to strengthen national productive capacity. Cohen’s proposal is something qualitatively different: the militarisation of the entire economy. It represents the state's transformation into the executive committee of finance capital in its most literal form. The intelligence agencies—historically instruments of covert intervention, coups, and geopolitical manipulation—would now be openly tasked with securing the profitability of American corporations.

The implications are profound. First, the distinction between civilian and military sectors collapses. Semiconductor firms, AI companies, aerospace manufacturers, and weapons contractors become extensions of the national‑security state. Their commercial success becomes a matter of national survival, and their interests become indistinguishable from those of the Pentagon and intelligence agencies. This fusion ensures that any challenge to these corporations—whether from foreign competitors or domestic labour struggles—will be treated as a threat to national security.

Second, the intelligence agencies gain a new mandate: not merely to gather information but to shape global economic outcomes. Mapping supply chains for sabotage, identifying choke points for sanctions, and stealing proprietary research are acts of economic warfare. They undermine rival nations' industrial development, particularly China's. Cohen’s proposal therefore signals an escalation in the global struggle for technological supremacy, one that will intensify geopolitical tensions and accelerate the drive toward conflict.

Third, integrating intelligence agencies into corporate strategy will deepen domestic repression. Once the CIA and NSA are formally tasked with protecting the profitability of “strategic” firms, any domestic activity that threatens those profits—strikes, protests, whistleblowing—can be construed as a national‑security issue. The militarisation of the economy inevitably militarises labour relations.

Cohen’s proposal thus marks a new stage in imperialist decay: the open transformation of the intelligence apparatus into a tool of corporate profit, and the corresponding erosion of democratic norms. It is a declaration that the American ruling class intends to wage economic war abroad and suppress opposition at home, using the full coercive power of the state.

The Role of the Intelligence Apparatus

The intelligence agencies have always served the interests of the American ruling class. From their inception, their primary function has not been to defend “national security” in any abstract or neutral sense, but to protect the global interests of American capitalism. The historical record is unequivocal. The CIA’s overthrow of the Mossadegh government in Iran in 1953 was carried out at the behest of Anglo‑American oil interests. The 1954 coup in Guatemala was orchestrated to protect the United Fruit Company's holdings. US corporations and banks drove the 1973 overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile to prevent the nationalisation of key industries. Across Latin America, Africa, and Asia, the CIA supported dictatorships, death squads, and military juntas whose primary function was to guarantee favourable conditions for American investment and suppress movements that threatened capitalist property relations.

These operations were not aberrations or excesses. They were the normal functioning of an intelligence apparatus designed to enforce American capital's global hegemony. The CIA acted as the covert arm of US corporate power, eliminating governments that interfered with profit extraction and installing regimes that opened their economies to American firms. The agency’s activities were inseparable from the interests of Wall Street, the major banks, and the multinational corporations that dominated the post‑war world economy.

Cohen’s proposal does not introduce a new relationship between the intelligence agencies and corporate America. It simply formalises and modernises a relationship that has existed for decades. What was once carried out covertly—coups, sabotage, surveillance, and political manipulation—would now be openly integrated into the commercial strategies of American corporations. The intelligence apparatus becomes the direct servant of corporate America, gathering proprietary information abroad and delivering it to US firms in sectors deemed essential for geopolitical supremacy.

This marks the fusion of state and capital in its most advanced form. The CIA and NSA, historically instruments of covert intervention, would now be openly tasked with securing the profitability of American corporations. Their operations would no longer be justified through the language of national security but through the imperatives of global competition. Intelligence agencies would become tools of economic warfare, deployed to undermine foreign competitors, secure technological dominance, and shape global markets in favour of American firms.

The implications are profound. The militarisation of economic policy collapses the boundaries between foreign policy, corporate strategy, and intelligence operations. The state’s coercive apparatus is mobilised directly to secure monopoly capital's interests. The intelligence agencies become instruments not merely of geopolitical intervention but of commercial domination. Cohen’s proposal therefore marks a new stage in imperialist decay: the intelligence apparatus's open transformation into a tool of corporate profit, and the corresponding erosion of any remaining boundary between state power and private capital.

The Logic of Decline: American Capitalism in Crisis

Cohen’s proposal stems from the protracted decline of American capitalism. The United States can no longer compete with China on industrial production. Its share of global manufacturing has fallen precipitously, accelerating since the 1990s. Entire sectors of American industry—electronics, machine tools, shipbuilding, rare‑earth processing—have been hollowed out. Infrastructure that once symbolised US industrial might is now visibly decaying: bridges collapsing, water systems failing, rail networks antiquated. The political system, paralysed by factional conflict and dominated by oligarchic interests, cannot address any of these crises. The ruling class faces a world where its economic foundations are eroding, and its global dominance is increasingly challenged.

Unable to maintain its position through economic means, the United States increasingly relies on its remaining advantages: military power, intelligence capabilities, and financial coercion. These instruments—war, surveillance, sanctions—are the tools of an imperialist power in decline. They compensate for lost industrial supremacy by pressuring rivals geopolitically and enforcing compliance through force rather than economic strength. Cohen’s proposal must be understood as part of this broader shift: the mobilisation of the intelligence apparatus as a direct instrument of economic warfare.

Cohen’s “all tools” doctrine is the language of war preparation. It is not the rhetoric of industrial policy or economic planning, but of a ruling class preparing to confront a major rival. The sectors he identifies—semiconductors, artificial intelligence, aerospace, weapons systems—are precisely those central to the Pentagon’s planning for a conflict over Taiwan. These industries are not merely commercially significant; they are militarily decisive. Control over advanced chips, AI‑driven targeting systems, hypersonic technologies, and aerospace manufacturing will determine the outcome of any future conflict between the United States and China.

Under Cohen’s proposal, intelligence agencies would not merely gather information. They would shape the battlefield. Their operations would include mapping Chinese supply chains for sabotage, identifying technological bottlenecks for sanctions, infiltrating research institutions, and stealing proprietary data from foreign competitors. These are not defensive measures; they are offensive preparations for war. The intelligence apparatus becomes an extension of the Pentagon’s strategic planning, integrated directly into the economic and technological dimensions of military conflict.

The “all tools” doctrine reflects a fundamental transformation in US strategy. Economic competition is no longer seen as separate from military confrontation; it is treated as a component of it. The sectors Cohen highlights are already deeply intertwined with the national‑security state. Semiconductor firms receive billions in subsidies under the CHIPS Act. AI companies work directly with the Pentagon on battlefield applications. Aerospace and weapons manufacturers are embedded in the military‑industrial complex. Cohen’s proposal extends this integration to the intelligence agencies, making them active participants in the commercial struggle against China.

This militarisation of economic policy marks a new stage in imperialist decay. It signals that the American ruling class no longer believes it can out‑innovate or out‑produce its rivals. Instead, it seeks to cripple them through coercion, sabotage, and surveillance. The intelligence agencies become instruments of economic warfare, deployed to maintain US dominance in sectors essential for military supremacy.

Cohen’s proposal therefore represents not a technocratic adjustment but a strategic escalation. It declares that the United States is preparing for conflict—and that the intelligence apparatus will be mobilised to shape the economic terrain on which that conflict will be fought.

Integrating the spy apparatus with corporate America is not an isolated policy initiative but part of a broader mobilisation for confrontation with China. The United States is reorganising its entire economic structure around the requirements of geopolitical conflict. This is not simply a matter of subsidies or industrial planning; it is the transformation of the civilian economy into an adjunct of the military‑intelligence complex. The implications are global and catastrophic. A conflict between the United States and China—two nuclear‑armed powers with intertwined economies—would engulf the world and threaten humanity with annihilation.

The militarisation of the economy is already well advanced. The CHIPS Act’s subsidies for semiconductor firms are justified less on economic grounds than on national‑security imperatives. Semiconductor production is treated as a strategic military asset, essential for weapons systems, surveillance technologies, and battlefield communications. The Pentagon’s partnerships with Silicon Valley—once limited to niche projects—have expanded dramatically. Major tech firms now work directly with the Department of Defence on AI‑driven targeting systems, autonomous weapons platforms, and battlefield analytics. Artificial intelligence, once heralded as a transformative civilian technology, is being integrated into weapons systems at every level, from drone swarms to missile guidance.

Military production is expanding across the board. Aerospace firms are receiving unprecedented contracts for hypersonic weapons, next‑generation fighter jets, and missile‑defence systems. The US defence budget continues to grow, absorbing ever larger portions of national resources. In this context, Cohen’s proposal is not a departure but the next logical step: the intelligence agencies become the research‑and‑development arm of American corporations, supplying them with proprietary information gathered abroad and shaping their technological trajectories in line with military requirements.

This militarisation of the economy marks a new stage in imperialist decay. It signals that the American ruling class no longer believes it can maintain global dominance through economic strength or technological innovation alone. Instead, it seeks to weaponise every aspect of national life—industry, finance, technology, and intelligence—in preparation for conflict. The fusion of state and capital becomes total.

For years, Washington’s propaganda against Beijing has centred on allegations of Chinese “intellectual property theft.” These accusations have been used to justify the prosecution of Chinese‑American scientists, the blocklisting of Chinese firms, and an atmosphere of anti‑Chinese McCarthyism. The narrative has been relentless: China steals technology, China infiltrates research institutions, China uses its intelligence services to support commercial enterprises.

Now, in a remarkable display of imperialist cynicism, a senior figure of the US intelligence establishment demands that the United States adopt precisely the methods it denounces—only with formal legal authorisation. Cohen’s proposal is not merely hypocritical; it is revelatory. It exposes the ideological bankruptcy of American imperialism. The United States accuses others of what it does itself—and now seeks to do openly.

The hypocrisy is not incidental. It is the essence of the so‑called “rules‑based order,” a euphemism for the rule of American capital. The “rules” apply only to others. The United States exempts itself from every norm it proclaims. It violates international law with impunity, engages in economic espionage while denouncing it, and weaponises global institutions to enforce its interests.

Cohen’s proposal tears away the remaining pretence. It reveals that the “rules‑based order” is not a system of universal principles but a mechanism for maintaining US hegemony. When the United States can no longer enforce its dominance through economic strength, it resorts to coercion, surveillance, and sabotage. Intelligence agencies become instruments of commercial warfare, deployed to cripple rivals and secure American corporations' interests.

The Working Class and the Spy State: Repression at Home

The most important implication of Cohen’s proposal concerns the working class. The surveillance apparatus he wants to unleash on foreign corporations is the same one Snowden exposed monitoring the communications of the entire American population. Once intelligence agencies are formally tasked with protecting specific corporations' profits, the line between “foreign threat” and “domestic threat” disappears. An engineer in Shenzhen and an autoworker in Michigan become equivalent objects of surveillance if both threaten the interests of a “national security” firm.

The militarisation of industry requires militarising labour relations. Strikes, protests, and workplace organising will be treated as threats to national security. The spy apparatus will be turned inward against workers. This is not speculation; it is the logic of authoritarianism under capitalism: War abroad requires repression at home. Economic espionage abroad requires labour discipline at home. The fusion of state and capital requires suppressing democratic rights.

The working class becomes the internal enemy. Any challenge to the profitability of “strategic” corporations—whether through industrial action, whistleblowing, or political dissent—will be met with surveillance, intimidation, and state repression.

Cohen’s proposal therefore marks a new stage in the assault on democratic rights. It signals that the intelligence agencies will be mobilised not only against foreign competitors but against the working class itself. The spy state becomes the guardian of corporate profit, and the struggle for workers’ rights becomes inseparable from the struggle against imperialist war.

The Political Logic of Imperialist Decay and the Task Before the Working Class

No faction of the American political establishment opposes Cohen’s proposal. On the contrary, the ruling class's unanimity in integrating intelligence agencies into corporate strategy is itself a symptom of the depth of the crisis confronting American capitalism. Democrats and Republicans differ only in tactics, rhetoric, and the constituencies they appeal to. On the fundamental question—the mobilisation of the coercive apparatus of the state in defence of American corporate interests—they are united. The intelligence agencies, the Pentagon, Silicon Valley, and Wall Street form a single, interlocking complex whose interests are inseparable. Cohen’s proposal is not controversial within this milieu; it is the logical extension of policies already underway.

The drive toward war is not the product of individual leaders or misguided policies. It stems from the contradictions of the capitalist system itself. Imperialism is not a choice but a necessity for a ruling class confronting economic decline. When profitability cannot be maintained through productive investment, technological innovation, or market expansion, it turns to coercion, sanctions, sabotage, and war. The militarisation of the economy, the fusion of state and capital, and the mobilisation of the intelligence apparatus for corporate profit are not aberrations but structural tendencies of capitalism in decay.

The United States confronts a world in which its economic foundations are eroding. China’s rise as an industrial power threatens the global dominance American capitalism has exercised since the end of the Second World War. The ruling class responds not by addressing the social and economic contradictions that have hollowed out the US economy, but by preparing for conflict. Cohen’s proposal is another step in this trajectory: transforming intelligence agencies into instruments of economic warfare, deployed to secure technological supremacy and cripple rivals.

Against this backdrop, the international working class becomes decisive. Only a working class organised across national boundaries and united on a socialist program can halt this trajectory. Not the “progressive” wing of the Democratic Party, which is fully integrated into the national‑security state. Not European social democracy, which long ago abandoned any pretence of opposition to imperialism. Not Chinese nationalism, which represents the interests of a rising capitalist elite. The working class alone has no stake in imperialist rivalry and every interest in preventing a catastrophic conflict between nuclear‑armed powers.

The fight against war is inseparable from the fight against capitalism. The struggle against the militarisation of society, the fusion of state and capital, and the assault on democratic rights requires building revolutionary leadership in the working class. The intelligence agencies Cohen wants to unleash on foreign corporations will inevitably turn inward against workers. The state will treat strikes, protests, and workplace organising as threats to national security. The working class becomes the internal enemy of a state fused with corporate power.

This is not speculation; it is the logic of authoritarianism under capitalism. War abroad requires repression at home. Economic espionage abroad requires labour discipline at home. The fusion of state and capital requires suppressing democratic rights. The working class must respond with its own form of international unity, grounded not in nationalism but in socialist internationalism.

Articles and Bibliography

I. Foundational Marxist and Theoretical Works

• V.I. Lenin, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. Lenin’s analysis of monopoly capital, finance capital, and the fusion of the capitalist state with corporate interests provides the essential theoretical framework for understanding Cohen’s proposal. His identification of imperialism as a structural necessity of capitalism in decline is directly relevant to the militarisation of the US economy and intelligence apparatus.
• Leon Trotsky, The War and the International. Trotsky’s early writings on the relationship between capitalist crisis, militarism, and imperialist war illuminate the contemporary drive toward conflict with China.
• David North, The Crisis of American Democracy: North’s analysis of the breakdown of democratic institutions in the United States and the rise of authoritarian tendencies provides context for the domestic implications of intelligence‑corporate fusion.
• Nick Beams, “Globalisation and the World Economy” (WSWS): Beams’ work on the contradictions of global capitalism and the decline of US economic hegemony helps situate Cohen’s proposal within the broader crisis of American capitalism.

II. US Intelligence Operations and Economic Espionage

ECHELON and Five Eyes Surveillance

• European Parliament, “Report on the Existence of a Global System for the Interception of Private and Commercial Communications (ECHELON)” (1999–2001). The official investigation concluded that ECHELON intercepted commercial communications from European firms and passed intelligence to US corporations, confirming long‑suspected economic espionage.
• Duncan Campbell, “Inside ECHELON” (2000) Campbell’s investigative reporting provides detailed technical and political analysis of ECHELON’s capabilities and its use in commercial competition.

James Woolsey’s Admission

• James Woolsey, Wall Street Journal Op‑Ed (2000): Woolsey openly admitted that the US spies on European corporations, justifying the practice as anti‑corruption. His article is significant for its brazenness and for confirming longstanding US economic espionage.

Snowden Revelations

• Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian (2013): Reporting based on Snowden’s documents revealed NSA surveillance of Petrobras, Huawei, and international trade negotiations.
• Laura Poitras, “NSA Targets Petrobras” (2013): Poitras’ reporting showed that the NSA targeted Brazil’s state‑owned oil company, demonstrating economic motives behind surveillance.
• WSWS Coverage (2013–2014): The WSWS documented that the NSA was doing to Huawei precisely what Washington accused Huawei of doing, exposing the hypocrisy of US claims.

III. US Industrial Policy, Militarisation, and State Capitalism

• CHIPS and Science Act (2022): The legislation provides massive subsidies to semiconductor firms, justified on national‑security grounds. It marks a shift toward state‑directed industrial policy in strategic sectors.
• Department of Defence, “AI and Autonomy Integration Reports” (2020–2024): Pentagon documents outline the integration of AI into weapons systems and partnerships with Silicon Valley firms.
• Congressional Research Service, “Defence Industrial Base: Overview and Issues” (2023): Analysis of the expanding role of military production in the US economy.
• WSWS: “The Militarisation of American Industry” (multiple articles) Coverage of the Pentagon’s growing influence over technology firms and the transformation of civilian industries into military contractors.

IV. US–China Conflict and Technological Rivalry

• Foreign Affairs, David S. Cohen, “The Case for Economic Intelligence” (2024): Cohen’s article argues for integrating the CIA and NSA into corporate strategy, openly advocating economic espionage as a tool of geopolitical competition.
• Council on Foreign Relations Reports on US–China Technological Competition (2020–2024): CFR analyses emphasise semiconductors, AI, and aerospace as decisive sectors in the conflict with China.
• RAND Corporation, “War with China: Military and Industrial Scenarios” (2015–2023): RAND studies outline the centrality of technological supremacy in potential conflict scenarios over Taiwan.

V. Surveillance, Authoritarianism, and Domestic Repression

• Edward Snowden, Permanent Record (2019): Snowden’s memoir contextualises the NSA’s mass surveillance programs and their implications for democratic rights.
• ACLU Reports on NSA Surveillance (2013–2024): Documentation of domestic surveillance programs targeting workers, activists, and political dissent.
• WSWS: “The Spy State and the Working Class” (multiple articles): Analysis of how surveillance tools developed for foreign intelligence are repurposed for domestic repression.

VI. Additional Scholarly and Investigative Sources

• Tim Shorrock, Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing (2008). A detailed study of the outsourcing of intelligence functions to private corporations and the emergence of a corporate‑intelligence complex.
• Alfred McCoy, In the Shadows of the American Century (2017): McCoy examines the decline of US global power and the increasing reliance on surveillance and coercion.
• Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire (2004): Johnson’s analysis of militarism and imperial overstretch provides historical context for the militarisation of the US economy.

 

---

[1] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/case-economic-espionage-david-cohen