Preface to the Booklet

America's Unknown Enemy: Beyond Conspiracy

Editorial Staff of the
American Institute for Economic Research

[1993]

In the past several years, interest apparently has been rekindled in the view that an elite conspiracy bent on world domination now is directing global events. Concern about such a conspiracy seems to have accelerated especially after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, when President Bush orchestrated United Nations' backing for the Persian Gulf War and made frequent references to a "New World Order." According to conspiracy mavens, that President Bush would publicly reveal his commitment to the "New World Order" simply testified to the haughtiness of the cabal's resolve to shape world events for its own nefarious purposes. Subsequent events, which have seen President Clinton reinstall in the State Department a number of officials affiliated with organizations said to be directing the conspiracy (such as the Council on Foreign Relations), have simply reconfirmed for "true believers" that the conspiracy lives.

Notions of conspiracy have circulated for many years. As we observed in earlier editions of America's Unknown Enemy, however, and as is described in the first eight chapters of this edition, there is little if any support for the notion that a conspiracy per se is directing world events. Rather, we observed then that what some view as a "conspiracy" more closely resembles the power-seeking behavior, including collusive behavior, of a socio-political elite. This elite has succeeded in acquiring privileges that permit it to exercise authority vastly in excess of its competence and to promulgate self-serving views that have enjoyed public sanction even though they violate the most elementary requirements of common sense.

In our view, the latter circumstance constitutes a far greater threat to the commonweal than the possible operation of any conspiracy, however grand. Indeed, the task of defeating even an international cabal, if such were the primary threat, would seem incalculably simpler than promoting a useful understanding of human problems and sensible approaches to their solutions.

It is our hope, however, that by providing a critical view of some of the currents of thought that appear to propel most notions of the "better world" promised by global planners, we may contribute to such an understanding. During the past several years, we have commented elsewhere on a variety of ideas and events that would seem to relate in one way or another to the formation of the type of views that are reflected in talk of a "New World Order." They have embraced many academic fields -- development economics, political science, history, foreign policy studies, anthropology, and environmental science, to name a few. And they have covered a wide range of topics, from "Earth Day" celebrations in the United States to the behavior of village peasants in Pahievi Iran. In this edition of America's Unknown Enemy, we have reprinted a number of these commentaries as Chapters IX through XVIII. In addition, we have included two pertinent Appendixes: "The Counterrevolution," by AIER's founder E. C. Harwood; and "Global Warming and Other Environmental Myths," by Dr. Dixy Lee Ray.

The difficulties that are posed by the flawed prescriptions for human progress that currently are being written by America's power elite thus extend far beyond narrow notions of conspiracy. In a broad sense, they embrace many of the same obstacles to the pursuit of knowledge that have confronted humans since the dawn of history, and that have been a principal concern of AIER's research efforts throughout the years. In our view, the intellectual pursuit of some nebulous conspiracy (other than for the information it might yield about the behavior of those who subscribe to conspiracy theory, which is not the subject of this study) would be an enormous waste of time. The pursuit of an understanding of human affairs grounded in useful procedures of inquiry that promise to yield solutions to genuine human problems, on the other hand, deserves all the time and resources at our command.