American Exception

Empire and the Deep State

By: Aaron Good

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

American Exception seeks to explain the breakdown of US democracy, in particular to understand the uncanny continuity of American foreign policy, the breakdown of the rule of law, and the extreme concentration of wealth and power into an overworld of the corporate rich.

To trace the evolution of the American state, Aaron Good takes a deep-politics approach. The term “deep state” was badly misappropriated during the Trump era. In the simplest sense, it here refers to all those institutions that collectively exercise undemocratic power over state and society. To trace how we arrived at this point, American Exception explores various deep state institutions and history-making interventions.

Key institutions involve the relationships between the overworld of the corporate rich, the underworld of organized crime, and the national security actors that mediate between them. History-making interventions include the toppling of foreign governments, the launching of aggressive wars, and the political assassinations of the 1960s.

In its long history before World War II, the United States had a deep political system, a system of governance in which decision-making and enforcement were carried out within—and outside of—public institutions. It was a system that always included some degree of secretive collusion and law-breaking. After World War II, US elites decided to pursue global dominance over the international capitalist system.

Setting aside the liberal rhetoric, this project was pursued in a manner that was by and large imperialistic rather than progressive. To administer this covert empire, US elites created a massive national security state characterized by unprecedented levels of secrecy and lawlessness. The “Global Communist Conspiracy” provided a pretext for exceptionism—an endless “exception” to the rule of law.

What gradually emerged after World War II was a tripartite state system of governance. The open democratic state and the authoritarian security state were both increasingly dominated by an American deep state.

Aaron Good concludes by assessing the prospects for a revival of US democracy.

©2022 Aaron Good (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing

Covers the deepest details

It’s rare to find books like these without even a trace of internalize American exceptionalism inadvertently mixed in. Great Work, Mr. Good.

Also, I love this narrator. I wonder what he’s thinks about all these books he reads to us.

An absolute must read!

This book is an absolute must read for anyone who finds themselves puzzled over the failures of American democracy. While many books provide enlightening histories of the individual campaigns and crimes of American intelligence organizations, this book takes those actions both at home and abroad and connects them to the functioning of the state overall and our ability to achieve what would seem like basic and universal democratic goals of reducing poverty, educating our citizens, taking action on crises like climate change, and avoiding nuclear war. This is the ultimate guide to understanding how America operates and why our attempts to change it for the better have failed so markedly.

An amazing critique of American Empire

Aaron is a fantastic and well sourced author who dismantles the myths of American exceptions and global hegemony. His tripartite state theory is a fantastic contribution to deep politics literature and I cannot wait for his next book.

SPELL BINDING!

I was repeatedly struck by how this book even got published considering the amazing truth telling contained in it. I immediately went and bought "The Power Elite" - CW Mills" which is quoted a lot and also gets a complete chapter. Kudos to Dr.Good. Thanks for your work!

Great book

What a great book! It was really informative and enlightening. Probably best book on deep state.