Introduction

The ideology of twentieth-century corporate–capitalist democracies, championed by the United States, may be characterized broadly as liberal and internationalist. Heavily based on the core tenets of ‘Americanism’ – including freedom, limited government, private property, markets, a rules-based international system – liberal internationalism has, its champions claim, seen off all rivals – fascists and communists alike – and, since the ‘end of history’ around 1990, reigned supreme (Ikenberry, 2011). However, despite its adherents’ claims, liberal internationalism and Americanism are deeply ideological. As Richard Hofstadter claimed long ago, America does not have an ideology, it is one (Hofstadter, 1948).

The United States, perhaps more than other societies, is central to ‘ideology-free’ ideological production and hyper-efficient dissemination. Foundations claim to be scientific, objective, non-ideological and non-political, beyond the state and big business. In that regard, they attach to the longer American pragmatic philosophical tradition the late-nineteenth and early twentieth-century development of scientific superiority. Hence, foundations claim to pioneer scientific giving and scientific management of society, economy and government. It was just a century ago that American leadership in disseminating a message was demonstrated – presided over by the father of liberal internationalism, President Woodrow Wilson, who gave publicist George Creel licence to sell World War I to the American people; and he did so with devastating effect (Creel, 1920). But inadvertently, Creel's massive PR campaign also revealed the other side of the production of ideological hegemony – that persuasion alone is insufficient to deliver a pro-war public; Creel's efforts were ably supported by severe repression of anti-war dissenters at every level of American society – from the shop floor to the union hall to the Ivy League university. Coercion and persuasion are required to produce ‘consent of the governed’ in ideology-free societies (Miliband, 1969; Hoare and Nowell-Smith, 1971).