This is the story of the rise of an idea
that has come to dominate our society.
It is the belief that the satisfaction of individual
feelings and desires is our highest priority.
Today we are going to tell you how to get whatever you want.
I wanted to live a different life that was not available for me
in the image I was born.
Well, I'm here, look at me, notice me!
Previous episodes have shown that this rise of the self
was fostered and promoted by business.
They had used the ideas of Sigmund Freud to develop techniques
to read the inner desires of individuals
and then fulfill them with products.
This final episode is about how that idea took over politics.
It tells the story of how politicians on the left
in both America and Britain,
turned to these techniques to regain power.
They believed that they were creating a new
and better form of democracy,
one that truly responded to the inner feelings of individuals.
But what the politicians didn't realize was that
the aim of those who had originally created these techniques
had not been to liberate the people but to develop a
new way of controlling them in a new age of mass democracy.
Century of the Self
Part Four: Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering
The roots of the story lie way back in the America of the 1920s with one man.
He was called Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud.
Bernays had been one of the inventors of the profession of public relations
and he was fascinated by his uncle's theory that human behavior
was driven by unconscious sexual and aggressive drives.
Many of Bernays' clients were large American corporations
and he was the first person to show them how they could sell many more products
if they link them through images and symbols
to those unconscious desires that Freud had identified.
Stuart Ewen - Historian of Public Relations - The strategy he offered them
was that people could now look at the goods
that emerging within the society and not merely view those goods
as things that they needed in order to deal with some specific material want,
but also as goods which will stroke and respond to deep emotional yearnings.
You know, how this bar of soap or this bag of flour
will make me a happier more successful more sexually appealing,
less fearful person.
Somebody to be admired rather than reviled.
The powerful people in that world are those people
who are capable of reading the public mind and giving the public
what it wants in those terms.
-And bernays was at the heart of it? -Bernays was the guy who was
the foremost articulator of the theories which were driving this new system.
By the 1980s Bernays' ideas had come of age.
A vast industry had grown up in America
devoted to reading the inner desires of consumers.
At it's heart was the technique of the focus group.
Previous episodes have shown how the focus group was invented by psychoanalysts
employed by US corporations.
The aim was to allow consumers to express their inner feelings and needs
just as patients did in psychoanalysis.
The information was then used to promote and design new products
which would fulfill those desires.
And Edward Bernays who was now nearly a hundred years old
was celebrated as the founding father of this marketing world.
Hi doctor! Good to see you! Come on up over here! There you go!
Doctor! Tell me again what the doctor is! What are we dealing with?
-You're the father of public relations! -Well, what we'rea dealing with, really, is the concept
that people will believe me more if you call me doctor!
-So...That's a good idea!...
And Bernays' ideas and techniques
were also about to conquer Britain in the 1980s.
Unlike America the ruling elites in Britain
had always distrusted the idea of pandering to the masses.
It was epitomized by the patrician elite who ran the BBC.
Even as late as the 60s, the popular programs were referred to as 'ground bait'.
Their real job was to lure the viewers into watching more serious programs
the elite knew was good for them.
And market research reflected this attitude.
Individuals were observed and classified by market researchers
according to their social class, from A through C2, D and E.
-They might be C2... -Yes, I think...babies,...the way they carry their luggage...
No taxi,...and all stuffed in the bags like that... I think the lady posibly set her own hair...
-Yes!...Shurely they're nicely dressed... -Yes, they are!...
-Probably a skilled worker... -Yes! A skilled worker i think!
-...we agree then...C2? -Yes! C2! We think so, yes!..
When people were asked their opinion about both products and politics
they were selected by social class and asked only strictly factual questions
about what they thought.
-On leaving this end participant, put this on one side, who do you think will win this coming election? -Ughh, Labour! -Labour?
-..and tell me which you preffer?...
- which party do you think you will you be voting for? -This time, the liberals...
-You'll be voting for the liberals...
-And who do you think will be second? - *//'#%^&...
-This one! -Thank you!
The idea that one might ask people what they themselves felt and desired
and then give it to them was seen as alien to the ruling elites
and to challenge their belief that they knew was best for the public.
Michael Shields, M.D. National Opinion Polls, 1962: There's evidence that in other countries, in the United States for example,
there were polls that have been used before the elections, to interpret the mood of the public,
and then you give people what they want to have, and that's what they want to have...
But , again, this could be less or more democratic,... I don't know...
This could be very dangerous ground I think, though, when polls are used in that way..
But then, in the economic crisis of the mid-70s
British industries were forced to begin to pay attention
to the inner feelings of consumers.
As the recession deepened, consumer spending fell dramatically
and the advertisers insisted that the only way for companies to survive
was to make their advertising more effective.
And to do this, they would have to delve into people's
underlying psychological motives for purchasing.
The advertising industry started to bring in Americans
to run focus groups, with British housewives.
Everyone is a unique person and even though you are a group of 10 today,
we don't want a group opinnion. We want to know your ideas, your thoughts,
no matter how crazy it might be...
Please let your imagination wild, because that's how very crazy things like instant coffe got born
Now,...so, can we get somebody, ...this lady,.. to be a kitchen sink?
And, kitchen sink, how do you fell, with these things that are being used, to clean you up?
Well, I've got to feel clean, I've got to be kept clean...
I feel that I should hate if I was all greasy, so I've got to be easy to clean...
Ok...now the housewife...this lady...
What would you use to clean your kitchen sink?
Umm, it's getting harder... Of course a cloth to apply things on...and plenty of water...
And how do you fell as you're doing this chore?
-Do you feel satisfied? -Well satisfied, when I have done it,... yes...
i'm doing my duty, I feel it's a job well done..
The consumers were encouraged to play at being products
from household cleaners to car seatbelts.
The aim was not to talk rationaly, but to act out and reveal
the inner emotional relationship to products.
-...which fermely and unmistakebly underlines...
And then, a politician emerged who also believed that people
should be allowed to express themselves.
Instead of being controlled by the state the individual should become the central focus of society.
Some socialists seem to believe that people should be numbers in a state computer...
We believe they should be individuals..
We're all unequall...No one, thank Heavens, is quite like anyone else..
However, much, the socialists may pretend otherwise,...
And we believe that everyone has the right to be unequall,
But to us, every human being is equally important...
A man's right to work as he will, to spend what he earns, to own property,...
to have the state as servant and not as master..
They are the essence of a free economy...and on that freedom, all our other freedoms depend...
Mrs. Thatcher's vision, was of a society in which the wants and desires
of millions of individuals would be satisfied through the free market.
This, she believed, would be the engine to regenerate Britain.
And with her ascent to power, the advertising and marketing industries flourished.
Their task was to find out what the British people really wanted
and then sell it to them.
In this new climate, the focus group flourished,
and those who ran them borrowed from the techniques of psychotherapy
to delve ever deeper into people's feelings about products.
We're trying to understand how people feel about brands, how they relate to brands,
that is to see what the brand's personality is, as far as consumers are concerned..
There are a number of techniques wich are very very helpful for getting to that,
to their understanding,..
The consumer is given crayons, to doodle, to express their feelings, to go inside their own head
to put out their feeling and to somehow get them onto paper...
And here's our ordinary drinkers, expressing their feelings about drinking Guiness
here you see a rich, very female aspect of Guiness,
so if you were describing a woman, who somehow to you, had that caracter...
-What sort of person is it? -Paullie A...She used to lay in bed,
surrounded with magazines and chocolates, like a 50s starlet..
Out of this research the marketeers began to detect a new individualism.
In particular among those who had voted conservative for the first time in 1979.
They no longer wanted to be seen as part of social classes
but to express themselves.
And crucial to this were the products they chose to buy.
Stephen Wells - Co-founder, Consumer Connection - We found that there was this trend towards
what we called individualism where people still wanted to be part of a crowd
but to express themselves as individuals within it.
To have their own personalities, to be, I suppose, their own man.
I didn't want to be the same as anybody else..
I wanted it to be little bit different, little bit individual...
It's quite individual upstairs, it's not remarcable, but I think it's quite individual...
It is expensive, it's italian, it's good quality, quite different...
We want to set our own standards, so no one else has got what we've got...
we just didn't want to be the same as everybody else, we wantted to be different..
Business responded eagerly to this new individualism
and it soon became one of the main forces driving the growing consumer boom in Britain.
Using the data from the focus groups, manufacturers created new ranges of products
that allow people to express their individuality.
Business also recategorized people.
They were no longer divided by social class
but by their inner psychological needs.
John Banks - Chairman, Young and Rubicam - If the primary need is security and belonging we call the groups Mainstreamers,
if it's status and the esteem of others then it's Aspirers,
if it's control it's Succeeders, and if it's self-esteem it's Reformers.
And this new marketing culture began to take over the institutions
previously dominated by a pattrition elite, particularly the world of journalism.
The assault was led by the profession of public relations.
In the past PR had been seen as seedy and corrupt,
but now it became a glamorous business, promoting products and celebrities.
And one of the rising stars was another member of the Freud family,
Matthew Freud, the son of the liberal MP (Member of Parliament) Clement.
What Freud and other PRs realized was that they could use their celebrities
as levers to infiltrate their advertising into the editorial content of newspapers.
The newspapers were offered exclusive interviews with celebrities
but only if they also agreed to mention products
made by Freud's corporate clients, in terms dictated by the company.
Matthew Wright - Tabloid Journalist 1993-2000 - What happened with Freuds was you effectively got some kind of product placement
or even product-- the manufacturers of products got some degree of control over how
their products would appear in print.
So if for example you wanted to write about Caprice's passion for stuffed crust pizza
you would sign a contract which guaranteed that you would mention the firm Pizza Hut
at least twice in certain positions in the introductory paragraph of the article
and you would agree to run the Pizza Hut logo at such and such a size and such and such a place
and of course that you would agree to run the enclosed pictures
of Caprice eating her stuffed crust pizza.
There was no choice about you would run this article in the press,
as you were effectively told how to run the article in the press by Freuds.
It's a rise of the corporate culture and the rise of business.
To traditional journalists, this infiltration of advertising into the editorial pages
was a corruption of their profession.
But to Mrs. Thatcher's allies like Rupert Murdoch who owned The Sun and The Times,
it was part of a democratic revolution against an arrogant elite
who had for too long ignored the feelings of the masses.
Rupert Murdoch - Owner, Times Newspapers (interview from that period) - They hate to see someone communicating with the masses.
They feel that newspapers, the written word is not for the masses.
That should be left to television or perhaps to nobody.
I'm very proud of The Sun and The Sun was not represented tonight in your film
you just took page three which everyone seems so fascinated with,
what about page one, or page two, every other page of the paper.
That was typical piece of slanting and elitism by the BBC, who after all
in order to get viewers for this program, put on a very sexy episode of Star Trek
which I was just watching out in the room there.
Interviewer: I don't think they put it on to get us viewers I think we are just lucky to follow them.
Murdoch: They try to carry viewers into these programs, I know how it's done.
By the late 80s Mrs. Thatcher and her allies in advertising and the media
had brought the desires of the individual to the center of society.
As last week's episode showed it was the same transformation
that President Reagan had brought about in America.
Both politicians had encouraged business to take over from government
the role of fulfilling the needs of the people.
In the process, consumers were encouraged to see the satisfaction of their desires
as the overriding priority.
To Thatcher and Reagan this was a new and better form of democracy.
But to their opponents in the parties of the left,
they had summoned up the most selfish and greedy aspects of human nature.
Robert Reich - Member of Clinton Cabinet 1993-1997 - Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher both embraced an economic philosophy
that says the unit of judgment was not only the individual
but it was the individual's personal satisfaction,
the individual's own unique happiness and well being.
It was in a sense the triumph of regarding individuals as purely emotional beings
who have needs and wants and desires that need to be satisfied
and can be satisfied unconsciously.
It goes way back to the early part of the 20th century to Freud,
to notions of the unconscious,
the assumptions that in terms of our rational minds we are little corks
bobbing around on this great sea of hopes and fears and desires
of which we are only thinly aware and that the world of a marketer,
the role of somebody selling something, including a politician
is to appeal to this great swamp of desire, of unconscious desire.
The left believed the opposite.
That the way to create a better society,
was not to treat people as emotional isolated individuals,
but to persuade them to realize that they had common interests with others.
To help them rise above their individual feelings and fears.
President Roosevelt - 1933 Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror
which paralyzes needed efforts, to convert retreat into advance.
This idea had flourished in America in the depression of the 1930s.
President Roosevelt faced with the chaos caused by the Wall Street crash
encouraged Americans to join together in trade's unions,
to set up consumer groups, and to pay for a welfare system
for those trapped in poverty.
His aim was to create a collective awareness
which would become a powerful weapon against the unfettered power of capitalism
which had caused the crisis.
That idea had driven the democratic party for 50 years.
But now, Roosevelt's inheritors railed vainly against the effects of the self-interest
encouraged by President Reagan.
Mario Cuomo - Democratic Party Convention 1984 - There is despair Mr. President in the faces that you don't see.
Maybe Mr. President if you stop in at a shelter in Chicago
and spoke to the homeless there,
Maybe Mr. President, if you asked the woman who had been denied the help she needed
to feed her children because you said you needed the money for a tax break
for a millionaire, or for a missile we couldn't afford to use.
Mario Cuomo - Governor, New York 1982-95 - The worst thing Ronald Reagan did
was to make the denial of compassion respectable.
He said you've worked hard, you've made your money,
you shouldn't have to feel guilty about refusing to throw it away on people
who choose to be homeless and who choose not to work.
That's what he said.
He said it with an elegance and kind of a benign aspect
that disguised it's harshness.
-You think we can do anything about it? -Well, why not?
-If we can work together now to look after the lives of the people,here..
I don't see how we couldn't work together afterwards to clean up the mess
and help build a better world in wich these things can't possibly happend..
The qualities we've learned from camaradeship and common suffering,
are not to be wasted after this war...
It's out of experience, like ours, that a better world will be built
That same idea - marshalling the collective force of the masses
to challenge the entrenched power of wealth and business
had also led the labor party to power in Britain after the war.
But in the 80s, labor like the democrats in America lost election after election
as millions who had once voted for them switched their allegiance
to the conservatives.
There it is, going blue just about everywhere, swipping the country...
For they are the party of yesterday...and tomorrow is ours...
In the face of this, a growing number in the labor party
became convinced that if they were ever going to regain power
labor would have to come to terms with the new individualism.
One of them was an advertising executive called Phillip Gould
who had been a life long labor supporter.
Gould believed that labor's leadership had become corrupted
by the same patrician arrogance that dominated all of Britain's institutions.
They denigrated and disapproved of the new aspirations of working class voters.
Philip Gould - Strategy Advisor to the Labor Party 1985-present day - Labor stopped listening to these people.
And I remember the best example of this was after the election of 1983
which was the election above all
where the people's voices were just not heard.
And I had dinner with a leading labor party figure
who had been heavily involved in the defeat and his wife said
'God these working class people we give them an education
and give them chances in life and what do they do they read The Sun
and they just don't vote for us.'
And there was such a gap between these people just trying to make better lives
for themselves and the kind of elitism of the labor party
there was just this chasm that had to be filled.
Gould became part of a small group of modernizers centered around Peter Mandelson.
Their aim was to reconnect labor with the lost voters.
To do this, Gould turned to the technique that he knew well from his work
in advertising - the focus group.
Gould commissioned focus groups in suburban areas across the country
with small groups of voters who had switched to Mrs. Thatcher.
People were encouraged not to talk rationally about policies
but to express their underlying feelings.
And what Gould discovered was a fundamental shift in people's relationship
to politics.
They no longer saw themselves as part of any group but
as individuals who could demand things from politicians in return for paying taxes.
Just as business had taught them to do, as consumers.
Philip Gould - Strategy Advisor to the Labor Party 1985-present day - And I found that people had become consumers,
you know people wanted to have politics and life on their own terms.
I mean not just in politics but in all aspects of life too.
People see themselves as they are, as autonomous powerful individuals
who are entitled to be respected, who are entitled to have the best
not just in Tescoes and whatever, but the best in terms of health and education too.
All this was about getting the labor party to understand
that people really really really had changed
and unless the labor party changed it would not win.
Philip Gould now set out to try and persuade the labor party
they would have to make concessions to what he called the new aspirational classes.
He was going to face implacable opposition.
In the run up to the 1992 election, Gould argued that the only way to win
was for labor not to put up (raise) taxes.
But the Shadow Chancellor John Smith angrily refused.
Labor would stick to it's fundamental policies.
They would fight the election with the promise of tax increases
to create a fairer society.
And as the campaign began it seemed as if Philip Gould was wrong.
The traditional polls consistently showed labor ahead
despite the conservative campaign message that labor government
would put up (raise) taxes.
Even the conservatives oldest allies in the press became convinced
that by harping on about tax, the conservatives were cutting their own throats.
The way of the torries must be that they're not at the moment conveing
a sense of grip in being at control
and unless they can do better than that, I think they're going to lose...
The other thing is that they still say they are going to go on and on
with this one message of tax and I think, in part, the difficulty this morning
was that you had a whole lot of people who'd benn going to the same press conferences
for 7 days, had virtually the same message, and they're getting bored
and hitting back on him.
I think the media sensed the big story comming, in the torryes being defeated...
And the labor party too, was convinced it would win and finally return to power.
It's now time to meet the men and women who will form the next government
And now , it's time, time for the new prime-minister, Neil Kennet
Those running labor's campaign believed that by modern presentation
they would attract back the voters yet keep the old policies.
But Philip Gould was convinced that labor were going to lose.
Through his focus groups, he knew that the very people
that were telling the traditional pollsters they would vote labor
were in reality preparing to vote conservative out of self-interest
but they were too embarrassed to admit it.
And John Major also knew this
because his focus groups were telling him the same thing.
-Why aren't you making a poll which puts labour 5 points ahead?
I shouldn't worry about that. It's the feel good on the streets that matters..
-Is it feeling good on the streets? -It is feeling good on the streets...yes..
It has been felling surprisingly good on the streets for some time...
Quite surprisingly...quite out of line...with opinion polls..
don't ask me to expect it, because it feels right...
Now, let's sit down, we're ready to go!...
John Major's victory in 1992, was a disaster for the labor party.
The small group of reformers centered around Peter Mandelson and Philip Gould
were convinced that the only way for the party to survive
was to change it's basic policies.
But their ideas were rejected by John Smith who had now become leader.
Philip Gould left Britain to go to work for the campaign to elect
Bill Clinton President in America.
Philip Gould - Strategy Advisor to the Labor Party 1985-present day - The 1992 election, during and afterward
people felt under great strain and really did feel demoralized and dejected
and to from this to the Clinton campaign was an extraordinary experience
because here suddenly I found articulated many of the ideas I had
but not fully myself been able to encapsulate or to articulate.
Do you want a president who will restore the middle class,
reclaim the future for the middle class and restore the american dream?
Vote for Bill Clinton and you have surely sent the signal to the country
that we are coming, together!...
What Gould discovered was that like the labor party, the democrats
had also been doing focus groups with swing voters.
The difference was that Bill Clinton had decided to tailor his policies
to fit with these voters desires.
Above all, with their ferocious belief that they should only pay tax
for things that benefitted them, not for the welfare of others.
I have no idea what percentage of my tax-dollars go to welfare, but,
even if it's a minuscule percentage, even if it's a core percent,
it's still too much...for people that are receiving these benefits
that are basicly non-productive...
The Clinton team decided that to win they had to promise tax cuts
for these suburban voters.
And they also used the focus groups throughout the campaign
to check every appearance, speech and policy
with them for their approval.
What Clinton called the forgotten middle class became central figures
in a new type of reactive politics.
Robert Reich - Member of Clinton Cabinet 1993-1997 - Candidates for the presidency of the United States
has been pre-packaged and designed for many many years.
What was new, was an attempt to use very sophisticated or pseudo-sophisticated
techniques to plum the public psychology to find out precisely
what the desires of the individuals were and then to come up with
a candidate and a platform and images and words that exactly responded
to those deep desires.
This was packaging at a new level.
This was polling at an extreme.
I'm not gonna raise tax for the middle class!
...and the middle class needs a break...
The government is in the way...
Is taking more of your money ang giving you less in return...
In the name of the hard working americans who make up our forgotten middle class
I proudly accept your niomination for president of the United States...
Stay focused! Talk about things that matter to people!...You know?
It's the economy, stupid!.. OK?...
But Clinton's campaign team led by James Carvell and George Stephanopolus
did not believe that they were capitulating to the selfish desires
of the middle classes.
Tax cuts were the price they had to pay to regain power.
But once in power they would still fulfill traditional democratic policies
and help the poor who had been neglected under Reagan,
above all with the reform of health care.
They would pay for the tax cuts by cutting defense spending
and increasing taxes on the very rich.
In this way, they believed they were forging a coalition
of the new and the old voters both of whom, could be satisfied.
Probably for the first time in a generation, tomorrow, we're gonna win...
And that means that more people are going to have more jobs,
people are going to appeal a little less to healthcare, get better care,
and more kids are going to get better schools...
Umm,...So,... thanks...
But the democrats optimism was to be short-lived.
In November 1992, Clinton was triumphantly elected President.
But within weeks, his administration discovered that the budgets deficit
was far greater than they had anticipated.
At a meeting in the White House, in January 1993
the head of the Federal Reserve told them that the deficit
was nearly 300 Billion dollars.
There was no way they could borrow more without panicking the markets
and causing a crisis.
The only way to pay for the proposed tax cuts, would be to cut
government spending not just in defense but on welfare.
Clinton was faced with a choice between the old politics and the new
and he chose the old.
The tax cuts were dropped and he tried to inspire the country
with the old democratic ideal of government spending
to help the poor and disadvantaged.
Tonight I want to talk with you about what government can do,
because i believe the government must do more to put people to work now
to create a half a million jobs, jobs to rebuild our highways and airports
to renovate housing, to bring new life to rural communities and spread hope
and oportunity among our nation's youth.
-Healthcare reform sounds like a great idea to me! -Well, I know, but some of these details sure scarre the hack out of me!
-Like what? -Like...
Robert Reich - Member of Clinton Cabinet 1993-1997 - At the start of the Clinton administration
many of us, including I believe President Clinton himself
reverted back to an older tradition,
tried to lift the public to talk about genuine ideals beyond the individual.
And that reformed agenda being, not only universal health care, and child care,
and dealing with the widening inequalities in our society, and homelessness,
many things that many citizens - particularly middle income citizens
just didn't want to deal with.
But the suburban voters who had been promised tax cuts
were not inspired by Bill Clinton's vision.
They felt betrayed and wanted revenge.
Their opportunity came in 1994, with the congressional elections.
The Republicans led by Newt Gingrich promised huge tax cuts
and to dismantle the welfare system.
The voters who had defected to Clinton switched sides yet again
and the Republicans won both houses of Congress in a landslide.
Well, i think it's a tremendous vote in favor of a smaller government and
lower taxes in a sense of a renewall of a Thatcher-Reagan tradition
and that interest is pretty decisive...
It means that the welfare state is going to be less hospitable
for people who are not willing to take responsability for their own situation
no question about it...
I think today is the begining of the end of the welfare state...
For Clinton it was a disaster.
Faced with a hostile congress there was no way for him to get his reforms through.
His personal popularity plummeted and it seemed certain
he would not be re-elected in two years time.
In desperation and without telling his cabinet
Clinton turned for help to one of America's most ruthless
political strategists, Dick Morris.
-What did he want you to do? -Save his butt...
Dick Morris - Strategy Advisor to President Clinton 1994-1996 - Clinton was in serious trouble, he had lost the 94 election,
he had lost control of Congress, and he hired me to come back help and save him.
So he was basically asking me to perform roughly the same role as
a life preserver would if you are drowning.
What Morris told Clinton was that to win re-election
he would have to transform the very nature of politics.
The crucial swing voters in the suburbs now thought and behaved like consumers.
The only way to win them back was to forget all ideology
and instead turn politics into a form of consumer business.
Clinton must try to identify their personal desires and whims
and then promise to fulfill them.
If he followed those consumer rules they would follow him.
Dick Morris - Strategy Advisor to President Clinton 1994-1996 - I said that I felt the most important thing for him to do
was to bring to the political system the same consumer rules philosophy
that the business community has.
Because I think politics needs to be as responsive to the whims and desires
of the marketplace as business is.
And it needs to be sensitive to the bottom line - profits or votes
- as a business is.
I think all of this involves really, a changed view of the voters
so that instead of treating them as targets you treat them as owners.
Instead of treating them as something that you can manipulate
you treat them as something you need to learn from.
And instead of feeling that you can stay in one place
and you can manipulate the voters you need to learn what they want
and move yourself to accommodate them.
To get inside the minds of the swing voters,
Morris brought lifestyle marketing into politics for the first time.
He went to one of America's most prominent market research firms
called Penn and Schoen and commissioned what they called a neuro-personality poll.
It was a massive survey of hundreds of thousands of voters
but the only political questions it asked were to find out if someone
was a swing voter or not.
All the other questions were intimate psychological ones
designed to see whether swing voters fell into identifiable psychological types.
Mark Penn - Market Researcher for President Clinton - 1995-2000 - Well we were asking people questions like
do you think you're the life of the party?
Do you think when you see things you like to have a list and organize them?
Do you tipically, like to plan things ahead or be more spontaneous?
Where do you like to go? What sports do you like to play?
What would you do with your spouse on a romantic weekend?
So we were asking people some very personal questions about their own lives
to see were the kinds of people that were likely to change their vote
also possessing a certain kind of personality traits and in fact they were.
The neuro-personality poll allowed the Clinton team to segment swing voters
into different lifestyle types.
They were given names like Pools and Patios, or Caps and Gowns
who were urban intellectuals living in university towns.
From this, the team could identify ways in which they could make individuals
feel more secure in their chosen lifestyles.
Just as business had learned to do with products.
Dick Morris called it small-bore politics.
Tiny details of peoples personal lives and personal anxieties
which politics never even thought about or noticed before
but which now had become the key to winning power.
Doug Schoen - Market Researcher for President Clinton - 1995-2000 - It was an America that focused on day to day practical concerns
- should I wear seatbelts, should I stop smoking, should I wear a school uniform,
is my neighborhood being protected...
It was not so much a new individualism as the social order
as we had known it had broken down so we got into people's heads,
understood their psychology about lifestyle, about values,
what they thought was important, what issues they wanted politicians
and the president to address.
And these issues proved to be very very different
from what the conventional wisdom had suggested.
As the election campaign began, Clinton revealed Morris's new approach
to a shocked White House.
All traditional policies were to be dropped.
Instead he would concentrate exclusively on policies that targeted
the worries of swing voters.
V-Chips would be fitted into televisions to prevent children
from watching pornography and mobile phones would be fitted into school buses
to make parents feel more secure.
Dick Morris also persuaded the president to spend his leisure time
in the same way as particular swing voters.
He sent Clinton on a hunting holiday, dressed in exactly the Gortex outfits
the group called Big Sky Families liked.
The aim was to reflect swing voters lifestyles back to them.
The liberals in Clinton's cabinet hated this approach.
Robert Reich - Member of Clinton Cabinet 1993-1997 - I would say Dick why have a campaign if all the president is going to do
is offer up all these little bite-sized miniature initiatives
that appealed to people desires like consumers buying soap.
V-Chips that you could put in your televisions so you'd make sure
that your children could not have pornography and ... school uniforms.
Why talk about them, they're so mundane and they're so tiny,
and he would say if we don't do this we may not get re-elected.
And I would say what's the point of getting re-elected if you have no mandate
to do anything when you're re-elected
and he'd say what's the point of having a mandate if you can't get re-elected?
Isn't the ultimate goal getting re-elected?
But Morris's new politics were an extraordinary success.
Clinton's ratings among the swing voters began to soar
and Dick Morris along with the marketeer Mark Penn, took effective charge
of making White House policy.
Mark Penn set up a huge call center in an office block in Denver
and every night, hundreds of telephone operators called swing voters
in suburbs across the country, to check with them every detail of policies
Clinton was proposing.
James Bennet - Washington correspondent, New York Times - The policy was made by a group of people manning telephones
in Denver Colorado placing calls to voters in places like
Westchester and Pasadena and asking them what they wanted from their government,
and asking them very specifically about specific policies that
Bill Clinton was considering.
Would you be more likely to support him if he offered this particular
government service or if he offered that one.
Those people told them what they thought, Mark Penn transmitted that
to Bill Clinton and it came out of his mouth.
So essentially it was suburbanite voters, suburban voters in the 90s
were creating American domestic policy and some of it's foreign policy as well.
-Really? -Yeah, Mark Penn was polling on questions like
whether we should bomb in Bosnia, things like that.
Morris also insisted that Clinton make a symbolic sacrifice of the old politics
to convince the swing voters to trust him.
In August 1996, Clinton signed a bill which ended the system of guaranteed help
to poor and unemployed.
Welfare would be cut back after two years in order to force people into work.
The new system was called "Welfare to Work" and would he said
be a hand up not a hand out.
It was the effective end of the guaranteed welfare system
created by President Roosevelt 60 years before.
For many in Clinton's cabinet it was also the end of the
progressive political ideal that Roosevelt had represented.
The belief that one used a position of leadership
to persuade the voters to think and behave as social beings,
not as self-interested individuals.
Robert Reich - Member of Clinton Cabinet 1993-1997 - Dick Morris and the pollsters had won.
And by that I mean the people who ultimately got to the president
shaped the president's mind, were those who viewed the voters
as just a collection of individual desires that had to be catered to
and pandered to.
It suggests that democracy is nothing more and should be nothing more
than pandering to these un-thought about very primitive desires.
Primitive in the sense that they are not even necessarily conscious,
just what people want in terms of satisfying themselves.
And the same triumph of the politics of the self was about
to happen in Britain too.
In 1994 Tony Blair had become the leader of the labor party
and the reforming group centered around Peter Mandelson became all powerful.
Almost every night Philip Gould ran focus groups with swing voters in the suburbs,
but this time he was listened to.
The desires and fears of the new aspirational classes
became the force shaping labor party policies.
Philip Gould - New Labor Strategy Advisor Election Campaign 1997 - In that period I was talking to people who used to vote conservative
and were considering voting labor and they want it understood
that they are financially pressed and there are limits to the extent to which
taxation can be improved, and they think crime is an issue that matters to them,
and should be respected, they want welfare to go to people who deserve welfare
not to people who do not.
This was seen by many in the labor party as selfish.
I never saw that it was selfish, I believed that Dad or Mom doing the best
for their families was not selfish they're just doing the best for their families,
that's what people do.
I crack down on those who make life hell in their local neighbourhoods
through noise or disturbance
War on oredr is an labour issue today!
Derek Draper - Assistant to Peter Mandelson 1992-1995 - The philosophy of the campaign is let's concentrate on swing voters
let's focus group them to find out what they want and what will appeal to them
and let's just relentlessly push those things in the election.
Something is happening to you!...
After promising to put money in your pocket,
the conservatives are quietly taking it away...
Philip Gould was crucial, because he gave the 'raw material' if you like
for these politicians to do this kind of politics,
in that when he came up with stuff they'd follow it,
pretty much without exception.
Blair himself would pour over these sort of twelve page memos
and say well this is what we must do.
We want people to earn more, to consume the good things of life,
we want people to pay lower taxes...
Gordon Brown says a labour government would hold the main tax-rates unchanged...
The labour government will not increase the tax..
I want to make it clear that I will not increase the basic rate of tax..
In fact, the labour party does stand for Middle England...
Those who'd asipre to do better, to get on in life and be ambitious
for themselves and their families, will do better with labour...
Groups of eight people you know dinking wine and eating Cheerios,
what they thought, determined effectively everything that the labor party did.
And although those running the campaign would like to portray the new approach
as their invention it was in fact copied from the Americans
even down to the phrases that the American marketeers had tested
on their swing voters.
Doug Schoen - Market Researcher for President Clinton - 1995-2000 - Peter Mandelson and their team were in the United States watching what we did
and copied almost verbatim our approach in their 1997 campaign.
The benefit system should be about giving people a hand up, not just a hand out..
Mandelson is not a fool and if he's anything ...
he saw something that worked and said why not do it.
And I can remember reading their manifesto and say to myself:
they just took it lock stock and barrel.
You know on the one hand you're proud and on the other hand you're saying:
son of a beach!
And as in America, labor was forced to drop policies that would not
directly benefit the swing voters,
even if it meant sacrificing it's fundamental principles.
The commitment to public control of industry
which was enshrined as Clause Four of the party constitution was dropped.
The aim of Clause Four had been to use the collective power of the people
to challenge the unfettered greed of business.
But now, Tony Blair was faced with crucial voters
who no longer saw themselves as exploited by the free market.
They saw themselves as individual consumers who were fulfilled
and given identity by what business delivered them.
The new Clause Four, promised not to control the free market
but to let it flourish.
Bussines is more powerful than government, it is quicker, it is more creative..
Bussiners is the lifeblood of the country..
From this, come all the benefits that society needs...employment, investment...
I think frankly there's only one party: getting bussines right
and that's new labour
Derek Draper - Assistant to Peter Mandelson 1992-1995 - What new labor did was suit people who exert power in society
not through the political system or not through the democratic political system,
so it's big business, and it suits interest, interest suits in the status quo
those three things are what the labor party is supposed to be
a counter-force to.
What that means is big business get to carry on exerting their power
behind the scenes getting their way
because their no count of adding pressure
because you know count of adding pressure is not going to come from
eight people sipping wine in Kettering.
But those who masterminded labor's victory in 1997
saw it as a triumphant vindication of a new form of democracy.
By understanding and fulfilling people's inner desires through the focus group
they were giving power to individuals, not treating them as faceless groups
who were told by politicians what was good for them.
Philip Gould - New Labor Strategy Advisor Election Campaign 1997 - I don't see the focus group as some marketing tool
I see the focus group as a way of hearing what the people have to say.
And I see the focus group as a way to a new form of politics.
What the people give, the people can take away..
We are the servants, they are the masters now
1997 was I think fundamentally important in that I think it is the end
of elitist politics that has dominated Britain for so much
of the last hundred years.
In 1939 Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud's nephew created a vision
of a future world in which the consumer was king.
It was at the World's Fair in New York, and Bernays called it Democracity.
It was one of the earliest and most dramatic portrayals
of a consumerist democracy.
A society in which the needs and desires of individuals
were read and fulfilled by business in the free market.
Stewart Ewen - Historian of Public Relations - The World's Fair created a spectacle
in which all of these concerns were met and
they met by Westinghouse and General Motors and the American Cash Register Company
and company after company presented itself as the sort of centerpiece
of a society in which human desire and human want and human anxiety
would all be responded to and it would all be met purely through
the free enterprise system.
There was this sort of notion that the free market was something
not guided by ideologies or by political power,
it was something that was simply guided by the people's will.
This was the model of democracy that both new labor and the American democrats
had bought into in order to regain power.
They had used techniques developed by business to read the desires of consumers
and they had accepted Bernays' claim that this was a better form of democracy.
But in reality the World's Fair had been an elaborate piece of propaganda
designed by Bernays for his clients, the giant American corporations.
Privately, Bernays did not believe that true democracy could ever work.
He had been profoundly influenced in this by his uncle's theories of human nature.
Freud believed that individuals were not driven by rational thought
but by primitive unconscious desires and feelings.
And Bernays believed that this meant it was too dangerous
to let the masses ever have control over their own lives
and consumerism was a way of giving people the illusion of control
while allowing a responsible elite to continue managing society.
Stewart Ewen - Historian of Public Relations - It's not that the people are in charge
but that the people's desires are in charge.
The people are not in charge the people exercise no decision-making power
within this environment.
So democracy is reduced from something which assumes an active citizenry
to something which now increasingly is predicated on the idea of the public
as passive consumers,
the public as people who essentially what you are delivering them
is doggy treats.
The problem for new labor was that it believed the propaganda.
They took at face value the idea promoted by business
that the systems used to read the consumers mind could form the basis
for a new type of democracy.
Once in power new labor tried to govern through a new system
that Philip Gould called 'continuous democracy'.
But what worked for business in designing products
led the labor government into a bewildering maze of
contradictory whims and desires.
For much of labor's first term the focus groups
said the railways were not a high priority and labors policies
faithfully reflected this.
But now those same groups are now blaming the government
for not having invested more money sooner in the railways.
Derek Draper - Assistant to Peter Mandelson 1992-1995 - The point about focus group politics is that
there isn't one because people are contradictory and irrational
and so you have a problem in terms of deciding what you are going to do
if all you do is listen to a mass of individual opinions
that are forever fluctuating and don't really have any coherence
and crucially are not set in context.
So that's why people can say you know I want lower taxes
and better public services.
Well of course they do.
You know you say do you want to pay more taxes to get better public services
and people are less sure.
They then don't believe that if they pay more taxes they will be spent
on better public services.
So you end up in this quagmire and the truth is the politicians have to say
look this is what I believe, I believe you should pay slightly more taxes
to make better public services and I pledge that I am competent enough
to use that money wisely do you want now to vote for me yes or no.
And that's what Blair has failed to do.
Tony Blair turned around and tries to feed back to them what
they already believe and give them what they believe is sort of
an individual incoherent contradictory nonsense and that's all he has to offer.
And then he wonders why people don't get him.
It isn't that they don't get him it's that they're looking for someone
to do something that they can't do themselves which is actually come up
with a coherent political opinion that they might have faith in.
New labor are faced with a dilemma.
The system of consumer democracy they have embraced
has trapped them into a series of short term and often contradictory policies.
There are now growing demands that they fulfill a grander vision.
That they use the power of government, to deal with the problems
of growing inequality and the decaying social fabric of the country.
But to do this they will have to appeal to the electorate
to think outside their own self-interest.
And this would mean challenging the now dominant Freudian view of human beings
as selfish instinct driven individuals
which is a concept of human beings that has been fostered and encouraged
by business because it produces ideal consumers.
Although we feel we are free, in reality we, like the politicians
have become the slaves of our own desires.
We have forgotten that we can be more than that,
that there are other sides to human nature.
Robert Reich - Member of Clinton Cabinet 1993-1997 - Fundamentally here, we have two different views of human nature and of democracy.
You have the view that people are irrational
that they are bundles of unconscious emotion, that comes directly out of Freud.
And businesses are very able to respond to that, that's what they have honed
their skills to and that's what marketing really is all about -
what are the symbols the images the music, the words
that will appeal to these unconscious feelings.
Politics must be more than that.
Politics and leadership are about engaging the public in a rational discussion
and deliberation about what is best
and treating people with respect in terms of their rational abilities
to debate what is best.
If it's not that, if it is Freudian if it is basically
a matter of appealing to the same basic unconscious feelings that business
appeals to then why not let business do it?
Business can do it better, business knows how to do it.
Business after all is in the business of responding to those feelings.