This isn't about the money of the people reading this. That money is fine basically.
Think about a new graduate in the field of international politics, who will play a role in the major policies.
Their income is nothing. It will come from those with resources who tell them their agenda.
Who has the resources to hire a powerful group who run and implement policies? Not the people reading this. Interests with a lot of money and power.
And such interests are generally prone to pursue their own interests, not the public interest.
So the desires of the person don't really matter - the job they can get is the one available by those who want to pay them and their agenda.
Take a powerful law firm. Who can pay such firms to pursue their interests? Not the people reading this. The wealthy and powerful, who do so for their own interests.
Again and again, money determines the agenda of powerful institutions. We need to understand that better.
Imagine a lawyer for a big company calls up the politician you elect and says, 'my company would like you to screw your constituents, let us pay them less and give them fewer rights which increases our profits, and give us rights to pollute the environment and do things bad for society that make us money'.
You'd like to think your politician says, 'hey, I represent the citizens on my district, and I put them above your selfish demands'.
When the lawyer indicates there's a big campaign donation at stake, you'd like the politician says 'I'm not going to do the wrong thing for your money. Good bye'.
But how practical is it for things to work that way? It's not.
When a politician faces a thousand bad, a thousand corrupt, a thousand requests where the money is, and faces near certain defeat by not taking any of the 'bad money', with almost no money for the 'good policies', it's not hard to see how taking the least bad parts of the 'bad money' can seem necessary - and if they don't someone worse will get elected, they can say.
Our political culture has become obsessed with 'private money' and its rights. We've made corporations citizens and said that money has more rights than citizens, who are no longer allowed to limits its role in our elections and democracy, beyond the most absolutely blatant cases of direct bribery, with clear evidence, something that never needs to exist for the worst sorts of bribery to be the norm.
What we've forgotten in our obsession to protect the rights of the billionares' wealth and power is how our society's agendas and policies are driven by that money.
Thousands, millions, of citizens are paid by those with money. Much of that is not political - car salesmen don't have much political role. But the armies to run things are paid as well. And they don't 'do what they like', what they think is right, they do what they're told to do by the people with the money.
And we have a basic choice. Either the powerful institutions of society are run and ordered what policies to have by private and selfish interests - and that's not only policies that tend to lead to plutocracy, with a few with all the wealth and power and nearly everyone else in poverty with a small and weak 'middle class', or the society is run by democratic institutions, using society's wealth for the 'public good', following democratic principles that put the public interest ahead of just the few at the top.
These are dramatically different societies.
Under more democratic values, we saw explosions in all kinds of things good for the public, from broadly beneficial technological developments, scientific research for the public good, expanded healthcare, affordable public education, protection of the environment, putting a man on the moon for the societal benefits of the great achievement and the scientific progress it brought, and countless other ways that served the public interest.
In more recent years, we've seen this increased fixation on the rights of the wealthy, and as a result a steady decline in all kinds of things in society - the idea of putting a man on the moon for the first time would be an absolute joke in terms of the political ability to spend that kind of money on a public project for the public interest. We can't even repair our infrastructure, or do far more basic things the public interest demands.
Education is threatened and worsening and less affordable, public interest science research is less funded, having large resources for public works projects has been slashed.
The basic governmental role of regulating has been castrated - where big banks, big polluters, big anyone doing almost anything wrong, if they have lots of money, you almost never hear of any real government action to effectively investigate, and prevent the bad behavior, and punish it severely, with powerful leaders going to jail. There is some investigation, which nearly always leads only to negotiated fine agreements, but a minimum of an effective public role in government constraining harmful behavior.
The 2008 crash was a clear window on the situation, as the government had rolled back the rules put in place after the first Great Depression, at the demand of Wall Street, and it led to massive abuses of the new freedoms for profit, and when the reckless and criminal behavior crashed the system, the government did not consider the public interest in fixing the problem as it did after the first Great Depression, it simply used the power of government to give trillions to the Wall Street firms who were at fault, and the public saw its wealth slashed and not recover, while a huge recovery occurred in which close to 100% of the recovery went to the top 1%. In effect a massive transfer of wealth of trillions from the public to the top 1%. And that's called a victory.
Teddy Roosevelt had a lot to say about both the obligations of the citizen's obligations, and the obligations of the wealthy. He promoted the wealthy - but also said that the wealth in society belongs to the people, not the wealthy ultimately, and that people should have great fortunes only insofar as they serve the public interest. He was against the existence of great fortunes challenging the public good.
Franklin Roosevelt led the country through the recovery of the Great Depression and World War II, creating the most new innovative systems for protecting the public interest in our history, and after those experiences, he called for a 100% income tax rate on incomes above a certain amount (several hundreds thousand dollars in today's values as I recall). He didn't do this because he 'hated the rich', he did it because he understood the threat of excessive concentration of wealth. The platitudes about 'rewarding' people for economic contributions apply up to a point, but not after - after a certain point, you don't get any more positive contributions for more wealth, you get counterproductive concentrations.
Society has so much wealth, and either it's serving the interests of a few at the expense of the public, or it's serving the public interest.
Tyrannies, dictatorships, abusive governments are all generally based on when a few are trying to protect their interests at the expense of the public. The alternative is for that public to run society - which is not practical in any direct sense, but through a political system with real democratic values putting the public good ahead of the worst and most harmful interests of a few wealthy people.
Ultimately the price of oligarchy is huge. Under oligarchy, the interests of the few that the public have little wealth -better the wealth go to the wealthy, and the cost of the labor they need go down, and down, and down - determine policy rather than having the wealth more distributed and a thriving middle class and the public doing better. Even when that greatly harms the overall productivity of society, reducing growth and opportunity.
There are countless activities for the public interest that don't happen when oligarchy causes scientific wealth to be used for the benefit of the few wealthy - people get less education, there are fewer scientific advances in the public interest, the environment gets more damage, there are fewer roads and power plants and all kinds of projects in the public interest, the loss of which have a huge cost.
Our society has lost much of its understanding and valuing of democracy - there's a downward cycle, as the wealthy turn government for their own benefits, the public tends to blame government, not the people controlling it, and the value and need for government that serves the public interest, good government, democratic values, is forgotten, and people don't demand fixes for democracy, they demand less government, which fuels the problem further.
They are fed a lie that freedom means 'less government', rather than the truth that failing to have a healthy democratic system that uses society's wealth - with plenty but not extreme amounts going to people for economic rewards - for the public good means that wealth will simply serve the few most wealthy at the public expense, creating as it always has a form of tyranny, of oligarchy, as the wealthy can and do use society's wealth against itself to protect their own positions of power.
The Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said it clearly:
What we're having is that as we have more and more wealth concentrated in the hands of fewer people, and government's activities are worsened as a result, and society is harmed by this, people are blaming government, demanding government have less of our resources and less power, making things worse, in that vicious cycle, until the point democracy becomes a sham and democracy in name only but in substance an oligarchy.
We need to view money instead as a resource that controls what happens in society and that is better directed by a healthy democratic system for the people's benefit - which includes a lot used for the same private capitalist system we have always had and benefitted from - but with large enough taxation, progressively concentrated on the wealthy, so that society can use that wealth to have a growing economy that benefits the public and where it used for the public interest.
Not taking that view - instead obsessing only about the private rights of money and its 'freedom' to be used for any profitable activity regardless of the harm to the public interest, to take over our democracy and government and intall new tyrants - will lead only to a worsening oligarchy which will be harder and harder to ever get out of. We need to act sooner than later - as the public loses its wealth, it becomes less able to challenge the few most wealthy. A few wealthy come to have more power than the rest of society.
Over 98% of citizens give nothing to political campaigns, leaving 6 million of 300 million who do. But just one thousand out of those six million - much less the 300 million - gave enough to rival the rest of all contributors combined, and with far more influence - the big donors get Mitt Romney visiting for a small dinner to hear their concerns, Sheldon Addleston can summon all the Republican candidates to meet with him privately to audition for his donations, where $50 contributors don't have any influence like that - and we're poised under the recent Supreme Court 5-4 ruling to further allow money in politics for those thousand donors to give more money than everyone else combined.
There is no way that democracy can withstand so few having so much control and voice.
That is in fact a few selecting our government - with all the power as if it were democracy, but used as a weapon against the public for their interests, which are often at odds.
When the public understand democracy, we understand the need for a healthy system where government represents the public and uses society's wealth for it - which includes some amounts rewarding people under capitalism. But we prevent excessive fortuned and concentrations of wealth and we protect our elections from being stolen by the influence of money, to keep those democratic values. We need to not be afraid to use tax policy to protect those democratic values.
Our democracy is facing a very serious threat as libertarianism - always a flavor of policies that lead to oligarchy and destroy democracy that has had some mass appeal - grows to its greatest power and influence ever, under the guise of the 'tea party', the decades-long dream of a few oligarchs who have always looked for how to defeat democracy for their own power. As the tea party not only gains some direct power - now with front runner Republican candidates - but further drives the Republican party to its extremes, as even those who are not in the tea party shift their policies not to get defeated, including the leaders of the Republican party.
This was made clear recently by a tea party candidate for the US Senate, who said he wanted to eliminate the $800 million in federal education spending for the state (25% of the total), that he didn't know if he's have voted for federal assistance for Hurricane Katrina, which would be a very hard vote to cast, and many other areas benefitting the public, but he was more honest and clear than most tea party candidates, by telling the voters, "I won't do anything for you", saying that gives them the freedom to do for themselves.
Usually tea party candidates just stick to the constant repetition of the shorthand version of that message, saying they're for 'freedom', without explaining that it's the libertarian definition of that word that they mean, which has the effect of moving to oligarchy - more poverty for most, and great benefit to the few at the top.
There has been an irrational appeal to this message - that candidate was Chris McDaniel, running in Mississippi, which is one of the poorest states and the state that receives the highest amount of federal assistance relative to its taxation, yet has many people who are very poor and receive assistance such as for disability telling reporters they don't care that McDaniel wants to slash the funding they benefit from, they just want someone who will be a fierce warrior against President Obama.
This sort of irrationality is fueled by money spent on propaganda spreading this libertarian tea party message, the hatred of government and Obama.
People are fooled into supporting oligarchy and becoming enemies of democracy.
They don't understand the role of wealth in society, the choices between oligarchy and democracy - they're just infuriated by the propaganda and misled into supporting disaster.
The Tea Party couldn't have gotten far in most of our history - we've always had a few nuts of that persuasion but they couldn't threaten one of the two major parties and many state governments, but that was before the media machine and the unlimited use of wealth to propagandize and influence public opinion.
We need to return to a stronger democracy, serving the public, not only a few and losing democratic values and benefits and the power of the people.
Ancient Rome shifted from democracy to dictatorship, while carefully and strongly preserving a false pretense of democracy. We are in the process of a version of the same.
Few countries have ever overthrown oligarchy from within. The US as the most powerful country can't get much help from outside with these issues as they get worse, and the ways it has been overthrown in the past don't apply here now. As we sink into oligarchy it's not clear how we'd bring power back to the public. What we need to do is to protect the power of the public from further erosion and reverse the recent trends toward allowing more money in politics and the massive redistribution of wealth to the wealthy.
And we need the public to re-learn the ideas, values and benefits of democracy and not fall for the Orwellian misuses of the words like liberty under the libertarian tea party perversions.
And that comes down to the use of how money is allowed to participate. Most of the public has never been inclined to be particularly politically involved or informed - but that makes them the most vulnerable to well-funded propaganda operations. And there is a war being waged on them and on democracy, and we're losing more than winning lately.
People don't see concentrated money as the serious threat it is to their well being and their democracy, but they should learn it is.
The role of modern fortunes and corporations cannot be compared to the early times in our country - where the greatest fortunes were quite small compared to today, and corporations in the US were very limited in scope and wealth - but even then, looking at the role of corporations in England, especially of the East India Tea Company, who was at the heart of our revolution, Thomas Jefferson said:
This tension has always existed. The answer has always been in the middle, not to go to an extreme against wealth or corporations - but we're now heavily weighted too much for them.
Those 'monied corporations' and the extremely wealthy have mostly won that 'trial of strength', as can be seen now as ALEC - an organization funneling the interests of oligarchy into 'model legislation' now accounts for nearly half the legislation passed in some Republican legislatures, aimed at eroding the power of the people and increasing their own.
Appropriate citizen concerns about the risks of excesses of government have been distorted into radical calls against the legitimate use of power by the government - crippling the power of the people to use government for their own interests and protection, by making the people the enemies of their own democracy.
Save234
Think about a new graduate in the field of international politics, who will play a role in the major policies.
Their income is nothing. It will come from those with resources who tell them their agenda.
Who has the resources to hire a powerful group who run and implement policies? Not the people reading this. Interests with a lot of money and power.
And such interests are generally prone to pursue their own interests, not the public interest.
So the desires of the person don't really matter - the job they can get is the one available by those who want to pay them and their agenda.
Take a powerful law firm. Who can pay such firms to pursue their interests? Not the people reading this. The wealthy and powerful, who do so for their own interests.
Again and again, money determines the agenda of powerful institutions. We need to understand that better.
Imagine a lawyer for a big company calls up the politician you elect and says, 'my company would like you to screw your constituents, let us pay them less and give them fewer rights which increases our profits, and give us rights to pollute the environment and do things bad for society that make us money'.
You'd like to think your politician says, 'hey, I represent the citizens on my district, and I put them above your selfish demands'.
When the lawyer indicates there's a big campaign donation at stake, you'd like the politician says 'I'm not going to do the wrong thing for your money. Good bye'.
But how practical is it for things to work that way? It's not.
When a politician faces a thousand bad, a thousand corrupt, a thousand requests where the money is, and faces near certain defeat by not taking any of the 'bad money', with almost no money for the 'good policies', it's not hard to see how taking the least bad parts of the 'bad money' can seem necessary - and if they don't someone worse will get elected, they can say.
Our political culture has become obsessed with 'private money' and its rights. We've made corporations citizens and said that money has more rights than citizens, who are no longer allowed to limits its role in our elections and democracy, beyond the most absolutely blatant cases of direct bribery, with clear evidence, something that never needs to exist for the worst sorts of bribery to be the norm.
What we've forgotten in our obsession to protect the rights of the billionares' wealth and power is how our society's agendas and policies are driven by that money.
Thousands, millions, of citizens are paid by those with money. Much of that is not political - car salesmen don't have much political role. But the armies to run things are paid as well. And they don't 'do what they like', what they think is right, they do what they're told to do by the people with the money.
And we have a basic choice. Either the powerful institutions of society are run and ordered what policies to have by private and selfish interests - and that's not only policies that tend to lead to plutocracy, with a few with all the wealth and power and nearly everyone else in poverty with a small and weak 'middle class', or the society is run by democratic institutions, using society's wealth for the 'public good', following democratic principles that put the public interest ahead of just the few at the top.
These are dramatically different societies.
Under more democratic values, we saw explosions in all kinds of things good for the public, from broadly beneficial technological developments, scientific research for the public good, expanded healthcare, affordable public education, protection of the environment, putting a man on the moon for the societal benefits of the great achievement and the scientific progress it brought, and countless other ways that served the public interest.
In more recent years, we've seen this increased fixation on the rights of the wealthy, and as a result a steady decline in all kinds of things in society - the idea of putting a man on the moon for the first time would be an absolute joke in terms of the political ability to spend that kind of money on a public project for the public interest. We can't even repair our infrastructure, or do far more basic things the public interest demands.
Education is threatened and worsening and less affordable, public interest science research is less funded, having large resources for public works projects has been slashed.
The basic governmental role of regulating has been castrated - where big banks, big polluters, big anyone doing almost anything wrong, if they have lots of money, you almost never hear of any real government action to effectively investigate, and prevent the bad behavior, and punish it severely, with powerful leaders going to jail. There is some investigation, which nearly always leads only to negotiated fine agreements, but a minimum of an effective public role in government constraining harmful behavior.
The 2008 crash was a clear window on the situation, as the government had rolled back the rules put in place after the first Great Depression, at the demand of Wall Street, and it led to massive abuses of the new freedoms for profit, and when the reckless and criminal behavior crashed the system, the government did not consider the public interest in fixing the problem as it did after the first Great Depression, it simply used the power of government to give trillions to the Wall Street firms who were at fault, and the public saw its wealth slashed and not recover, while a huge recovery occurred in which close to 100% of the recovery went to the top 1%. In effect a massive transfer of wealth of trillions from the public to the top 1%. And that's called a victory.
Teddy Roosevelt had a lot to say about both the obligations of the citizen's obligations, and the obligations of the wealthy. He promoted the wealthy - but also said that the wealth in society belongs to the people, not the wealthy ultimately, and that people should have great fortunes only insofar as they serve the public interest. He was against the existence of great fortunes challenging the public good.
Franklin Roosevelt led the country through the recovery of the Great Depression and World War II, creating the most new innovative systems for protecting the public interest in our history, and after those experiences, he called for a 100% income tax rate on incomes above a certain amount (several hundreds thousand dollars in today's values as I recall). He didn't do this because he 'hated the rich', he did it because he understood the threat of excessive concentration of wealth. The platitudes about 'rewarding' people for economic contributions apply up to a point, but not after - after a certain point, you don't get any more positive contributions for more wealth, you get counterproductive concentrations.
Society has so much wealth, and either it's serving the interests of a few at the expense of the public, or it's serving the public interest.
Tyrannies, dictatorships, abusive governments are all generally based on when a few are trying to protect their interests at the expense of the public. The alternative is for that public to run society - which is not practical in any direct sense, but through a political system with real democratic values putting the public good ahead of the worst and most harmful interests of a few wealthy people.
Ultimately the price of oligarchy is huge. Under oligarchy, the interests of the few that the public have little wealth -better the wealth go to the wealthy, and the cost of the labor they need go down, and down, and down - determine policy rather than having the wealth more distributed and a thriving middle class and the public doing better. Even when that greatly harms the overall productivity of society, reducing growth and opportunity.
There are countless activities for the public interest that don't happen when oligarchy causes scientific wealth to be used for the benefit of the few wealthy - people get less education, there are fewer scientific advances in the public interest, the environment gets more damage, there are fewer roads and power plants and all kinds of projects in the public interest, the loss of which have a huge cost.
Our society has lost much of its understanding and valuing of democracy - there's a downward cycle, as the wealthy turn government for their own benefits, the public tends to blame government, not the people controlling it, and the value and need for government that serves the public interest, good government, democratic values, is forgotten, and people don't demand fixes for democracy, they demand less government, which fuels the problem further.
They are fed a lie that freedom means 'less government', rather than the truth that failing to have a healthy democratic system that uses society's wealth - with plenty but not extreme amounts going to people for economic rewards - for the public good means that wealth will simply serve the few most wealthy at the public expense, creating as it always has a form of tyranny, of oligarchy, as the wealthy can and do use society's wealth against itself to protect their own positions of power.
The Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said it clearly:
What we're having is that as we have more and more wealth concentrated in the hands of fewer people, and government's activities are worsened as a result, and society is harmed by this, people are blaming government, demanding government have less of our resources and less power, making things worse, in that vicious cycle, until the point democracy becomes a sham and democracy in name only but in substance an oligarchy.
We need to view money instead as a resource that controls what happens in society and that is better directed by a healthy democratic system for the people's benefit - which includes a lot used for the same private capitalist system we have always had and benefitted from - but with large enough taxation, progressively concentrated on the wealthy, so that society can use that wealth to have a growing economy that benefits the public and where it used for the public interest.
Not taking that view - instead obsessing only about the private rights of money and its 'freedom' to be used for any profitable activity regardless of the harm to the public interest, to take over our democracy and government and intall new tyrants - will lead only to a worsening oligarchy which will be harder and harder to ever get out of. We need to act sooner than later - as the public loses its wealth, it becomes less able to challenge the few most wealthy. A few wealthy come to have more power than the rest of society.
Over 98% of citizens give nothing to political campaigns, leaving 6 million of 300 million who do. But just one thousand out of those six million - much less the 300 million - gave enough to rival the rest of all contributors combined, and with far more influence - the big donors get Mitt Romney visiting for a small dinner to hear their concerns, Sheldon Addleston can summon all the Republican candidates to meet with him privately to audition for his donations, where $50 contributors don't have any influence like that - and we're poised under the recent Supreme Court 5-4 ruling to further allow money in politics for those thousand donors to give more money than everyone else combined.
There is no way that democracy can withstand so few having so much control and voice.
That is in fact a few selecting our government - with all the power as if it were democracy, but used as a weapon against the public for their interests, which are often at odds.
When the public understand democracy, we understand the need for a healthy system where government represents the public and uses society's wealth for it - which includes some amounts rewarding people under capitalism. But we prevent excessive fortuned and concentrations of wealth and we protect our elections from being stolen by the influence of money, to keep those democratic values. We need to not be afraid to use tax policy to protect those democratic values.
Our democracy is facing a very serious threat as libertarianism - always a flavor of policies that lead to oligarchy and destroy democracy that has had some mass appeal - grows to its greatest power and influence ever, under the guise of the 'tea party', the decades-long dream of a few oligarchs who have always looked for how to defeat democracy for their own power. As the tea party not only gains some direct power - now with front runner Republican candidates - but further drives the Republican party to its extremes, as even those who are not in the tea party shift their policies not to get defeated, including the leaders of the Republican party.
This was made clear recently by a tea party candidate for the US Senate, who said he wanted to eliminate the $800 million in federal education spending for the state (25% of the total), that he didn't know if he's have voted for federal assistance for Hurricane Katrina, which would be a very hard vote to cast, and many other areas benefitting the public, but he was more honest and clear than most tea party candidates, by telling the voters, "I won't do anything for you", saying that gives them the freedom to do for themselves.
Usually tea party candidates just stick to the constant repetition of the shorthand version of that message, saying they're for 'freedom', without explaining that it's the libertarian definition of that word that they mean, which has the effect of moving to oligarchy - more poverty for most, and great benefit to the few at the top.
There has been an irrational appeal to this message - that candidate was Chris McDaniel, running in Mississippi, which is one of the poorest states and the state that receives the highest amount of federal assistance relative to its taxation, yet has many people who are very poor and receive assistance such as for disability telling reporters they don't care that McDaniel wants to slash the funding they benefit from, they just want someone who will be a fierce warrior against President Obama.
This sort of irrationality is fueled by money spent on propaganda spreading this libertarian tea party message, the hatred of government and Obama.
People are fooled into supporting oligarchy and becoming enemies of democracy.
They don't understand the role of wealth in society, the choices between oligarchy and democracy - they're just infuriated by the propaganda and misled into supporting disaster.
The Tea Party couldn't have gotten far in most of our history - we've always had a few nuts of that persuasion but they couldn't threaten one of the two major parties and many state governments, but that was before the media machine and the unlimited use of wealth to propagandize and influence public opinion.
We need to return to a stronger democracy, serving the public, not only a few and losing democratic values and benefits and the power of the people.
Ancient Rome shifted from democracy to dictatorship, while carefully and strongly preserving a false pretense of democracy. We are in the process of a version of the same.
Few countries have ever overthrown oligarchy from within. The US as the most powerful country can't get much help from outside with these issues as they get worse, and the ways it has been overthrown in the past don't apply here now. As we sink into oligarchy it's not clear how we'd bring power back to the public. What we need to do is to protect the power of the public from further erosion and reverse the recent trends toward allowing more money in politics and the massive redistribution of wealth to the wealthy.
And we need the public to re-learn the ideas, values and benefits of democracy and not fall for the Orwellian misuses of the words like liberty under the libertarian tea party perversions.
And that comes down to the use of how money is allowed to participate. Most of the public has never been inclined to be particularly politically involved or informed - but that makes them the most vulnerable to well-funded propaganda operations. And there is a war being waged on them and on democracy, and we're losing more than winning lately.
People don't see concentrated money as the serious threat it is to their well being and their democracy, but they should learn it is.
The role of modern fortunes and corporations cannot be compared to the early times in our country - where the greatest fortunes were quite small compared to today, and corporations in the US were very limited in scope and wealth - but even then, looking at the role of corporations in England, especially of the East India Tea Company, who was at the heart of our revolution, Thomas Jefferson said:
This tension has always existed. The answer has always been in the middle, not to go to an extreme against wealth or corporations - but we're now heavily weighted too much for them.
Those 'monied corporations' and the extremely wealthy have mostly won that 'trial of strength', as can be seen now as ALEC - an organization funneling the interests of oligarchy into 'model legislation' now accounts for nearly half the legislation passed in some Republican legislatures, aimed at eroding the power of the people and increasing their own.
Appropriate citizen concerns about the risks of excesses of government have been distorted into radical calls against the legitimate use of power by the government - crippling the power of the people to use government for their own interests and protection, by making the people the enemies of their own democracy.
Save234
