Nov 01 2009
Oligarchy in the United States
I’m tired of the wingnuts out there who believe we’ve become a socialist country. We are so far from socialism! What we are is one step away from being an oligarchy.
Wikipedia defines an oligarchy as “a form of government in which power effectively rests with a small elite segment of society distinguished by royal, wealth, intellectual, family, military, or religious hegemony.”
Don Herbst of Rigby has a letter to the editor in today’s Post Register. He says that rather than capitalism or socialism, what we have is an oligopoly where a relatively small number of sellers control the market.
Think of “banks that are too large to fail,” insurance companies that carve up health insurance markets state by state with almost no national competition, oil companies, agribusiness conglomerates and all of the other major market segments in this country that are almost completely dominated by a handful of companies.
I am in complete agreement with his assessment! And if you wonder why this is a bad thing, he continues with how this impacts our political process and our form of government:
As long as we allow political campaigns to be determined by the huge amounts of money spent on almost never ending campaigns and a campaign finance system that essentially allows the very wealthy to literally buy our politicians, there will be precious little liberty or free markets to embrace.
I have said for a long time that we are not a capitalist country, that we are more to the right than those who decry the “advance of socialism” realize (or else they’re just being politically disingenuous). We have been an oligarchy for far too long, and the biggest proof of that is the fact that we can’t get real health care reform.
8 responses so far
As I’ve said many times, I don’t understand politics and it’s workings.
I did read something a few weeks ago that bothered me though. I can’t even tell you which election it was for (I do know it was in the US).
The article was talking about the 2 people running for… whatever… and the whole article was based around how much money each candidate had managed to amass toward their campaigns. I do know enough about politics to know that it costs a great amount of money to run for just about any public office, and I know that not all of that money is raised by well-meaning supporters going door to door selling chocolate.
So if the only important matter on that particular subject was how much money each candidate had amassed, what kind of message does that send?
Someone defined political campaign contributions as a form of freedom of expression, and therefore they can’t be limited or the process reformed because that removes the right to political freedom of expression from the people. Bullshit!
They are a form of political persuasion, a form of power wielded by incumbents or wealthy candidates, and even though they don’t always guarantee a win (think Huffington) they are so effective that just as with the health care industry, no one wants real reform because the status quo makes the powers-that-be very very happy.
I’d like a public purse for all elections, or at the very least, a spending limit on campaigns. Among other things….
I agree. It appears that elections are very effectively purchased, and that’s not right.
In the upcoming financial summit meetings, I hope this problem gets addressed seriously. The American middle class has been the huge engine of financial growth for the rest of the world for decades now, but it’s flames are nearly burnt out.
The time has come for American business to bring some of the jobs it has exported too freely back to our shores. Henry Ford understood the essential equation when he realized he had to pay his workers enough to be able to afford one of the cars they were building.
The fact is, America is full of people who, by education, inclination, or whatever, are best suited for production jobs. These people like to work hard, get dirty, and get ahead through their physical efforts more than their brainpower. They are still some of the best workers in the world, and they’re being far too underutilized.
As a nation, we are going to emerge from this depression changed. We won’t be buying so frivolously, we won’t get ourselves so far in debt again, and we won’t be the optimists our parents were. Our kids are growing mature in a world of decreasing expectations.
All this has the potential to either re-light the engine of American production, or see American goods ultimately shrivel away. Asia and much of the world is chock full of people who want to live the life we have now, and there is simply now way we can continue our part in the race to the bottom.
If we do continue, we’ll end up just like Britain. Their empire was larger and longer standing than ours, but by the end, they were left a distant 2nd to what they once were. It took Britain over 40 years to regain their current degree of prosperity, and it came only after a long and very painful period of adjustment. We can either learn from this or walk down the path they paved.
Economics starts and ends with industry. Politics alone won’t get us out of this mess, but it can carrot-and-stick industry into doing the right things, if need be. I hope American industry still has some patriotism going on in it, and isn’t as rotten as I fear it may be.
Well, boomer, I could not have said that better myself. You are truly articulate. Thanks for your thoughts.
In order for our country to be healthy, we need a strong middle class. The problem is, “middle class” is an abnormal to have in most systems, so it takes a lot of work to keep it robust.
We, as a People, have dropped the ball, there, youbetcha.
People moan about how they can’t stand the government, so they divest themselves from it, not realizing that THEY are the government. Thing is, somebody must governm and if We the People are too lazy, under-informed, or otherwise disengaged, than the corporations will step in with their first amendment rights and take over. “We the Walmart”. Has a catchy ring to it, doesn’t it?
I think the only way to possibly save our experiment in democracy is to engage our young people in it. It is, after all, their future.
So are the two prominent parties engaging their young people in political action? We know our young people listen to their parents, and some of the younguns actually speak out (the 10 year old boy, etc) but how much of a concerted effort is made to interest teenagers in politics?
Everyone says they are our future (and they are correct about that) but no one is really trying to involve them.
Hi, Liz…
Obama did pretty damned well with the kids in 2008. The young today are a lot like my generation in the late 60’s- they get involved by themselves.
Kids have to make the first move, but both parties have outreach programs going. I believe that it all starts at home; I was raised watching my parents and grandparents voting, and sometimes went to the polls with them. And they drilled me on my citizen’s responsibilities from early childhood on.
I did the same with my kids, and they’re all long-time voters now. They range in age from 38 to 27 and started voting when they were first eligible. I think that upbringing, more than anything, is the most important factor in activism.
I agree, boomer. I raised my first two to be politically aware and active (to my chagrin and delight at the same time, the oldest voted for Nader in 2000). My husband and I bring the current teenagers to all the functions that we go to, and they volunteer at the soup kitchen.
I have seen evidence of “Young” Dems and Repubs on college campuses but not a whole lot in this town. I guess there’s plenty to occupy high schoolers without political activities, too.