If
2500 billionaires on the planet-a small number equal to the population of a
very small town such as I once lived in at Wrangell Alaska, can control 33
trillion of the world’s 250 trillion dollars of capital assets and if the
30,000 Ultra-High Net Worth individuals on the planet control perhaps 150
trillion together what are the prospects for egalitarianism in democracy for
the United States? Isn’t it most likely that the 1% will manipulate the
politics of the 99% and that the bought and paid for media will support the
interests of the 1% prevalently?
I
was thinking about the odd situation comparable to if the politics of the United States revolved around the city
of Wrangell and if political theory
and economics existed to support the right of the billionaires to have low low
taxes and through Wall Street networking own much of everything in the nation
and plenty of stuff abroad. That would be rather silly I think, and if the
citizens of the United States had any of the stuff of
the revolutionary founders of the nation they wouldn’t lay down for that.
I
ought to say that the people of Wrangell are ordinary people except for a few
perhaps and there aren’t any billionaires. In fact some Alaskans have built
remote huts without electricity, running water and so forth without even power
tools or a road to get building materials out to it. Instead they packed
everything in themselves. Even so, the rights of those poor Alaskans are
supposed to be equal politically to those of the billionaires of the nation
(that total is less than the 2500 maximum in the world though, yet to be
equitable, not all the people of Wrangell are registered voters).
In
order to reform capital practice and advance preferred socially beneficial
methods of political economy the electorate needs to actually have the power of
self-determination. That term, self-determination
is seldom used in political discourse these days. Formerly in cold war
times against the evil empire self-determination was a prime rational for
liberating the people of the Eastern bloc from communist government
authoritarianism. The East bloc states of the Democrat Party (e.g. Massachusetts, New York, Vermont etc) seem to favor
authoritarianism and concentrating wealth simultaneously-not especially
political progress.
To
reform political economy a polity of citizens needs to be sovereign and not
ruled by expensive bought and paid for UHNW representatives, senators and
Presidents. It is not enough to select non UHNW politicians, they must actually
have an idea about how to reform the economy so competition is restored,
sovereignty of the people and their borders are secured and the environmental
disasters ahead over-ruled. It is possible to locate such individuals yet the
prospects for electing any are nil today. Ralph Nadir was the last candidate
with as much as 30% of the qualification for such a task.
I
should say something about the straw man argument of socialism as the
alternative to oligarchic irresponsible dialectical evolution of capitalism as
is developing today in the class networked mode; its only one of an infinite
number of possible reforms to capitalism. Examples of reform formats are
limiting the size of corporations to 3000 employees, capping the number of
corporations an individual may invest in directly or through mutual funds at
three and indexing minimum wage to mean salaries of the top 25% of at something
like a limit of 50:1. There is more motivation for the poor to invent and
become rich than for the rich to invent or allow others to invent-instead they
have a trait of networking, repressing inventors, repressing rival free
enterprise and co-opting politics to their advantage.
The
99% cannot just redistribute income from the 1% as if everyone got it
existentially from a practico-inert fairy cheese of the Universe with a finite
size and everything will be hunkie dory. One must reform capitalism along real
functioning principles such that it would produce full employment, satisfy the
material and spiritual needs of the 99% (a good utilitarian argument exists for
preferring the interests of the 99% over the 1%) including the freedom to allow
worship of God without coercion from any sort of authority.
There
may be an approaching economic disaster stalking the world like a vast tidal
wave over the horizon in an era before electronic communication and when
sailing ships were the fastest boats on the sea. Unlike that period when it
took months to cross 5000 miles today that distance is just a few hours away
and for an economic tsunami much closer; it could occur at the speed of light
through electronic trading and financial collapse or biological designer
weapons could be unleashed from the increasing arsenal of Pandora’s vast bio-research
box. Global warming could transition the world into a proto-Venus through a
cascade of doom as CO2 levels steadily rise with sulphurous tar sands and
perpetual reliance on automobiles and roads to kill off bio-diversity
threatening the rich tapestry of life on Earth that is interwoven and
inter-dependent for its evolution.
It
is believed that the 2008 Wall Street meltdown was just a vague
outline of the economic collapse lurking inn the shadows for Americans and even
the world economy. Innumerable writers and economists have described several of
its parameters as the blind men once described the elephant. It is time to
consider restoring national economic independence and the well being of the 1%
even as the nation helps with good Christian neighborliness our friends in the
world.