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Economic Power and Democracy

The real threat to our country now is the growing concentration of economic power in corporate entities that are slipping out of the restraints of our political system. It isn't terrorist threats, not rogue nations, not immigration, not global warming, but the end run on democratic institutions and rules that threatens to turn back the clock on the progress we have achieved.

How could I say that after September 11th? Because, while we are not to blame for the actions of the terrorists, haven't you noticed how many proposed restraints on civil liberties are floating around? How many bailouts of companies are being proposed? How many tax breaks for the wealthy are being floated? And that most of the ideas for countering the terrorists have little to do with the terrorists and a lot to do with concentrating power in the hands of a few.

The constitution has been an excellent protection against concentrations of political power and against a military coup. It has almost nothing to protect us against concentrations of economic power.
Analysis of our situation

My program

A constitutional amendment guaranteeing an explicit right of privacy.

Holding corporations responsible for the aggregate crimes they commit, and dissolving companies that are habitual offenders.

Enforcement of the 10th amendment to the U. S. Constitution.

Campaign financing to be limited to contributions from citizens only, and perhaps some public funding. That is, no groups, companies, unions or organizations could spend anything on a campaign.

Some means of making transnational institutions (WTO, etc.) obey democratic institutions.

If the Gods had meant us to Vote, they would have given us candidates.
Jim Hightower
Harper Collins, 2000.

A chainsaw - wielding tour of of the role money plays in our politics. Written as the 2000 campaign lurched forward, it covers more than that. He exposes many ways that companies get a free ride from the government. He goes after Bush and Gore alike, as well as Tom DeLay (and his connection to sweat shops in American trust territory the Northern Mariana Islands), Clinton (and bananas). He also has a lot of scary things to say about NAFTA and the way it lets corporations run over local governments.

The Affluent Society
John Kenneth Galbraith
Houghton Mifflin, 1958

"Few people at the beginning of the nineteenth century needed an adman to tell them what they wanted."

Over 40 years later, this is still worth reading and justly termed a classic. One central idea is that of how marketing creates demands by inventing needs for us.
NAFTA / WTO / Globalization of economic power
 
 
 
 
Last updated 3/8/03; posted 12/30/00; © 2003 John P. Nordin