Oligarchy is an acute threat to democracy
And culture wars are a diversion, to keep you from figuring it out.
TAT readers,
My best for the beginning of a short week, for all. Today comes an essay that I have wished to focus on for quite a while. With our election season well upon us, the allegations of “inflation” are a near daily political football. While that I have written previously about what I consider “fake inflation” that is more like corporate price-gouging, it is also imperative that we understand that the freedom to price-gouge, is mostly due to a long-held American tradition of “American Oligarchy.”
Most Americans had heard of or understood little about oligarchy, until the Trump era and his deep affinity for and attempts to become, the supreme American Oligarch, enhanced with all the trappings and power of Don Corleone, of Godfather fame. Even today as I write this, there are countless references to the Mario Puzo bestseller and the blockbuster movie by Francis Ford Coppola but today, they are political cartoons making fun of a wannabe Mob Boss by the name of Don Poorleone. Trump’s affinity for such oligarchs has over the course of his life, been more or less focused on Russian/ Putinesque oligarchy and organized crime called “The Vory.”
While that our soulless former POTUS is an easily recognizable example of oligarchy, it would shock most Americans to know that such abuse of power has not only been a threat from the beginning of our republic, but today’s abuses of elite power, are at one of its recurring, cyclical peaks, in American history.
To ensure that we are all on the same page, let’s begin with the definition of Oligarchy.
"Broadly speaking, an oligarchy is a form of government characterized by the rule of a few persons or families. More specifically, the term was used by Greek philosopher Aristotle in contrast to aristocracy, which was another term to describe rule by a privileged few. However, to Aristotle, an aristocracy signified rule by the best members of society, while an oligarchy was characterized by the rule of the few for corrupt and unjust purposes." - National Geographic - Encyclopedic Entry
In an important work from the Princeton University Press, Author Luke Mayville explores the deep and well-informed concerns of our third president and founder, John Adams regarding today’s topic. It is highly recommended. Its summary follows:
"Long before “the one percent” became a protest slogan, American founding father John Adams feared the power of a class he called simply “the few”—the wellborn, the beautiful, and especially the rich. In John Adams and the Fear of American Oligarchy, Luke Mayville presents the first extended exploration of Adams’s preoccupation with a problem that has a renewed urgency today: the way in which inequality threatens to corrode democracy and empower a small elite. By revisiting Adams’s political writings, Mayville draws out the statesman’s fears about the danger of oligarchy in America and his unique understanding of the political power of wealth—a surprising and largely forgotten theory that promises to illuminate today’s debates about inequality and its political consequences. Adams believed that wealth is politically powerful in modern societies not merely because money buys influence, but also because citizens admire and even sympathize with the rich. He thought wealth is powerful in the same way that beauty is powerful—it distinguishes its possessor and prompts reactions of approval and veneration. Citizens vote for—and with—the rich not because, as is often said, they hope to be rich one day, but because they esteem the rich and submit to their wishes. Mayville explores Adams’s theory of wealth and power in the context of his broader concern about social and economic inequality, and also examines his ideas about how oligarchy might be countered. A compelling work of intellectual history, John Adams and the Fear of American Oligarchy also has important lessons for today’s world of increasing inequality." - John Adams and the Fear of American Oligarchy - Luke Mayville - October, 2016
In today’s America, not only does Congress legislate protectionism for the rich and powerful, but the John Roberts SCOTUS, tends to rubber-stamp and codify the dominance of American Oligarchs. Few see the now infamous “Citizens United” decision as anything but a rubber-stamp. This is also far from the only example. With the current SCOTUS scandals, mostly centered on Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Thomas Alito who both have received untold benefits from American Oligarchs in the form of repetitive gifts from them, it is nearly impossible to not see oligarchy exercising immoral and unethical influence. The problem is that now megadonors, have enormous advantage over all other citizens when it comes to financing candidates and issues. This is not what our founders intended, and the proof is overwhelming.
The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution by Joseph Fishkin and William E. Forbath, from Harvard Press digs deeply into the anti-oligarchical designs of our founders when crafting our constitution. That many of those founders were in fact, some of colonial America’s early oligarchs, is an extraordinary insight into their devotion to our nascent, democratic republic. As you can see in the following quote, calling Justice Thomas an “originalist” far exceeds reality. To make his originalist claims even more difficult to swallow, is that there is that pesky issue of slavery and the “Three Fifths Compromise.”
"Oligarchy is a threat to the American republic. When too much economic and political power is concentrated in too few hands, we risk losing the “republican form of government” the Constitution requires. Today, courts enforce the Constitution as if it had almost nothing to say about this threat. But as Joseph Fishkin and William Forbath show in this revolutionary retelling of constitutional history, a commitment to prevent oligarchy once stood at the center of a robust tradition in American political and constitutional thought. Fishkin and Forbath demonstrate that reformers, legislators, and even judges working in this “democracy-of-opportunity” tradition understood that the Constitution imposes a duty on legislatures to thwart oligarchy and promote a broad distribution of wealth and political power. These ideas led Jacksonians to fight special economic privileges for the few, Populists to try to break up monopoly power, and Progressives to fight for the constitutional right to form a union. During Reconstruction, Radical Republicans argued in this tradition that racial equality required breaking up the oligarchy of the Slave Power and distributing wealth and opportunity to former slaves and their descendants. President Franklin Roosevelt and the New Dealers built their politics around this tradition, winning the fight against the “economic royalists” and “industrial despots.” But today, as we enter a new Gilded Age, this tradition in progressive American economic and political thought lies dormant. The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution begins the work of recovering it and exploring its profound implications for our deeply unequal society and badly damaged democracy. - The Anti-Oligarchy Constitution - Joseph Fishkin - William E. Forbath
Campaign finance and elite wealth have always been an Achilles Heel to democracy. Now, Dark Money sources that are often avoidant of transparency, are the modern-day version of the butcher putting his thumb on the scales of justice and democracy.
A quick scan around the website for Open Secrets, a nonpartisan, independent and nonprofit, that is the nation's premier research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy, will shock you. Their mission is to track the flow of money in American politics and provide the data and analysis to strengthen democracy. They provide the best investigative insights into how money, influence and power work in today’s severely wounded, American Democracy.
Here are two graphics from Open Secrets that detail the top ten most partisan industries for Republicans and Democrats:
The issues with Oligarchy though, are not just financial. One of the oldest tricks in the influence book, is to create a diversion that obscures the actual activities of manipulators. This is much the same as a pickpocket who bumps into you on the street and while that your attention is diverted to getting back on your feet, the pickpocket has already stolen your wallet. Today’s so-called “culture-wars” are a perfect example. The more emotional and sensational, the better. Abortion rights, guns, religion etc., have provided such a diversion for decades. While Americans argue over the merits of their preferred opinions, oligarchs, political parties and corporations, are picking our collective pockets, whilst we argue, ad nauseum.
The current case of price-gouging by a majority of major corporations and industries, is one such case. I will not rehash all of this again, having written on it previously but simply add a couple of links below. The bottom line is that while individual and corporate oligarchs claim “inflation” and politicians wield the issue as a political bludgeon, the truth is that most are picking our pockets via price-gouging. The current trending term is, “greedflation.”
One of the mentioned links explains in detail, the three most dangerous false narratives this election year and one of those, is that price-gouging is actually “inflation.” This is a diversion from reality and while Americans argue over inflation, corporate America is picking our pockets while that we are distracted.
The most dangerous narratives to American democracy this election year (truthaboutthreats.com)
Further reading on this and related topics:
It's not Inflation, its price-gouging by corporate Oligarchs, who are also, the largest campaign donors. (truthaboutthreats.com)
The Western corporate community is undermining US and Western National Security (truthaboutthreats.com)
Greed, hubris & ignorance and "fake news" are killing our grandchildren's future. (truthaboutthreats.com)
In the interim, these same oligarchs are having their preferred congressmen and senators write all sorts of protectionism, including tax cuts for their industries, into legislation. Are all congresspersons unethical? No, they are not but the system written by congress into our political processes and codified by the SCOTUS, is. Individuals have far less say than individual and corporate elite donors, no matter how much their elected representatives claim that this isn’t true. This is 100% not the democracy our founders created for us and our future generations. The longer this goes on, the worse it gets unless… we come to an impasse where a courageous leader stands up and says no or better yet, hell no! I’ll save my accusatorial opinions about the scourge of lobbyists on democracy, for another essay.
Teddy Roosevelt in the “Trust-Busting era” was one of these leaders. FDR and President Eisenhower the same in a variety of ways. Today, President Biden is vocalizing very similar attitudes to all three. The problem is that the GOP who holds the House of Representatives hostage, cannot do anything to support him, fund Ukraine and Israel and far more. They are paralyzed by their subservience to the former, disgraced POTUS.
Only voters hold the keys to changing the disturbing trends in American Oligarchy. As noted earlier in this article, Congress has the duty to protect our constitution via legislation and the SCOTUS, to safeguard our constitution by ruling ethically on said legislation. Neither have shown the impetus for a few generations to do their job in protecting the rights of citizens as designed by our founders, from oligarchy.
We cannot fix congress nor SCOTUS, unless we ourselves know and understand our constitution. Spoiler alert; stick with honest educators for this, not your preferred politicians. For example, so much of the nonsense I see from Texas GOP politicians these days is unconstitutional. They are part of and in many cases, the cutting edge of MAGA’s fake patriotism that either lies about the constitution or falsely claim that they are following it. Nothing could be further from the truth.
While that I do not endorse any party and have never given a dime to one, it is safe to say that only what serves as Republican Party agendas, violates our constitution and threatens our democratic republic. They are not conservative, they are far-right extremists in the agendas. Tragically, SCOTUS and the TX Supreme Court often rubber-stamp such nonsense. Guns, Citizens United and Separation of Church and State are but three of the most egregious examples.
Today’s GOP and states like Texas who falsely claim that they are in some magical way, “conservative,” either don’t read history or ignore it for their own selfish interests. Our nation was actually founded by and based on the principles of the Scottish Enlightenment which for their time, were radically progressive. Our founders were in fact, “woke” for their times. In our founding documents, they insisted on a republic, not subservient to elite wealth oligarchy.
Civics and government were some of the most important classes I had to take in school. Today, these classes are some of the most important if we are to ever put our democracy back on track. As during other periods of our history, oligarchs will be battling us for control of our nation. Just remember, Oligarchy and the Theocracy that they use to distract us with are the exact opposites of democracy. If we are to every have a version closer to our founder’s hopes and dreams, we must do it ourselves, at the ballot box and keep the pressure on. Democracy is a team sport in which every citizen has an obligation of heritage to support it.
Oligarchy unfettered, ends in a situation that looks like today’s Russia under Putin. It then evolves into dictatorship more often than not. This explains how so many Russian oligarchs commit suicide by falling out of windows full of bullet holes and with rope burns around their necks or poisoned. It’s time that we reclaimed our constitution from those who would keep it as a museum piece, rather than the living body of our democracy.
Finally, I will add that we as a global democratic leader, have a duty not only ourselves, but to the world under threat from authoritarian governments and their citizens, around the world. As a superpower throughout and after the Cold War, American democracy was quite literally, the shining city on a hill, to those oppressed globally. When we fail, the free world is far more at risk of succumbing to the forces of oligarchical thuggery such as Putin’s and Xi’s, etc. Far more than anything we say, our actions that show democracy matters to us, inspires the instinctive human craving for freedom. What we do matters and although this is a weighty burden, it’s something that we’ve always role-modeled fairly well. If we stop doing so, we cease to be truly American.
My very best for your week,
Paul