It is pretty difficult to make a non-partisan argument around the recent tax code changes adopted by the Republican Party which owns the government from top to bottom. For it is entirely a partisan idea and decision. Not that the Democratic Party has been the beacon of progressive tax reform.
Ron Formisano, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Kentucky indicts the entire 'political class' with our current dilemma. In his new, but seldom read book, American Oligarchy: The Permanent Political Class (University of Illinois Press, 2017), he unleashes the muckraking style of the last era of robber barons by famed journalists Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, C. Wright Mills, etc. Through 210 pages of lucid prose supported by another 60 pages of detailed footnotes, Formisano lays bare the corruption endemic to the political class and how its capture of our American Society has established a fully formed oligarchy. For more on the 'capture' component see also Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse's Captured I reviewed earlier this year.
Formisano doesn't just pick on the elected officials and the jurists but the corporate heads, higher education administrators, and even the heads of nonprofits. Of course the grease in the system is money and wealth. The increasing gap between the bottom and top has been expedited by the political class which has no real ongoing connection to the middle and lower classes. Even more telling for Formisano is the capture of the economy by the financial sector. This is a growing concern even for conservative institutions like the International Monetary Forum which noted in a recent report cited by Forisamo that "excessive financialization of the U.S. economy reduces GDP growth by 2% every year...a massive drag in the economy -- some $320 billion per year." (p.194)
And the gap between the rich and the rest of us grows as well as Bloomberg reported today "World's Wealthiest Became $1 Trillion Richer in 2017"
Page after page demonstrates how even persons entering government or nonprofits with good public intentions get absorbed into the political class. The sharing of board members, the lobbyist favors, inside relational contracting, shared vacations and junkets all corrupt any pretension of democratic principle. He notes that while both Trump and Sanders spoke to the idea of corruption of power, Trump of course has blatantly turned over the executive branch to these same members of the oligarchy. While the book does read in the style of Tarbell, Steffens, Mills, Sinclair, and more recently recently deceased political scientist Chalmers Johnson, he does not offer us any roads out of this mess.
One direction from a recent book, which likewise probably has equally few readers, is offered by K. Sabeel Rahman. In his recent Democracy Against Domination, Rahman, a former Rhodes Scholar who studied economics, political theory and law at Harvard and Oxford teaches law at Brooklyn Law School. Rahman's style is more turgid and aimed primarily at other academics I suspect but his argument is fresh and worth pondering.
"This progressive economic vision suggests a radically different approach to financial regulation. The book argues that our prevailing approach to TBTF [too big to fail] finance relies too heavily on a faith in insulated, neutral, top-down regulation by experts, despite the risks of industry lobbying or the complexities of trying to manage the modern financial system. Instead, the book suggests that a better approach would place stricter, structural limits on TBTF financial firms, whether by “breaking up the banks” or by regulating finance as a kind of public utility. Drawing on the latest thinking in economics and law, the book suggests how we need to revamp our financial stability regime."
He sees the failure of leaving the regulating the economy and the corporate sector to 'experts', for which I assume he would include himself, and calls for a much deeper and vibrant model of democracy. I believe his argument on this particular failure is well done - this attack on the "let the experts rule". He shows the underbelly of this flawed approach, but not as poignantly as Sen. Whitehouse did in his book. But his reasoned call for a deeper democracy to address the domination of the 'political class' as Forisamo names it is stronger than what either Whitehouse or Forisamo offers.
Still I failed to see a systemic plan of specific options to address the flaws. Here's where I would point to the Austrian Economist Christian Felber's remedies he laid out in his 2016 Change Everything: Creating an Economy for the Common Good that I shared in 2016. While the piling evidence makes crystal clear to anyone wanting to look at it that our economic system as run by the' 'plutocracy' Formisano shines his piercing light on is cascading us towards a twin abyss of increasing inequality and climate destabilization.
While the path out of this is a bit murky, the recent tax law disaster is going 180 degrees in the wrong direction. One promising approach before us in 2018 is following the lead of the youth led Sunrise Movement. One of their suggested strategies is to approach candidates for office at all levels and ask them to pledge not to accept money from the oil, gas, and coal lobbies. I would add the financial industry.
It is our youth who will have to lead us out of this mess as they are the ones that will be forced to live with the worst of what we have sown.
Such a fixation our culture has on guns and violence as a response to fear. From Dwight Eisenhower's famous farewell speech warning against the Military Industrial Complex to the NRA's no holds barred to make sure everyone has a gun on them at all times, our culture is sick, probably cancerous, and possibly stage 4.
A report last week from a Credit Suisse conference in West Palm Beach, noted
"major defense contractors Raytheon, Oshkosh, and Lockheed Martin
assured investors that they stand to gain from the escalating conflicts in the Middle
East. Lockheed Martin Executive Vice President Bruce Tanner told the
conference his company will see “indirect benefits” from the war in
Syria, citing the Turkish military’s recent decision to shoot down a
Russian warplane.
The incident, Tanner said, heightens the risk for U.S. military
operations in the region, providing “an intangible lift because of the
dynamics of that environment and our products in theater.” He also
stressed that the Russian intervention would highlight the need for
Lockheed Martin-made F-22s and the new F-35 jets. [The Intercept, Dec.4, 2015).
Who says war doesn't pay.Why else would the Center for Responsive Politics be able to show that in 2015 alone, as of data reported by October 23, the defense industry had spent more than $95 million lobbying our government to insure their profitability.
Researchers William Hartung and Stephen Miles reported last summer what that looks like by looking at campaign contributions to House Armed Services Committee Chair, Mac Thornberyy (R-TX). I'll spare you the details here, save he has collected a mere $250,000 so far this election cycle. Put simply more evidence that Eisenhower was right.
With that kind of money floating around, and it's only the money that isn't hidden or dark, we can see an increasing part of the corruption that is our electoral and political system.
The US discretionary budget is now mostly military spending. When you add veteran's benefits it exceeds 60% of discretionary spending!!!!
Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates used to joke that he had more band members than the State Department had foreign service officers. We have 800 or more military bases on foreign soil and constantly flirting for more. The more bases, the more we need arms to equip those we station there -- an arms merchant's fantasy.
But it is not simply our military that's loaded for bear, it's increasingly our domestic culture. Even since the tragedy of San Bernadino last week, guns are flying off the shelves; the same shelves that supplied the deranged killers with their tools for tragedy. Here in Michigan, our medieval legislators are trying to lift any restrictions on concealed weapons being in our schools, libraries, or other public places. Do we really live in a Gunsmoke world where we need to deputize and arm everyone to shoot when someone looks threatening?
By this picture our priorities, both national and individual, are responsible for accelerating the violence our fear mongering culture readily glorifies in television and motion picture crime and terror, that seems to get bloodier and bloodier with each passing season. There seems to be few willing to stand up and oppose this runaway madness. Congressional candidates are largely afraid they will be labeled soft, or will unleash large funds against their re-election campaigns, if they stand up to the military, gun toting mindset that so holds our nation's conscience hostage.
Enough! It is time to challenge the constant feeding of endless war in our name through the upcoming budget process. Our elected officials need to hear from us that it is time to shrink the military budget and the number of bases and weapons that arm the world. Especially because the Defense Department has never been audited!!! Legislation that would require an audit of the Pentagon has been languishing in a Republican controlled legislature for years. Why wouldn't self-described fiscal CONSERVATIVES want to insure that the funds we collect are spent well?? Who could possibly be against this?????? Perhaps we need only look back up to origin of the $95 million figure at the beginning of this blog.
H.R. 942 "Audit the Pentagon Act" should be on everyone's agenda. Check it out yourself and then contact your representative and senators to co-sponsor and support it's passage.
The countervailing pro-active response would be two actions:
1) Fulfilling our commitments to the UN Peacekeeping missions in which we are currently in arrears ($337 million in 2014)
2) Support the Department of Peacebuilding Act, H.R. 1111 which would establish an agency which's first job is peace through non-military efforts while building a culture of peace globally and domestically.
And speaking of domestically, the clear first choice in my mind is to outlaw the reproduction, sale and use of assault weapons. They were designed to kill people. they are by design a WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION. They have no use beyond that, unless making people afraid is a legitimate use. While I have no problem with people owning rifles or handguns on their property, their carry into public places is an anathema to me.
These are much more sustainable choices than feeding the growing trends that promise to arm us all to death.Don't let the fear mongers win.
