Understanding Power Structure In The U.S.

Who wields predominant power in the United States?
From 1776 to the present, the answer is and always has been those who have the money.
It's no coincidence that the first president,
George Washington; was one of the biggest landowners of his day.
Late 19th century presidents were close to the railroad interests and the 'robber barons'.
For the Bush family, it was oil and other natural resources, agribusiness, and finance.
Today it's the banks, corporations, agribusinesses,as well as big real estate developers.
They work separately on many policy issues, but in combination on general issues like
taxes, opposition to labor unions, and trade agreements.
They set the rules within which all policy battles are waged.

How and why does it differ from other nations?
This conclusion may at first glance strike you as too simple or direct,
leaving out the effects of elected officials or voters.
Yet it is not simple at all. The reasons behind it are ripe with complexity.
Understanding the deviations and contrasts with other democratic nations
require an understanding of social classes, the role of "experts",
the two-party system, and the history of the United States, (especially Southern slavery).
In terms of the larger world-historical picture, large economic interests rule the U.S. because there are no rival networks that grew in U.S. history.

• There is no one big church, as in many countries in Europe
• No big government, as it took to survive as a nation-state in Europe
• No big military until after 1940 (which is not very long ago) to threaten to take over the government

So, the only power network of any consequence in the history of the United States has been the economic one, which under capitalism generates a business-owning class and a working class, along with small businesses and skilled craft workers who are self-employed, and a relatively small number of highly trained professionals such as architects, lawyers, physicians, and scientists etc.
In this context, the key reason why money can rule -- i.e., why the business owners who hire workers can rule -- is that the people who worked in the factories and fields were divided from the outset.
They were divided into free and slave, white and black, and into numerous immigrant ethnic groups as well.

Divide and Conquer
The divisions created by the ruling class made it difficult for workers as a whole to unite politically to battle for higher wages or better lots in society. The divisions couldn't be more obvious today.
Look at our presidential race. Observe how the various groups are incited on many fronts including the major media (which now is 'occupied'. Owned by very few corporate interests) to be angry with each other rather than at the very people doing the inciting and dividing.
The simple answer that money rules has to be qualified somewhat.
Domination by the few does not mean complete control, but rather the ability to set the terms under which other groups and classes must operate. Highly trained professionals with an interest in environmental and consumer issues have been able to couple their technical information and their understanding of the legislative process with timely publicity to win governmental restrictions on some corporate practices. Wage and salary workers, when they are organized or disruptive, sometimes have been able to gain concessions on wages, hours, and working conditions.
Most of all, there is free speech and the right to vote. While voting does not necessarily make government responsive to the will of the majority, under certain circumstances the electorate has been able to place restraints on the actions of the wealthy elites, or more often, to decide which elites will have the greatest influence on policy. This is especially a possibility when there are disagreements within the higher circles of wealth and influence.

There is global stratification and there is American stratification.
The effect in the US is more pronounced.The Poor never have any power and are at the mercy of others, in the US the Middle and Working Class, once robust in the post WWII era have been decimated and have less power than in nearly all other democracies. Still, the idea that a relatively fixed group of privileged people dominate the economy and government goes against the American grain and the founding principles of the country. "Class" and "power" are terms that make many Americans a little uneasy, and concepts such as "upper class" and "power elite" immediately put many people on guard. Americans may differ in their social and income levels, and some may have more influence than others, but it is felt that there can be no fixed power group when power is constitutionally dwelling in all the people.
We observe democratic participation through elections.
There is evidence of social mobility. So we conclude that elected officials, along with "interest groups" like "organized labor" and "consumers," have enough "countervailing" power to say that there is an open, "pluralistic" distribution of power rather than one with only the very richest people and corporations at the top. But this is just denial.
Contrary to this pluralistic view, rule by the wealthy few is possible despite free speech, regular elections, and organized opposition.

• The ruling wealthy coalesce into a social upper class that has developed institutions by which the children of its members are socialized into an upper-class worldview, and any newly wealthy people are assimilated.
• Members of this upper class control corporations, which have been the primary mechanisms for generating and holding wealth in the United States for over of 150 years now.
• There exists a network of nonprofit organizations through which members of the upper class and their hired corporate leaders not yet in the upper class shape the policy debates in the United States.
• Members of the upper class, with the help of their high-level employees in profit and nonprofit institutions, are able to dominate the federal government in Washington.
• The rich, and corporate leaders, nonetheless claim to be relatively powerless.
• Working people have less power than in other democratic countries.

Let's take a moment to define the term "power" and to explain the "indicators" of power that determine who has it.

Power
Power is one of those words that is easy to understand but hard to define in a precise manner.
We know it means "clout" or "juice" or "muscle" or "the ability to make things happen." We know it comes from words implying the ability to act in a strong, compelling, and direct way, but we also know that power can be projected in a very quiet or indirect manner.
Let's define power as "the capacity of some persons to produce intended and foreseen effects on others"  This is a general definition that allows for the many forms of power that can be changed from one to another, such as economic power, political power, military power, ideological power, and intellectual power (i.e., knowledge, expertise). It leaves open the question of whether "force" or "coercion" is always lurking somewhere in the background in the exercise of power, as many definitions imply.  Power can be thought of as an underlying "trait" or "property" that is measured by a series of signs, or indicators, that bear a probabilistic relationship to it. (Bet you didn't see quantum physics coming into play in an article about policy making!)
There are three primary indicators of power, which can be summarized as (1) who benefits? (2) who governs? and (3) who wins? In every society there are experiences and material objects that are highly valued. If it is assumed that everyone in the society would like to have as great a share as possible of these experiences and objects, then the distribution of values in that society can be utilized as a power indicator. Those who benefit the most, by inference, are powerful. In American society, wealth and well-being are highly valued. People seek to own property, earn high incomes, to have interesting and safe jobs, and to live long and healthy lives. All of these "values" are unequally distributed, and all are power indicators.

Power also can be inferred from studies of who occupies important institutional positions and takes part in important decision-making groups. If a group or class is highly over-represented in relation to its proportion of the population, it can certainly be inferred that the group is powerful.

If, for example, a group makes up 10% of the population but has 50% of the seats in the main governing institutions, then it has five times more people in governing positions than would be expected by chance, and there is thus probable reason to believe that the group is a powerful one.

There are many policy issues over which groups or classes disagree.
In the United States different policies are suggested by opposing groups in foreign policy, taxation, the general welfare of the people, research, public education, and the environment. Power can be inferred from these issue conflicts by determining who successfully initiates, modifies, or vetoes policy alternatives. This indicator, by focusing on actions within the decision-making process, comes closest to approximating the process of power that is contained in the formal definition. It is no less an inference to say that who wins on issues is an indicator of "power" than with the other two types of empirical observations -- value distributions and positional over-representation -- that we must also use as power indicators.

The Upper Class
The upper class makes up only a few tenths of one percent of the population.
Members of the upper class live in exclusive suburban neighborhoods, expensive downtown co-ops, and large country estates. They often have far-away summer and winter homes as well. They attend a system of private schools that extends from pre-school to the university level; the best known of these schools are the "day" and "boarding" prep schools that take the place of public high schools. Adult members of the upper class socialize in expensive country clubs, downtown luncheon clubs, hunting clubs, and garden clubs. Young women of the upper class are "introduced" to high society each year through an elaborate series of debutante teas, parties, and balls. Women of the upper class gain experience as "volunteers" through a nationwide organization known as the Junior League, and then go on to serve as directors of cultural organizations, family service associations, and hospitals (see
http://book-me.net/a/power-of-good-deeds-privileged-women-and-the-social-reproduction-of-the-upper-class.pdf  Kendall, 2002, for a good account of women of the upper class by a sociologist who was also a participant in upper-class organizations).
These various social institutions are important in creating "social cohesion" and a sense of in-group "we-ness." This sense of cohesion is heightened by the fact that people can be excluded from these organizations. Through these institutions, young members of the upper class and those who are new to wealth develop shared understandings of " how to be wealthy".
Because these social settings are expensive and exclusive, members of the upper class usually come to think of themselves as "special" and "superior." They think they are better than other people, and certainly better able to lead and govern. Their self-confidence and social polish become useful in dealing with people from other social classes, who are taught to admire them and defer to their judgments. Findings by economists on the wealth and income distribution say that the upper class, comprising 0.5% to 1% of the population, owns 40-50% of all privately held wealth in the United States and receives gains of 12-15% of total income yearly on average. In short, the upper class scores very high on the "who benefits" power indicator.

The Role of Corporations
Major economic power in the United States is concentrated in an organizational and legal form known as the corporation, and has been since the last several decades of the 19th century. No one doubts that individual corporations have great power in the society at large. For example, they can hire and fire workers, decide where to invest their resources, and use their income in a variety of tax-deductible ways to influence schools, charities, and governments. Are the large corporations united enough to exert a common social power?  Are they controlled by members of the upper class?
The unity of the corporations can be demonstrated in a numerous ways. They share a common interest in making profits. They are often owned by the same families or financial institutions. Their executives have very similar educational and work experiences. It is also important for their sense of unity that corporate leaders see themselves as sharing common opponents.  Largely organized labor, environmentalists, consumer advocates, and regulation from government officials. A sense of togetherness is created as well by their use of the same few legal, accounting, and consulting firms.
However, the best way to demonstrate the unity among corporations is through what sociologists call "interlocking directors," meaning those individuals who sit on two or more of the boards of directors that are in charge of the overall direction of the corporation. Boards of directors usually include major owners, top executives from similar corporations or corporations located in the same area, financial and legal advisors, and the three or four officers who run the corporation on a daily basis. Several studies show that those 15-20% of corporate directors who sit on two or more boards, who are called the "inner circle" of the corporate directorate, unite 80-90% of the largest corporations in the United States into a well-connected "corporate community."
Most all social scientists agree that corporations have a strong basis for cohesion.

So members of the upper class have power based on their wealth, and corporate executives have organizational power. Contrary to the claim of some, that there is a division between owners and managers, I think there is strong evidence for the idea of great overlap in membership and interest between the upper class and the corporate community. The wealthiest and most cohesive upper-class families often have "family offices" through which they can bring to bear the concentrated power of their collective stock ownership, sometimes placing employees of the office on boards of directors. Then too, members of the upper class often control corporations through financial devices known as "holding companies," which purchase a controlling interest in operating companies. More generally, members of the upper class own roughly half of all corporate stock . Then too, upper-class control of corporations can be seen in its over-representation on boards of directors. Several past studies show that members of the upper class sit on boards far more than would be expected by chance. They are especially likely to be part of the "inner circle" that has two or more directorships. According to the "who governs" power indicator, the upper class absolutely controls the corporate community.

Government Policy Is Shaped From Outside Government
The upper class and the closely related corporate community do not stand alone at the top of the power structure. They are supplemented by a wide range of nonprofit organizations that play an important role in framing debates over public policy and in shaping public opinion. These organizations are often called "nonpartisan" or "bipartisan" because they are not officially identified with politics or with either of the two major political parties. But they are the real "political party" of the upper class in terms of insuring their stability and domination of society and the compliance of government to their wishes.
Upper-class and corporate dominance of the major nonprofit organizations can be seen in their founding by wealthy members of the upper class and in their reliance on large corporations for their funding. However, dominance is once again most readily demonstrated through studies of boards of directors, which have ultimate control of the organizations, including the ability to hire and fire top executives. These studies show that members of the upper class are greatly over-represented on the boards of these organizations, and that nonprofit organizations share a large number of directors in common with the corporate community, particularly directors who are part of the "inner circle." In effect, most large nonprofit organizations are merely part of the corporate community.
All the organizations in the nonprofit sector have a hand in creating the framework of the society in one way or another, and hence in helping to shape the political climate. The cultural and civic organizations set the standard for what is beautiful, important, and "classy." The elite universities play a determine what is important to teach, learn, and research, and they train most of the professionals and experts in the country. However, it is the foundations, think tanks, and policy-discussion organizations that have the largest, most direct, and important influence. Their ideas, criticisms, and policy suggestions go out to the general public through a wide array of avenues, including pamphlets, books, local discussion groups, mass media, endless internet sites and echo chamber blogs as well as the public relations departments of major corporations. The foundations, think tanks, and policy-discussion organizations function as a "policy-planning network."

Tax-free foundations receive their money from wealthy families and corporations. Their primary purpose is to provide money for education, research, and policy discussion. They have the power to encourage those ideas and researchers they find compatible with their personal goals, and to withhold funds from others. Support by major foundations often has had a significant impact on the direction of research in agriculture, social science, and the health sciences. However, foundations also create policy projects on their own. The role of the think tanks is to suggest new policies to deal with the problems facing the economy and government. They do so using money from wealthy donors, corporations, and foundations, think tanks hire the experts groomed by the graduate departments of  particular elite universities. These policy-discussion organizations are the hub of the policy-planning network. They bring together wealthy individuals, corporate executives, experts, and government officials for lectures, forums, meetings, and group discussions of issues that range from the local to the international, and from the economic to the political to the cultural. New ideas are tried out in weekly or monthly discussion groups, and differences of opinion are aired and compromised. These structured discussion groups usually begin with a presentation by the invited experts, followed by questions and discussion involving all participants. Such discussion groups may range in size from ten to 50, with the usual group having fifteen to 25 members.
The many discussion groups that take place within the several policy-discussion organizations have several functions that do not readily meet the eye. First, these organizations help to familiarize  corporate leaders with policy options outside the view of their day-to-day business concerns. This gives these executives the ability to influence public opinion through the mass media and other outlets, to argue with and influence experts, and to accept appointments for government service. Second, the policy-discussion organizations give members of the upper class and corporate community the opportunity to see which of their colleagues become the best natural leaders through watching them in the give and take of the discussion groups. They can see which of their counterparts understand the issues quickly, offer their own ideas, facilitate discussions, and relate well to experts. The organizations thus serve as sorting and screening mechanisms for the emergence of new leadership for the corporate rich in general.
Third, these organizations disseminate their participants to the media and public as knowledgeable experts or leaders who deserve to be tapped for public service because they have used their free time to acquaint themselves with the issues in nonpartisan forums. The organizations thereby help make wealthy individuals and corporate executives into "national leaders" and "statesmen." Finally, these organizations provide a forum wherein members of the upper class and corporate community can come to know policy experts. This gives them a pool of people from which they can draw advisors if they are asked to serve in government. It also gives them a basis for recommending experts to politicians for government service.
The organizations also serve obvious functions for the experts. First, presenting their ideas and policies to these organizations gives them an opportunity to have influence. Second, it gives them a chance to advance their own careers if they can impress the upper-class and corporate participants.

The policy-planning network is not totally homogeneous. There are basically two ideologies represented. There are moderate-conservative and ultra-conservative wings within it. Moderate conservatives may favor foreign aid, low tariffs, and increased economic expansion overseas, whereas the ultra-conservatives tend to see foreign aid as a giveaway. Moderate conservatives tend to accept the idea that governmental taxation and spending policies can be used to stimulate and stabilize the economy, but ultra-conservatives insist that taxes should be cut to the very minimum and that government spending is the devil. Moderate conservatives accept some welfare-state measures, or at least they support such measures in the face of serious social disruption. Where ultra-conservatives have consistently opposed any welfare spending, claiming that it destroys moral fiber and saps individual initiative, so they prefer to use arrest and detention when faced with social unrest.
The reasons for these differences are not well understood. There is a tendency for the moderate-conservative organizations to be directed by executives from the very largest and most internationally oriented of corporations, but there are numerous exceptions to that generalization. Moreover, there are corporations that support policy organizations within both camps. However, for all their differences, leaders within the two clusters of policy organizations have a tendency to search for compromise due to their common membership in the upper-class and corporate community. When compromise is not possible, the final resolution of policy conflicts often takes place in legislative struggles in Congress.
The existence of the policy-planning network provides evidence for yet another form of power possessed by the wealthy few: expertise on social and political issues. It is an important complement to the naked economic power possessed by the corporations. One that plays a larger role in directing and forming public opinion as time goes on.

The Power Elite
Now that the upper class, corporate community, and policy-planning network have been defined and described, it is possible to discuss the the "power elite."The power elite is the leadership group of the upper class. It consists of active-working members of the upper class and high-level employees in profit and nonprofit institutions controlled by members of the upper class through stock ownership, financial support, or involvement on the board of directors. This does not mean that all members of the upper class are involved in governing. Some are only playboys and socialites; their social gatherings may provide a setting where members of the power elite mingle with celebrities, and sometimes they give money to political candidates, but that is about as close as they come to political power.
Conversely, not all those involved in the power elite are members of the upper class. They are sons and daughters of the middle class, and occasionally, the blue-collar working class, who do well at any one of several hundred private and state universities, and then go to grad school, MBA school, or law school at one of a handful of elite universities -- e.g., Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, MIT, Johns Hopkins, University of Chicago, and Stanford. From there they go to work for a major corporation, law firms, foundations, think tanks, or universities, and slowly work their way into the 'elite' group.
The idea of the power elite intertwines class theory and organizational theory, two theories which are often thought of as distinctive or even as rivals. The basis for the intertwining of the two theories is to be found in the role and composition of the boards of directors that govern every large profit and nonprofit organization in the United States. It is on boards of directors that the values and goals of the upper class are integrated with those of the organizational hierarchy. Upper-class directors insure that their interests are infused into the organizations they control, but the day-to-day organizational leaders on the board are able to harmonize class interests with organizational principles.
It is important to stress that not all experts are members of the power elite. People have to be high-level employees in institutions controlled by members of the upper class to be considered part of that realm. Receiving a fellowship from a foundation, spending a year at a think tank, or giving advice to a policy-discussion organization does not make a person a member of the power elite. It also may be useful to note that there are many experts who never go near the policy-planning network. They focus on their teaching and research, or work for groups that oppose the policies of the power elite.

Direct Control Of Government
Members of the power elite directly involve themselves in the federal government through three basic processes, each of which has a slightly different role in ensuring "access" to the White House, Congress, and specific agencies, departments, and committees in the executive branch. Although some of the same people are involved in all three processes, most leaders specialize in one or two of the three processes. These three processes are:

1. The special-interest process, through which specific families, corporations, and industrial sectors are able to realize their narrow and short-run interests on taxes, subsidies, and regulation in their dealings with congressional committees, regulatory bodies, and executive departments;
2. The policy-making process, through which the policies developed in the policy-planning network described earlier are brought to the White House and Congress;
3. The candidate selection process, through which members of the power elite influence electoral campaigns by means of campaign donations to political candidates.

Power elite domination of the federal government can be seen most directly in the workings of the corporate lobbyists, backroom super-lawyers, and industry-wide trade associations that represent the interests of specific corporations or business sectors. This special-interest process is based in varying combinations of information, gifts, insider dealing, friendship, and, not least, promises of lucrative private jobs in the future for compliant government officials. This is the aspect of business-government relations described by journalists and social scientists in their case studies. While these studies show that the special interests usually get their way, the conflict that sometimes erupts within this process, occasionally pitting one corporate sector against another, reinforces the image of widely shared and fragmented power in America, including the image of a divided corporate community. Moreover, there are some defeats suffered by the corporate rich in the special-interest process. For example, laws that improved auto safety standards were passed over automobile industry objections in the 1970s, as were standards of water cleanliness opposed by the paper and chemical industries.
Policies of concern to the corporate community as a whole are not the province of the special-interest process. Instead, such policies come from the network of foundations, think tanks, and policy-discussion organizations. The plans developed in the organizations of the policy-planning network reach the federal government in a variety of ways. On the most general level, their reports, news releases, and interviews are read by elected officials and their staffs, either in pamphlet form or in summary articles in the Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal. Members of the policy-planning network also testify before congressional committees and subcommittees that are writing legislation or preparing budget proposals. More directly, leaders from these organizations are regular members of the dozens of little-known committees that advise specific departments of the executive branch on general policies, making them in effect unpaid un-elected temporary members of the government. They are also very prominent on the extremely important presidential commissions that are appointed to make recommendations on a wide range of issues from foreign policy to highway construction. They also serve on the little-known federal advisory committees that are part of just about every department of the executive branch.
Finally, and crucially, they are appointed to government positions with a frequency far beyond what would be expected by chance. Several different studies show that top cabinet positions in both Republican and Democratic administrations are held by members of the upper class and corporate executives who are leaders in policy-discussion organizations.

The general picture that emerges from the findings on the over-representation of members of the power elite in appointed governmental positions is that the highest levels of the executive branch are interlocked constantly with the upper class and corporate community through the movement of executives and lawyers in and out of government. Although the same person is not in governmental and corporate positions at the same time, there is enough continuity for the relationship to be described as one of "revolving interlocks." Corporate leaders resign their numerous directorships in profit and nonprofit organizations to serve in government for two or three years, then return to the corporate community or policy-planning network. This system gives them temporary independence from the narrow concerns of their own organizations and allows them to perform the more general roles they have learned in the policy-discussion groups. They then return to the private sector with useful personal contacts and information.
As important as the special-interest and policy-planning processes are for the power elite, they could not operate successfully if there were not sympathetic, business-oriented elected officials in government. That leads us to the third process through which members of the power elite dominate the federal government, the candidate-selection process. It operates through the two major political parties. For reasons to be discussed in a moment, the two parties have very little role in political education or policy formation; they are reduced to the function of filling offices. That is why the American political system can be characterized as a "candidate-selection process."
The main reason the political system focuses on candidate selection to the relative exclusion of political education and policy formulation is that there can be only two main parties due to the structure of the government and the nature of the electoral rules. The fact that Americans select a president instead of a parliament, and elect legislators from "single-member" geographical areas (states for the Senate, districts for the House) leads to a two-party system because in these "winner-take-all" elections a vote for a third party is a vote for the person's least desired choice. A vote for a very liberal party instead of the Democrats, for example, actually helps the Republicans. Under these rules, the most sensible strategy for both the Democrats and Republicans is to blur their policy differences in order to compete for the voters with middle-of-the-road policy views, or no policy views at all.
Contrary to what many believe, then, American political parties are not very responsive to voter preferences. Their candidates are fairly free to say one thing to get elected and to do another once in office. This contributes to confusion and apathy in the electorate. It leads to campaigns where there are no "issues" except "images" and "personalities" even when polls show that voters are extremely concerned about certain policy issues.
It is precisely because the candidate-selection process is so personalized, and therefore dependent on name recognition, images, and emotional symbolism, that it can be in good part dominated by members of the power elite through the relatively simple and direct means of large campaign contributions. Playing the role of donors and money raisers, the same people who direct corporations and take part in the policy-planning network have a crucial place in the careers of most politicians who advance beyond the local level or state legislatures. Their support is especially important in party primaries, where money is an even larger factor than in general elections.
The two-party system therefore results in elected officials who are relatively issueless and willing to go along with the policies advocated by those members of the power elite who work in the special-interest and policy-planning processes. They are motivated by personal ambition far more than they are by political conviction. Still, there are some extremely conservative elected Republicans who often oppose power elite proposals, claiming that such policies are the work of secret communists or pointy-headed intellectuals out to wreck the "free enterprise" system. There also are many Democrats from blue-collar and university districts who consistently oppose power elite policies as members of the liberal-labor coalition. However, both the ultra-conservatives and the liberals are outnumbered by the "moderates" of both parties, especially in key leadership positions in Congress. After many years in Congress the elected liberals decide to "go along to get along." "This place has a way of grinding you down," explained Abner  Mikva  a former liberal Congressman of the early 1970s in a classic summary of what happens.

Although members of the power elite are far and away the most important financial backers for both parties, this does not mean that there are no differences between the two parties. The leadership levels have intra-class differences, and the supporters tend to have inter-class differences. The Republican Party is controlled by the wealthiest families of the upper class and corporate community, who are largely Protestant in background. The Democratic Party, on the other hand, is the party of the "fringes" of the upper class and power elite. Although often called "the party of the common person," it was in fact the party of the Southern segment of the upper class until civil rights issues chased them away. The power of the Southern Democrats in the party and in Congress was secured in a variety of ways, the most important of which was the seniority system for selecting committee chairs in Congress. (By tradition, the person who has been on the committee longest just about automatically becomes the chair; this avoids conflict among members of the party.) However, the underlying point is that the one-party system in the South and the exclusion of African-Americans from the voting booth until the mid-1960s gave the Southern planters and merchants power at the national level through the Democratic Party out of all proportion to their wealth and numbers. Thus, it is not necessarily the wealthiest people who rule. The nature of the political system also enters into the equation. But the Southern elites are not poor; they are only less rich than many of their Northern counterparts. The Southerners dominated the Democratic Party in alliance with the "ethnic rich" in the North, meaning essentially wealthy Jews and Catholics who were shunned or mistreated by the rich Protestants in the Republican party. The businesses they owned were often local or smaller than those of the Republican backers, and they usually were excluded from the social institutions of the upper class. These ethnic rich were the primary financial supporters of the infamous "political machines" that dominated Democratic politics in most large northern cities.
The alliance between the Southern segment of the upper class and the Northern ethnic rich usually was able to freeze out the policy initiatives of the party's liberal-labor coalition through its control of congressional committees, although there was a time (1940 to 1975) when labor unions had significant influence on the Democrats. When that alliance broke down because the machine Democrats sided with the liberals and labor, then the Southern Democrats joined with Northern Republicans to create the "conservative coalition," AKA "the conservative voting bloc," wherein a majority of Southern Democrats and a majority of Northern Republicans voted together against the Northern Democrats. This conservative coalition most often formed around the issues that reflect class conflict in the legislative arena -- civil rights, union rights, social welfare, and business regulation. Legislation on any of these issues weakens employers in the face of workers and their unions, so it is not surprising that the conservative coalition is based on the shared interests of Northern and Southern employers. This alliance won far more often than it lost in the years between 1937, when it was formed, and the 1990s, when it disappeared for the simple reason that many of the Southerners had become Republicans.
Once the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was in effect, the Democratic Party was slowly changed because African-Americans in the South were able to vote against the worst racists in the party primaries. The gradual industrialization also was causing changes. As a result of these two forces, Southern whites started to move into the Republican Party, which thus became the party of wealthy employers in both the North and South. In that context, the Democratic Party is slowly becoming what many always thought it to be, the party of liberals, minorities, workers, and the poor.
In summary, the special-interest process, policy-planning process, and campaign finance make it possible for the power elite to win far more often than it loses on the policy issues that come before the federal government. The power elite is also greatly over-represented in appointed positions, presidential blue-ribbon commissions, and advisory committees within the government. In terms of both the "who wins" and "who governs" power indicators, the power elite dominates the federal government.

However, this domination does not mean control on each and every issue, or lack of opposition, and it does not rest upon government involvement alone. Involvement in government is only the final and most visible aspect of power elite domination, which has its roots in the class structure, the nature of the economy, and the functioning of the policy-planning network. If government officials did not have to wait on corporate leaders to decide where and when they will invest, and if government officials were not further limited by the acceptance of the current economic arrangements, then power elite involvement in elections and government would count for a lot less than it does under present conditions.
There are many democratic countries where the working class -- defined as all those white-collar and blue-collar workers who earn a salary or a wage -- has more power than it does in the United States. This power is achieved primarily through labor unions and political parties. It is reflected in more egalitarian wealth and income distributions, a more equitable tax structure, better public health services, subsidized housing, and higher old-age and unemployment benefits.
How is it possible that the American working class could be relatively powerless in a country that prides itself on its long-standing history of pluralism and elections? There are several interacting historical factors. First, the "primary producers" in the United States, those who work with their hands in factories and fields, were more seriously divided among themselves until the 1930s than in most other countries. The deepest and most important of these divisions was between whites and African-Americans. In the beginning, of course, the African-Americans had no social power because of their enslavement, which meant that there was no way to organize workers in the South. But even after African-Americans gained their freedom, prejudices in the white working class kept the two groups apart.
This black/white split in the working class was reinforced by later conflicts between craft workers -- also called "skilled" workers -- and industrial workers -- also called mass-production or "unskilled" workers. Craft workers usually tried to keep their wages high by excluding industrial workers. Their sense of superiority as skilled workers was reinforced by the fact that they were of Northern European, Protestant origins and the industrial workers tended to be Catholics and Jews from Eastern and Southern Europe. Some African-Americans were also found in the ranks of the industrial workers, along with other racial minorities.
It would have been difficult enough to overcome these divisions even if workers had been able to develop their own political party, but they were unable to develop such a party because the electoral system greatly disadvantages third parties. Workers were stuck. They had no place to go but the Republicans or Democrats. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the craft workers often supported the Democrats, while the recent immigrant industrial workers tended to support the Republicans. Even when craft and industrial workers moved into the Democratic Party en masse in the 1930s, they couldn't control the party because of the power of the wealthy Southern planters and merchants.
Nor did the workers have much luck organizing themselves through unions. The employers were able to call upon the government to crush organizing drives and strikes through both court injunctions and police arrests. This was not only because employers had great influence with politicians then, just as they do now, but because the American tradition of law, based in laissez faire (free market) liberalism, was so fiercely opposed to any "restraint of trade" or "interference" with private property. It was not until the 1930s that the liberal-labor coalition was able to pass legislation guaranteeing workers the right to join unions and engage in collective bargaining. Even this advance was only possible by excluding the Southern workforce -- i.e., agricultural and seasonal labor -- from the purview of the legislation.
Industrial unions were defeated almost completely in the South and Southwest.
Unions thrived in a few major industries in the North in the years after World War II, but then their power was eroded beginning in the 1970s as the big corporations moved their factories to other countries or lost market share to European and Japanese companies culminating with the absolute all out war on American laborers since the 1990s.  Given this history of internal division, political frustration, and union defeat,  American workers continue to accept the highly individualistic ideology that has characterized the United States since its founding. This acceptance in turn makes it even more difficult to organize workers around "bread-and-butter" issues. They often vote instead on the basis of bait traps...social issues or religious convictions, with those who are deeply religious, opposed to affirmative action, or opposed to gun control voting for the avowedly anti-union anti-worker Republican Party.

We must not confuse freedom with social power.
Between 1962 and the 1990s there was a great expansion in individual rights due to the civil rights, feminist, and lesbian-gay movements, but during that time the ratio of a top business executive's pay to a factory worker's pay increased from 41 to 1 to about 300 to 1. American workers can say what they want and do what they want within very broad limits, and their children can study hard in school so they can go to graduate school and join the well-off professional class as doctors, lawyers, architects, or engineers, but when it comes to social power the vast majority of Americans have very little of it and have no real path to becoming a part of the power elite. The economic division has only gotten far worse since the 1990s.

So who benefits? Who sits? Who wins?
All the indicators point to only one conclusion.
You know the answer.
It isn't you.

So Why Are The Rich And The Businessmen Moaning?
Despite these various kinds of objective evidence that the power elite have nearly absolute power in relation to the federal government, we witness many corporate leaders claiming that they are relatively powerless in the face of government. To hear them tell it, Congress is more responsive to organized labor, environmentalists, and consumers. They also claim to be harassed by willful and arrogant bureaucrats. These negative feelings toward government are not a new development, contrary to those who blame the New Deal and the social programs of the 1960s. A study of businessmen's views in the 19th century found that they believed political leaders to be "stupid" and "empty" people who went into politics only to earn a living, and a study of businessmen's views during what are thought of as their most powerful decade, the 1920s, found the exact same mistrust of government.

The emotional expressions of business leaders about their lack of power cannot be taken seriously as a power indicator
 This is little more than childish emotional outburst...entirely based on their feelings and not in any tangible reality. It may be a psychological uneasiness with power. Feelings are one thing, the effects of one's actions another. But it is difficult to try to understand why businessmen complain about a government they completely dominate.
  I imagine complaining about government is a useful political strategy.
It puts government officials on the defensive and forces them to keep proving that they are friendly to business. Also, businessmen complain about government because in fact very few civil servants are part of the upper class and corporate community. The anti-government ideology in the United States tends to restrain members of the upper class from government careers except in the State Department, meaning that the main contacts for members of the power elite within government are at the very top. There is uncertainty and mistrust about how the middle levels will react to new situations, and therefore a feeling that there is a necessity to "ride herd" on or "reign in" the potentially troublesome "bureaucrats" who are not necessarily in their pocket.
There also seems to be an ideological level to the business leaders' attitudes toward government. There is a fear of the populist, democratic ideology that underlies American government. Since power is (in theory only) in the hands of all the people, there always is the possibility that someday "the people," in the sense of the majority, will make the government into the reflection of pluralist democracy that it is actually supposed to be. In a very real way the great power of the upper class and corporate community are culturally illegitimate, and the existence of their power is always vigorously denied. It is okay to be rich, and even to brag about wealth a little bit, but to flaunt that power becomes problematic, and they sense that. It's a sort of masquerade, maybe even one that due to limited experience with the reality 99% of people have to deal with, they actually believe is so.
Finally, the expressions of anguish from individual corporate leaders concerning their powerlessness also suggests an explanation in terms of the intersection of social psychology and sociology. It is the upper class and corporate community that have power, not individuals  within that community. Apart from their institutional context psychologically they feel powerless.
As individuals, they feel hurt that they are not always listened to, and that they have to convince their peers of the reasonableness of their arguments before any actions are taken.
Moreover, policy that is adopted is a group decision, and it is sometimes hard for people to identify with group actions to the point where they feel personally powerful. It is not surprising then, that specific individuals might actually feel powerless within the context of this monied and powerful group which is the only experience they have.

Consider for a moment the absurdity of the powerful & privileged Donald Trump representing a revolt against the privileged and powerful. He champions 'populist' causes such as complaining about the bad trade deals made, yet if you look at what little specifics he offers, his "deals" are no more beneficial domestically to workers. They favor the same people who benefited from the original deals & his record of manufacturing his namesake goods is the same as the people he demonizes on the campaign trail. He claims to represent the "common" people's interest in "helping" the middle class.
Yet his economic proposals only give even more tax cuts to the wealthiest such as himself...many of whom (Trump included) don't pay federal taxes at all thanks to their ability to write the tax codes in their favor through their power structure. I have no idea personally why Trump is doing this, other than I imagine his ego is just so big he feels he needs a crown to wear. Maybe, in terms of the power structure allowing this absurd charade, it's a way to control the anger of the electorate. Certainly something similar occurred with the "Tea Party". Media and folks like the Koch brothers, guided and financed that "rebellion" which used frustrated angry voters to put candidates friendly to Koch industry wants in government. One thing I can tell you is that any political operative who inherited a fortune, who owns 600,000 dollar portraits of themselves (which they charged to an alleged "charity") and sits on gold chairs and toilets has no understanding of what could possibly improve the lot of a working family and little or no interest in doing so. With all the evidence presented here that the power is in the hands of such people, why on earth would they want to be the "face" of it and in what universe would they fight against themselves?
Why would they want even more power?
Well that's another discussion.
The Nature Of Greed.


Postlogue

"Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle." - Noam Chomsky

Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/n/noamchomsk635835.html

Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/n/noamchomsk635835.html

Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/n/noamchomsk635835.html

Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/n/noamchomsk635835.html

More Than Economics
GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s ego may be larger than the size of his real estate empire, but that doesn’t mean he leads a happy satisfying life...or enjoys mental health. Indeed the extreme wealth inequity the US system has produced also tends to produce psychopathologies.
  On the other hand, the self-esteem of people who are living from paycheck to paycheck, or become  unemployed tends to erode as well. Research from UC Berkeley has revealed this mind-wallet connection. The Study finds self-worth plays a key role in the development of mental disorders. Researchers concluded that one’s perceived social status or the lack thereof; is at the heart of a wide range of mental illnesses. Researchers have linked inflated or deflated feelings of self-worth to such afflictions as bipolar disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, anxiety and depression, providing yet more evidence that the chasm of ever widening distance between rich and poor is also bad for your health.

Moreover, the richest of the rich think differently than the rest of us, see themselves differently than the rest of us see them, and inhabit an alternate reality exclusive to themselves.  In other words, they function very much like any 16th century European aristocracy.  Oh yeah, and they're deeply paranoid.

Extreme inequality, it turns out, creates a class of people who are alarmingly detached from reality — and simultaneously gives these people great power.


Today’s Masters of the Power Universe are insecure about the nature of their success. We’re not talking captains of industry here in modern times folks, not men who make stuff.
We are, instead, talking about wheeler-dealers, men who push money around and get rich by skimming off the top as it sloshes by.
They boast that they are job creators, the people who make the economy work.
But that is a blatant lie. Many of us know it — and so, I suspect, do some of the wealthy themselves, as a form of self-doubt causes them to lash out even more furiously at their critics.
Unlike the robber barons of the past age, the endeavors of these people simply DO NOT really add any value whatsoever to the economy.

 

References

Kendall, D. (2002). The power of good deeds: Privileged women and the social reproduction of class. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Wrong, D. (1995). Power: Its Forms, Bases, and Uses (2nd ed.). New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
The Myth of Liberal Ascendancy: Corporate Dominance from the Great Depression to the Great Recession

by G. Williams Domhoff

Labor Day's Long Journey Into Night

Happy Labor Day!
Yes today in the US, we honor labor, and all the accomplishments and improvements to the standard of living organized labor wrought.
Oh...wait a minute. As I ponder what THIS labor day means, this year,
in this Orwellian Black Mirrored construction of a society,
in this monetized scalable time space continuum...
I see Labor Day online specials at Walmart “celebrate hard work with big savings!”
For the old fashioned brick-and-mortar shoppers several Walmart stores are open all 24 hours of Labor Day with low low prices. (You may recall this company is so famously anti-union that it shut down Canadian stores rather than allow the Canadian workers to have their union.)
The fact that Walmart “celebrates” Labor Day should elicit guffaws, belly laughs, derision, nausea, or at bare minimum an overt eye-roll. Yet somehow this does not happen, at least not among many.          Somewhere along the line, the meaning of Labor Day has been assimilated.

   Today the holiday stands for little more than the end of summer, the start of school, weekend-long sales on useless crap you don't need - ironically built in slave labor Meccas...
maybe a barbecue or parade.

The meaning of labor day was once of course conspicuously political. Yet today the politicians and commentators avoid any mention of organized labor when observing the holiday. Instead they may be compelled to give some obligatory abstract nod to that now defunct mythical cartoon entity, “the American Worker.” On Labor day you see, Labor isn't exactly celebrated...though a single day's break from labor is.  Now, that may seem to be a bit odd of a distinction to point out, or expect you to be concerned about. I mean Labor Day is really just about getting drunk in your yard, again. But that's precisely evidence of a very successful snowjob pulled on you, the American worker (or unemployed person, or underemployed worker, discouraged worker, or "grad student").
You probably don't even believe in a Labor Day any more than a Santa Claus.

The United States, as you've undoubtedly been told by sycophants and agents of our dark corporate overlords; is a very "special" country. Yes..."American Exceptionalism"...right.  Wasn't that a catch phrase a few years ago?  (A buzz-phrase of the now forgotten disgraced "neocons" who claimed that The U.S. was the only superpower left and should use that superpower to get rid of the world's opponents of American style vulture capitalism.)
Some allusion to a bizarre notion of our DNA somehow becoming divine and different from the rest of humanity? While I would not contest that societies do in fact all have some unique character culled from it's history or experiences; I don't think this is to be construed as having divine rights to dominate, manipulate, or dictate - which is generally what that phrase was designed to infer.

SO IS THE USA SPECIAL?
All nations are special in some way.
Actually as I recall the word "special" was used to politely describe the learning disabled back when I was in school. One example of this alleged " exceptionalism", or public relations designed superiority, is that we managed to actually deport the global workers holiday called May Day. 

Now this my friends... this was especially skillful,
because you see May Day began not in Russia, France, or Finland or Middle Earth, but in Chicago, ironically a major American city that was built specifically to exploit the labor of poor immigrants.
Yes, it was on May 4 of 1886, police opened fire on laborers who were demanding an eight-hour workday. They had been sent by their bosses at the slaughterhouses and City Hall to break up the rally and smash skulls of the workers. The chance to open fire on the workers conveniently arrived when a crude bomb was tossed in the direction of the police by persons unknown; eight of the usual local suspects were rounded up and convicted—four of them were made examples of,  slowly strangled in an intentionally botched public hanging, while a fifth condemned man blew off a significant portion of his own head by chewing on a blasting cap he'd smuggled into prison.
The phony trial had provided high octane fuel to the new global labor movement, and it inspired the creation of International Workers' Day on May Day of 1889.  Oh don't get me wrong, the leaders of other nations would've  killed off May Day as well if they could, but because it quickly had become entwined in the old pagan spring celebrations they just couldn't do it. Traditional pagan celebrations now included cheery mobs of laborers singing the ancient songs about smashing the systems created by oppressors and sawing off the head of some screaming king. It was far too appreciated by the celebrants who after dancing around the maypole and drinking everything in reach, tore off their folk costumes and paired off for the rites of spring like wood sprites in the forest.
Though it seems every now and then, these revelers would actually launch a real revolution, which is how we got the Soviet Union and leftists and all that sort of thing. 
Anyway, back in the U.S. shrewd U.S. holiday planners within the federal government were told by the  bankers and industrialists to find a way to get rid of this phenomenon.
They had watched with great interest as the Catholic Church tried (but failed) to steal May Day from workers by renaming it Saint Joseph's Day— ah yes...the mythological Joseph, the cuckold in the tale of Mary's supernatural pregnancy,  the patron saint of going along with the system that destroyed you and made you utterly dead inside. No small coincidence!
This sort of thing had worked well with other pagan holidays...after being unsuccessful with banning them, they learned to simply assimilate them and attempt to make them about something else.
  But for schemers back in Washington, the answer was to have a different kind of May Day—one that was more about sitting in the yard getting drunk, rather than storming the Bastille or seizing the means of production.




After U.S. marshals and soldiers slaughtered the railroad workers during the 1894 Pullman Strike, the federal government quickly whipped up a national workers' holiday. This "Labor Day," the first Monday in September, was preferable to the May Day agitations that called for worldwide revolt. The American authorities furthermore re-named May Day as "Law and Order Day," a daft but effective bit of Orwellian type propaganda that sucked the breath of life out of the stateside celebrations of May 1.
Consider that the commemoration of the Haymarket Massacre, on May 4, is now a fake Disneyesque holiday—May the Fourth Be With You  which celebrates the immense financial success of Star Wars products. Bah.



Labor Day worked out during the mid-20th century era of a prosperous middle class, a less desperate working class, and a fully marginalized poor.
But as a job that paid fair wages or included decent benefits went from normality to a rare prize won in a droll lottery by the fortunate, the hard-won eight-hour workday has become a morose sort of abstract mockery.
Now you see, at minimum, one of every three workers is in a "contingent workforce"—the exact number is hidden, because "the Labor Department does not regularly collect data about this group."(the last figures are from 2006)  It has surely grown exponentially since then.
Who are these folks?  Who are these "contingent workers"?
They're " temps", "contract workers", "seasonal workers", and warehouse laborers filling boxes for Amazon.
They're workers in service, retail, food production and dead-end office jobs.
They are stocking shelves, killing meat animals in a factory,  telemarketing, entering data, cleaning bathrooms, working security, etc. and they're  intentionally kept from working full work weeks, because only then would they be entitled to the benefits and legal protections reluctantly granted to full-time employees that organized labor had fought so hard for.

So ironically this year since Labor Day is one of the major retail sales weekends,
(along with the ominous Black Friday of the Walmart riots) with low-end retail being a round-the-clock operation,  the holiday will be celebrated by the 70 percent of retail workers kept as part-timers laboring away for oppressors as just another day of labor.
For the nation's worst-paid not-quite-employees, there is no holiday.

Retail, along with "customer service representatives" and "fast food preparation," is one of the top five "largest job growth" occupations, according to the Labor Department.
But don't even count on being able to have even one of these horrible jobs,
because even these are going away.
The burger-flipping robot and the self-service checkout computer are designed to kill off even the crappy jobs.

Perhaps the worst part of Labor Day, if you dare to think about it is that on the path we are on, essentially all jobs will be eliminated and probably in your lifetime.

The destruction of the labor movement has been remarkably successful, and three decades of aggressive anti-union propaganda has made the few remaining trade unions with their pensions and vacations seem decadent and greedy to people struggling with a shift at Booger King followed by a shift at the Malwart, forced to abandon children and/or elderly parents to be raised or cared for with whatever member of their casual family is without paid work of any kind.

Do you think you are safe because you've got a law degree?
Or work for an accounting firm?  Or manage some department?
You are not. 
There will be a management massacre to get rid of deadbeat white-collar workers just as there was a massacre of the blue collar workers.
You'll be told "those jobs will never return" as if labor policy were a force of nature like the tides rather than a man made construction.
Everything that anyone does can be done more cheaply by someone else somewhere.
No one is "safe".
When the bottom is finally found, when all production and services cost nearly zilch,
the next step will be to replace human slaves with machine slaves.
No it's not fantasy at all, the price of robots is dropping just as the price of mainframes plummeted 20 years ago with the introduction of cheap PCs.
The fast food industry alone plans to replace more than half it's human 'not quite employees' with automation in the very near future.

The next mass movement, if it ever happens, will not be about increasingly scarce laborers, but about the human race in general. Appeals to nationalism, oxycontin, despair, IQ lowering television programming, alcohol and slob propaganda have all done superb work in keeping the 80 percent of Americans who are financially insecure far too worn down and miserable to realize they've got a common enemy. If they ever should figure this out, there will either be the "class war" that worries rich liberals and rich conservatives alike—or the Pentagon (once charged with defending the citizens,  but now subservient to the dark corporate overlords who have used their wealth to purchase all policy making) will just have to poison the whole country except for Silicon Valley and Manhattan.
Enjoy your barbecue!

Postlude -
Is this the world that must be?
No, it is not.
But it is certainly the world that WILL be if we don't stand together and demand drastic change.
No dystopian vision of the future has come close to miserable truth of this self defeating reality. Greed, absolute, and unmitigated by any sense of ethical behavior, is not an inevitable master of mankind.
The interests of less than 100 individuals who already own most everything ownable in this world have no divine right to also own what little is left, what little is yours.
Politically speaking the ghost of Theodore Roosevelt must be resurrected.
Trust bustin' Teddy must be called upon once again...at least in spirit.
Monopolies are NOT in the public interest.
The idea that Global trade is merely about finding new forms of slavery is not legitimate nor is it inevitable.
A few pen strokes and the jobs that "are never coming back" magically do come back.
We used to protect domestic jobs simply by taxing imports that came from cheap labor countries.
Not only did the corporate overlords tell their servants in government to change that law, but they also told them to give tax breaks to companies who moved their production to China or other slave wage countries. That's right. You have actually picked up the tab for moving your job to China.
Suckers! Chumps! Unbelievable.
This idea that protecting the interests of citizens (protectionism) is somehow bad or impossible is an outright lie.
Global trade is nothing new, it's been going on for many centuries. But it was a matter of common sense that this trade was mutually beneficial. Trade is NOT beneficial (except to a very few) if the people in one nation  lose their jobs simply for very short term profits for a few.
It is not beneficial for the environment in a nation to be raped simply because they naively didn't have laws to protect it. This is not "free trade" and there really is no such beast.  What is needed is FAIR trade. Trade that benefits both nations in the transaction.

There is no inherent need to dismantle the middle class and toss the working people under the nearest bus. It's a desire of the few, who want what little that middle class has.
Unless we demand laws to stop the wholesale purchase of public policy making;
the few, the sociopaths, the insanely and cluelessly greedy will get their way.

 We can, and we must reconstruct ourselves.
We must do so or we will disappear without so much as a whimper.
The long term goal can and must be about human potential, not how much we can get for the chemicals left when we reduce the remains of human beings.
Labor Day began not as a national holiday but in the streets on September 5, 1882.
Thousands of bricklayers, printers, blacksmiths, railroad men, cigar makers, and others took a day off and marched in New York City. They carried signs that read “Eight Hours for Work, Eight Hours for Rest, Eight Hours for What We Will”,  “Labor creates all wealth,” & “We Must Crush the Monopolies Lest They Crush Us.” 
The underlying dynamics have not changed much. 

As for this year's labor day...
This weekend you could hardly be blamed for going to Walmart for the latest feather-light flatscreen television from China or Mexico. You may legitimately be dazzled by the low prices and pixel counts. But far better, go to a Costco, where workers make about twice the Walmart wage, and don’t have to rely on federal benefits like food stamps and Medicaid (which, according to Americans for Tax Fairness, cost taxpayers $6.2 billion a year...a corporate subsidy for Walmart).
In addition, Costco lets its workers unionize while Walmart instructs managers to report any union activity or grumblings about wages to the company’s “Labor Relations Hotline.”
But all of you Holiday shoppers will have to wait until Tuesday, though... because Costco is closed on Labor Day. Its workers will be at the family barbecue or the parade, celebrating a national holiday...where they should be!

The Age Of Anxiety

Ah yes, the Age of Anxiety! The times in which modern Fascism and Totalitarianism made their melodramatic debut on the historical stage (and their refusal to go away...as they merely transform and masquerade as something less identifiable or less unpalatable). The age of the Atom, the Age of Information, the Age of World Wars...the Age of Grotesque Materialism, Unmitigated Greed, Institutionalized Racketeering, Glorified Moral Bankruptcy and Wholesale Looting of Nations.
Does this sketch of the world you find yourself in ring true? If so, or even if not; perhaps you disagree and think everything is coming up roses...still read on. We are here and it is now...this much is indisputable and may be the only thing one can actually fully know. But how did we get here, to this lamentable yet reversible condition? Why can we not purge ourselves of the self defeating delusions and and failed ruinous notions of the past?



Before actually looking at the times we exist in, it's important to understand a few facts about the history of mankind leading up to our Age Of Anxiety. No matter how far back you look, human history is the story of one group of people or another attempting to set themselves up as superior to others and come up with a plethora of bogus reasons why they should dominate the others. Whether it's the "divine right" of Pharaohs in ancient Egypt, self-regarding thuggery of ancient Romans, the glorified warlords of medieval and absolutist Europe, or assorted Shahs, Caliphs, Sultans, Imams, Popes, Spurious Holy This or That Alliances, Tzars, Robber Barons, or other types of Grand Poohbahs; it's all the same in the end as in nearly every urbanized society throughout human history some group of people have tried to constitute themselves as an aristocracy. These people, their allies, sycophants, and apologists have been the scourge of humanity since time immemorial. The 20th and 21st centuries however have provided tools and technology to the would be Pharaoh that dwarf the potential of any previous despotic oligarchical nightmare.


  By the year 1939, liberal democracies in Britain, France, Scandinavia and Switzerland were realities. Unfortunately, elsewhere across the continent, assorted dictators  had also imposed their ugly mugs into the picture (Photo Bombed the process so to speak). Dictatorship seemed to be the wave of the future. Many people were resigned to accept this,while others were looking for ways to 'get in on it'. It also seemed to be the wave of the present. After all, didn't Mussolini proclaim that this century would be a century of the right? Of Fascism?



This is what disturbed such writers as Arthur Koestler (1905-1983), Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884-1937), Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), Karel Capek (1890-1938) and George Orwell (1903-1950). This was an antephialtic world in which human dignity, individuality, and the innate value of a human being was trampled under by the might of  totalitarianism. These early modern totalitarian states rejected liberal values of human dignity and fairness. They exercised total control over all aspects of the lives of subjects. Totalitarianism in these states became a new religion...a system of  required beliefs...a political religion for the Age of Anxiety.


   It goes without saying that the governments of Europe had been conservative and anti-democratic throughout their long histories. The leaders, whether monarchs or autocrats WERE the government, and by their very nature, prevented any incidence of social or political change that might endanger the existing social order that they benefited from. There have been enlightened monarchs, but few so enlightened as to have removed themselves from the sinews of power. Before the 19th century these monarchs all legitimized their rule by recourse to the divine right theory of kingship, an idea which  appeared in Europe during medieval times. In France, you may recall;  this was the case until the late 18th century when French revolutionaries decided to end the Bourbon 'divine' claim to the throne by cutting off the head of Louis XVI. Of course, France ended up with Napoleon who ironically also claimed the divine right of kingship. The difference was merely that this divine right emanated from Napoleon himself. One might say "the same shit, different shitter". And one would be correct. After all, the would be Pharaoh will simply rule by whatever mechanism of ascension to a throne is available. It could be divine, military, or economic...it could be using the political rhetoric of the left or right,  it doesn't matter...some people insist on being crowned. Where's my crown? I want my crown!. It's a type of sociopath really, isn't it?

  In contrast to these dictatorships,  a country such as England, on the other hand, underwent twenty years of civil war in the 17th century as well as the Glorious Revolution of 1688 which had produced a constitutional monarchy.

In the 19th century, both the Industrial and French Revolutions created the forces of social change which monarchs, enlightened or not, could not safely ignore. A large middle class had emerged in the 18th century but had lacked political status. Now, in the 19th century, this large class of entrepreneurs, factory owners, civil servants, teachers, lawyers, doctors, merchants and other types of professionals wanted their voices heard by their governments and there were a lot of them. They were largely at least somewhat educated unlike the peasants of previous times who were much easier to frighten, manipulate, and fool into submission. The middle class became a force which had to be reckoned with and governments began to utilize their talents by creating large, but obedient bureaucracies. In this way, government seemed to reflect the interests of all when in actual fact, they represented the interests of the same sociopath assholes it always had. There was however the illusion of democracy and every once in a while a bone was thrown to the middle class to keep them believing in the illusion.  So European governments maintained order by giving the middle classes a stake in the welfare of the nation. Governments also built strong police forces and armies of loyal soldiers to protect itself largely.  Meanwhile of course in reality, the great mass of people, the "swinish multitude," remained completely unrepresented. Radicals were either imprisoned, murdered, or exiled because of their liberal, democratic, socialist, communist or anarchist inclinations. Despite these measures, and there were others as well, traditional authoritarian governments were not completely successful. Their power and their objectives were actually limited.  Why you ask?  Well these governments lacked modern communications and modern transportation. They lacked, in other words, the ability to totally control their subject populations. Not until the twentieth century -- thanks to improved technology -- would this change . In fact, true totalitarian regimes are limited only by the extent to which mass communications have been made a reality. And, of course, with mass communications comes "mass man", and the capability of total  and complete control.



In this latter Age of Anxiety, humanity faces it's greatest challenge as the would be dictators have learned they can't use the older more obvious methods of domination. The modern threat hides behind logos, holding companies, and is difficult to discern. It's obvious that a handful of multinational corporations have seized control of mass communication globally, well frankly every industry. But who actually owns these multinational cartels and monopolies? It's cloaked and difficult to discern but if you follow the tangled web to it's source you find that roughly 85 people own virtually everything. There is no way Orwell could have predicted that there would be larger economic entities than states...but today more than half of the largest 'economies' in the world are not in fact states at all. They are corporate entities that exist only in an abstract manner on paper. "Big Brother" is no political entity at all. States now are openly bought and sold and the corrupt purchase of government is open and in plain sight....it's institutionalized.  It is reversible for the same reason the aristocracies of the past had to relinquish some of their powers. It is reversible if middle class demands change...the poor are powerless and it's by design. But the middle class has power because it potentially might be smart enough to see through the trickery. It may not be demoralized and degraded enough yet to simply go along with the plans of the modern fascists hiding behind these corporate facades because it's easier than objecting. These modern fascists are well aware of this and are doing everything they can now to eliminate this middle class. So there is a time limit on the possibility of change. There is likely a tipping point where if this middle class shrinks in numbers enough they will lose what power they have to refuse this new branded corporate fascism. The salvation of mankind lies in this alone-  Only by analyzing this deception will it become possible to revive democracy. Democracy may be imperfect but of all the possible means of governance and organizing society man has invented, a manageable representative democracy is the only one that attempts in any way to limit obscene concentrations of power. All others promote it in one way or another. Fight the power. But understand where that power lies, that it's concentration is the problem... and above all else don't be conned into enabling these modern cosmetically altered brands of fascism.  To impose its order on society, the modern corporatist must destroy what we non fascists view as civilization. In particular in order to thrive it must destroy conscience, democracy, reason, and language. The goal, in the name of humanity, decency, and survival is to reverse this concentration of power. Don't believe the slogans...no one has the right, divine or through accumulation of wealth to dominate society. It's a crock! It's the big lie. We can end The Age of Anxiety in one of two ways. Either by waking up and refusing to allow this concentration of power just as Dr. Martin Luther King refused to stand by and accept racism, or by rolling over in submission....going out with a whimper. The choice dear reader is yours.