Myth America: Democracy vs. Capitalism
by William H. Boyer
ISBN: 9781891843198
In William Boyer’s book, he attempts to expose the myths thrust upon the American public concerning the nature of traditional capitalism and its effect on democracy. Most of us go through life without ever questioning these myths. “We assume they are a given from our education and experience, but what if major facts have been and are being selectively eliminated from our education and our media, sources from which we assume we are getting credible information?” In Boyes book, he attempts to expose the truths surrounding several key areas of entrenched thought in American society inluding that American capitalism is based primarily upon democratic principles, the concept of stock ownership, the free market system, capitalistic growth, and the fact that war and violence is accepted and used to protect the corporate structure at all costs. He makes the point that American priorities are upside down; for example Economics sits atop America’s top priorities, whereas Ecology should be in that position. Capitalism, as it has come to be defined, has no definition of ethics built into it; profit at all cost is the motto. In no other place is this more true than in the recent financial meltdown on Wall Street. The idea that an ethical capitalism would be less profitable than our current system is a false assumption. "Of the hundred largest economies in the world, 51 are corporations and only 49 are states." This is not the land of the free and the home of the brave we are living in anymore, it is the land of corporation and the home of the controlled.
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When did it happen? How did American democracy become controlled by the economic system set up within it to afford its citizenry a chance for a better life? What exactly constitutes a better life? Is it more goods and services, or is it a healthy planet with functioning ecosystems that can be passed on to future generations so they too may learn how to be good stewards of this planet? Are the two concepts of Ecology and Economics mutually exclusive, or is there a way to combine them in such a way as to protect the planet, increase economic growth, and allow humanity to learn the true definition of ‘progress’?We are coming off of a period of eight long years where the interests of business were put ahead of all other interests; human needs, environmental needs, educational needs, ethical needs, informational needs were all neglected. In their place was thrust the assumption that distortion, deception, omission, and marketing were all the tools necessary in order for business to be able to accomplish their single goal of maximizing profit.
Maximizing profit is not a bad thing in and of itself; money is what we have based our entire global economic system upon and it is far too late to change that concept overnight. Rather, what is the foundation for despicable acts is the notion that it is acceptable to use the tactics of deception to influence collective behavior in order to achieve objectives that only benefit certain sectors of the general public.
Starting with Dick Cheney’s secret meetings with the fossil fuel industry to work out America’s energy policy, and then Reagan’s trickle-down economic theory, and then working ourselves backward, we find that it is ‘we-the-corporations', not ‘we-the-people’ that has been most influential upon our government over the years.
In a letter penned by Abraham Lincoln in 1864 (cited from Global Issues), he stated, “I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed”. Lincoln recognized the fact that corporations were beginning to be afforded rights that individuals in this country and across the world were not. In fact, individuals were able to hide behind from responsibility behind a veil that the establishment of a corporation afforded them.
Even Adam Smith, one of modern American capitalism’s founders saw corporatism as a direct threat to a free market system. “He saw corporations as working to evade the laws of the market, trying to interfere with prices and controlling trade.” No more is this true than in today’s form of lobbyists influencing governmental policy in the form of benefits to business at the expense of the collective citizenry. The power being wielded by global corporations today is almost insurmountable. Look at the behavior of American banks in the past six months for an example of just what the general public is up against: ‘Give us trillions of dollars, or we will collapse the entire global economy; we know that we are in the position we have found ourselves because of our own failure to adhere to any ethical standards, but we also know the incredible power that we wield. Show us the money, or else…’
This is the beast that we have passively permitted to be created. The American public likes its technical gadgetry, it likes its entertainment, it likes the creature comforts it is afforded, and so, corporations have been permitted to increase their control over global governance structures and institute their will against the general interests of the public, namely clean air, water, and soil, as well as health, education, and representational government; and to use the media to enforce that agenda.
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, intended to secure the rights of former slaves, was used in a Supreme Court ruling in 1886 to “rule that a private corporation is a natural person under the U.S. Constitution, and consequently has the same rights and protection extended to persons by the Bill of Rights, including the right to free speech”. This paved the way to political contributions to influence legislative policy in favor of business, and the way toward the marketing empire that essentially rules our lives and is used my media organizations to program is to think that propaganda is news.
The ensuing free-for-all that set in throughout the next several decades after this ruling was termed market capitalism; although it has gone by other names, this one is the most well-known and is still parroted by many of today’s conservative ‘representatives’. Here are a few of the guiding principles to this ideology:
- Sustained economic growth is the path toward human progress.
- The establishment of a free market (one without government interference) is the most efficient way to allocate resources and will benefit the collective society the most.
- Globalizing the corporate structure will be beneficial to everyone, especially the poorer nations because prosperity will trickle-down in the form of goods and services provided, as well as employment opportunities.
- Privatizing every industry will remove inefficiencies that set in when certain services are placed under public sector control.
- Governments should mainly function to provide the infrastructure to advance the rule of law with respect to property rights and contracts; in cases where the rule of law interferes with business, government should actively seek to amend the rules that restrict economic growth (as those laws no longer serve the people to make their lives better).
According to Thom Hartmann in an article called The Dinosaur War; To Protect Corporate Profits “before 1886, most states had laws that prevented corporations from meddling in politics”. In today’s world, the size of corporations and their increasing wealth and influence over governmental policy all point to a more concentrated form of government where politics is influenced by economic factors more than social or environmental ones.
This is not a formula for democracy; this is the definition of oligarchy. Oligarchy is “a form of government where power effectively rests with a small elite segment of society distinguished by royalty, wealth, family, military influence or occult spiritual hegemony”. This is what America fought the revolution against the British in order to escape from, and it is essentially what has been established in America in the 20th century and cemented in governmental policy through the Bush/Cheney regime.
Where we are going from here is anybody’s guess; the definitions and direction forward has all been muddied, no doubt as part of the grand strategy to further hide behind the veil of law that has been recruited as the corporations best weapon. To dismantle the corporate control that has become entrenched would require money paid in legal fees and any collection of citizens does not have. Today, “of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are corporations; only 49 are countries”. Even if the 49 wealthiest countries in the world got behind an effort to institute some form of democratic capitalism, they would be met by 51 corporations willing to fight them ‘tooth and nail’ as a matter of survival.
The nature of capitalism and corporations is not necessarily against the public good, but the current evolutionary trajectory has enabled these two concepts to morph into something that is considerable different than Adam Smith’s conception of free market capitalism. In his book “Wealth of Nations”, he stated, “The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order [To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers] ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it”.
George Bush’s and Dick Cheney’s war in Iraq is part of furthering the expansion of a form of capitalism that is contrary to the philosophies of capitalism’s founders. The use of war and undue political influence from the oil industry is a perfect example of corporate influence run amok.
As the implications of the war in Iraq began to fall outside of political predictions and the price of oil began its rise to record levels, other forms of energy [besides oil] started to enter the market. This idea of widening the number of competitors in the energy generation sector is in perfect line with a free market capitalistic system. Citing free speech right, however, the fossil fuel industry launched a brilliantly conceived, multi-frontal plan to sabotage the up-an-coming, but still fledgling industry. The strategy included donating huge sums of money to academic institutions and essentially paying for ‘scientific’ reports that claimed wind turbines killed birds, solar farms impacted BLM land, biofuels create more greenhouse gases than fossil fuels and will create a massive global starvation period, electric cars will crash the grid, the entire electric grid is unable to handle renewable energy, a carbon market will cause exorbitant rises in consumer prices, and the like. They then used their influence in the media to push the idea that any form of renewable energy build-out equated to a socialist takeover of democratic principles.
Since when is an oligarchy a democracy? Democracy, by definition includes multiple competitors, and in the case of energy generation, adding renewable energy resources will only benefit the American public. Instead of paying higher prices for energy based upon the cost of war in distant lands to secure oil, Americans can pay higher prices for energy based upon the cost of developing a domestic renewable energy sector. This kind of thinking was beginning to catch on even in some of the corporate circles, so it became necessary to drive the price of oil down to record low levels.
To think that global markets are not manipulated and timed to coincide with the achievement of strategic objectives is naïve. The global slowdown is a direct result of renewable energy’s challenge to the fossil fuel industry and it will continue for as long as there are still renewable energy companies standing or until American free market capitalism wrestles control away from the rogue elements of the global economic system.
Regardless of how long it takes, the battle will last for some time. This is a philosophical war being fought in the minds of the next generations; what they come to believe and institute is anyone’s guess, just as the unfolding of the 20th century brought with it many surprises. We have an opportunity, though, as Americans to take back the economic system that so many of America’s greatest thinkers advocated; that is, an economic system that benefits the collective society and does not just reward a select few.
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Oil WatchDog
www.oilwatchdog.org
Oil Watchdog is a resource that tries to expose the profiteering and unscrupulous practices going on in the oil industry. It is part of the the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. Since the oil industry is so heavily subsidized by taxpayers dollar, every citizen has a right to know how their taxpayer dollars are being spent. At Oil Watchdog, writers report on tactic used to “rip-off its customers, harm the environment and hide their misdeeds”. The site tracks monetary influence of industry officials on government representatives. Reporting the facts from the oil industry usually results in stories that reveal greed, arrogance, and a general disregard for the public at large, without whom the oil industry would cease to be profitable. Worth a look just to see if you State’s representative is on the payroll of Big Oil.
