How Plutocrats Undermine Our Democracy

What’s
Wrong Today:

Politicians
are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against
them. Do you wonder why, if both Democrats and Republicans are against
deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians
are against war and unemployment, we have war and unemployment?

The plain truth is that
if 538 people in Congress can decide the direction of the federal government, it
must follow that the conditions that exist today are what they want to exist.

If
the budget is in the red, it’s because they colored it red. If Marines are in Africa,
it’s because they wanted them sent to Africa. There are no insoluble government
problems.

Above all, don’t
let politicians con you into believing that there are disembodied forces like
“the economy,” “inflation” or “politics” that
prevent them from doing what they have taken an oath to do.

Turning to
2013, how is it that when Mr. Obama gets re-elected by a majority on a pledge
to hike taxes on incomes above $250K, and despite
having a legislative situation where if he takes no action, his pledge succeeds,
that he proceeds to negotiate against himself?

How is it
that while polls show that a majority of Americans oppose cuts to Social Security, both President
Obama and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, along with Republicans, are for them?

So,
What’s Wrong?

It’s the rule
of the Plutocrats. Throughout history, the richest among us have used their wealth
to secure favorable laws.

As Jeffrey
Winters and Benjamin Page write in their 2009 article, Oligarchy
in the United States, it is perfectly possible for an oligarchy to function
quite nicely inside a democracy. Reference to another work by Benjamin Page appeared
in the Wrongologist earlier
this week.

Winters
and Page write: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

It’s easy enough
for an oligarchy to work inside a democracy. Historically, the richest citizens…[fought]
to protect their wealth and power, with expensive castles and armies and
alliances with other oligarchs. As the nation state evolved, the rich struck a
deal: the state would take on the
burdens of protecting property from foreigners, peasants and other oligarchs,
and the rich agreed at least in theory to abide by the same rules as everyone
else in the state.

Winters
and Page speak about oligarchs, while the Wrongologist speaks about plutocrats.
How are plutocrats different from oligarchs?

“Oligarchy”
is when the government is controlled by a small group; “Plutocracy” is when the
government is controlled by the wealthy. The Wrongologist assumes that all
plutocrats are oligarchs but not all oligarchs are plutocrats. The Free
Dictionary reports
that the combination of plutocracy and
oligarchy is called plutarchy, a largely unpronounceable word.

How do the
plutocrats coordinate their politics? How can they work together when there are
so many of them? Winters and Page say the
answer is that hyper-rich people share three
important interests:

Protecting
and preserving wealth

Insuring
the unrestricted use of wealth

Acquiring
more wealth

They don’t
have to conspire to protect their interests. They just shut up and let a few of them manage the specifics
for all of them.

Take the
Estate Tax as an example: Its function is partly to generate revenue, but its
social role is to break up large fortunes. The Wal-Mart heirs provide
leadership for the rest of the plutocrats on this issue. They spend vast sums
of money to insure that their children do not suffer the indignity of living on
less than billions (and billions) of dollars of inherited money.

Very few other
plutocrats outwardly support the Wal-Mart heirs on this issue and even fewer oppose
them. Those that do oppose them only talk, they do not spend money.

Plutocrats
deploy armies of professionals to assist them in influencing economic policy. As
we discussed yesterday,
professionals see themselves as independent, but they need patronage to maintain their positions and they
get it by providing research and advocacy for the policies that support the
views of the plutocrats.

Plutocrats have recently lost interest in maintaining
their part of the bargain about following the rules:

Entire
industries are now off limits for prosecution

Rules
are randomly changed to favor their interests

Worst of
all, democracy no longer works in America. It used to operate under majority rule. That is no longer the case in either house of Congress.

In the
House, under the Hastert Rule, the Speaker is reluctant to present a bill that
doesn’t have the support of a majority of his party. That means that a minority
of the House can prevent any bill from being heard.

The Senate’s
rules allow a single Senator to stop a bill. A minority can prevent consideration
of any bill. This situation is largely the fault of the Republicans, the party
of the plutocrats. But in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) could have
moved against the paralysis and changed these rules, but he refused to do so. In
the Senate, fault lies as much with Harry Reid as with the party of the rich.

This leverage is used by the plutocrats primarily
on economic issues.

Like the
rest of America, plutocrats are divided on social issues like immigration, LGBT
rights and women’s issues. It turns out that some plutocrats have family or
friends or are themselves LGBT. Because
of that, they are prepared to allow democracy to work on this issue.

And that’s
exactly how things are working out. On
matters of direct interest to the plutocrats, they win. You can pass laws about marriage or abortion as long as we get our way on money.

That’s just
a lousy deal for the rest of us.

Representatives
of the plutocrats are elected either by low voter participation, or by the
willingness of those who do vote to elect people based mostly on non-ability
factors like religion, party, appearance, etc. It doesn’t help that there is a
majority of people who care more about the Super Bowl than presidential
elections. Television ratings are
truth.

In the
1930’s, the organized support of the American people made Social Security
possible. Today, their apathy may lead to its destruction. When pessimists
proclaim that Social Security will not be there for them, we should ask if that
won’t be a self-fulfilling prophecy.