Charles M. Blow on the fall of democracies

Charles Blow is deeply worried about Trump’s presidency and what it will do to American democracy.  See “The Anti-Inauguration”, New York Times, 2017-01-05.

"Spend part of the day reading about the rise and fall of empires and how it always seems far-fetched and inconceivable until it actually happens. There are many books that address this topic, but if you want something shorter, try Andrew Sullivan’s 'Democracies End When They Are Too Democratic,' a counterintuitive meditation on how tyranny can spring from populism, or my colleague Paul Krugman’s 'How Republics End.’"

These two articles do take time to read, but if you care about a democracy for the many as opposed to a kleptocracy for the few you will be rewarded with some thoughts for protecting and enhancing democracy.

People power can beat too much money power

The Coffee Party posted on Facebook a cartoon of a politician at a podium on a plank out over a cliff.  The only thing preventing him from falling into the abyss is the number of people standing on the other end of the plank.  Except one person who is walking away.  The words on the cartoon are “The people don’t know their true power.”

I posted the following comment on Facebook.  If you have a Facebook account you can find it in context here.

“The problem with too much money in politics is too few votes to counter misinformation.  The cartoon is clever, but the person leaving should be walking to a politician's plank on solid ground.

“Let's show up each and every election day and get off-year turn-outs better than the Afghan turnout.  Too many of us don't bother because it's too inconvenient; the Afghani's stood in long lines at the risk of being attacked!”

If you don’t have a Facebook account or just want to see how often this has been published, search for “The people don’t know their true power”.  You’ll find hundreds of postings of this cartoon going back at least two years.  You’ll find many comments on it, but you will be hard pressed to find who created the original.

As I was adding “money in politics” to the keywords for this entry it occurred to me to have a keyword “people in politics” because the only way to get money out of politics is to get people into politics, even if it only to get more people to show up on election day.

Democratic capitalism is an oxymoron

Democratic means government by the people.  It is commonly understood that each person has one vote.

Capitalism is raising money for an enterprise with the contributions of a few people or thousands of people.  Each contributor of capital to the enterprise has as many votes as the number of shares he or she holds.  One can argue that this is fair; the person who put one million dollars into the company had a greater interest than the person who put one hundred dollars into the company.

In practice, capitalism becomes distorted to the rule of a few.  Capitalism leads to a plutocracy both in the enterprise and in the various governments.

In the enterprise, members of the board periodically award themselves and the top executives shares in the enterprise, thus increasing the number of votes they have, at no or low cost.

In government, the executives and other large shareholders put a lot of money into lobbying government for laws in their favor and into campaigns of political candidates who they believe will be sympathetic to their interests.  Regular readers of this blog know what Adam Smith thought of that influence.  See "The Invisible Adam Smith".

Capitalism, when there are many companies with similar focus, is a very good idea.  It means that there are many people working on bringing new or lower cost products to the market.  This doesn't mean that government can't produce good ideas; it just does not have enough resources to produce as many good ideas as are needed.  And often government is needed to encourage good ideas in certain fields or to curtail bad ideas that are harmful to the public.  In fact, corporations fall all over themselves to get government contracts to build roads or build more lethal weapons.

You might be able to come up with a better blended phrase that reflects the need for both democracy and capitalism.  My best shot today is balance of democracy and capitalism.  Now the next question is: when will this balance be achieved?

GOP, Make up your mind: Is Government too big or not?

Many in the Republican Party constantly complain that government is too big and inefficient.  On the other hand they want to make the military bigger and bigger, they want increased surveillance of just about anybody, and they want to keep far too many state secrets.

Please make up your mind.  Are we going to have a government that is responsive to people and not corporations?  Or are we going to have a secret government that is responsive to large corporations and ignores the people?

Actions speak louder than words, and news story after news story indicates that corporations and secrecy are more important than open government and people.

U.S. oligarchy, history repeats itself

"The Penguin democracy was not ruled by itself: it obeyed a financial oligarchy that put its opinions in the newspapers, and held in its hand the deputies, ministers and the president.  It was the final power in the finances of the republic and directed the foreign policy of the country."

Anatole France, L'Ile des Pingouines (The Isle of Penguins), 1908
My translation based on Google Translate

"La démocratie pingouine ne se gouvernait point par elle-même; elle obéissait à une oligarchie financière qui faisait l'opinion par les journaux, et tenait dans sa main les députés, les ministres et le président. Elle ordonnait souverainement des finances de la république et dirigeait la politique extérieure du pays."

Or as Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote in 1849:
"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/plus_%C3%A7a_change,_plus_c%27est_la_m%C3%AAme_chose

Dictatorship of the directorate

I've long promoted the idea of withholding votes for directors of companies who are paid too much.  Well, even if all the shareholders withhold their votes, the directors of many companies get to keep their jobs.  All that is required is a plurality of votes.  Since one vote with no opposition is a plurality, they get to keep their jobs.  And their perks.  And accumulate more shares.  And run the company without any consideration for the owners.  Instead of Milton Friedman's corporate purpose of "shareholder value", they run the company for "director value".

For more, see "When Shareholder Democracy is Sham Democracy", James B. Stewart, New York Times, 2013-04-12.

Plutocracy and democracy

Someone on a facebook page asked what is plutocracy.  I don't remember whether it was about all the money in politics or not.  I answered that plutocracy meant rule of the wealthy.  We certainly see it with the Koch brothers and Michael Bloomberg.  The greatest danger of plutocracy is that it drives out participation by ordinary people, the essence of democracy.

I looked up plutocracy on Wiktionary and found this wonderful quote by G.K. Chesterton:

"Modernity is not democracy; machinery is not democracy; the surrender of everything to trade and commerce is not democracy. Capitalism is not democracy; and is admittedly, by trend and savour, rather against democracy. Plutocracy by definition is not democracy. But all these modern things forced themselves into the world at about the time, or shortly after the time, when great idealists like Rousseau and Jefferson happened to have been thinking about the democratic ideal of democracy."

Quote of the day - Competition

"When, for instance, competition laws are not enforced, monopolies grow, and with them the income of monopolists. Competition, by contrast, drives profits down." - "Some Are More Unequal Than Others", Joseph E. Stiglitz, New York Times 2012-10-26

The article relates how the oligopolists are over and over driving down their costs, including taxes and wages, and increasing their profits.

My thought is that there may be a time when there are no profits to made because few can afford to buy the oligopolists' products and services and there will be insufficient qualified employees because there were insufficient taxes to educate a large number of people.

See "fastest to ruin" quote in "The Invisible Adam Smith".

Government of the rich, for the rich, and by the rich

If you still have any belief that our politicians are for the people rather than certain special interests, here's a couple of dream busters for you.

"Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries, Conservative Political Donors, Hold Semi-Annual GOP Business Retreat In Vail, Colo." The reputed purpose is "is to develop support for the kind of free-market policies and initiatives that can get our country back on the path to economic prosperity and sustained job creation." Yeah, free market as in free to do what they damn well please.

Meanwhile, in New York, President Barack Obama, supposedly a liberal politician, had a $35,000/plate dinner. He also had several similar dinners earlier. Just do a search on "obama 35000 dinner".

What we have are the plutocratic party and the ultra-plutocratic party.

In the past, I've voted for "third party" candidates who I thought made some sense, the best being John Anderson in 1980. However, I'm leaning to the notion that the Republican Party should get a resounding defeat and then maybe the Republicans who were in the New England, pre-Reagan camp could re-emerge. Then we can give a resounding defeat to the current Democratic Party and maybe a more truly populist party would emerge. Ouch! I crossed my fingers too tightly!

I guess all I can say if you don't vote in November 2012, don't blame me for the results.

Let's kick the Koch-Cain habit!

Who decides the government of the United States? We the People or they the money?

Who decides the government of the United States? A well-informed populace of high-turnout voters or a secretive group of manipulators who only want their "people" to vote?

I thought I had a new revelation of how manipulated we are when I read "Pizza Magnate Herman Cain Has Extensive Ties to Powerful Koch Group", Huffington Post, Ryan J. Foley, 2011-10-16.  I started playing around with Koch being the start of Kochaine and then thought, oh, Koch-Cain.

Well, I was late to the party again. I found about 16,800 results for "Koch-Cain" as a single phrase. The first two were "Billionaire puppeteers at it again? Exploring the connection between Koch brothers and Herman Cain", and "Does GOP Cocaine = Koch-Cain? Are Koch bros Buying GOP Pres Nomination by Supporting Herman Cain?"

I haven't seen anyone writing this yet, but I have a feeling that besides Cain being a puppet of the Koch brothers, he is cynically being used as their "black candidate" against Barack Obama.

If you don't like this cynicism and manipulation, if you would rather have democracy than plutocracy, be sure to vote in every election, especially in November 2012. Please put in VOTE in capital letters on your calendar for November 6, 2012. Please ask all your friends and relatives to do so. To avoid any manipulation, be sure you have registered well before and have a valid ID.

I was "forced" to join Facebook

I've been reluctant to join Facebook even though many of my relatives seem to be communicating only through Facebook and not email or letters.

The tipping point was when I read a Coffee Party article called "The Tipping Point".  It listed ten wake-up calls that citizens should heed to turn the U.S. around from a plutocracy to a democracy.

You know me.  I just had to comment on this.  And you guessed it, I had to put in my two cents that our problem is that we have minority governments because too many people don't vote.

The only way I could comment on the article was to join Facebook.  So I did.

If you're on Facebook, you can see my comment at http://www.facebook.com/coffeeparty/posts/201407736552986

Egypt may gain democracy; will U.S. lose its?

The everyday Egyptians rebelled against an elite that was governing without concern for them.  Many of the U.S. cheered them on.  Now we should look to our own house and consider if we are losing our own democracy to a plutocracy.

Remember, democracy means rule by the people.

Consider that the people's schools are being decimated because we can't afford them.  To afford the schools, we all really need to pitch in.

Plutocracy means rule by the wealthy.

Who is making the most noise about needing lower taxes?  Who is contributing more and more to politicians and political campaigns?  Who decided that corporations should not be limited in making political corporations?

For more on our coming plutocracy, see "When Democracy Weakens", Bob Herbert, New York Times, 2011-02-12.

Do we have a democracy or a plutocracy? Follow the money!

It has long bothered me that the Republican Party has morphed from a "big-tent party" to a "lock-step party".  Instead of being a party that discusses ideas to reach some consensus that fits the party's ideals, the Republican Party has become a party of the checklist.  If you don't agree with each and every item on the checklist, then you are a RINO, Republican In Name Only.

A party with a definite agenda that gets many people to agree with it has an advantage of a party that has a wide range of opinions.  Not every Democrat gets up in arms to save the whales or feels that the world will end if gay marriage is not legalized.  But, because these "wafflers" belong to a party who has a large number of people who support these issues, they have more difficulty defending themselves against a party in lockstep.

It has also bothered me how quickly items can be added to the checklist.  This is not a hallmark of a grassroots movement.  A grassroots movement, at least in a democracy, would be discussing the issues and forming some consensus about them.  This doesn't happen overnight.

Of course, we do have the Glenn Becks and the Rush Limbaughs who have many of their fans at their beck and call.  But somebody has to have an organization that translates these ideas into action.  Or, maybe somebody has an organization that feeds ideas to Beck and Limbaugh.  That is, maybe Beck and Limbaugh are at some hidden figure's or figures' beck and call.

I was overwhelmed when I read "The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party" by
Frank Rich, New York Times, 2010-08-28.  He wrote about how the Koch brothers of Koch Oil have been founding and funding libertarian groups to promote their laissez-faire ideas.  Not only should we follow the money, we should follow the associations.  Some employees of Koch Oil sit on the boards of these "independent" groups.

When you have ten minutes, I suggest that you read Frank Rich's column.

When you have an hour, I suggest you read one of his references,  "Covert Operations: The Billionaire Brothers Who Are Waging War Against Obama", Jane Mayer, New Yorker,
2010-08-31.

When you have a week or two, I suggest you read one of her references, "Merchants of Doubt", Naomi Oreskes, which "chronicles various attempts by American industry to manipulate public opinion on science".  Hm!  Is "junk science" any science that is contrary to somebody's short term interests.

This all makes me think of Robert Heinlein's "The Puppet Masters", an alien race that attached themselves to the backs of human beings and made them do their will.  In this case we have a plutocracy attaching itself to people's minds making the people believe they are defending democracy.