Jan
30
Don’t Heed the Counsels of Despair
Over at The Distributist Review, John Médaille is upset at the recent Citizens United decision – whereby the Supreme Court voided some restrictions on the ability of corporations to advocate in politics. In Welcome to the Plutocracy, it is lamented that this decision will mean the complete subjugation of American politics to corporate masters:
…The new ruling allows corporate executives to use the company treasury, the money that rightly belongs to the investors and the workers, to influence political contests. Since corporate executives command resources measured in the trillions of dollars, this means that there will be an inexhaustible source of funds with which to command the political powers. But this money is supposed to be invested to increase the profits of the corporation. And it will be. Politics are treated like any other investment and expected to get a return, a return in the form of subsidies and favorable tax treatment. And as David Brooks noted, corporations also want rules which protect them from smaller and more nimble competitors…
…With this ruling, the line between the corporate treasury and the public purse—already stretched very thin—will completely dissolve. America will be formally a plutocracy and substantially a kleptocracy.
Which is all very true but it does, also, force me to ask: you mean, we haven’t been, already?
The plain fact of the matter is that corporations have always been able to influence politics. They tend to influence in a liberal and statist manner the larger they are. Large corporations are opposed to wealth creation and dislike uncertainty – and thus prefer tax and regulatory regimes which prohibit new competition as well as making it next to impossible for a large corporation to go out of business. Why is this? Because they are staffed in management with, sorry to say, boneheads who are merely trying to shimmy up the corporate ladder. The higher up the ladder, the more obtuse they are. And they’ll never, ever stop trying to shimmy and influence unless we, the people take a hand at changing things.
But its not just corporations staffed with idiots – our bureaucracies (local, State and Federal) are also composed mostly of dimwits (natural or enforced) who are also opposed to wealth creation and any change which might result in the termination of a government program (this is akin to the large corporation worry that a new competitor will force the dissolution of the large, dinosaur corporation). And don’t get me started on our education system – from public schools to universities, the only islands of rationality are the smaller, private schools – especially those which eschew government money. Teachers are ok, but they seem to undergo some sort of lobotomy process as soon as they go in to administration.
And all of these – large corporation, government bureaucracies and education establishment – pour vast sums of money in to the political system in order to influence it. They have been doing so for more than a century now. And as the influence has, once again, always been in a liberal/statist direction the result has been ever larger government which calls forth ever larger corporations/bureaucracies/education establishment which, in turn, provides even more money to influence the political system to become just more and more of what it is now.
So, don’t whine about the Citizens United decision – in fact, it wouldn’t actually harm anything (more than is already happening) if the Supreme Court had ordered corporations to pour ever more money in to politics. Its all going to happen, anyway. Money isn’t the problem – people, as always, are the problem. And the solution.
The current system – founded in the second half of the 19th century (though it didn’t really take hold in the United States until the 1930′s) – has collapsed completely. The financial disaster of 2008 was the last straw. To be sure, the masters of this system are desperately trying this or that expedient to breath life in to the dead corpse of a fiat currency-based, usurious economic system, but there’s really nothing for it – fake money and usury just don’t go on very well. It is dead – the question is just how do we clear it away?
By using the tools we have at hand. Not perfect tools, to be sure, but tools good enough for the job. The Republican party (warts and all). The TEA Party movement. The libertarians. Heck, even those few on the left who are anti-statist in view. By uniting a good enough coalition – as opposed to the perfect political monolith some seem to desire – we can flatten the current political leadership and start to implement the reforms necessary to revive the Founder’s vision of the United States.
Ah, the objection comes – we won’t be able to do that because corporate money will be used to bury us. The thing is, that money has already been used to bury us. Again and again and especially over the last 75 years – but things have changed, now. The mask has well and truly been ripped off the system – the Machine, as it were – and all the kings horses and all the kings men (and their corporate donors) cannot but the liberal/statist Humpty Dumpty back together, again. That is, they won’t be able to provided that we, on our side, don’t break down in arguments over ideological purity. They can spend a trillion dollars campaigning against us and it won’t matter in the least.
Sure I’d like all the people on my side to be pro-life – but if I insist that only pro-life people be involved, then I have resigned myself to permanent minority status and, in effect, ensured the long-term victory of the pro-abortion side (and thus failure to build up a large enough coalition – if it can be done at all – works out to a sin of omission in fighting for life). Anyone who is willing to fight on my side to attack what is wrong with America – bloated, out of touch, bureaucratic organizations – is a good enough ally for me. Once the statist beast is dead, then we can start freely arguing the finer points. First things first – and the first thing is to get them out of power and defund them so they can’t come back. Everything else is secondary (even if some of the moral issues involved are vitally important).
Now is not the time to wallow in despair. Now is not to bemoan the fact that some of the people on our side are not entirely reliable ideologically. Now is the time to fight – and fight alongside anyone who is willing to fight alongside us. There will be plenty of time to argue pro-choice revolutionaries out of their position once we have forever ended the threat of federal funding for abortion, ya dig?
The list of reforms I have in mind for the United States is quite long – but it is also something of trivial importance as long as the enemy is holding the seat of power. Without power, we can’t change anything – and we can’t get power if we’re too picky about whom our allies are. First things first – and the first thing we need to do is gain power.
Our destiny is ours to command. With faith in God and assurance that right does make might, we can overthrow the corrupt system we now live under. We can do this – if we’re smart, patient, loving and generous.
