A Philosopher's Blog

Philosophical Essays on Many Subjects

democracy

How to Make the United States an Oligarchy

by 15 Comments

While the United States purports to be a democratic republic, it is either already an oligarchy or but a few steps away from it. In this context, an oligarchy is a political structure in which power is held largely by a small number of people. While all hierarchical systems have power disparities, the hallmark of an oligarchy is that power is highly concentrated in a few. Russia, which is ruled by Putin and his fellows, is a clear example of an oligarchy.

Image Credit

While oligarchs can be elected democratically, a proper democracy distributes power—the choices of the many are not nullified by the will of the few. Likewise, for a proper republic—while power is concentrated in the representatives, they are to serve the people they represent rather than a few who hold the power. Preventing an oligarchy from emerging from the corpse of a democracy or republic requires preventing the concentration of power. Alternatively, allowing the butterfly of oligarchy to emerge from the caterpillar of democracy requires shifting power from the many to the few. Let us now take a brief look at some broad strategies and tactics to make this happen.

One important step towards the oligarchy is to ensure that limits are removed from the use of money in politics. The United States has hyper-concentrated wealth, which means that the hyper-wealthy are vastly outnumbered by everyone else. If the use of money in politics is strictly limited, then the hyper-wealthy must compete for political influence using the same tools as the non-wealthy, which means they will not always get their way. To the degree that the wealthy are free to use money to influence politics, they gain an advantage over the many and can use this advantage to concentrate political power to match their concentration of money.

A second important step towards the oligarchy is to weaken or eliminate groups that can compete with the potential oligarchs. While the many cannot match the wealthy few in individual spending and influence in a money-based political system, the many can pool their resources and match the few with their collective effort. One obvious example of this collective group is the labor union. As long as these groups are viable, the potential oligarchs cannot enjoy the full concentration of power they desire. As such, making the United States an oligarchy requires crippling or destroying these unions—something being attempted with right to work laws and other legislation. While it might be thought that business tends to oppose unions because of financial reasons, unions also pose a clear political threat to oligarchs. There are, of course, other groups besides the unions that can exert political influence. For example, religious groups have political clout. Because of this, building the oligarchy requires eliminating, weakening or assimilating these groups. One way that has proven effective is shaping Christian groups so that they focus on homosexuality and abortion rather than on social justice issues; this encourages them to hand power to those who claim they will outlaw abortion and oppress homosexuals—people who also tend to favor concentrating power. Racism and sexism are also very useful here as tools for keeping groups from forming seemingly sensible alliances against the potential oligarchs. For example, the people hurting white working-class people the most are not brown or black workers, but the rich white people who make the economic decisions. If all white workers realized this, it would be bad for the rich white people.  Once the significant groups are neutralized or assimilated, then the oligarchy can really get going. Of course, there are still the pesky voters—they can still, in theory, resist the oligarchy, which leads to the third step.

While the United States still has elections, allowing honest and fair elections would be an impediment to the oligarchs. After all, the many might vote against what the powerful few want. As such, the influence of certain voters must be reduced. Fortunately, there are already well-crafted tools to make this happen. One is gerrymandering, which allows numerical minorities to foil the will of the majority—an important condition for oligarchy. Another stock tool is voter suppression, something forged throughout United States history (especially the Jim Crow laws). If the right people can be prevented from voting, then the results of elections can be influenced. Combining the two tools and adding a few more into the mix (such as election fraud and having candidates supervise their own elections) can really get the oligarchy moving along.

Lastly, there is the rather important strategy of concentration itself—power must flow from the many to the few. One ongoing method is crafting laws and policies that ensure that money flows upward and concentrates rather than flowing downward. Another method is to hoard opportunities, something that the college admission scandal exposed (now largely forgotten). This is all part of keeping power concentrated—if the poor stood a good chance of gaining at the expense of the powerful, then that would be end of the oligarchy. As such, they must be kept in their place if the oligarchy is to be an enduring reality.

My Amazon Author Page

My Paizo Page

My DriveThru RPG Page

Follow Me on Twitter

The American Oligarchy

by 42 Comments

Money
Money (Photo credit: 401(K) 2013)

One of my lasting lessons from political science is that every major society has a pyramid structure in regards to wealth and power. The United States is no exception to this distribution pattern. However, the United States is also supposed to be a democratic society—which seems rather inconsistent with the pyramid.

While the United States does have the mechanisms of democracy, such as voting, it might be wondered whether the United States is democratic or oligarchic (or plutocratic) in nature. While people might turn to how they feel about this matter, such feelings and related anecdotes do not provide proof. So, for example, a leftist who thinks the rich rule the country and who feels oppressed by the plutocracy does not prove her belief by appealing to her feelings or anecdotes about the rich. Likewise, a conservative who thinks that America is a great democracy and feels good about the rich does not prove her belief by appealing to her feelings or anecdotes about the rich.

What is needed is a proper study to determine how the system works. One rather obvious way to determine the degree of democracy is to compare the expressed preferences of citizens with the political results. If the political results generally correspond to the preferences of the majority, then this is a reasonable (but not infallible) indicator that the system is democratic. If the political results generally favor the minority that is rich and powerful while going against the preferences of the less wealthy majority, then this would be a reasonable (but not infallible) indicator that the system is oligarchic (or plutocratic). After all, to the degree that a system is democratic, the majority should have their preferences enacted into law and policy—even when this goes against the wishes of the rich. To the degree that the system is oligarchic, then the minority of elites should get their way—even when this goes against the preferences of the majority.

Recently, researchers at Princeton and Northwestern conducted just such a study: “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens”  using data gathered from 1981 to 2002.

The researchers examined about 1,800 polices from that time and matched them against the preferences expressed by three classes: the average American (50th income percentile), the affluent American (the 90th percentile of income) and the large special interest groups.

The results are hardly surprising: “The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”

As noted above, a truly democratic system should result in the preferences of the majority being expressed in policies and laws more often than not. However, “When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.” As such, this study would seem to provide strong evidence that the United States is an oligarchy (or plutocracy) rather than a democratic state.

It might be contended that this system is fine since, to use a misquote, what is the preference for GM is the preference for Americans. That is, it could be claimed that the elites and the majority of Americans have the same or similar preferences.  However, the study found that the interests of the wealthy are not substantially correlated with the preferences of average citizens.” As such, the preferences of most Americans do not match the interests of the wealthy—but the wealthy generally get what they want.

One current example of this, which was not part of the study, is the fact that a very strong majority of Americans favor various gun control measures (such as universal background checks) yet bills that would make these measures into laws have failed. This provides a rather clear example of how the system works in general. Naturally, this example is merely an illustration—the statistical support is based in the 1,800 examined policies.

One possible objection is that the preferences of the majority are mistaken—that is, the majority wants things that are not in their best interest and what the elites want is what is actually best. For example, while most Americans might prefer stronger consumer protection laws when it comes to financial institutions, it could be claimed that they are in error. What is in their best interest is less consumer protection, which is what the financial elites want.

The obvious reply is that even if it were true that the majority is in error and the elites know best, this would arguing that the oligarchic system is better than a democratic system not that the system is not and oligarchic one.

Another possible objection is that the system is democratic in that people do vote for elected officials who then enact policies. Since the citizens can vote such officials out of office, they must be expressing the preferences of the citizens—despite the fact that policy and law consistently goes against the expressed preferences of the majority. This is to say that we have democratically created an oligarchy, so it is still a democracy (or at least a republic).

This objection is certainly interesting and raises a question about why people consistently re-elect people who consistently act contrary to their expressed preferences. One possibility is that the choices are very limited—you can vote for anyone you want, but a Democrat or Republican will almost certainly be elected. As such, the voters do get to vote, but they generally do not get real choices.

Another possibility is ignorance—people do not generally realize that what they get does not match what they claim to want. Such ignorance would put the moral blame partially on the citizens—they should be better informed.  Then again, given the abysmal approval rating for congress it seems that people do realize this. This creates a rather odd scenario: people really hate congress, yet generally keep re-electing them over and over.

A third possibility is that there are many strong propaganda machines that are devoted to convincing people that the laws and policies are good. So, while people have a preference for one thing, they are persuaded to believe that what is in the interest of the oligarchy is what they should like. People might also be distracted by other matters—for example, people who oppose same-sex marriage will support politicians who oppose it, even if the politician also supports policies that are contrary to the voter’s economic interests. In this case, the moral failing is on the part of the deceivers—they are tricking citizens with deceit and corrupting democracy.

Another approach to objecting to the study is to raise questions about the methodology. One obvious question would be whether or not the 1,800 policies are properly representative of the political system. After all, if the researchers picked ones that favored the wealthy and ignored others that matched public preferences, then the study would be biased. As such, a key question is whether or not the sample used in the study is large enough and representative enough to adequately support the conclusion.

Another obvious question would be whether or not the study had the preferences of the people correct. After all, in order to properly claim that the laws and policies do not generally match the preferences of the majority, the claimed preferences would need to be the actual preferences of the majority.

Naturally, addressing these concerns would require examining the study carefully and objectively, rather than merely dismissing or accepting it based on how one feels about the matter. Some might also be tempted to dismiss the study based on mere ad homimen attacks on those conducting it. For example, one might fallaciously reject the study by simply claiming that those involved are biased liberal intellectuals who are trying to advance a leftist agenda. If this were true and the study were thus flawed, then the evidence would lie in the defects of the study—not in the feelings of those attacking with ad homimens.

 

My Amazon Author Page

My Paizo Page

My DriveThru RPG Page

Enhanced by Zemanta

Is the NSA a Fascist Tyranny?

by 34 Comments

Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in Munich, G...
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As anyone who follows the news knows, the NSA has been engaged in a massive spying program that seems to involve activities that are both immoral and illegal. However, it is interesting to consider whether or not the NSA is more than just a violator of the law and ethics. As such, I will endeavor to address the question of whether or not the NSA is a fascist tyranny.

While the term “fascism” gets thrown around loosely by both the left and the right in America, it seems best to defer to one of the experts on fascism, specifically Benito Mussolini. Mussolini claims that “fascism denies that the majority, by the simple fact that it is a majority, can direct human society; it denies that numbers alone can govern by means of a periodical consultation…” The NSA nicely fits into this model—it has operated without the approval or even the knowledge of the majority of the citizens of the United States.

It can be objected that the approval of certain elected officials and secret courts suffices to preserve the core democratic values of majority rule and consultation of the governed.  After all, there are many activities that are handled by representatives without the citizens directly voting.

This reply does have some merit: the United States is primarily a representative democracy and the will of the citizens is, in theory, enacted by elected officials. However, the NSA certainly seems to be operating largely outside of the domain of public decision and informed agreement. The extent of its intrusion into the lives of the citizens and the scope of its power certainly seems to demand that the NSA be subject to the open channels of democracy rather than allowing decisions to be made and implemented in the shadows.

One key aspect of fascism, at least according to Mussolini is that the “Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone….”

The NSA seems to, sadly enough, fit this concept of fascism. The NSA is literally organizing the nation and it is clearly denying citizens key liberties by its intrusions. Fittingly enough, these grotesque violations are defended in terms that Mussolini would appreciate: no important liberties are being infringed on…but it they were, it would be to protect the state from harm.

Rather importantly, the way the NSA has been operating shows that the deciding power has been the State (that is, secret courts and officials in the shadows of secrecy) and not the citizens.

Thus, it would seem that the NSA is fascist in nature. This is hardly a surprise given that this sort of police state surveillance system is a hallmark and stereotype of the oppressive fascist state. What remains to be seen is whether or not the NSA is tyrannical in nature.

As with “fascism”, people on the left and right throw around the term “tyranny” without much respect for the actual meaning of the term. To ensure that I am using it properly, I will go back to John Locke and make use of his account of tyranny. Given his influence in political philosophy and the American political system, he seems like a reasonable go-to person for this matter.

Locke defines “tyranny” as follows:

Tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which nobody can have a right to.  And this is making use of the power any one has in his hands, not for the good of those who are under it, but for his own private separate advantage.  When the governor, however entitled, makes not the law, but his will, the rule; and his commands and actions are not directed to the preservation of the properties of his people, but the satisfaction of his own ambition, revenge, covetousness, or any other irregular passion.

While the extent of the wrongdoing by the people at the NSA might never be known, it is clear that the power handed to them has generally not been used not for the good of the people. Those in charge have made their will and not the law their rule—despite being basically let off the legal leash by compliant courts and public officials, the NSA still engaged in illegal activity and thus acted tyrannically.

Some folks at the NSA even abused their power on the basis of “irregular passion.” One rather pathetic example is that some NSA personnel used the resources of their employer to spy on those they were romantically involved with or interested in.

As such, it would seem evident that the NSA is tyrannical—or at least a tool of tyranny. What remains is to consider the proper response to tyranny. Locke, not surprisingly, had a clear answer:

Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to another’s harm; and whosoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the law, and makes use of the force he has under his command, to compass that upon the subject, which the law allows not, ceases in that to be a magistrate; and, acting without authority, may be opposed, as any other man, who by force invades the right of another.

My Amazon Author Page

My Paizo Page

My DriveThru RPG Page

Enhanced by Zemanta

Proposal: Transparent Lobbying

by 13 Comments

Money
Money talks...

While I recognize that lobbying is a legitimate part of the democratic process, I also recognize that it provides an avenue by which various interests can exert undue influence in politics, often to the detriment of the general good.

I am not so foolish as to advocate banning lobbying. As I have noted, it does have a legitimate place in the process. Also it would almost certainly be all but impossible to get rid of the lobbying machinery. However, I do contend that the harmful aspects of lobbying can be reduced.

One serious problem with lobbying and its associated influence (such as corporations and other interests literally writing legislation) is that the lobbying activities are not transparent and made readily available to the public. As might be imagined, if lobbying activities were made readily available to the public, then this would have some influence on the nature of lobbying. At the very least we would know the prices at which our government is being bought and sold.

To this end I would propose that all lobbying activities involving public officials be made a matter of public record. This would include emails, meetings, letters, phone conversations, texts and so on. With today’s technology, it would be a simple matter to record meetings on video, to record phone conversations and so on. This information would the be posted on a site called lobbyist.gov. The main page for the site would have a link to individual pages for each member of congress. Each individual page would have a list of all the lobbyists who have lobbied the congressperson as well as links to records of all the lobbying. It would be mandated that the site be designed to be clearly and easily navigable so that the records could not be obscured or hidden. There would also be a large money counter for each congressperson which would track the amount of monetary value received from lobbyists and the interests they represent.

It might be objected that lobbyists have a right to secrecy. The obvious reply is that lobbyists might, but public officials do not. They are, after all, public officials. Hence, the interaction between the lobbyists and the public officials in their professional capacity would thus seem to be something that the people have a right to know about.

It might also be objected that some matters might fall under areas of legitimate secrecy, such as national security. Thus, any lobbyist who can claim this would have the right to lobby in secret. The obvious reply is that while dealings between congresspeople and certain interests (such as defense contractors) might legitimately involve secrecy, this would clearly not cover lobbying attempts. After all, while a defense contractor describing a top secret weapon would be a legitimate matter for secrecy, the process of lobbying congress to spend billions in public money on that contractor would not be a legitimate matter of secrecy.

I imagine that lobbyists would, of course, try to stuff as much secret lobbying as they could under the cloak of national security. However, this would still limit the illegitimate secrecy in substantial ways and the lobbying report should still include a report of secret lobbying that lists the name of the company and the fact that the lobbying activities were made secret for “national security” or whatever.  This secrecy should also be subject to independent review to try to reduce (however slightly) the inevitable abuse of the national security loophole.

The requirement for transparent lobbying would need to be backed up with penalties that would be sufficient to motivate lobbyists and congresspeople to follow the laws. After all, if the penalty was an ethical censure or a small fine, most congresspeople would simple break the rules relentlessly. One reasonable penalty is that violation of the transparency rules would result in the interest being served by the lobbyist(s) in question being banned from lobbying for an extended period of time and that the offending congressperson would also not be allowed to interact with lobbyists for a set amount of time per violation.

As might be imagined, opposing this sort of transparency is something both parties can agree on.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Destroying Democracy

by Leave a Comment

Republican Party Handbill, ca. 1880
Image by Cornell University Library via Flickr

When I was a kid, we were taught the importance of voting and the greatness of democracy. However, as I grew up I was exposed to an ever louder litany regarding the evils of government and the virtues of private enterprise. This year the Republican candidates are working hard to be the one who dislikes government the most and to promise that they will reduce the state more than any other candidate. Well, aside from defense and homeland security, of course. The Democrats have generally pushed to expand the state, but they have done little to create a favorable climate for democracy. This worries me.

I shall begin by noting the obvious: bureaucracies (public or private) seem  analogous to people: unless properly maintained they tend to bloat, weaken, and slow down. As such, there is clearly a need to (as Socrates argued) keep an eye on the state and offer legitimate criticisms and corrections. There is also the added concern of corruption-money is a bit like termites: once it gets into a structure, it tends to start spreading until the whole thing is decayed and rotted.

Both the Democrats and Republicans are guilty of encouraging corruption and allowing the monied interests to dominate American politics. Fortunately, some Americans have begun to fight back against this. While today we see what some would call modern hippies protesting Wall Street, this could be the beginnings of a new movement that will push back the power of money and repair some of the terrible rot in our house of democracy. Naturally, more is needed than drum circles and other such things-what is needed is meaningful reform and the will to take on this corruption with courage and integrity. This, I am sure, will not arise from the established members of the political parties. The Democrats do make pious noises about it, but generally seem content to be part of the existing system (this includes Obama). The Republicans are quite active in simply making things worse under the banner of the Tea Party. The folks in the media largely seem to be going along with the establishment they are part of. While CNN has been accused of a liberal bias, in recent days the new morning folks have been making the disingenuous claim that the protestors do not know what they want.  This is presumably to make them appear to be confused “hippies” who are just protesting in liberal ignorance. While these people do not have a detailed plan of reform, they do have clear goals-mainly to push back the corruption of our democratic system. That is a laudable goal, albeit one that will be hard to implement. After all, this is supposed to be a democracy and not a plutocracy.

While the Democrats are accused of adding to the state, the Republicans also do so-mainly under the guise of defense and security. However, the Republicans claim that they want to reduce the government. For example, Bachmann says she wants to eliminate the EPA. The Republicans also make a point of relentlessly attacking government and cast it as a great evil. On the face of it, it seems odd that folks who want to be in government are so intent to bash it. After all, if I was at a road race and someone spent her time telling me how awful running is while she was running, I would say the obvious “why the hell are you running?” Naturally, the Republicans say they are running so they can dismantle the state from the inside. This should worry us for two reasons. First, it seems like they are threatening to undermine democracy. Second, people who go into the system to fight it often end up simply becoming part of that system. That said, perhaps people can go into the system to make it better. There is, of course, a certain irony in hearing people talk about the founders with (alleged) reverence while promising to slash the government these people designed.

The Republicans have also been pushing to “reform” the voting laws. While countering fraud is fine, the main focus seems to have been on lowering voter turnout for the opposing party. To be fair to the Republicans, what they are doing now pales in comparison to the horrible Jim Crow laws of the Southern Republicans. But the fact that some Democrats once did something worse does not make what is happening today any less bad. This sort of tactic is a fundamental assault on the very foundation of democracy and must not be tolerated.

The Republicans have also pushed to make the state more business like. One problem with this is that it is based on the myth of private sector virtue and public sector vice. There is nothing inherent to the private sector that makes it better than the public sector (just look at all the inefficiency and corruption there). There is also nothing inherent to the public sector that makes it worse than the private sector. The quality of both private and public sectors depends on the quality of the people involved and the degree to which the people (customers or citizens) hold them to account. In the private sector this is done by customer choice (of course, some companies do not need to worry about this) and in the public sector it is done by voting. It is an amazing act of thought control that the Republicans have gotten so many people to repeat, zombie like, the mantra that private is good and public is bad. Such people fail to see that this is essentially accepting that a non-democratic, profit focused authoritarian system (the business model) is superior to the democratic system.

Of course, it could be argued that a democratic system is, in fact, an inferior system and that the authoritarian model is superior. Socrates argued against democracy in favor of rule by the best, so perhaps there is something to this claim. However, when people praise the private sector business model and say that the state should be run the same way, they need to keep in mind that this is not a democratic model and its main goal is profit and not the good of the people. Naturally, the Republicans also praise democracy while proposing a system that is fundamentally undemocratic. Interestingly, people uncritically accept this inconsistency-mainly because they hear what they want to hear (and have been conditioned to praise).

Let there be no doubt, democracy is in grave danger and the responsibility lies with us, the people, to defend and restore government of the people, by the people and for the people. And no, corporations are not people-no matter what bullshit the lawyers and politicians spew.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Is America a Christian Nation?

by Leave a Comment

Thomas Jefferson
Image via Wikipedia

One point being pushed by some folks on the right is the notion that America is a Christian nation. Whether this claim is true or not depends what is meant by the ambiguous term.

If the term means that Christianity plays an important role in American history, values, and that many Americans profess to be members of this faith, then the answer is an obvious “yes.” Many of the founders were Christian deists and showed a clear belief in God. Also, the political philosophy that America is based upon includes strong Lockean elements and Locke’s theory is based quite strongly on God. So far, so good and easy.

However, the folks that claim that America is a Christian nation seem to mean more than this. In general their view seems to involve claims that the founders held the same views that they themselves hold. This does not seem to be supported by the historical evidence. To check on this, do as David Barton advocates: go read all of the original writings of Jefferson, Adams, Paine, Franklin and so on.  But, do what Barton does not seem to do: be sure to consider the full text of the documents rather than merely focusing on a specific quote or two.  You will find reference to God, but you will not find  the sort of Christianity being endorsed by the likes of Palin, Bachmann and Barton. I do not expect you to take my word on this-get the texts and read them thoroughly and completely with an objective mind.

The folks that claim America is a Christian nation also tend to hold this as more than a description but also as a prescription. To be specific, they contend that since America is a Christian nation, then we should change our laws to reflect this. Abortion should be outlawed, same sex marriage should be banned and usury should not be allowed. I am, of course, kidding about the last one. Usury is just fine-these folks are not going to shut down the banking industry (which is but one sign of how consistently Christian many of the folks are).

Even if it is assumed that these views are truly Christian, there is an obvious problem. America is a democracy. Now, if it is assumed that America is a Christian nation and it is assumed that America is a democracy, it would seem to follow that this Christian nation accepts things that certain Christians claim go against Christianity. If people continue to democratically support views that certain Christians oppose, should we abandon democracy in favor of imposing a certain set of religious views? I, of course, think we should not.

That is one rather serious problem with having an official state religion (or something close to it)-it tends to be rather inimical to democracy-something the founders were well aware of. So, insofar as we favor democracy over theocracy, we are not a Christian nation. Rather, we are a democratic nation with the notion of religious freedom (and freedom from religion) as  a fundamental principle.

Enhanced by Zemanta
%d bloggers like this: