The Expulsion of the Oligarchs
The oligarchs, and there are many, are not afraid, not threatened by the average citizens of our country. They fight environment regulation to damage our planet and our health, they stifle innovation to maintain their antiquated industries and business models, they promote the ignorance of the masses through latent propaganda and underfunded educational institutions promoting anti-intellectualism in the process, they worship inner-tormoil, that which draws our attention away from more profound issues.
And they sleep at night with what they have done and are doing. I do not sleep so soundly.
This is not some vast, intricate conspiracy. We know what lobbying entails, what favors do for governmental power. We look at those who deny climate change and see from where their largest donations come, which industries they have ties to.
They make us believe there are no jobs despite an unemployment rate under five percent.
Sure, some industries have rates higher than others, some communities have become obsolete, but why must we preserve jobs with little in the way of transferable skills, whose preservation benefits the rich more than those few whose jobs we try to save?
Why do the politicians smother programs that would help retrains coal workers for better, more modern jobs- or that would help them relocate to more prosperous communities? Why do they give their children ghetto educations?
Because it benefits them monetarily and they are not afraid of us.
They have the support of those they hurt, those who fight on their behalf, desperate vessels of man are tricked with lazy rhetoric. Vessels fooled by catchy slogans:
“Make America Great Again.” A phrase derived from false nostalgia, the idea that America used to be something that is never was. The idea that somehow manufacturing jobs made the U.S. superior to the rest of the world, that these jobs erased violent crime, racial tensions, world wars, alcoholism, drug abuse- that families were happier in the “good ole days,” better off than they are today. When the world’s philosophical issues were simply dichotomous, when we smiled more frequently, before tradition and values succumbed to the nihilistic youth of the new millennia, those morally deprived ingrates with lower violent crime, higher education, greater care for the earth, humanity, and prosperity.
No, America was never greater than it is today. No, America is not great… but it could be. A better slogan, of a candidate more self-aware, a candidate with actual humanitarian and philosophical convictions and the foresight to think in longer periods of time than quarterly projections, would have been “Let’s Make America Great.” Let us look at both slogans and decipher the most pragmatic.
“Make America Great Again.” Other than the ambiguity of the phrase, (when was America considered great and when did it cease to be? Was it great from our founding until several years ago, from the roaring 20s to World War II, from post-WWII to the 90s?) we receive no hint as to what made America great during that period. Let us safely assume that the period in question is from the perspective of the Baby Boomers and analyze statistics and periodicals from post-World War II to the Clinton era. Forget the nostalgia of childhood and young adulthood the Boomers possess for these periods, not to mention the nostalgia of starting a family and getting that first raise that occupies our minds with the greatest capacity. In order to objectively view the past and modernity it is necessary to analyze quality of life statistically rather than with the portrait of our pasts to which we are the artists, having used idyllic brushes and pigments of naivety and memory.
Common people do not think in terms of centuries or millennia. We see human short-sightedness in the obsession of quarterly earnings. We cannot run a country or manage humanity in quarterly projections. A country, a modern day empire like the U.S, is not a corporation and it should not be treated as such. We do not need business owners driven by short-term gains managing a collective that must last millennia. Who thinks in terms of near-eternity but philosophers, scientists, and other sagacious men and women? Who thinks in abstracts but these individuals? For the idea of society and even that of an economy is abstract. We must recognize that we are dealing with profoundly complex topics that require intellectual efforts rather than manual and concrete efforts, which exist to implement the inner workings, but not to design them.
Our children and grandchildren, even many of us under 50 will suffer due to the oligarchs' avaricious natures.
Is it not self-defense, for us and posterity, to remove them from power, to force them out of power, to make the government work in an egalitarian manner?
Can we not think of everything as dichotomous.
Free trade and economic specialization are things almost all economists agree are beneficial to all countries. Why would we want the dirty process of more manufacturing in our country, where we would end up paying a higher price for goods both in relative cost and negative externalities?
Can we not have free trade and punish countries and corporations who negate worker and environmental safety by being located outside of the United States?
Can we not have a short-term tax break for corporations to help off-set any costly regulations?
We cannot remove regulation. Industry does not self-regulate and anyone who believes so has deafened themselves to history (examples: Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, Love Canal in New York, Radium girls, leaded gasoline and paint, asbestos, etc.).
We must force business to behave ethically and egalitarian, but we can also help offset those costs to their benefit, as well.
We should have higher taxes on personal wealth. An example of this necessity: my firm just fired over a thousand people while our CEO is the richest person in their state.
The investment industry (my field) obsesses with perpetual growth despite it not being possible. Greed is never content. This leads to riskier and riskier decisions, corner cutting, fraud. Mortgage Backed Securities and the subsequent recession of 2008 are perfect examples of the harm that comes from the desire and pressure for perpetual growth.
We can encourage stability instead with lower/no dividend taxes on the corporate side (not the individual).
Fiscal policy has never worked to improve the U.S economy in our entire history, only monetary policy~. Yet conservatives are enamored of fiscal policy.
Why do our current politicians and political options not make any actual proposals like these? Why do they only use empty rhetoric, banal diction?
Because that is all they need to make people believe them.
We need societal changes and leadership changes.
We need to end the oligarchy.
*~ International Economics Global Markets and Competition 3rd Edition By (author): Henry Thompson (Auburn University, USA) *
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