I was a big supporter of Bill Clinton back in the mid late 90's. Didn't believe the "rumors" about sexual escapades in the Oval Office. Then at some point I realized that he did have some sort of sexual liaison in the Oval Office. Didn't think that was worth an Impeachment, but made me reconsider my total support for him and those around him. In fact, I started to re-examine my total support for any politician. Thus I have serious reservations about all Democratic Party politicians. Those reservations remain today. So once I started to question the political system that seemed to be financed by big money from very rich people with, what I would believe to be strongly anti-democratic motives. Anti-democratic being defined as one dollar one vote, not one man/woman one vote.
Over time I came to understand that the root cause of all of our problems is not political. Political actions are NOT leading indicators, they are trailing indicators. Very few politicians or large political organization actually start a major overhaul of the system. They are pushed by events and movements/demands of the increasingly angry populous . Thus FDR, a rich Capitalist, became the first Social Democratic Government Official. His New Deal was designed to save Capitalism not replace it. His reforms were based on a network of strong regulations of the economic sector and the use of high tax rates for corporate and individuals that allowed the government to become the employer of last resort and at the same time build what we refer to as infrastructure, roads, dams, building that are primarily for use by the people, think Post Offices and access to national parks like Yosemite or Yellowstone. He interrupted the income steam, diverting a large portion of it back into the majority of the populations hands. Some were directly accomplished and others indirectly. The results of these economic regulations was the fulfillment of the American Dream. A Dream that made it possible for people to actually have their children be better off than their parents. The blossoming of the largest Economic Middle Class in the history of the man. And a large part of this Middle Class were blue collar workers. People who worked with their hands and built things. People who took a shower or bath after the working day. People who flocked to Unions and thus gained a larger portion of the profits that their hard, sweaty work created. That all ended in the late 40's early 50's.
First the death of FDR, which led to the passage of a Constitutional Amendment limiting to two terms for the President and V.President. Next came the Taft-Hartley Act which put a knife into the heart of the Union Movement in the United States. Slowly over time labor unions became weaker and weaker. Third, the vilification of the Socialist Movement. This was accomplished by first scaring the hell out of the people with the claim that the Soviet Union, the Socialist State that came to power at the point of a bayonet, was out to destroy the United States' democracy. In fact, the USSR was a State Capitalist economic system, and a Totalitarian political system, not a Marxist Socialist System. The Capitalists linked the brutal, repressive totalitarian USSR with Socialism. Using one of the most intense propaganda campaigns and use of misinformation to get people to believe that there was no other difference between Russian Communism and Marxist Socialism except, as my favorite Socialist D. Wolff points out, the spelling. I grew up as did most of Americans believing, accepting these pronouncements as true. Because the U.S.A. stood for Freedom and Justice For All, and our trusting that our Media would always tell the truth. This part of this Greek Tragedy played itself out at the McCarthy hearings on Un-American Activity. Thus the long slide into what is now the total take over of our political and economic systems from a Regulated Capitalist Society into a Capitalist owned and operated economic and political system began.
The villain in our current political arena is not Trump collusion, or Russian illegal actions to tilt the last election. No. The problem is what it has always been. The problem is an economic system that, at its core, as Anti-democratic as a system can be. Money is Free Speech. Corporations are People. Major Wall Street players dictate the profit that companies of all sizes must make, Boards of Directors are more and more controlled by the top executives of the company the Boards are suppose to oversee vial the scam of "stock options". A device that allows top executives to purchase huge amounts of shares in the company, and using the one share one vote scheme of Corporate Governance as a way to put people on the Board of Directors that will make decisions beneficial the the Executives who own all the shares. These are not democratic ideals. They are Totalitarian or Fascist ideas. A direct line can be drawn from the Feudal System, the Lord of the Manor telling his serfs how to live and work; to Slave Societies, where the rich owned the people who made the products and monies that the rich owner took the major share; to Capitalism, which has turned the majority of the people in the World into wage slaves. The Capitalist keeps the lions share of the monies that are actually created by the workers the Capitalist does his best to underpay. Thus, we have achieved the same system Stalin eventually created starting a little over 100 years ago. A State Capitalist Economic System. Where the political arena is dominated by Capitalists who use their power and money to literally make wage slaves of the vast majority of the population. The difference lies in the main occupation of the ruling class. Where Stalin was primarily a political animal, the current crop of leaders in political power in the United States are Capitalists. Both are rule by dictate. Stalin used the states police powers to maintain power, and those in Corporate or Company organizations use similar methods to maintain control. The only difference is one system used fear of imprisonment and the other uses fear of being fired and losing ones ability to feed, cloth and house oneself and dependents.
A system that is anti-Democratic. Who makes the decision to close the factory in the United States and move to China or Central America or Mexico? Who makes the decision to spend money on a huge advertising campaign to support a product that is losing market share? Who makes the decision to not change or increase the production of products that need huge ad campaigns to continue to generate profit? In a corporation it would be the dozen or so members of the Board of Directors. Many of the people sitting on that Board are top executives of the Corporation. You can bet the decision of the CEO will become the decision of the Board of Directors. Especially when it comes to dispensing of the Net Profits in the form of bonuses. Most of that money will go to the top executives. Why? Because in many cases the CEO of Corp A happens to sit on the Board of Directors of Corp B, while the President of Corp B sits on the Board of Corp A. In a private owned company the owner makes the decisions. The larger the size of the company the less input the workers have, but the bottom line is that what the Owner/Boss says is going to happen, will happen. If you don't like it leave. Ever been given that as an answer to you questioning a "management" decision? How is that different the some tin horn dictator in a foreign country telling you what you will do? How is it different that having a Sociopath as Dictator surrounded by other Sociopaths telling you that these minority people are the problems and they need to be jailed, interred, exterminated, excluded to make your country great again?
If we want to Make American Great Again we need to accurately diagnose the problem. It isn't political. It is economic. We need to develop an economic system that puts the decision making into the hands of the workers. A system that would require the workers, all of them, to vote. Should we move the factory to Indochina? Should we get rid of that poisonous output from the manufacturing process by pumping it into the local water table; the very place our drinking water is pulled from? Should we stop burning coal and convert to solar energy to stop polluting the air our children breath? How should we divide the net net profits? Should we hire a "CEO/President" for 1,000 times what our average worker makes? Should management have final say in all decisions? There is such an economic model in existence and thriving in the world today. In fact, there are thousands of these company entities in our own country. And they are successful. The most famous is in Spain. The Mondragon Corporation. You can get a feel for who they are and how successful the have become in the last 60 or so years here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/07/mondragon-spains-giant-cooperative
An economic system based on the Mondragon Co-op is an end goal, not a starting point. But it is what we need to aspire too. It is what we need to replace the current Corporate Capitalist Dictatorships with a truly democratic system where the power, economic and political, remains in the hands of the people Where one man one vote, in our work place as in our government, is the guiding principal.
