That the United States of America is an oligarchy, I think, is beyond question. The government responds only to money, and money is in the hands of those who have money. I don't have much, and most of you don't either.
That is not to say that all oligarchs are bad. There are some fairly decent people who are insanely wealthy. Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and George Soros come to mind. If we lived in a benevolent dictatorship run by Warren Buffett, I imagine, we would all be better off than we are today. But it would still be a dictatorship.
But most of our oligarchs are not like Warren Buffett. The Koch brothers and people like Rupert Murdoch influence public policy only to increase their wealth and power. That seems to be all that they care about. But the situation is even worse than that. The recent meltdown in the economy was the result not just of oligarchy, but more of capitalistic anarchy. Money chasing money. Nobody was in charge. The system ran rampant and nobody could stop it. It was a disaster that was not only predictable, but actually predicted.The globalization of the economy serves the needs of the oligarchy; it increases their wealth. The spread between the incomes of the very wealthy and normal Americans has never been greater. We are not a banana Republic, we are worse than that. Because our wealthy are wealthier than any capitalist who ever made his money out of South or Central America. Even the drug lords.
I have said in comments at Daily Kos over the last few months, most recently today, that what we need is a global union. As long as workers all over the world are competing, the wage scale goes to the lowest common denominator. Workers in the U.S. make the same as the workers in China, who are undercut by workers in Vietnam. Beggar thy neighbor. We need Solidarity, not for one nation, but for all nations.
I have never actually been part of a union. But I am the beneficiary. My wife worked at GE for 35 years. Eventually they shipped her factory to India and she helped pack it up. But she was represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. She has a pension and really good medical insurance. I have medical insurance too, as her spouse, for an extra $14.00 a month. I am entitled to medical insurance through my job, but it costs much more and it is not nearly as good as what I get just for being married.
Despite their name, I don't think that the International Brotherhood is all that international. But it needs to be.
Money knows no boundaries.
We can fulminate all we want to about jobs going overseas. Companies will continue to send them overseas as long as there are workers who will work for less. Workers need to be united.
And as long as we are talking about unification, I will make one more radical suggestion. We need an international political party. The Green Party is an example, but not a good one. We need a real one.
As progressives, our first goal should be to capture the Democratic Party of the United States. You may think that is an impossible task, but then the Tea Party, with a little help from the aforementioned oligarchs have all but captured the Republican Party. We can do this.
And once we are in charge of the Democratic Party we need to take it international. It is the only way. Money knows no boundaries. Nation states have really become ephemeral. We have to stop thinking USA, USA. That is a soccer cheer, but not a prescription for progress. Progressives need to think long term.
I am submitting this on a bad day after a long bad week. I am not feeling very well, and I believe that I could do a better job of it than I have. But if I don't write this now, its possible that I won't ever. And it needs to be done. We need to start.