Increasingly this is the question I find haunting me. At this point, it is pretty clear that our system is fundamentally broken and that there is little to no possibility of procedural change. By procedural change, I mean change through ordinary political processes where we elect politicians and they enact the right sort of legislation beneficial to the vast majority of Americans. In 2006 we retook the House and Senate, while in 2008 we took the White House. Americans voted for change yet, on the economic front (I am not talking about cultural politics), we've witnessed policies that continue the assault on working and middle class voters, detrimentally effecting people of all races, men, women, children, and so on. We are largely adrift without any representation. So what is to be done?
The Situation
The situation is one in which 1% of the population controls 40% of the wealth. As Greywolfe recently reminded us:
The wealthiest 5% of Americans control 72% of America’s financial wealth. The bottom 80% control only 7% of the nation’s financial wealth. The richest 400 Americans have more combined wealth than the poorer HALF of all Americans. That means 400 people have more wealth than 150,000,000 people combined. American corporations saw record profits in 2010. Nearly 80% of all economic gains made in the past thirty years have gone to the richest 1%. In the 1970s, the average CEO made 30 times what an hourly worker made. Today, a CEO makes 300 times what an hourly worker makes.
For working and middle class Americans, standards of living have remained stagnant for 30 years and have even declined. Meanwhile, financial industries go without any serious regulation, those that caused the financial meltdown go unpunished, and power increasingly becomes concentrated in the hands of a few such that the rest of us become indentured servants to a system over which we have no control and from which we are unable to escape.
Similarly, working and middle class Americans increasingly find themselves adrift in a sea of debt because this is the only way they can stay afloat in a system where the standard of living is frozen. Proceeding apace with all of this is an assault on the ability of working and middle class Americans to represent their interests in the work place as can be seen in the assault on unions and Orwellian "Right to Work" laws. To make matters worse, pensions are under assault, along with vital social programs resulting from the revenue crisis we now live in as a result of constant tax cuts. Finally, the working and middle class carry the majority of the tax burden, funding the government, while big business refuses to pay its share despite benefiting so richly from this system.
But this is not all. At present and in our imminent future, we face serious catastrophe in the form of climate change and the growing energy crisis. Both of these things are serious existential threats that will impact our lives, our health, and our entire economy. Yet little to nothing is being done.
The Cause
The cause of the situation is clear enough. It is not that Washington is out of touch. It is not that Washington does not understand. It is not even that Congress is packed with Blue Dog democrats and conservatives. The cause is structural. The reason we find ourselves in these circumstances is due to the role of money in our politics.
Despite wide popular support for a number of progressive programs and proposals, and despite overwhelmingly broad outrage over the economic circumstances outlined above, we nonetheless find our elected officials refusing to do anything and continuing to enact legislation that assaults the welfare and flourishing of average Americans. This is perplexing as it is against the self-interest of elected officials to behave in this way because it threatens their ability to get re-elected. Indeed, if we look at recent history we witness an oscillating political system that shifts back and forth between Democrats and Republicans like a game of hot potato.
The only way to explain their perplexing behavior, their refusal to enact popular policy, their refusal to address economic inequality and injustice despite widespread demand that they do so, is through the role that corporate money plays in our politics. In order to get elected politicians need to raise massive amounts of money, much of which comes from corporate America. For them there is no other way. Further, as a result of Citizens United, they now have to perpetually calculate the impact of commercial attacks that can arise as a result of nearly infinite money used to produce attack ads.
The consequence is that they become beholden to the interests of the wealthiest percentage of the population in all of their political decisions. Lest their campaign money dries up or they find themselves under assault by constant attack ads, they must constantly distort policy so as to not bring down the ire of the corporations. This, for example, is what happened with Health Care Reform, where single payer wasn't even entertained, where the public option was only tepidly defended, and where we bargained things away with the pharmaceutical companies so as to avoid bringing down the wrath of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies. It is also the reason that the Bush tax cuts were extended. This is the only way to explain the actions of our elected officials despite widespread popular support for very different forms of policy.
Hard Questions
Until these structural features of our system are changed, the situation will only get worse. It matters little whether we elect more and better democrats or promote a third party because any officials we elect will find themselves locked in the same structural situation that distorts their duty in this way. From the perspective of our elected officials they understand themselves as making a Faustian bargain where they put up with such injustice and how the moneyed influence of the system forces them to produce tepid legislation, so as to enact some small goods, usually on the cultural front.
So the really hard question is how you fix a system that is broken when you can no longer rely on your elected officials to do the right thing. How can we right this system? Until we do things are only going to grow worse and injustice is going to become even more profound. I have no answers to this question. When I look into the future and look at the trends, I see dark revolution coming as economic pressures intensify and life becomes more miserable for Americans. This should be avoided at all costs. Perhaps we need to begin focusing on Constitutional amendments to solve these problems as electing democrats does not seem to be doing the trick. Please note, I am not saying I won't vote for democrats. I know republicans are worse. I will vote for Obama and democrats in the next election. Nonetheless, we need to find a way to fix these problems. How can we do this?