Is America too big to succeed?

wv wrote:

Its Sunday. Time for some academic never-gonna-happen-musings
from the inter nets:

How America Became an Oligarchy
Posted on April 6, 2015 by Ellen Brown
How America Became an Oligarchy

….
…..n America Beyond Capitalism,
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/11391-democracy-is-a-continent-too-big
Prof. Gar Alperovitz argues that the US is simply too big to operate as a democracy at the national level. Excluding Canada and Australia, which have large empty landmasses, the United States is larger geographically than all the other advanced industrial countries of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) combined. He proposes what he calls “The Pluralist Commonwealth”: a system anchored in the reconstruction of communities and the democratization of wealth. It involves plural forms of cooperative and common ownership beginning with decentralization and moving to higher levels of regional and national coordination when necessary. He is co-chair along with James Gustav Speth of an initiative called The Next System Project, which seeks to help open a far-ranging discussion of how to move beyond the failing traditional political-economic systems of both left and Right..

Dr. Alperovitz quotes Prof. Donald Livingston, who asked in 2002:

What value is there in continuing to prop up a union of this monstrous size? . . . [T]here are ample resources in the American federal tradition to justify states’ and local communities’ recalling, out of their own sovereignty, powers they have allowed the central government to usurp….
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w
v

It has nothing to do with the size of the landmass and America is a republic not a democracy.

Billy_T wrote:

WV,

You keep citing really smart folk. Alperovitz is an important public intellectual, and a great leftist. He used to teach at my alma mater, Maryland.

His ideas are very close to what we both want . . . a kind of left-anarchist decentralization of all power, out to the people, with the economy and the community fully democratized . . . federated to one another . . . cooperatively, in cooperation, not competition.

_____

It has nothing to do with the size of the landmass and America is a republic not a democracy.

Actually, bnw, we’re both. We’re a democratic republic, and we’ve managed, against great odds, to extend the democratic franchise close to “universal suffrage” over the centuries . . . but we still have a long, long way to go. The most important step along those lines is to democratize the workplace and make the economy itself fully democratic. Not via proxies or representatives. But directly democratic.

Capitalism is the anti-democratic economic system par excellence, so that will be quite the task and struggle as long as it’s in place. But struggle we must while it’s here, and overthrow it as soon as it’s humanly possible — replacing it with social justice and participatory democracy baked in from the start. Replace it with equality for all, equal rights for all, equal say, equal voice, equal value and equal share for all. We the people. By the people, for the people, no longer for plutocrats, oligarchs or oligopolies.

No, the USA is a republic.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/republic

Full Definition of republic
1
a (1) : a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government
b (1) : a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law (2) : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government
c : a usually specified republican government of a political unit <the French Fourth Republic>
2
: a body of persons freely engaged in a specified activity <the republic of letters>
3
: a constituent political and territorial unit of the former nations of Czechoslovakia, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or Yugoslavia

Billy_T wrote:

We’re a democratic republic, to distinguish us from other forms.

From Wiki:

Montesquieu included in his work “The Spirit of the Laws” both democracies, where all the people have a share in rule, and aristocracies or oligarchies, where only some of the people rule, as republican forms of government.[6]

At least in theory. In practice, we’ve become an oligarchy, with a capitalist aristocracy running the show.

Beyond all of that, America is what we make it. It’s never been anything set in stone. It’s never remained “as the founders wanted it.” If that were so, we’d still have a slaveocracy, and only white men with property could vote.

If we want it to be a full and direct democracy, we have the ability to make that happen, as a people, and there is nothing to prevent that. If we want to democratize the economy, we can do that too. It’s up to us.

Again the USA is a republic.

Again the USA is a republic.

Again, the USA is a democratic republic. And, as mentioned, it’s anything we want it to be. It’s up to us.

Why do you insist on removing the “democratic” part? Are you against democracy?

Billy_T wrote:

Definitions and labels aside, do you think the mega-corporations
and wealthiest-one-percenters have too much influence
over how laws are written and how policies are created and implemented?

w
v

bnw has told us before, it’s not anyone’s fault in the private sector. It’s all on the politicians.

Oh, well. At least we root for the same football team.

But…as you (wv) know…politicians are funded and backed and lobbied and basically set up by monied interests, and then define legislation around those interests. That includes laws passed and laws not passed or which never come up.

If people don’t see that they see only half the equation.

Billy_T wrote:

Again the USA is a republic.

Again, the USA is a democratic republic. And, as mentioned, it’s anything we want it to be. It’s up to us.

Why do you insist on removing the “democratic” part? Are you against democracy?

The USA is a republic. If you need to put a qualifier in front then that would be a representative or constitutional republic.

wv wrote:

bnw wrote:

wv wrote:

bnw wrote:

Again the USA is a republic.

————
Definitions and labels aside, do you think the mega-corporations
and wealthiest-one-percenters have too much influence
over how laws are written and how policies are created and implemented?

w
v

I don’t agree with corporate personhood. You can blame monied interests like the 1% and mega-corporations but that isn’t the problem. The too easily bought politicians are the problem.

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Why are you against corporate personhood?

w
v

A person is held criminally responsible and can be sentenced to jail. A corporation can only be fined.

I don’t agree with corporate personhood. You can blame monied interests like the 1% and mega-corporations but that isn’t the problem. The too easily bought politicians are the problem.

From my own discussions with people who self-ID as “right-wing,” what you state above is quite common. That it is always government’s fault, and never any individual business person, or corporation, or corporate America, or capitalism — domestic and international. It’s the fault of politicians, who seem to have this ginormous, colossal power to force billionaires to buckle under to people who actually serve those billionaires and capitalist interests in general.

And this is often strongest among “conservatives” who also constantly preach “personal responsibility” — though I haven’t seen you do that here . . . and that strikes an even harder note of contradiction. That no business person, corporation, cartel, corporate interests in general, capitalism in general, here and abroad, are ever responsible for their own actions, because politicians made them do it.

Reminds me of Flip Wilson back in the day.

And it is that very same attitude, that very same belief, that the private sector is never at fault that makes it take so many ungodly risks all the time, and hurt so many millions of people, day after day, week after week, decade after decade.

It’s never their fault. Politicians, making a tiny fraction as much, while being completely dependent on the generous donations of those billionaires, have superpowers the folks at Marvel couldn’t even imagine, apparently.

In reality, there is no corruption without the private sector doing the corrupting. At least under the capitalist system — by definition. At the very least, at a minimum, when it comes to “fault,” it’s both/and. And it baffles me how anyone can convince themselves that we can only lay blame on one side of the transaction, rather than all sides.

Billy_T wrote:

I don’t agree with corporate personhood. You can blame monied interests like the 1% and mega-corporations but that isn’t the problem. The too easily bought politicians are the problem.

From my own discussions with people who self-ID as “right-wing,” what you state above is quite common. That it is always government’s fault, and never any individual business person, or corporation, or corporate America, or capitalism — domestic and international. It’s the fault of politicians, who seem to have this ginormous, colossal power to force billionaires to buckle under to people who actually serve those billionaires and capitalist interests in general.

And this is often strongest among “conservatives” who also constantly preach “personal responsibility” — though I haven’t seen you do that here . . . and that strikes an even harder note of contradiction. That no business person, corporation, cartel, corporate interests in general, capitalism in general, here and abroad, are ever responsible for their own actions, because politicians made them do it.

Reminds me of Flip Wilson back in the day.

And it is that very same attitude, that very same belief, that the private sector is never at fault that makes it take so many ungodly risks all the time, and hurt so many millions of people, day after day, week after week, decade after decade.

It’s never their fault. Politicians, making a tiny fraction as much, while being completely dependent on the generous donations of those billionaires, have superpowers the folks at Marvel couldn’t even imagine, apparently.

In reality, there is no corruption without the private sector doing the corrupting. At least under the capitalist system — by definition. At the very least, at a minimum, when it comes to “fault,” it’s both/and. And it baffles me how anyone can convince themselves that we can only lay blame on one side of the transaction, rather than all sides.

You do not get the simplest of concepts. Either a politician has principles or doesn’t. Once elected the principled politician works for the people rather than courting special interest money and relying upon congressional privilege yielding a very high re-election rate to ignore the best interests of their constituents.

btw,

I definitely want our politicians to represent all of us. They don’t. The duopoly represents the richest and most powerful. I’d say the Dems represent the professional class, or the richest 10%, give or take, and the GOP the 1%. And that includes Trump.

They should all be “principled,” no question. But because of the capitalist system, and the way the rich and powerful have managed tradeoffs, it’s their “freedom and liberty” in exchange for ours. Theirs versus ours. So, again, you can’t have it both ways.

Capitalism itself guarantees corruption of public officials, and the only way to undo most of that is to get rid of it, to go to an economic system the bans profit and the private hoarding of wealth, that bans the concentration of wealth, because that invariably leads to concentrations of power, including political power . . . so the only way to avoid the concentration of political power is to make sure there is no concentration of wealth.

With that out of the way, we further prevent the concentration of political power through the use of lottery, and no permanent power structure. We do our civil duty, our two or four years, and then we go home. Someone else replaces us. We rotate out. Locally, regionally, nationally. In the workplace, we’d do the same, though for shorter time periods. No permanent power structure there, either.

No gods, no masters, no slaves, no employees.

But before we get there, our government has to have the ability to stop private sector power from engulfing public sector duties to the people. It has to have the funding and the staffing and the popular support to do that. And this means democracy in action — something I’m still not sure you support.

…and those deck chairs were all rearranged just after we hit the iceberg…

Billy_T wrote:

Oh, and you also have to fund those public sector efforts, if you want government to stop the private sector from screwing over the people and corrupting society. You’d have to be in favor of much, much higher tax rates, especially on the rich for that — and, if I am not mistaken, you called our incredibly low taxes, “egregious beyond belief.”

I never addressed income tax rates. I said taxes on interest earned and on stock gains is egregious since the money was already taxed as income and the bank lends it out at a much higher rate than interest rate received, plus in my case the government gets 28% of all stock profit while I take all the risk.

More government? How has that worked? Ask Madoff’s victims. The SEC was practically a co-conspirator in that fraud. How about the FBI having known about arabic speaking pilots in training not at all interested in learning to land passenger jets during the run up to 9/11? So many more but you get the idea.

Billy_T wrote:

With that out of the way, we further prevent the concentration of political power through the use of lottery, and no permanent power structure. We do our civil duty, our two or four years, and then we go home. Someone else replaces us. We rotate out. Locally, regionally, nationally. In the workplace, we’d do the same, though for shorter time periods. No permanent power structure there, either.

I’ve always supported term limits. It’s what the founding fathers wanted with citizen legislators serving a term or two then returning to their communities. Yet with congress operating on seniority for most everything they want to stay to gain more power. They then lose touch with their constituents yet are re-elected over and over all the while getting chummy with the lobbyists who will be their employer when they leave congress. Same crap with high ranking military officers and the defense industry lobbyists.

Make term limits mandatory. Make it illegal to work as a lobbyist for at least 7 years after leaving office. I would make that for congress, military and cabinet members.

Billy_T wrote:

bnw wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

Oh, and you also have to fund those public sector efforts, if you want government to stop the private sector from screwing over the people and corrupting society. You’d have to be in favor of much, much higher tax rates, especially on the rich for that — and, if I am not mistaken, you called our incredibly low taxes, “egregious beyond belief.”

I never addressed income tax rates. I said taxes on interest earned and on stock gains is egregious since the money was already taxed as income and the bank lends it out at a much higher rate than interest rate received, plus in my case the government gets 28% of all stock profit while I take all the risk.

More government? How has that worked? Ask Madoff’s victims. The SEC was practically a co-conspirator in that fraud. How about the FBI having known about arabic speaking pilots in training not at all interested in learning to land passenger jets during the run up to 9/11? So many more but you get the idea.

The money wasn’t already taxed. It’s a new profit for you. And why are you paying 28% for capital gains when the top rate is 20%?

So what if it is a new profit. I took all the risk with my money that I had already paid taxes on. Collectibles and small business stocks is 28%.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 4 months ago by bnw.