Politics is difficult, because recognising what is happening makes it seem insurmountable. That is, we are being eaten by the rich, and the institutions that support them. ‘Eaten’ is quite literal here.
We are living in the result of 40 years of agitation for free markets and small states. Libertarians and others can say that free markets and small states have never arrived, but that does not mean it is not predictable that agitation for small states and free markets will result in corporate domination, and a State which exists primarily to defend and ‘nanny’ the rich and their markets and hold down the ordinary person. Hence the disintegration of the welfare state, the massive growth in military spending, the stagnation or decline of ordinary wages, and the growth of massive inequality on class lines, as money is transferred from the workers to the rich.
The growth of inequality leads to a greater and greater intensification of power with wealth. We live in a capitalist corporate plutocracy. As the classes separate, the wealthy appear to regard ordinary people as inadequate, easily fooled, and as burdensome costs which should be eliminated.
Not all wealthy people support plutocracy (eg Soros, Buffett), but it tends to be that way. We live in a world in which politicians and policies are largely bought.
The problem is intensified, in that unlike other systems of plutocracy, corporate capitalism will destroy anything if there is a profit in it. They will destroy traditional values, cities, lifestyles, and political systems. What is worse is that we live in a world in which people are rewarded for destroying our life support and degrading our environment, because they think they are too wealthy to be hurt, and they have no connection with the majority of the people who will suffer from this degradation.
In this world the parties of the Right openly support the wealthy and shift the burden of paying for ordinary people’s oppression onto the workers. The parties of the centre right, are slightly less bought and think that somehow the people should live relatively happily under corporate domination.
Further, news is largely produced by a State or by the corporate sector. Thus the information the populace gets, even when it is pretending to be radical as with Fox and Brietbart, exists to make sure people do not get information that challenges corporate dominance but information that reinforces it. Whether the information is correct or not, is secondary. It is extremely difficult to get accurate information to work with, and readers/viewers tend to judge information’s value by their own bias and aprioris. Hence it is difficult to change anyone’s mind, in any way which does not reinforce plutocracy.
This factor is intensified, because, in order to persuade people to vote for them when they do not have the interests of ordinary people in mind, the right in particular has to distract people with lies, culture wars, racism, nationalism, hatred of people who are unfortunate and so on. It constantly has to flirt with the fascist right to get votes – as such it drifts to the right. Right centre parties follow the drift as that is the only way they can get funding. Both parties like wars, especially cheap wars, because the people get behind them and it justifies military expenditure at the expense of the people.
So, for me, the political questions are how do we break the power of wealth, how do we get people involved in politics, and how do we stop the wealthy and their instruments destabilising planetary life as a whole?
Is it possible to change this? Is it inevitable that capitalism leads us to where we are?
Tags: Disinformation, economics, free markets
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