Bezos, Murdoch, Musk, Zuckerberg are among the top one percent who own more global wealth than the bottom 95 percent. Oligarchs own the global economy (U.S. included) and now seek to own and control our political system, enabling government wealthfare — the most powerful on the planet, spending more on military might than all other industrialized nations combined.
James Carville is credited with saying, “It’s the economy, stupid!” Slightly revised, more specifically, “It’s the economic system, stupid!” Originally, economic systems were designed to serve communal needs and wants. Over time, means of production fell into the hands of individual capitalists competing with one another. Economic advantage allowed one to devour the other, inevitably becoming a global monopoly.
Blaming China, immigrants, workers, environmentalists or government regulation is classic scapegoating. Individual CEOs, corporate boards and oligarchs are the real targets for what has gone deeply wrong in American society. The only thing natural about economics are resources; all else involve individual decision-makers in an economic system hijacked by those private interests benefitting most.
Inequality and human deprivation are traceable to the same forces that brought us white supremacy and privilege, slavery and exploitation of workers, land grabbing and destruction of Indigenous culture, poverty and climate disruption. Over 80 percent of all corporate shares are owned by less than 10 percent of the shareholders. One share equals one vote, a million shares equal a million votes enabling a billionaire oligarchy.
Corporatocracy, run by a billionaire oligarchy, dominates political and economic life through capture of major institutions, including government itself. Corporate giants in ravenous pursuit exploit, extract and squander resources, leaving planetary destruction and externalizing costs at public expense in its wake. Denial, scapegoating, burying truth and false narratives keep alive the American Dream, but as George Carlin observed, “you have to be asleep to believe it.”
Harold Honkola
Stillwater