Screaming for change!
– NOFX
Throughout history and all over the globe, donned in different cultures and spanning various timelines, power works to consolidate. Our societal response to this macroeconomic force is the primary reason we have government in the first place.
- An authoritarian government exists to facilitate and protect the consolidation of power.
- A democratic government exists to counterbalance that consolidation force, and to redistribute that power among the governed.
Yet, history shows that even the most democratic attempts at government always give way to the consolidation of power. Unfortunately, that is where we are today here in the United States. Our democratic system has given way, and the race is on to more extreme wealth and power consolidation.
In the 20th Century, an increasing number of Americans became wealthier over time. As a result, people generally experienced greater well-being, gained more freedom over their lives, were privy to more opportunities, and saw more representation in government. This is what made America great. We had a booming middle class. Homeownership was attainable for many families, often supported by a single income. Healthcare costs were relatively low. Higher education was more affordable, allowing many middle-class students to graduate without significant debt. Retirees had stable income. The economy was working for the people. The system was functioning to distribute wealth among the population, and increasingly, power among the governed.
Today, more Americans are becoming poorer over time. The question is why? What is it about our economic system that is generating that outcome? It’s not because our nation is less productive, as we are much more productive than we have ever been. It’s not because our nation is less rich, as we are vastly richer than we have ever been. Yet, the system increasingly functions, and is increasingly designed to function, to transfer wealth from working people to the wealthiest of Americans. We can see the workings of this great wealth transfer in almost every aspect of our lives – our homes and their mortgages, our health and its profit masters, our work and its wages, our borrowing and banking, and even in our money itself.
Without great change, we will see continued wealth consolidation in our nation. This means enormous poverty rates and the elimination of the middle class. We will see the poorest among us be put to forced labor and the middle among us thinning out towards the bottom. Yet, somehow, we will defend the system that crushes us, until we won’t. Revolution, at its core, is a redistribution of power. As long as power consolidates, revolution nears. The only question is when.
The good news is that, even though consolidation is a continuous force in our world, our current trajectory is not a necessary condition. We can change our path. We can design an economic system in which more people become wealthier over time. And we can implement the needed changes through economic policy – a revolution not by the sword but by the pen.
This type of change won’t come easy. Enormous resources are being poured into maintaining and even speeding the transfer of wealth and consolidation of power. The American people are so divided by noise and nonsense from propaganda and culture war that we will likely vote against our own economic interests for decades to come. Yet, the trillions of dollars poured into angering and dividing the public is kinetic energy being transferred into potential energy among the people. And while a divided populace serves the elite, a strategy of incitement creates a powder keg that will surely come back to bite. In other words, Karma’s a bitch.
As a nation, we should put forward a clear Declaration of Economic Democracy. This means that our government exists for the specific purpose of maintaining the balance of power and distribution of wealth among the governed. We must reclaim democracy as our driving and central principle in this nation.