When I woke up this morning and heard that police had cleared Zuccotti Park late last night under the orders of Mayor Mike Bloomberg, I was immediately struck by the irony of the fact that the sole decision to evict people who are protesting economic inequality in NYC rests with the 30th wealthiest person in the world, who paid $102 Million to be elected to a third term in 2009 (a cost of $183 a vote!) after fighting to have the term limits law changed so he could run again. Now, I actually like Mike Bloomberg. I've voted for him. I think he's something of a benevolent dictator for New York City, and I believe he authentically cares about this city, and about doing the right thing for the people of New York.
But the fact that he's in office at all highlights the very issue which it seems to me is at the heart of the Occupation movement. And it isn't easy to get to the heart of it all, because there are so many issues heaped on top of it. We've got economic inequality, social issues, the failure of capitalism, the deregulation of the financial system, the recent economic collapse, the bailout of the banks, and everything else. But all these issues are, I think, united very simply in one core problem:
Money buys political power, and our country is now effectively run by the wealthy, who exert tremendous influence over our government to make sure that policies that benefit their wealth are enacted, and that policies that do not benefit their wealth are blocked.
The ways that money buys political power and influences government decision-making are many, some direct and some indirect, some legal and some illegal. Of course there's graft and corruption, but there's also the spin of the media, political donations (it takes a lot of money to get elected), paid lobbyists, the power of political appointments, the promise of future rewards after serving in office, and a host of other subtle and overt ways that money influences decision-making.
This problem is not just a problem for the left or the right. It's a problem that threatens our entire system. We have become a plutocracy in which those with the most money have the most influence. Without wealth, we have very little voice... all that we can do to influence government decision-making is to vote, or to protest, or to write a letter. But those with money can hire lobbyists, make large political donations, influence coverage in our media, hire a "consultant" (say, a former influential elected official) to make a few phone calls, promise someone a reward in the future, or make an out-and-out bribe.
This is not about "capitalism" or "socialism." The ideological divide between these two idealized economic models frames a lot of the neverending debate between the left and the right about specific policies. But we don't have a capitalist society or a socialist one. We have a combination, and we choose when to adopt socialist principles or capitalist principles in our government. Capitalism works well for some things (incentivizing growth), and socialism works well for other things (military, major infrastructure, etc.). Some things work well when the government does them, and some things do not. Some things work well when businesses do them, and other things do not. We can debate when government or business is better equipped to handle one thing or another, but any dogmatic position that says "business is always good (or bad)" or "government is always good (or bad)" denies history and reality.
If the wealthy are effectively controlling the decisions that our government makes on our behalf, they will make decisions about when to apply socialist principles and when to apply capitalist principles so as to maintain and increase their wealth. So we have socialized military, police, roads, and socialized risk for "too big to fail" financial institutions. But we continue to apply capitalist principles to health care (health insurance and hospitals) for most Americans, even as our costs continue to skyrocket, and the quality of our service continues to decline. And we apply capitalist principles to job creation, even though the "trickle down" from the wealthy "job creators" doesn't seem to result in very many new jobs, because the wealthy are generally hanging on to their money, rather than hiring new workers.
So we have a country in which our representative democracy, under the influence of pressure from moneyed interests, effectively makes decisions for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many. That is, actually, the definition of tyranny. Even though we still get to vote. Even though I can write to my senator if I want. My opinion is worth a lot less than that of Rupert Murdoch or George Soros.
If we approached decision-making at the governmental level from the perspective of "how can we make a decision that benefits the most citizens possible" we would have a very different approach to health care, financial regulation, job creation, defense, taxation, campaign finance and many other issues. But this isn't how most lawmakers approach the problems that face us. The one-person/one-vote system has far less power than the individual ambition and desire for personal benefit that wealth can bestow on our elected representatives and political appointees.
Let's look at three examples from the last few years, one from each branch of our Federal government, in which decisions very obviously placed the interests of the wealthy few over the interests of average Americans:
- The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 was drafted by Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (himself a former Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs) to provide $700 billion in bailouts to financial institutions through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Whether or not there is any actual conflict-of-interest in Paulson bailing out his former firm and many others, I don't think there can be any doubt that Paulson's perspective on the importance of the bailouts was influenced by his time on the inside at the most successful financial institution on Wall Street.
- The Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 extended the Bush-era tax cuts after a bitter national debate over whether to let them lapse or not. As some conservatives chose to view the expiration of a temporary tax cut as a "tax increase," and given the pledge that many legislators have signed to not raise taxes under any circumstances, it was impossible to not extend the tax cut, even for the wealthiest Americans, and even in the midst of a national debate about the deficit. Unfortunately, the ongoing debate about fair taxation (highlighted most dramatically by Warren Buffett) has caused many to begin to think of the Republican party as the "Party of the Rich" since many Republican legislators vociferously defend against higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans, whether by closing tax loopholes or increasing taxes on capital gains or income taxes.
- The Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision of the Supreme Court essentially gives corporations the right to fund campaign advertisements without making that funding public. This decision gave additional credence to the view that corporations are people, with all the same rights as citizens, and that money is a form of free speech. John Paul Stevens, in his dissenting opinon, wrote that this decision "threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will, I fear, do damage to this institution."
If we actually are a society in which everyone is equal... If we actually have a country that is (as Lincoln said at Gettysburg) "of the people, by the people, and for the people," then everyone's interests should be weighed equally in making decisions that affect us all. For many of us, I think that's the basis of our social compact, of what we agree to when we place our allegiance in America. And it is the very sense that this social compact has been violated through the pervasive influence of wealth in politics that has brought us the continuing Occupation movement. And this isn't going away until the social compact is restored, until we figure out a way to make decisions that affect us all in a way that serves the needs of the many, not just the needs of the wealthy few.