Between the years 1945 and 1973, the wages of average Americans grew at a rate never before seen anywhere in the world. Without a doubt, the American middle class was truly born in the post-war years, and for the first time ever, average Americans were able to take advantage of economic opportunities heretofore only available to the privileged few. Thanks to the progressive administrations of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson, restraints were put in place to curb unchecked capitalism, while ensuring that a larger share of capital profits would be shared by the workers who actually created the wealth. But ours was not a Soviet-style redistribution of wealth. Hardly, for as more and more middle class Americans were gaining access to the good life, private capital was growing at record rates too. Indeed, during those same years, the United States set records for economic growth while more of its citizens moved into the ranks of millionaires than ever before. For the first time ever, most middle class Americans owned their own homes, drove two cars, and could afford to send their children to college.
Since 1973, as verified by all credible economists, things have changed. While American workers' productivity continued to rise, real wages flattened out and have not grown since. Thus, the economy kept expanding, creating the illusion of a more prosperous society, but for those of us in the middle, we saw no improvements in our standard of living. Instead, the wealth we were creating was being syphoned off into the hands of a new class of Robber Barons at the very top. While the rest of us were trying to make ends meet with two full time jobs per family, instead of one as in past years, we witnessed the creation of a super-rich class whose members were now billionaires, instead of millionaires. How, you might ask did this happen, and why were so many of us asleep at the wheel?
Beginning with Richard Nixon in 1972, and carried forth non-stop by both Republican and Democratic administrations right through to, well. . . today, there has been a full-frontal assault on all federal regulations to dampen the influence and accumulation of great wealth. De-regulation and massive tax cuts for the wealthy were the mantra of the neo-capitalists, as they promised all of us a new and greater prosperity that would "trickle down" to everyone. To the absolute delight of the Wall Street moguls, effective banking and investment regulations were gutted by the legislators we sent to Washington to serve our interests. While we were looking the other way, our representatives were stuffing their campaign coffers with cash from their newly enriched patrons. You see the bankers and brokers cared little about Democrat or Republican, as they threw money at both parties, for it was influence and access that they were buying. American politics was no longer about issues, but became an OZ-like treasure hunt for the toadies of the economic elite.
But why, you might ask, did we allow this to happen? First, the economic power brokers took a lesson from the first dictator to install himself in power in the dying Roman Republic, Julius Caesar. Like Caesar, they gave us "bread and games." For years we substituted toys and trinkets that created the illusion of prosperity, while we were falling further and further behind in real wealth. Secondly, through their now consolidated media empires, they fanned the flames of divisiveness over issues unimportant to them, like abortion, immigration, evil empires, gay rights. While we became embroiled in social and religious warfare, the elites in power kept pursuing their only goal, an ever greater share of America's economic wealth.
Thirdly, through their great financial empires the economic elite convinced us that we could indeed join them in prosperity by cashing in on the equity of our homes, rather than expecting any real increases in our wages and salaries. This was a twofold process that took the eager cooperation of Congress and state legislatures to realize. First, they created new lending instruments to make it easy for anyone to purchase a home. That move drove the prices of American homes way beyond their actual value. Then they made it even easier for us to use our homes as ATM machines, so we could borrow and purchase those things our wages could not actually afford. After all, their media driven advertisements told us, since the value of your homes will always go up, you can, if you have to, sell your house and relieve yourselves of the mountain of consumer debt you are now building. In fact, they screamed at us, you end up richer if you go further into debt. Anyone remember all those ads on TV for zero interest loans, no down payments, and my personal favorite, life-long prosperity through a reverse mortgage?
Meanwhile, thanks to our elected officials, and the well-paid media mouthpieces of the Wall Street billionaires, new kinds of investment opportunities were created to further enrich those at the very top. Bundled mortgage securities, investment derivatives, and credit default swaps, whatever in the hell those are, were creating billions, on the backs of an ever increasing debt load for the American middle class. And then, the greatest economic bubble in the history of the world burst and, well, you know the rest of the story, right? We lost our homes, we lost our savings, we lost our jobs, hell, we lost our middle class. And what about all those wealthy fat cats at the top of the house of cards they created? Did they lose anything? Hmm, they got bailed out, they kept their fortunes, and, believe it or not, they just paid themselves record bonuses, and oh yeah, back to the subject of this rant, they got the United States Supreme Court to anoint their inanimate corporations as fully functioning American citizens with First Amendment rights! Doesn't it make you all warm and cozy inside to know that not all of us are suffering? Boy, am I glad that poor old Bank of America now has the right to free speech!
You see, the Supreme Court, in its decision in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case, removed all restrictions on corporate funding of political advertisement. Thus, big business can not only lobby the government, and donate to candidates' campaigns, they can now spend all they want to support or defeat candidates in elections. Since the combined wealth of American corporations is twenty-nine trillion dollars, that's right, TRILLION, do any of you actually believe that we are still a society of one person one vote? Unbelievably, in his 5-4 majority opinion, Justice Kennedy, a Reagan appointee, said that corporations had been denied their basic rights to free speech and this decision would correct that problem! I guess I missed the fact that up until last week, corporations could not be heard on political issues in America.
So, in a hypothetical election campaign, let us say that a candidate for the US Senate wants to block off shore oil drilling in California, and Chevron and Exxon are unhappy about this. In the last few months of the campaign they could buy up every single minute of available TV commercial time and flood the airways with negative ads directed specifically at our candidate. Worse yet, what if a controlling share of a US corporation was owned by a foreign entity, which is perfectly legal. We could see countries like China and Saudi Arabia determining the outcome of our elections, right there with Walmart and Wells Fargo. My advice to all of you, if something is not done. . . learn the meaning of the word "plutocracy."
Solution. A constitutional amendment banning corporate funding of any political activities would block even the pro-big business majority on the Supreme Court. By the way, that five justice majority was appointed by Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush and George W. Bush. Short of that, it may be necessary for concerned citizens to organize economic boycotts of any corporation that decides to move into electoral politics. For the only "change we can believe in," may, after all, be the change we initiate ourselves. Perhaps this recession will prove to be the best friend of an endangered species, American democracy. Those goodies that used to distract us from the economic assault on our political institutions are now all gone. And with ten percent national unemployment, many of us have the time to take action. maybe a new generation of reform minded Americans will rise up and shout, "enough." However, if we once again fall back into our complacent LAZBOYs to watch another mind-numbing reality show, I guess I should take comfort in knowing that I will be dead and gone before our legislators, like so many of our athletic stadiums, take on corporate names. I can almost hear it now, "The Speaker recognizes Representative Citi Bank for a five minute rebuttal. . ."
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