Last week I took my 10 y.o. son to the “Occupy Wall Street” hang out so he could see the democracy in action.
Since I have predicted these kind of protests in my “From Middle East to Middle of America” piece in February, I was particularly interested in witnessing this protest.
Although I consider myself one of the 99% unrepresented people in the US by either politicians or the media, and “The 99%” is the subtitle of this protest, I found that none of the tiny groups gathered in this tiny square represented me either. I am neither an anarchist, nor socialist nor Ron Paul fan.
The only guy who more-or-less spoke for me there was a little known scientist / politician Harry Braun of PhoenixProjectFoundation.us.. He was interesting to me not just because of the stories he told of scientific inventions ready to change the world but stalled because The Big Corporations were against them, but because he rightfully suggested that THE ONLY WAY TO CIRCUMVENT THE BIG BUSINESS LOBBYING IS BY CALLING CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTIONS.
I believe that Big Business Lobbying is a huge part of all the wrong things that have lead to the present economic and political crisis.
This lobbying by the way is exactly why the “Free enterprise” ideology is nothing but a promotion of a dangerous myth.
In order to separate the mythology of “Free Enterprise” ideology from facts, one needs to examine history from the economics perspective.
Skipping the stone age, let’s start from slave labor based economics of the ancient Greece, Rome and the rest of the world, really, of that time.
The government regulated that economy by protecting the rights of slave owners and undermining the rights of slaves. The ancient countries and towns also had trade tariffs. Most importantly, social customs created “casts” that largely prevented poor people even if free to move up the social ladder and participate in profitable enterprise. So the enterprise was not quite free then.The economy, by the way, was of strictly “trickle down” variety, and middle class was no larger than 10% of society, where 1% were the rich and powerful, and the rest 89% were poor and poorer.
Entering the Middle Ages:
The economy was now feudal. The laborers were no longer slaves, even though they too could be bought and sold, and had no real freedom of movement within the territory and societal ladder. The middle class was still negligible, and the economy was still regulated by
a) societal customs of “casts” (i.e. the children of a tailor would be tailors, and peasants could not become aristocracy)
b) Laws that protected aristocracy and the rich and undermined the rights of everyone else
c) trade tariffs
So enterprise was not free either.
Moving on to the Industrial Age:
Breakthroughs in scientific discoveries were closely followed by technological advances, birthing industries that were as labor intensive as agriculture and required promotion of societal and migrational movement within society.
Since industries also required large financial investments, and money historically concentrated within the 1% of the rich and powerful, the same rich and powerful instituted new laws that allowed poor enough freedom to move around and enslave themselves for substandard wages to industrialists.
The many revolutions of that time, including the American one, were lead by rich and powerful (who were also the only educated people) that were able to capitalize on always present anger of the poor.
The American civil war was based on the fact that industrialized North needed laborers and could not afford slaves (who, besides being expensive, needed housing away from cities (segregation requirement) + transportation, etc.), so it needed to change the laws that favored the slave-labor based agricultural South. Everything else is a myth.
The large industries also needed the educated middle class to manage the many laborers, so education and money began to trickle down through the society, allowing for middle class growth.
While tariffs were still being implemented, the enterprise was largely unregulated, so it was at its freest stage.
Small businesses were popping up, the middle class was about 25%, but most of the wealth still belonged to the 1% of the rich and powerful that were investing into all big industries of that time (railroads, automotive business, oil, etc.).
Whenever these “Rubber Barons” encountered competition from a small business, they were either buying the small guy out or starve him out by lowering prices below cost (they were rich and they could afford it). Monopolies were easily achievable. Those industries that could not be gobbled up by 1 rich entity, resorted to fixing prices to keep the small guy at the bottom feed.
But that irked other rich people as well as now they also had difficulty entering the established industries (which were already monopolized or “fixed”), so new “Anti-monopoly and anti-trust” laws were put in place (although I still remember AT&T as a telephone monopoly).
But business went largely unregulated until the Great Depression.
This, however, did not create a happy prosperous society anywhere.
The nature of any business is to make as much profit as possible at the lowest possible cost. By the way, slaves are more expensive then laborers working for low wages. Besides being expensive outright, slaves need to be fed, clothed and housed. A free laborer must worry about all that himself and costs the lowest possible wage to the business. A business that is not regulated would not provide any health / retirement benefits if laborers have to compete for jobs. So large unemployment is good for business.
Businesses don’t care much about the future either. Their task is to maximize profits in the short run. Businesses don’t get sick or retire, they have no social conscience – they are not people. The owners of businesses may have conscience and may do charity. They may even make their business to give $ to charity if that generates good will and helps profit.
But any business is a money-making venture, pure and simple. Monopolies are good for businesses that can make it there; price fixing is profitable (many businesses continue doing this despite the regulations); cheap labor is coveted.
The more businesses are unregulated, the happier are the investors (the rich and powerful 1% of the society), and the harder it is on general population.
So during the early 20th century, the general population was living the tough life. In fact, the poor (70+%) were much, much angrier than even during the feudal times. They worked 80 hrs/ wk and barely made their ends meet for they were paid slave wages. They did not have the calming satisfaction of working the land and feeling one with nature. They felt used. So new revolutions were taking place all over: Russia, Germany, Spain, Italy, etc.
Countries that did not have full-blown revolutions, had plenty of unrest that was met with new laws favoring more equality.
The U.S. was no exception. The government had to relent and give legitimacy to unions. The Great Depression necessitated financial regulations to be put in place.
Since unions had money and bargaining power, the Big Business has finally met its match.
It was forced to pay living wages and benefits to its workers, and the middle class began to grow exponentially.
With the growth of the middle class came prosperity and much greater degree of equality.
The Big Business could not give up, however.
So
a)It made lobbying into an institution in order to persuade the government to do what it needed the government to do. For example, the oil industry needed to
1) keep other sources of energy out
2) get free ride from taxes and, on pretenses of needing the money to keep exploring oil fields, get subsidies and tax loop-holes
3) influence the international politics to keep oil countries in its pocket through war or piece, etc.
In fact, the government of every industrialized nation became mainly the promoter of the Big Business agenda.
b) The Big Business began privately funding “Think Tanks” in order to create so-called experts and promoters of ideology that suited the Big Business, and the “Conservative Movement” was born
c) The Big Business created organizations like ALEC, where 19 major corporations, like AT&T, ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, etc., meet with Republican politicians and give them the policies they would like to implement
d) The Big Business created the myth of “Liberal Left-leaning media” and began to promote its ideology via “alternative” conservative media.
I don’t remember who said at the advent of mass media that whoever controls the media he controls the world. Both, Hitler and Stalin knew and did that very well.
You would think that in the U.S. this would be difficult to implement. But people forget that media is also Big Business. So it was never liberal. Perhaps, it used to be more fair-handed by making profit through exposing popular opinion.
But since “liberal Media” myth was created, media has been scared to expose the polular opinion, and now is exposing the fringe opinion only, so the 99% of population feel left out.
Frankly, being part of this 99%, I never really cared much for either politics or economics, until it hit me in the pocket.
All uprisings begin when people feel unfairly impoverished.
Since the richer and better educated Big Business has been now winning its fight with unions through the subtle strategies outlined above, and the 99% of the population are feeling it, the uprising has began.
Like I’ve been saying, Pluto, the demolition ball of the universe, has entered Capricorn, the sign of societal law and order, government and corporations, in December of 2008, and that what it is going to transform in the next 14 years (it is there through 2023).
So the Arab Spring and “Occupy Wall Street” are the buds of bigger things to come.
And, unless we can establish the constitutional conventions or elect smart politicians in both houses + the White House (too far-fetched, right?), we are facing a really rough ride as a society.
By the way, like I said, I am not a socialist. I am an owner of small business, who is trying to hang on to my middle class status.