America’s Market Driven Democracy – For many of us, not until our declining years, if at all, do we ever contemplate a better world to be inherited by future generations. Ample solutions abound to the essential areas of human development and quality of life, including healthcare, affordable housing, education and a living wage. Our market driven democracy, however, misdirects priorities, not for the lack of resources, but for profit, preventing any possibility of success to escape to implementation.
An obvious conflict often overlooked is not the tension between conservative and liberal ideas, but the competing interests of human citizens and corporations. Corporations have one main objective, namely, to maximize profit in perpetuity without end. While human citizens have a limited lifespan in which to endure hopefully with all or some portion of our inalienable rights intact, such as “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Intuitively, one would think that our democracy was intended to provide a way for human citizens to realize their inalienable rights, while corporations would only be granted certain rights to operate in our system, but most certainly not a mechanism to dominate over masses of humans.
Oddly though, individual human citizens compete to be heard in our democracy, silenced by corporations and money allowed into the political system. The legal fiction that a corporation is a ‘person’ for the purpose of contracts with the rights of a person under the U.S. Constitution has been ruled on by the Supreme Court to extend protection under at least the 1st Amendment, which provides freedom of religion, speech and the press, and the 14th Amendment, which provides equal protection under the law. Corporations have at least two conservative Supreme Court rulings to thank for control over our democracy, San Mateo County v. Southern Pacific Rail Road (“San Mateo County”) from 1882, and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (“Citizens United”) from 2010.
In 1882, former U.S. Senator Roscoe Conkling, who had helped draft the 14th Amendment and left Congress to practice law, argued before the Supreme court for the Southern Pacific Rail Road that the drafters of the 14th Amendment used the word ‘person’ instead of ‘citizen’ to include corporations, the notion of which some allege was “a deliberate, brazen forgery.” A former Senator had cooped a law designed to assist the newly emancipated African Americans for the benefit and advantage of corporations. The money interests of railroads, a dominate corporate interest at that time in history, capitalized on a conservative Supreme Court and former U.S. Senator, who was also a drafter of the 14th Amendment, to extend the 14th Amendment to corporations.
In 2010, the Citizens United Supreme Court held that campaign funding by corporations is a form of speech protected by the U.S. Constitution under the 1st Amendment. The conservative nonprofit corporation named Citizens United was granted the right to air political advertisement during primary season, effectively permitting corporate money into politics as a form of protected speech. Subsequent Supreme Court decisions and Congressional legislation have continued to expand corporate rights in opposition to the rights of human citizens.
What the life cycle of an American politician at work, such as former U.S. Senator Roscoe Conkling, where politicians and corporations run like water to every crevasse seeking opportunity to profit from government in favor of wealth over the People. The apparent invisibility of conflicts of interest from the revolving door between politicians and corporations, the regulated and regulator, perpetuate the corporate market interest over human support services.
Human support services, by nature need non-market driven profit-less structures in order to deliver even moderately adequate services. Curing sick people in the U.S., for example, should not be profit driven, no more than anyone question a single dollar of the U.S. military budget approaching ten times any other country in the world. The fact that the U.S. Government is already a single payer for millions of Americans, by way of the Veterans Administration and Medicaid / Medicare, however, does not cease the opposition lead by corporate interests operating to profit from healthcare at the expense of providing healthcare to all Americans. The argument opposing single payer, would of course be voiced by those threatened with elimination, namely, the heath insurance industry. Consider how different our democracy would work by excluding money from politics, and realize that satisfying basic needs for human development and quality of life is possible with restraint on for-profit corporate interests in the areas of politics, media, healthcare, housing, and education.
Yes, our political system has been bought by special interest money of corporations. However, more alarming, in a globalized economy, special interest money is often backed by multinational companies, and by way of shareholder interest, non-citizen foreigners. Currently, only corporations with at least 25% foreign ownership interest held directly or indirectly by an individual or foreign company must be reported to the IRS. However, many U.S. corporations are owned by foreigners who individually do not hold at least 25% ownership although in the aggregate do meet or exceed 25% ownership in a U.S. corporation. With corporate media often funded by multinational corporations, interestingly the silence is deafening in the debate as to why our political system would allow any possibility of foreign influence, directly or indirectly, through corporate participation in politics. Our U.S. communications and media corporations are increasingly being owned by foreigners, strengthened by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in 2017, approval of 100% foreign ownership in U.S. broadcast stations, and as a specific example, the FCC allowing up to 49% foreign ownership in Pandora, which through ownership in another company, holds a U.S. radio station.
Placing politics aside between conservatives and liberals, human citizens hopefully will recognize that corporations, in the goal to maximize profit, cannot be expected to voluntarily support profitless markets in healthcare, affordable housing, and education, let alone promote a livable wage. To the contrary, with unbridled rights to dominate our economic and political systems, corporations can be expected to maximize profits to the detriment of human development and quality of life, by:
preventing single payer healthcare from being implemented that would leverage the power of collective bargaining to limit and/or eliminate profit in healthcare;
failing to deliver affordable housing and fighting the enactment of laws directed to strict enforcement for developers to build affordable housing;
limiting and privatizing education to the few human citizens who can either afford to pay or willing to amass debt; and
suppressing wages well below a livable wage while automating to eliminate the need for human labor altogether.
Efforts may be directed to safeguard human citizens from our cohabitants in this market driven democracy, namely, corporations. Human citizens can support and vote for politicians that do not take corporate money, that do support campaign finance reform, single payer healthcare, strict mandatory affordable housing minimum ratio to market rate housing development, public education k-12 through the university level, and a living wage dynamically adjusted to a market index. Speak out against and divest from corporations opposed to any one or more of the essential areas of human development and quality of life, including healthcare, housing, education and a living wage. Expose corporations with foreign ownership interests involved in our political system, in particular those companies in media, healthcare, housing, and education.
Simply because wealth and corporate interest have dominated our democracy does not mean the trend need continue. Ask why not a different way, a more human citizen centric democracy, and be deliberate in your support of human citizens over corporations. Consider your purchases and business dealings with corporations, excluding corporations with poor records of support for single payer healthcare, affordable housing, education and a living wage. Fcapitalism for the betterment of human development and quality of life.
Speed Limits – In the fast-paced life of modern day capitalism those on the fringe have been forgotten! A society that ignores the needs of its most vulnerable citizens reflects signs of dysfunction and looming collapse. The American Dream is out of reach for many Americans and at worse a nightmare. America has become an oligarchy run by corporations! Citizens must rise up and take back our government from corporate lobbyist, and support legislation directed to the health and welfare of citizens over corporations. Universal Basic Income, Healthcare and Education are Human Rights!
Isaiah – Mixed Media Artist – The system is always in “default”. Not enough attention is given to the sources of issues, such as charging homeless for temporary shelter rather than providing permanent housing. It’s kind of strange how the system works, it’s meant to keep you down and in debt.
Scott L – Urban Off-Grid Resident – The Government – System Doesn’t Work. The rich get richer and the poor stay poor, and if you get caught in between then you’re just screwed. If you’re not from old money, you have no money. Everything is about money. Healthcare is not free unlike other countries that have free healthcare.
DJ Shakespeare – The top 1% own too much! The 3 wealthiest people in America are worth more than half the American population or 160 million people.
Stacey – Art District Resident – Minimum wage doesn’t allow me to keep up with my minimal bills! Minimum wage is Not a Living wage.
Audrey & Travis – Entrepreneur & Veteran/Entrepreneur– We have issues with getting meds on time … life changing support. The system isn’t working. Too much concern about big business and money, money, money, but we forget that there’s people that matter such as veterans, homeless … everyone has their own place in the community. It’s our job to help each other find their own place in the community.
Randy – Afghanistan Veteran – Why should any man or woman work hard, and at the end, come up with pennies and not have or afford a place to live! Slum lords take advantage of people, while abandoned foreclosed property could be repurposed to provide affordable housing and shelter the homeless.
Maurice – French Traveler – France enjoys universal healthcare and affordable university education. France combines capitalist and socialist characteristics.
Historic Westside Las Vegas – Segregation built the neighborhood, but desegregation led to the decline. Homeless live under the I-15 overpass, although the city clears everyone once a week, rather than provide permanent housing.
