6 ms·

The Superrich Endanger Democracy

121 points by ericdanielski 7y ago

Hendrikto 7y ago
The link to the German version 404s. Very strange.
- sschueller 7y ago
  I can't find it either. I think it doesn't exist in German.
  - tannhaeuser 7y ago
    It's here: https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2019-04/kapitalismus-demokratie-ungleichheit-globalisierung https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2019-04/kapitalismus-demokrat... Though TFA was originally written in English, so if you're on HN you'll want to read the original anyway.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- wnkrshm 7y ago
  It's just an error on their part with the link, the article exists: https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2019-04/kapitalismus-demokratie-ungleichheit-globalisierung https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2019-04/kapitalismus-demokrat...
jaabe 7y ago
In Denmark we have a fairly recent political party called Liberal Alliance. They were funded by billionaire, bank owner and businessman Lars Seier Christensen for almost 10 years and at their height achieved 7% of the votes and a spot in our government. At some point Lars Seiers brother founded a political party and Liberal Alliance fell out of favour with the billionaire. In our very recent election Liberal Alliance was decimated and Lars Seiers brothers party was voted in and is now bigger than Liberal Alliance. Now, I’m not suggesting anything that you will need a tinfoil hat for. There are a lot of reasons things went the way they did for these two political parties, and most of them could have happened without the easy access to money. I do, however, think it’s a worrying show of how just much influence, a single billionaire can have in a small democracy, compared to the average citizen.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  Root of the problem is the lack of inclination/resources for average person to participate in the democracy as much as a focused entity, especially one who doesn’t need to worry about putting food on the table everyday. Many people I’ve met are completely apathetic of their voting powers. They don’t want to read current events, research candidates, go to town meetings, and work to inform fellow voters. On the other hand, many people are also burned out from going to work, getting kids ready, making dinner, putting them to bed, working 80 hours a week, etc. And they may not have the cognitive abilities to analyze data to figure out what is true and false. Democracy relies on having numerous “informed” voters, but what happens when the machine gets so complicated that there are not sufficient “informed” voters?
  - baybal2 7y ago
    > Democracy relies on having numerous “informed” voters, but what happens when the machine gets so complicated that there are not sufficient “informed” voters? Democracy relies on level headed people doing politics.
- baybal2 7y ago
  What about doing politics yourself? Want power? — cling to men with more power. My advice, drop in onto their caucus and start talking something big. Dress smartly. Make an impression of you being a "big man." Believe me, it works. I was a complete nobody on a work visa in Canada, yet I crashed on nearly every caucus party Christy Clarke had over 6 years I was there, and was making sure to make big fuzz with my appearance every time.
- Svip 7y ago
  Speaking of LA, according to Politiken,[0] their leadership believes their terrible showing in the polls is partly due to a lack of financial support by the Danish industry at large. Specifically, they mention that LA got 3 million DKK less in support this election compared to 2015. So maybe money does work? Or perhaps the LA's leadership is focusing on exactly the wrong reasons? [0] https://politiken.dk/indland/politik/FV19/art7244111/Erhvervslivet-har-st%C3%B8ttet-os-med-for-f%C3%A5-penge https://politiken.dk/indland/politik/FV19/art7244111/Erhverv...
orbifold 7y ago
The articles reasoning is flawed: It does not recognize that the rise of the new far right is in answer to neoliberalism and globalism. The problems they are describing are caused by this old neo liberal anti-nationalist but still right wing agenda. I guess it is confusing to them that the current Italian government both is cracking down on immigration and for the first time is introducing long term unemployment insurance. Unrestricted immigration was also the weapon of choice for the elite in the US in the 19th century. You could pit Germans against Irish against former Slaves and it is still one of the reasons that today there are so little social benefits, because people think “those people” will take advantage of it. I guess it is not surprising because the Zeit has been the mouthpiece for a globalist neo-liberal elitist agenda in Germany for a long time. Their editor in chief is a warmongering (has argued for a preemptive attack on Iran for example) Havard educated neo liberal.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  Everybody likes thinking they are in the class above the one they are in, which requires having a class below.
- tannhaeuser 7y ago
  It's not surprising at all considering NSDAP (name of the orginal Nazi party) stands for "National-Socialist German Worker's Party" (emphasis mine).
  - genera1 7y ago
    Do you really need an explanation, how Hitler had nothing to with socialism, or are you just spewing far right talking points without regard for fact or reason?
    - python_gt_r3 7y ago
      There are some parallels between Hitler and socialism. Hatred for jews, hatred for capitalism, both end in catastrophe.
baybal2 7y ago
I am not agreeing with this opinion. Think of the same comment put the other way around. What do you think of people "selling their vote for a mere promise of free sausages?"
VMG 7y ago
Democracy will take care of the "Superrich" (that will probably include most people on HN)
- mschuster91 7y ago
  I seriously hope so, but I doubt it. The problem is that we have ever more militarized police and, thanks to digitalization, basically a real-life 1984 scenario. Our German Interior minister actually wants access to Alexa and friends for the secret services.
  - KozmoNau7 7y ago
    If the issue of massive inequality isn't taken care of, we are headed for even more of a cyberpunk dystopia than we are already living right now.
- m12k 7y ago
  I just hope we do it sooner, using regulation and taxation, rather than later using pitchforks. But if the superrich keep successfully distracting the populace with bigotry and other sideshows, we might miss that exit.
  - Kaiyou 7y ago
    Pitchforks won't work. The superrich learned from history and own private armies. Also, they don't live in the same town as the people with the pitchforks. Possibly not even the same continent.
    - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
      They live within marching distance of some people with pitchforks. Beverly Hills isn't that far from Watts. Midtown Manhattan isn't that far from Harlem. And so on.
      - Kaiyou 7y ago
python_gt_r3 7y ago
I think what grows anger is double standards of liberals, among which many rich people as well. Asking to open borders to third world immigration while paying little personal price supporting these migrants at source. See European (very wealthy) socialists. Asking to raise taxes while using every available loophole, and every tax haven available. See Google. Asking people to make their environment diverse, showing gender balance while doing nothing when the imbalance goes the opposite way. Displaying solidarity in public, while doing nothing anonymously, or as demonstrated by their career choices.
atq2119 7y ago
Historically, the idea that a freer market and capitalism go hand in hand with democracy does have some merit. The fact that business became a more important factor for the power calculus meant that it was possible to challenge the autocratic status quo, and democracy was an alternative that was naturally favoured by many businesspeople at first because it promised a more meritocratic system. Nowadays, the super rich have more power in practice than many of the autocrats who were thrown out by democratic movements of the long forgotten past, so their hubris leads some of them to work towards establishing autocratic structures again, believing that those will always work in their favour (newsflash: they don't, but that's another topic). Since capitalism alone does not put a check on this development, it is no longer a good ally of democracy. Still a useful tool when applied with measure and combined with other tools, but not an ally.
- your-nanny 7y ago
  I think a pretty good argument can be made that fall of the Roman Republic was a consequence of Rome's increasing business interests abroad, and the increasing importance of military leaders executing interventions, eg in Greece, in support of those interests.
lngnmn1 7y ago
The real danger to democracy is a populist appeal to uneducated and ignored majority via mass and social media, which is an ultimate winning strategy just because of numbers. And this flaw is fatal. Democracy is supposed to run in societies where educated people of culture amount to more than 50%. Otherwise it is a disaster.
nabla9 7y ago
Money and political power transfer naturally to each other. In authoritarian countries, the ruler is usually superrich billionaire. In the western world there are limits, but they work better to one direction than another. Clever politician may be able to get millions, but rarely hundreds of millions and never billions. Billionaires however can turn their money into politics. Only direct middling for political campaign is limited. Superrich can create institutions, whole universities, think tanks, academic positions, grants and lobbying groups. Even political parties.
ddebernardy 7y ago
Vox has much more interesting and detailed takes on this issue. See for instance the current season of their Future Perfect podcast, and this episode in particular: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/vox/future-perfect-3/e/61383678 https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/vox/future-perfect-3/e/6138... A few articles that go through the same information as summaries or interviews for those who don't want to listen to the whole thing: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/3/18632438/federalist-society-leonard-leo-brett-kavanaugh https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/3/18632438/federal... https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/5/29/18629799/federalist-society-brett-kavanaugh-olin-foundation-jane-mayer https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/5/29/18629799/federa... https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/1/18629859/judge-resort-weekend-naidu-manne-seminar-ginsburg https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/1/18629859/judge-r...
fallingfrog 7y ago
To the point about inequality, it’s pretty clear that you can’t have political equality coexisting with dramatic economic inequality, because the mass of people would just vote themselves all the money until the discrepancy was eliminated. The measure of economic power of a group and the measure of their political power is always closely related. Edit: ok downvoters, name me one example of any society ever in which political and economic power for some class of people was out of balance. Rome? No, the patricians has all the economic and political power. The ussr? No, the high ranking party members had all the economic and political power. China? No. The United States? No. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B/core-reader https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...
- fallingfrog 7y ago
  So if the rule is that economic and political power tend towards equilibrium, then the corollary is that moments of disequilibrium are followed quickly by economic or political change. For example, the rising French business class in an environment where the aristocracy has all the power was followed by the French Revolution. And as the article points out, the emergence of a global economic elite is followed by that elite coopting all the governments of the world. On the other side, the rise of strong unions was quickly followed by a period where there was a lot of political empowerment by the masses. So, if I might suggest a solution, the answer to a situation where corporate power is transnational is a transnational union movement; something like an international congress of unions or maybe like the IWW.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  You can get close to that if you have a limited government, so that the mass of people can't just vote themselves all the money. (Though, if it's enough of the masses, they can vote a change in the limits on government...)
  - fallingfrog 7y ago
    I don’t understand- are you saying that if you had a limited government, you could have a situation where the people with the power and the people with the money were different people? Because I feel like that’s not what you’d get. If Emma Goldman and others are correct though, you might get a situation where the both power and money were distributed fairly equally. But they’d still be in the same hands.
bjornsing 7y ago
Isn't it Lobbying that is a threat to democracy? That's (the) one industry I think we should regulate the shit out of...
- crankylinuxuser 7y ago
  Its more complicated than that. Sure, a lobbyist pays $10k a plate to fund a politician.. But its not buying a vote. The lobbyist is buying face-time with the politician. And given a rapport over many times, the politician learns to trust the lobbyist. Those other people (citizens) don't really know anything, the politician thinks. The lobbyist comes from inside industry, and 'really' knows what's happening and why. Lobbyists are just a paying type of royal advisors. And even if they weren't paying cash for plates of food, they would use their backing interests' money and power to exert 'assistance' in other ways.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  Anyone gets face time with a politician to discuss their special interest is a de-facto lobbyist. Sure, "lobbying" can get scummy if you push the graft envelope but for the most part "lobbyists" are just people from special interest groups who have made a career out of arguing their case to the politicians.
fallingfrog 7y ago
I also want to point out that with respect to the connection or divorce between capitalism and democracy, there is no conflict between capitalism and slavery, in fact slavery is the purest expression of the capitalist ideal, since slavery is basically elevating property rights above personal/human rights. Edit: not saying capitalism is equivalent to slavery. I’m just saying that the conflict between capitalism and freedom can be boiled down to a conflict between human rights, and property rights.
sametmax 7y ago
Any concentration of power is a danger to democracy. We understood that already, and separated the legislature, an executive, and judiciary branches of power. They are not bad, they are necessary, but you don't want them to mix. We are now learning that the power of money must be separated as well. Money is not bad, but it should not mix with the rest. And right now, they happily do.
- makotech222 7y ago
  Actually, Marx figured that out in the 1800's. If you have two classes of people, the more powerful class will take control of government and advance interests for themselves.
  - sametmax 7y ago
    Not the same. Marx assumes you should have no rich people. Separating powers does not imply that. It just implies rich people should be isolated the other powers.
    - makotech222 7y ago
      No, he doesn't assume you should have no rich people. He wants there to be only one class of people, regardless of total wealth. There are two classes in capitalism, owners and workers. In Marx, there is only worker-owners.
      - sametmax 7y ago
        Rich is a relative term. You can't have everybody that is rich. You are only rich to relative to somebody who is not. I've lived in West Africa for 2 years, and here you have plenty of "rich man of the village". But you would not consider them rich yourself.
        makotech222 7y ago
        Yeah, rich is a relative term, it just seemed like what you actually meant in your post was that Marxism leads to everyone being poor, which is patently false.
_Codemonkeyism 7y ago
First step in Germany would be lock politicans up that take money from special interest groups and rich people and/or have another "side-" job in industry at the same time. Also lock politicians up when they take a relevant industry job afterwards. Reality is politicians take a lot of money but do not need to declare where they take it from and right after their politician career will get well paid job from the people they regulated a short time before.
roenxi 7y ago
There is a key premise in this article. That premise is there is some unadulterated Will of the People that democracy is meant to uncover, and the Capitalists are subverting it. To me the flaws in that premise seem pretty straightfoward - there is no truth that democracy seeks to uncover. Democracy is a highly effective release valve so that if the situation becomes intolerable then the ruling class is changed out. If you want to change the world, you need to convince the ruling class that change is needed, or the people that something else needs to be tried. The idea that some people have more decision making power than others isn't some subversive perversion of what is good in the world, it is normal. Democracy is fantastic compared to a monarchy - the competition is systems where a lunatic ruler can appoint a horse to government. That is a pretty simple example of why democracy should be preferred. Capitalism and Democracy are bedfellows because they are both the best systems we know of for filling roles that need to be filled - how to allocate resources and who gets to be in charge respectively. The problem isn't that the wealthy are also powerful, the problem is that the people are as disorganised and fractured in opinion as the politicians who represent them.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > To me the flaws in that premise seem pretty straightfoward - there is no truth that democracy seeks to uncover. Sure there is. In fact, you are about to illustrate it unwittingly: > Democracy is a highly effective release valve so that if the situation becomes intolerable then the ruling class is changed out. The truth democracy seeks to uncover is “is the leadership intolerable”; the corruption of democracy into plutocracy frustrates discovering g that answer as he weighting of political power by wealth biases toward showing the actual ruling class as tolerable irrespective of whether that is the mass feeling, and makes democracy a led effective safety valve.
fetbaffe 7y ago
Agree on the premise that the superrich can be a threat to democracy, however this article argues a fallacy, the superrich has a lot of lobbying power because the political system has en-massed a lot of political power in a few entities, like the EU. The superrich then only needs to lobby a few entities instead of every country in Europe, or every region for that matter. Just take the latest lobbying success against the citizens of EU, the content filter & the link tax, proposing those two on the national level would never have been possible, because of the ease of circumvention, but on a EU level it can actually be enforced. If you want to keep transnational organizations like the EU, then you need to make it immune to lobbying, which first of can't be done and maybe not even wanted. Not all lobbying is immoral per se, because parliaments are not experts on every subject, it becomes immoral when it has an obvious quid pro quo situation. What you is left with is to stop people of becoming superrich and/or stripping wealth from the already existing superrich. Good luck passing that in any legislative chamber we have today.

121 points by ericdanielski 7y ago

Hendrikto 7y ago

The link to the German version 404s. Very strange.

sschueller 7y ago
I can't find it either. I think it doesn't exist in German.
- tannhaeuser 7y ago
  It's here: https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2019-04/kapitalismus-demokratie-ungleichheit-globalisierung https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2019-04/kapitalismus-demokrat... Though TFA was originally written in English, so if you're on HN you'll want to read the original anyway.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
wnkrshm 7y ago
It's just an error on their part with the link, the article exists: https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2019-04/kapitalismus-demokratie-ungleichheit-globalisierung https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2019-04/kapitalismus-demokrat...

jaabe 7y ago

In Denmark we have a fairly recent political party called Liberal Alliance. They were funded by billionaire, bank owner and businessman Lars Seier Christensen for almost 10 years and at their height achieved 7% of the votes and a spot in our government. At some point Lars Seiers brother founded a political party and Liberal Alliance fell out of favour with the billionaire. In our very recent election Liberal Alliance was decimated and Lars Seiers brothers party was voted in and is now bigger than Liberal Alliance. Now, I’m not suggesting anything that you will need a tinfoil hat for. There are a lot of reasons things went the way they did for these two political parties, and most of them could have happened without the easy access to money. I do, however, think it’s a worrying show of how just much influence, a single billionaire can have in a small democracy, compared to the average citizen.

lotsofpulp 7y ago
Root of the problem is the lack of inclination/resources for average person to participate in the democracy as much as a focused entity, especially one who doesn’t need to worry about putting food on the table everyday. Many people I’ve met are completely apathetic of their voting powers. They don’t want to read current events, research candidates, go to town meetings, and work to inform fellow voters. On the other hand, many people are also burned out from going to work, getting kids ready, making dinner, putting them to bed, working 80 hours a week, etc. And they may not have the cognitive abilities to analyze data to figure out what is true and false. Democracy relies on having numerous “informed” voters, but what happens when the machine gets so complicated that there are not sufficient “informed” voters?
- baybal2 7y ago
  > Democracy relies on having numerous “informed” voters, but what happens when the machine gets so complicated that there are not sufficient “informed” voters? Democracy relies on level headed people doing politics.
baybal2 7y ago
What about doing politics yourself? Want power? — cling to men with more power. My advice, drop in onto their caucus and start talking something big. Dress smartly. Make an impression of you being a "big man." Believe me, it works. I was a complete nobody on a work visa in Canada, yet I crashed on nearly every caucus party Christy Clarke had over 6 years I was there, and was making sure to make big fuzz with my appearance every time.
Svip 7y ago
Speaking of LA, according to Politiken,[0] their leadership believes their terrible showing in the polls is partly due to a lack of financial support by the Danish industry at large. Specifically, they mention that LA got 3 million DKK less in support this election compared to 2015. So maybe money does work? Or perhaps the LA's leadership is focusing on exactly the wrong reasons? [0] https://politiken.dk/indland/politik/FV19/art7244111/Erhvervslivet-har-st%C3%B8ttet-os-med-for-f%C3%A5-penge https://politiken.dk/indland/politik/FV19/art7244111/Erhverv...

orbifold 7y ago

The articles reasoning is flawed: It does not recognize that the rise of the new far right is in answer to neoliberalism and globalism. The problems they are describing are caused by this old neo liberal anti-nationalist but still right wing agenda. I guess it is confusing to them that the current Italian government both is cracking down on immigration and for the first time is introducing long term unemployment insurance. Unrestricted immigration was also the weapon of choice for the elite in the US in the 19th century. You could pit Germans against Irish against former Slaves and it is still one of the reasons that today there are so little social benefits, because people think “those people” will take advantage of it. I guess it is not surprising because the Zeit has been the mouthpiece for a globalist neo-liberal elitist agenda in Germany for a long time. Their editor in chief is a warmongering (has argued for a preemptive attack on Iran for example) Havard educated neo liberal.

lotsofpulp 7y ago
Everybody likes thinking they are in the class above the one they are in, which requires having a class below.
tannhaeuser 7y ago
It's not surprising at all considering NSDAP (name of the orginal Nazi party) stands for "National-Socialist German Worker's Party" (emphasis mine).
- genera1 7y ago
  Do you really need an explanation, how Hitler had nothing to with socialism, or are you just spewing far right talking points without regard for fact or reason?
  - python_gt_r3 7y ago
    There are some parallels between Hitler and socialism. Hatred for jews, hatred for capitalism, both end in catastrophe.

baybal2 7y ago

I am not agreeing with this opinion. Think of the same comment put the other way around. What do you think of people "selling their vote for a mere promise of free sausages?"

VMG 7y ago

Democracy will take care of the "Superrich" (that will probably include most people on HN)

mschuster91 7y ago
I seriously hope so, but I doubt it. The problem is that we have ever more militarized police and, thanks to digitalization, basically a real-life 1984 scenario. Our German Interior minister actually wants access to Alexa and friends for the secret services.
- KozmoNau7 7y ago
  If the issue of massive inequality isn't taken care of, we are headed for even more of a cyberpunk dystopia than we are already living right now.
m12k 7y ago
I just hope we do it sooner, using regulation and taxation, rather than later using pitchforks. But if the superrich keep successfully distracting the populace with bigotry and other sideshows, we might miss that exit.
- Kaiyou 7y ago
  Pitchforks won't work. The superrich learned from history and own private armies. Also, they don't live in the same town as the people with the pitchforks. Possibly not even the same continent.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    They live within marching distance of some people with pitchforks. Beverly Hills isn't that far from Watts. Midtown Manhattan isn't that far from Harlem. And so on.
    - Kaiyou 7y ago

python_gt_r3 7y ago

I think what grows anger is double standards of liberals, among which many rich people as well. Asking to open borders to third world immigration while paying little personal price supporting these migrants at source. See European (very wealthy) socialists. Asking to raise taxes while using every available loophole, and every tax haven available. See Google. Asking people to make their environment diverse, showing gender balance while doing nothing when the imbalance goes the opposite way. Displaying solidarity in public, while doing nothing anonymously, or as demonstrated by their career choices.

atq2119 7y ago

Historically, the idea that a freer market and capitalism go hand in hand with democracy does have some merit. The fact that business became a more important factor for the power calculus meant that it was possible to challenge the autocratic status quo, and democracy was an alternative that was naturally favoured by many businesspeople at first because it promised a more meritocratic system. Nowadays, the super rich have more power in practice than many of the autocrats who were thrown out by democratic movements of the long forgotten past, so their hubris leads some of them to work towards establishing autocratic structures again, believing that those will always work in their favour (newsflash: they don't, but that's another topic). Since capitalism alone does not put a check on this development, it is no longer a good ally of democracy. Still a useful tool when applied with measure and combined with other tools, but not an ally.

your-nanny 7y ago
I think a pretty good argument can be made that fall of the Roman Republic was a consequence of Rome's increasing business interests abroad, and the increasing importance of military leaders executing interventions, eg in Greece, in support of those interests.

lngnmn1 7y ago

The real danger to democracy is a populist appeal to uneducated and ignored majority via mass and social media, which is an ultimate winning strategy just because of numbers. And this flaw is fatal. Democracy is supposed to run in societies where educated people of culture amount to more than 50%. Otherwise it is a disaster.

nabla9 7y ago

Money and political power transfer naturally to each other. In authoritarian countries, the ruler is usually superrich billionaire. In the western world there are limits, but they work better to one direction than another. Clever politician may be able to get millions, but rarely hundreds of millions and never billions. Billionaires however can turn their money into politics. Only direct middling for political campaign is limited. Superrich can create institutions, whole universities, think tanks, academic positions, grants and lobbying groups. Even political parties.

ddebernardy 7y ago

Vox has much more interesting and detailed takes on this issue. See for instance the current season of their Future Perfect podcast, and this episode in particular: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/vox/future-perfect-3/e/61383678 https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/vox/future-perfect-3/e/6138... A few articles that go through the same information as summaries or interviews for those who don't want to listen to the whole thing: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/3/18632438/federalist-society-leonard-leo-brett-kavanaugh https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/3/18632438/federal... https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/5/29/18629799/federalist-society-brett-kavanaugh-olin-foundation-jane-mayer https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/5/29/18629799/federa... https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/1/18629859/judge-resort-weekend-naidu-manne-seminar-ginsburg https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/1/18629859/judge-r...

fallingfrog 7y ago

To the point about inequality, it’s pretty clear that you can’t have political equality coexisting with dramatic economic inequality, because the mass of people would just vote themselves all the money until the discrepancy was eliminated. The measure of economic power of a group and the measure of their political power is always closely related. Edit: ok downvoters, name me one example of any society ever in which political and economic power for some class of people was out of balance. Rome? No, the patricians has all the economic and political power. The ussr? No, the high ranking party members had all the economic and political power. China? No. The United States? No. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B/core-reader https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli...

fallingfrog 7y ago
So if the rule is that economic and political power tend towards equilibrium, then the corollary is that moments of disequilibrium are followed quickly by economic or political change. For example, the rising French business class in an environment where the aristocracy has all the power was followed by the French Revolution. And as the article points out, the emergence of a global economic elite is followed by that elite coopting all the governments of the world. On the other side, the rise of strong unions was quickly followed by a period where there was a lot of political empowerment by the masses. So, if I might suggest a solution, the answer to a situation where corporate power is transnational is a transnational union movement; something like an international congress of unions or maybe like the IWW.
AnimalMuppet 7y ago
You can get close to that if you have a limited government, so that the mass of people can't just vote themselves all the money. (Though, if it's enough of the masses, they can vote a change in the limits on government...)
- fallingfrog 7y ago
  I don’t understand- are you saying that if you had a limited government, you could have a situation where the people with the power and the people with the money were different people? Because I feel like that’s not what you’d get. If Emma Goldman and others are correct though, you might get a situation where the both power and money were distributed fairly equally. But they’d still be in the same hands.

bjornsing 7y ago

Isn't it Lobbying that is a threat to democracy? That's (the) one industry I think we should regulate the shit out of...

crankylinuxuser 7y ago
Its more complicated than that. Sure, a lobbyist pays $10k a plate to fund a politician.. But its not buying a vote. The lobbyist is buying face-time with the politician. And given a rapport over many times, the politician learns to trust the lobbyist. Those other people (citizens) don't really know anything, the politician thinks. The lobbyist comes from inside industry, and 'really' knows what's happening and why. Lobbyists are just a paying type of royal advisors. And even if they weren't paying cash for plates of food, they would use their backing interests' money and power to exert 'assistance' in other ways.
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
Anyone gets face time with a politician to discuss their special interest is a de-facto lobbyist. Sure, "lobbying" can get scummy if you push the graft envelope but for the most part "lobbyists" are just people from special interest groups who have made a career out of arguing their case to the politicians.

fallingfrog 7y ago

I also want to point out that with respect to the connection or divorce between capitalism and democracy, there is no conflict between capitalism and slavery, in fact slavery is the purest expression of the capitalist ideal, since slavery is basically elevating property rights above personal/human rights. Edit: not saying capitalism is equivalent to slavery. I’m just saying that the conflict between capitalism and freedom can be boiled down to a conflict between human rights, and property rights.

sametmax 7y ago

Any concentration of power is a danger to democracy. We understood that already, and separated the legislature, an executive, and judiciary branches of power. They are not bad, they are necessary, but you don't want them to mix. We are now learning that the power of money must be separated as well. Money is not bad, but it should not mix with the rest. And right now, they happily do.

makotech222 7y ago
Actually, Marx figured that out in the 1800's. If you have two classes of people, the more powerful class will take control of government and advance interests for themselves.
- sametmax 7y ago
  Not the same. Marx assumes you should have no rich people. Separating powers does not imply that. It just implies rich people should be isolated the other powers.
  - makotech222 7y ago
    No, he doesn't assume you should have no rich people. He wants there to be only one class of people, regardless of total wealth. There are two classes in capitalism, owners and workers. In Marx, there is only worker-owners.
    - sametmax 7y ago
      Rich is a relative term. You can't have everybody that is rich. You are only rich to relative to somebody who is not. I've lived in West Africa for 2 years, and here you have plenty of "rich man of the village". But you would not consider them rich yourself.
      - makotech222 7y ago
        Yeah, rich is a relative term, it just seemed like what you actually meant in your post was that Marxism leads to everyone being poor, which is patently false.

_Codemonkeyism 7y ago

First step in Germany would be lock politicans up that take money from special interest groups and rich people and/or have another "side-" job in industry at the same time. Also lock politicians up when they take a relevant industry job afterwards. Reality is politicians take a lot of money but do not need to declare where they take it from and right after their politician career will get well paid job from the people they regulated a short time before.

roenxi 7y ago

There is a key premise in this article. That premise is there is some unadulterated Will of the People that democracy is meant to uncover, and the Capitalists are subverting it. To me the flaws in that premise seem pretty straightfoward - there is no truth that democracy seeks to uncover. Democracy is a highly effective release valve so that if the situation becomes intolerable then the ruling class is changed out. If you want to change the world, you need to convince the ruling class that change is needed, or the people that something else needs to be tried. The idea that some people have more decision making power than others isn't some subversive perversion of what is good in the world, it is normal. Democracy is fantastic compared to a monarchy - the competition is systems where a lunatic ruler can appoint a horse to government. That is a pretty simple example of why democracy should be preferred. Capitalism and Democracy are bedfellows because they are both the best systems we know of for filling roles that need to be filled - how to allocate resources and who gets to be in charge respectively. The problem isn't that the wealthy are also powerful, the problem is that the people are as disorganised and fractured in opinion as the politicians who represent them.

dragonwriter 7y ago
> To me the flaws in that premise seem pretty straightfoward - there is no truth that democracy seeks to uncover. Sure there is. In fact, you are about to illustrate it unwittingly: > Democracy is a highly effective release valve so that if the situation becomes intolerable then the ruling class is changed out. The truth democracy seeks to uncover is “is the leadership intolerable”; the corruption of democracy into plutocracy frustrates discovering g that answer as he weighting of political power by wealth biases toward showing the actual ruling class as tolerable irrespective of whether that is the mass feeling, and makes democracy a led effective safety valve.

fetbaffe 7y ago

Agree on the premise that the superrich can be a threat to democracy, however this article argues a fallacy, the superrich has a lot of lobbying power because the political system has en-massed a lot of political power in a few entities, like the EU. The superrich then only needs to lobby a few entities instead of every country in Europe, or every region for that matter. Just take the latest lobbying success against the citizens of EU, the content filter & the link tax, proposing those two on the national level would never have been possible, because of the ease of circumvention, but on a EU level it can actually be enforced. If you want to keep transnational organizations like the EU, then you need to make it immune to lobbying, which first of can't be done and maybe not even wanted. Not all lobbying is immoral per se, because parliaments are not experts on every subject, it becomes immoral when it has an obvious quid pro quo situation. What you is left with is to stop people of becoming superrich and/or stripping wealth from the already existing superrich. Good luck passing that in any legislative chamber we have today.