The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton stated recently that the Chinese government is "scared" of the Arab Spring. They're worried, and they are trying to stop history which is a fool's errand."[1]. Shouldn't we also, for the same reason, be worried and scared of uprising of our own people demanding a just and fair societal system?
It is time to have a serious look into the reality of our undemocratic situation and problems facing our technological society in order to find a way to rescue our troubled system and move toward a democratic economy and to its corresponding social order.
The more we look into the history of American Revolution and the formation of its constitutional government, the more we become astonished about the depth of knowledge, dedication, and sincerity of the few men who led this nation from colonialism to independence and beyond. The Federalist Papers alone are indicative of tremendous wealth of knowledge, wisdom, an intelligence of those who laid down, so carefully and so wisely, such a radically liberal foundation for the political system of this country. It is further astonishing how, after over 200 years of advancement, leaders with the caliber and philosophical influence of the founding fathers have disappeared from our society and narrow-minded specialists and uncivilized, socio-politically ignorant business executives and bureaucrats have taken their place. Those individual rights and liberties for which the founders so persistently preached and violently fought for, have been overshadowed today by authoritarian and undemocratic economic processes and capitalistic norms imposed by monopolies and oligopolies of the economic elite. However, there is a consolation. What the revolutionaries did fight for has not been banished but only suppressed. It is at the foundation of American society, at the grassroots, that we find honesty and integrity still strong and prevalent. It has been molested but not destroyed. Erosion and corruption have moved in and firmly established themselves primarily in the upper echelon of our society, fostered by unethical norms taken root by what is variously known as "corporate state," or "military-industrial complex." Our representatives and leading bureaucrats are mostly a part of, or heavily influenced by this cooperative power of financial giants, industry and military. None of these dominating economic factors existed in the early years of our independence, nor were they imaginable to this extraordinary dominant extent until after the World War Two.
President Eisenhower was the first president to warn the American people, in his farewell address, of the dangers of the military-industrial complex to our society. The result has been the suppression of individual rights and freedoms, particularly since 1960s, and extraordinary privileges granted to big business, and effective control of our socio-economic and political system by this very small privileged economic group consisting of only 0.4 of one percent of American household.[2]
From all the investment assets, 1% is owned by the $5,000-$9,999 income group, 7% by the $10,000-$24,999 group, 11% by the $25.000-$49,000 group, 15% by the 50,000-$99,999, or 34% in all. The rest, 66% is controlled by a small elite.[3] Another study shows that in 2007, of all personally held assets the top 1% owned 34.6%, the next 19% owned 50.55% and the bottom 80% owned only 15.05%. Even worse and more disturbing, from all financial wealth owned by the American households, the ratio was 42.7%, 50.3% and for the bottom 80% it was only 7.05% In 2009, the bottom 60% of American income earners received only 4% of the total subsidies while the top 20% received 84% of the $400 billion subsidies. And in 2005, the top 1% paid 27.7 of tax share while receiving 45% of the subsidies. These facts, with no doubt illustrate that there is much that is wrong with American democracy. The events of the past four decades have demonstrated the enormity and variety of the problems that plague this society and its economy. These problems take different forms for different people. Some people suffer much more than others and no one remains unaffected.
Corruption, hypocrisy, suppression, alienation, racism, crime, destruction of the environment, waste, exploitation of our natural resources, foreign wars, and extreme brutality toward other people are just a few of our major problems. They are the result of our neglect and lack of interest in developing a just social and political system, in contrast to our zeal and drive in developing our economic system and accumulation of individual wealth. Thus, we have created an imbalanced society - highly developed scientifically and economically, remaining quite backward and outmoded socially and politically.[3] The combined effect has been not only to oppress a great many people at home and abroad, but to generate a widespread sense of anxiety among those who do not perceive themselves to be oppressed.
America outside its borders is perceived to be a democratic society, and because of this perception it is admired and desired by many foreigners. American citizens, a majority of them, also think of the system as being democratic. But the reality is that what both foreigners and Americans see is a facade of democracy. The foreigners have no opportunity to understand the real autocratic operation of the system behind this facade, and what the citizens see, they are conditioned to think so by continuous propaganda supported and orchestrated by the capitalist elite and being conditioned and indoctrinated as such from the childhood.
American democracy has been carefully designed, in an evolutionary process of some 200 years, by the economic elite, to satisfy, provide for, maintain and protect the capitalist needs for an stable, delicately but firmly controlled, and economically productive society. In this regard, the American society has three basic, complex and perplexing components, quite difficult to be understood by ordinary citizens or outsiders except for some experts in the fields of social sciences. These three components are individuals, private organizations, and public institutions within a highly materialistic society.
Individual
As an individual, an American has two standards: ideal and real. He believes in equality of opportunity for everyone, with incredible 90%, but nearly always desires to be considered more equal than others. It seems that this reality is the result of keen competition for materialistic success which is the basic ingredient of the American daily life. In reality, everything is evaluated in terms of dollars and cents. The other important but non-material aspects of life become marginal in this process of evaluation. This feeling is often so intense that it becomes difficult for an American to stop, truly relax and enjoy the life. In general, an American works very hard not only to achieve economic security but to accumulate wealth. As a result of this strained lifestyle he encounters all kinds of dangerous ailments, ulcers, heart problems, blood pressure, depression and other mental illnesses. In his drive for a better life and accumulation of wealth an American never stops. He always think of enjoying life sometime in the future, a dream which rarely materializes. Then one day he has a stroke or heart attack and dies. The strange observation in American psychology is that those who take over the accumulated wealth don't learn the lesson but follow exactly the same course of action of the deceased from whom they had inherited the wealth. This seems to be the main characteristic of the lower middle class, middle and upper middle class Americans which constitute some 70% of the population. The bottom 30% who suffer at the expense of the rest, sincerely believe in equality of opportunity but find nearly all the doors shut on their face. The elite considers them as social garbage yet among these we may find the best "humane" Americans. There is always a growing discontent among this group as well as the lower middle class work force. The worsening situation is carefully watched by the elite elements. When it approaches the point of uprising and violence then certain welfare legislation is passed to stabilize the situation.
Individualism is another ideal belief of ordinary Americans, yet, every day more and more they want the government to take care of the social and economic ills and discomforts. As a result of this demand the United States has, gradually, become an expanded welfare state spending hundreds of billions of dollars in an array of welfare programs. The money for these exuberant expenditures, does not come from the rich elite class but through revenues received by heavily taxing the middle class. So, in America the middle class, constituting the majority, supplies expert knowledge and technology to the elite through the production process and pays to quiet the lower class in order to stabilize the environment for steady production and maximization of profits. Consequently, the American capitalism has persisted in its dynamic operation because of special arrangements by the elite, when necessary, through the passage of special welfare legislation tending to stabilize the society.
A third peculiar characteristic of the Americans is their ideal thoughts about democracy on the one hand, and their lack of interest in putting it into effect by a democratic process on the other. It might be quite surprising to outsiders, who have a rosy picture of the American democracy, and a great many Americans themselves, that only a little over 50% of eligible Americans participate in presidential elections; 30 to 40% participate in congressional elections which is the major policy-making body of the nation; and 10 to 20% vote in local elections where most of the regulations affecting their daily life are decided. Thus, ideally, Americans strongly favor political equality, freedom of political expression, and democratic electoral process, yet overall, the majority of them do not bother to vote nor actively participate in democratization of highly corrupt and abused electoral system.
Americans believe in free market economy, yet, they strongly resent its consequences such as the concentration of wealth and power in a few corporations ruled by the super rich elite and the huge amount of profits made by them. Overwhelmingly believing in equality of opportunity, they witness the rich getting richer while the poor getting poorer. They want both equality of opportunity and capitalistic prosperity despite the tensions and incompatibilities that exist between these two concepts. Capitalistic opportunities lead to unequal economic rewards causing ever expanding class stratification. Economic rewards and resources accumulated by the wealthy are then converted into political resources creating political disparities destructive of democratic electoral process and unrivaled opportunity to shape public policies.
However, there is one strong positive factor in favor of the individual and American public as a whole. Social consciousness about the basic ideal of equality of opportunity carries comparatively heavier weight than the public perception of the capitalistic economy and resulting social and political inequalities. But capitalistic indoctrination through childhood education and continuing blitz of propaganda has left very few unaffected in holding their social consciousness and the ideal of equality of opportunity. There are, however, indications of a slow but steady increase in their number.
Private organizations
Let's now proceed with consideration of the private organizations and the public institutions, the other two components of our society. Economic organizations are the subject of our main consideration. This is where the heart of problem rests as far as it relates to democracy and equality of opportunity. Under the domain of monopoly and oligopoly capitalism, which is the main feature of American economy, as concluded by one reliable study, a few thousand super rich (a little over 7,000) control or at least highly influence not only the economy of the country but also its essential political and social institutions such as the media, education, and health care.
Control of information system is vital to the economic elite in order to control or influence public attitude about justification of capitalism as well as major domestic and foreign policies. Freedom of thought and speech is essential to a democratic system. There must be a free expression and competition of ideas and symbols. This essential freedom is guaranteed to Americans by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In modern society the interchange of information and expression of ideas is to be achieved through the mass media. The American mass media constitutes of about 19,000 radio and television stations, 1,700 daily newspapers, 7,000 other newspapers, 9,000 periodicals, over 4,300 film producers and distributors, and 1,300 publishing companies.[4] But, the elite, through a few business and financial firms controls the three major television and radio networks - ABC, NBC, CBS - and 34 subsidiary stations, 201 cable television systems, 62 major radio stations, 59 magazines, including Newsweek and Times, 58 major newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Los Angeles Times, and 41 publishing companies. 75% of the stocks of the three major television networks, where the American public receives most of its information, are owned by five major banks. According to another study, in the long run, the mass media cater to elite individuals and elite institutions upholding their actions and policies. Besides the information system, the elite group, consisting only of 0.4% of one percent of households, controls the economy and government This control is effectuated through the top one-fifth of the population who are the supporters of the elite family and its beneficiaries.
Consequently, the richest one-fifth of the population owns about 77% of all personally held wealth and have control over 97% of privately owned corporate stocks. Thus, the richest one-fifth has three times as much wealth as the remaining 80% of the population and full control of all major business and economic institutions. Through the control of the governmental process the elite rips off the American taxpayers by the means of government subsidies and subsidy-like aid, much of it hidden or disguised. The cost of tax subsidies alone to big business in 2010 was $363billion
The government's outstanding loans to private business- direct, guaranteed, and insured- came to about $250 billion in 1973, and $713.4 billion in 2010, six times the outstanding credit advanced to business by all commercial banks. The figures may go much higher at the present. The big business gets the big bite mostly away from public attention. The exploitive benefits appropriated by the economic elite amounts to about $380 billion a year or an annual rip-off of $1,700 from every man, woman and child in the country. Many rich people, thanks to laws passed to protect their income, either don't pay any tax or pay a very nominal amount compared to the size of their annual income. To show just an example, according to an Internal Revenue Service report, of 529,460 couples and individuals who reported total annual income above $200,000 on their tax returns, 595 paid no taxes while their income averaged $600,000 and two out of every three had capital gains averaging 490,000. Another 33,805 having incomes over $200,000 paid only 15% tax, typically less than a middle class family, and 3,000 paid less than 10%..
Public Institutions
The third component of a democratic society is its public institutions. The United States is praised and admired by the foreigners as well as most of its citizens for its political democracy. This perception is not the result of a true representative democracy but the effect of propaganda and conditioning of Americans through the mass media and educational systems influenced and controlled by the elite. A few who are expert in American political system and process and have impartially studied the system would find this claim of democracy far from the truth. They will attest that there is no democracy in the United States consciously supported by the majority of the voting population. The so called "democracy" a facade, a pretentious process created by the elite to sustain its status as well as the stability for its authoritarian capitalistic operation and maximization of profits.
To elaborate on this statement we may start, first, with the two major political parties which control all the national and state governments. Both parties are strong supporters of capitalism and are controlled by the capitalist elite. Apparent differences are only cosmetic. Through the control of state governments both parties together have been able to establish harsh conditions for development and success of any third party; and by establishment of single, rather than proportional, representation districts, they have been able to monopolize the electoral system excluding any hope of success for any minor third party. In any case that these protective devices do not work, the parties uniting their governmental authority act to outlaw the upcoming third party and officially destroy it. This is what exactly happened in the1920s when the Socialist Party developing strong, was able to capture the government of many cities and gain representation in state legislatures. The party was declared illegal, its leaders were arrested, its offices were destroyed and its funds in banks were frozen. It was not until the 1970s that under the Freedom of Information Act the party had access to government archives, sued the government and was granted damages.
Second, mainly because of the control of the two major parties by the elite and their commitment to the capitalistic economic system, people have moved away from these parties ever increasing the size of independent voters, doubling its size during the last 30 years. Presently, more than one-third of the eligible voters consider themselves as independent and the electoral success of any of the two major parties depends on each party's ability to attract more independent voter. Neither of the two parties has a long range objective and philosophically both are strongly capitalistic oriented. For this reason there is no ideological loyalty to the party, only 5% of the membership take active part in party operation, and members of one party voting for the candidate of another during different elections in not unusual.
Third, whether a party member or not, masses of voters do not bother to participate in the elections. The result has become the takeover of the electoral system and ensuing governmental functions by the elite and major interest groups supporting it. In actual sense, in the United States we do not have majority representation either at the national or state level.
Candidates are selected by a small minority of the eligible voters. For example, if a presidential candidate received 54% of popular vote, when only 52% of the eligible voters actually voted, he becomes elected by only 28.6% of the total eligible voters. He represents a small minority and not the majority of the voting population. For example, in 1980 Reagan received 51.6 % of the popular vote where only 54% of the eligible population voted. It was proper to assume that he received only 27% votes of the total eligible voters. For his second term, he received 59% of the popular vote amounting only to 29% of the total voting population. For the same token, in the 1988 election Bush received 54% or 27% of the total voting population. In 2000 and 2004 elections Bush received 25% and 26% of the total eligible voters respectively. The situation is more tragic in the case of congressional members and local officials.
Fourth, constitutionally, states have control over the electoral process including those pertaining to the national offices. Therefore, states are where all antidemocratic activities rest. Financing the elections, particularly the campaign expenditures by the candidates is mainly controlled by the elite through direct or institutional contributions. In general this is handled by each party in a way that ordinarily over 95% of the House representatives and 86% of senators are continually reelected. Nearly all of them serve the elite family. At the time of any social unrest this Congress passes appropriate welfare legislation by which a few billion dollars is distributed among the poor and lower working class or small farm operators in order to quiet down the situation and maintain stability for the proper operation of the elite institutions. Another serious problem relates to the process of voter registration which is more or less and at times highly corrupt in favor of one party or the other. The money for such programs, presently amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars, does not come out from the elite pocket but mainly from those of the middle and working class in the form of additional taxation. Another serious electoral problem relates to the process of voter registration in each state which is regularly abused in some states and manipulated in favor of one party or another. During a presidential elections this abuse is estimated to be in excess of two million votes. For example, the studies show that in 2000 presidential elections in Florida alone, tens of thousands of Afro-American voters, 90% of them expected to vote Democrat, were deprived from voting through registration abuses.
With all these factual observations, one can easily conclude that there is no real democracy in the United States, at the national level in particular. The effect of such lack of democracy has placed the nation in over thirteen trillion dollars in debt the major beneficiary of which has been as always the economic elite, for which over $250 billion a year is paid in interest by taxpayers money. Realistically speaking, the U.S. President and Congress are both strong supporters and protectors of the economic elite and major interest groups which contribute to their electoral campaigns. The U.S. foreign policies are not based on international law or mutual respect to sovereignty of other nations, but to protect the U.S. capitalistic interests abroad. Any system not sympathetic to capitalistic values is not considered democratic. Such countries are considered not friendly to American policies, therefore, subject to pressure and change. For example, U.S. seceded Panama territory from Colombia in 1903 to build the Canal because of the Colombian government's rejection of the project. It has controlled the politics and economy of the country since. When General Noriega disobeyed, Panama was invaded in December 1989 and an "appropriate" obedient government was installed. Noriega, the head of a foreign country was captured, brought to the United States, tried, convicted and jailed. Granada was invaded in October 1983 to oust a Marxist oriented socialist government. An acceptable government was established under the U.S. occupation. Dominican Republic was invaded in April 1965. It was also occupied from 1916 to 1924. Troops were sent to Mexico in April 1914 to block arms shipments to Mexican revolutionaries. They stayed in Mexico for eight months. Haiti was invaded in 1915 and it remained under occupation til 1934. U.S. Marines were sent to Nicaragua in 1912 to protect the friendly government. Some Marines stayed there for 13 years. They were sent again in 1927 and stayed till 1933 when Samosa was established as the ruler. The Samosa family ruled until the Sandinista revolution in1979. U.S. troops landed in Honduras in three separate occasion, between 1912 and 1926, to protect American business interests. Starting in 1980 U.S. troops were regularly stationed in Honduras in order to protect Contra rebellion forces and impose pressure on Nicaraguan Sandinista government. Between 1898 and 1921 Marines were landed in Cuba on four occasions and remained there for a total of 12 years. U.S. established its present naval base at Guantanamo Bay in 1903. In early 1970s Chile democratically elected a Marxist government and chose Dr. Allende as President. This tended to destroy the U.S. government's theory of associating Marxism with dictatorship which was the basis of the Cold War policies. The Chilean government had to be overthrown. It was done by the CIA and millions of American taxpayers money.
This is just a regional example. The U.S. foreign policy has followed the same lawless, often utterly brutal and destructive of thousands of lives and properties, through overt and covert actions, in other parts of the world particularly in the Far East and the Middle East, anytime the American elite has shown a substantial economic or ideological interest. For example, the U.S. government efforts, in 1960s, to change the Marxist oriented socialist government of Indonesia, ruled since 1945 by Sukarno, and establish a new friendly system under the rule of Suharto caused a genocide by the new government of over 800,000 mostly innocent lives of men women and children. In just a few months in 1965 more than 200,000 people allegedly associated with Communist Party were slaughtered.[5] Since 2001, tens of thousands have died in Afghanistan War and, in Iraq, a small country with a population of about 30 million, according to new estimates, over one million have been killed as a result of war, over 95% innocent men, women and children, and 4.5 million have been displaced one half of them escaping to the neighboring countries and the rest becoming refugees in their own land.
Some decades ago in April 25, 1935, in the Journal of Philosophy, the great American Philosopher John Dewey, discussing the future of liberalim,, described the American system as follows: "the reactionaries are in possession of force, in not only the army and police, but in the press and the schools. The only reason they do not advocate the use of force is the fact that they are already in possession of it, so their policy is to cover up its insistence with idealistic phrases- of which their present use of individual initiative and liberty is a striking example.... It is absurd to conceive liberty as that of the business entrepreneur and ignore the imminent regimentation to which workers are subjugated, intellectual as well as manual workers.", The American political democracy is not a true one. It is used carefully and skillfully as a facade to cover the ills of capitalism and actual control of the system by a very small elite. In reality, as evidenced by the facts presented aboveand many other scolarly writings, it is a disguised brutal dictatorship,
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REFERENCES:
[1]. Newsweek, May 23, 2011, p.68.
[2]. Richard Edwards, et al, The Capitalist System, 1972, p.173 -174..
[ 3]. Edwin knoll, et al. American Militarism, 1969, p. 2.
[ 4]. James Burns, et al. Government by the People, 14th ed., 1990, p.279.and 302.
[5} World Book, 2001, vol. 10,p. 238. For full documentation of this article see www.democracywhere.com
Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin System,and a Fulbright scholar, a multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural, and multi-lingual scholar with background in Mechanical Engineering (B.S.M.E.), Continental and Islamic Law (Licenciate), J.D. in American Jurisprudenxce, LL.M. in International Law and International Economics, Ph.D. in Political Science, Economics and Administration, and Doctor of the Science of Law (S.J.D.) the highest law degree offered in U.S. Fluent in five languages: English, French, Spanish, Persian, Azeri-Turkish. Elementary knowledge of Arabic, Urdu, Russian and Italian. Patented inventions; an artist, a poet (oil and pastel), a musician (violin), with over 35 years of academic background in teaching, reseasrch and administration, research and cultural studies in many countries in Europe including USSR, Middle East, Central Asia, Northe africa, Central and South America. Author of 8 books and many scholarly articles listed in his website http://www.democracywhere.com
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