Just as in the Wizard of Oz Dorothy realized she wasn’t in Kansas anymore, so do many of us realize we’re not quite in the America we used to take for granted anymore. Some fundamental things have changed - signs are everywhere that we’re moving in the wrong direction - yet sometimes we can’t quite put our finger on what happened or what went wrong.
One fundamental change over the last forty years is how gigantic corporate entities, from health insurance and big pharmaceutical companies to big oil companies and defense contractors and more, have become America’s new aristocratic overlords. It has become an entrenched aspect of how our government functions that corporate and billionaire interests are routinely allowed to control the majority of our country’s resources. Corporate profit has replaced democracy as our governing principle, a government “of the people, by the people and for the people” replaced by a government “of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations.”
A brand of unfettered and unregulated capitalism (trickle down economics) - based on providing more and more money to corporate stockholders, routinely at the expense of stakeholders such as workers, community and planet - has left the vast majority of our citizens to fend for themselves amidst the wreckage of the public commons. A massive transfer of wealth into the hands of one percent of our population has trashed the concept of a common good, favoring instead the privatization of pretty much everything.
But exactly when and how did corporations take control of, well, seemingly everything? How did this aspect of America’s decline happen - where did it come from, and how can it be reversed?
A book that sums up a lot of what happened is Democracy in Chains, Nancy MacLean’s amazing exposé of a far right economic and political stealth plan that began in the 1970’s. It set out - and at least for now, is succeeding - to exalt the absolutism of property rights, openly acknowledging that in order to do so we must “put democracy in chains.”
The ascension of this corporate juggernaut didn't just happen overnight - it was carefully manufactured over a period of decades. And the more we understand that, the more we can push back and restore our country to a time when an economic system serves us rather than us serving it. Having already done terrible damage to our people and to our democracy, this corporatist takeover needs to be thrown into the dust bin of bad ideas. Now is the time for a profound course correction, in order to help reverse the tide of our national decline.
I appreciate having had the opportunity to interview Nancy MacLean. I learned a lot from her, and I think that in watching the podcast you will as well. I’m sure you’ll agree with me that she a national treasure.
Our Democracy in Chains