Analysis by Kyle A. Lohmeier
It has occurred to me recently that I’ve been long using the phrase “corporatist oligarchy” to describe the actual sort of government the United States of America has – but I’ve never really pinned down here exactly what the phrase means or why it’s important. So, I’ll do that now.
First, the phrase itself. Corporatism is the arrangement where very large corporations are supported by the government; it’s a gross perversion of capitalism. Of course, when uneducated college seniors cry about the evils of “capitalism” they’re either making no sense at all, or they’re actually talking about corporatism. The evidence of the existence of corporatism in a country can be found fairly easily, particularly in the financial sector. If there exists companies deemed “too big to fail” by the government – and then the government steals from everyone who didn’t make a series of bad decisions that were about to bankrupt the company to bail them out – you have corporatism.
Under a capitalist economic system, those big banks and financial institutions would simply have gone bust for having made such terrible decisions. Of course, knowing this would have likely stayed the hands of those Wall Street gamblers who pumped up the housing bubble until it burst in 2008 – it’s always easier to make risky bets when you’re playing with house money.
So then, these very largest corporations that have risen to the level where government moves heaven and earth – and lots of taxpayer money – for them have become part of very tightly drawn circle of power. These massive corporations have the resources to finance political careers, and all politicians need money. Politicians on the other hand, have the ability to rig the game in favor of one corporation over another by passing legislation and regulations, subsidies and exemptions. Given this arrangement, what inevitably happens, and indeed has happened in the USA, is that the government now only really serves the interests of those largest corporations. A government of, for and by only a very select few and at the expense of everyone else is known as an “oligarchy;” the massive industries of this nation: banking, pharma, alcohol, tobacco, oil, defense, healthcare, etc. are the oligarchs, along with the heads of entrenched bureaucracies.
This is what makes it so maddening to hear indoctrinated college graduates crying about the “evil corporations, man.” Leftists love to willfully ignore the inescapable fact that their beloved government is the vital ingredient to this corporatist oligarchy we all struggle under now; and that without it, corporations would have exactly no capacity to engage in real evil. Governments are always entirely self-serving, as such, a corporatist oligarchy only exists to grow its own power and those of the oligarchs. Given the essence of government is its unique monopoly on the legal initiation of violence, the way government serves the oligarchs tends to be monstrous.
Another maddening aspect of the corporatist oligarchy is that at the same time many Americans want to reflexively deny it exists – as acknowledging it clashes with their indoctrination – making sense of individual government actions and policies is only possible when those actions and policies are viewed through the lens of “The USA is a corporatist oligarchy” rather than the lens of “The USA is a democracy,” or “The USA is a constitutional republic.”
If we all cast our minds back roughly a decade, many of us can remember the flurry of activity that was the run-up to the Supreme Court ruling that all state-level bans on gay marriage were obviously unconstitutional. Polling data released in the week or so before the SCOTUS ruling had 51 percent of Americans in favor of gay marriage. Within days of that polling data being released, then-President Obama went on TV to announce that his views on gay marriage had further “evolved” and now he was among the politically-safe majority of Americans in favor. Then SCOTUS made their ruling, and Obama lit the White House up in rainbow colors as if the whole thing was his idea from the beginning. Big Jesus hasn’t been part of the oligarchy for some time; and selling more marriage licenses means more money for local governments – allowing for gay marriage was an opportunity for the government to serve itself while not harming the interests of the oligarchs.
Fast forward to today and reliable polling data can be had that puts some 61% of all Americans in favor of totally legalizing marijuana. The war on all drugs, and the war on marijuana in particular, is obviously unconstitutional and morally reprehensible. Furthermore, it costs taxpayers a fortune to pay cops to round up people for no reason and then warehouse them at an average of $30K/year. Nobody likes seeing their loved ones put into the penal system for possessing parts of plant, and most people seem to like marijuana, or at least don’t hate it. So then, why exactly is it still illegal at the federal level, with the specter of federal enforcement looming over all state-level decriminalization laws? The will of the people is evident, so, when viewed through the lens of “The USA is a democracy,” or “The USA is a constitutional republic,” the persistence of marijuana’s illegality makes no sense at all.
Pick up the glasses with the “USA is a corporatist oligarchy” lenses in them and all of a sudden the whole picture snaps into sharp focus with 4K HD resolution.
Big Pharma has a pill for literally everything, including maladies you might not even know you had – and those that might not even exist. Big Pharma doesn’t make a dime from a guy going down to his basement and harvesting a plant that, when dried and cured, will help him alleviate his chronic neck pain. The government can’t tax and regulate every American’s basement the way it can tax and regulate licensed drug companies and their laboratories.
Big Booze has had a monopoly on selling legal buzzes since the 21st Amendment passed and aims to keep it that way. That’s why Big Booze and Big Pharma are always funding the opposition to any state-level marijuana legalization ballot initiative. And, that’s why the federal government will never legalize marijuana – government exists to serve itself and its oligarch corporations exclusively. Government pays itself from our money to lock us up for having parts of a plant, it’s not going to willing give up that gig – especially not with the oligarchs insisting it continues. When viewed through the objectively-correct lenses, there is certainly a definite logic – albeit cynical and evil – to the government’s insistence upon continuing to wage the war on drugs.
The USA, for going on 17 years now, is still waging the so-called “War on Terror,” even after we supposedly killed bin Laden ages ago and I’m told ISIS has been defeated. Yet, the military is still killing innocent people in several foreign countries. Again, this makes no sense when viewed through the incorrect lenses. It’s only when we realize that Big Oil has pipeline routes in the region that they’d like to see secured, or that Libya was about to start minting a commodity currency when all of a sudden Obama decided Gaddafi had to go, that US foreign policy of the last decade-and-a-half makes sense; again, in that dark and cynical way government actions make “sense.”
So, now that you know what lens to view government activity through, keep it handy and use it frequently. You’ll soon see what a total, ruinous scam having a government is.
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