Our Founding Fathers set up a Government of the People, for the People. The democratic experiment in the United States has seen the ebbs and flows of power. The Federal System of governance strains to balance the strength of the elite versus the will and needs of the people. Initially this balance was struck by banning the governance of royalty. There is no governance by landed gentry. The United States has been plagued by self-styled Robber Barons for generations. The problem is as old as time immemorial. Wealth and Power are naturally monopolistic. Resources are actively siphoned to the upper echelons of society at exponential rates unless stopped through governmental regulations.
Wikipedia states that “Political science is a social science which deals with systems of governance, and the analysis of political activities, political thoughts, and political behavior. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics which is commonly thought of as determining of the distribution of power and resources.” It is through this auspice that we see that wealth and power naturally accumulate to a smaller and smaller proportion of the population. Think about the pyramid with a Pharaoh Godhead at the upper echelon of society, as an extreme example. We have seen in the United States a continued struggle against this. It is difficult to assess and inoculate until societal inequality is at extreme levels.
The first struggle the United States saw was the American Revolution against the British Monarchy. The US set up a federal system of governance guided by a constitution. As such, the idea that Governance was a God given right of Royalty was rejected. A Representative Republic was allowed to take hold and our early Democracy flourished. Furthermore, the Age of Enlightenment saw continued Revolutions against the ruling monarchies of individual nations. In all of this, the catalyst was inequality and discomfort. Who was allowed to control wealth and power became the driving force behind the revolutionary ideals of Natural Law and inalienable rights. These revolutionary ideas set the world ablaze, but in the US, it initially didn’t go far enough. “The Struggle is Real” and hard-fought battles for political control and wealth continued.
Voting in the United States was initially only available to White Males with Land. This left vast amounts of the population politically disenfranchised and ultimately poorer. Wealth and Power were systematically accumulated to the elite. Hard-fought battles inevitably brought rights to larger and larger groups within the United States. A climax of this dispute could be seen as the American Civil War. This led to the Emancipation Proclamation and a renewed battle for equality with Reconstruction and the Jim Crow Era. One battle against inequality opens a new front against the wealth-elite’s monopoly on power: generation after generation. After the Union won the Civil War, a new era of Robber Barons emerged. The US saw a weakened Executive Branch with a series of ineffective Presidents. This was by design by the US Wealth-Elite. That gave way to the de facto control to the JP Morgan’s and Rockefeller’s of American Industry. These industry giants oversaw great economic monopolies. The Industrial Revolution saw rampant inequality emerge in new forms. Think Oliver Twist. The new front against inequality saw renewed struggles for the Labor Movement. Even the 40-hour work week and Child Labor laws which we take for granted today were hard fought battles.
Long story short, inequality and very real comfort were being diminished for the benefit of a select few. Books like Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” highlighted the abuse the masses had to endure. Soon after, Trust Busting became in fashion. The ebbs and flows of economic inequality continued. The economic expansion of the roaring 20’s saw an explosion of wealth for the select few. The ultimate crash and Great Depression were felt by all from the lack of financial regulation. This gave rise to the Far-Right Nationalism and Fascism of the 1930’s leading to World War II. Globalization and inter-relationships were seen as a solution to previous problems of inequality that led to greater and greater destruction.
In all these topics, monopolistic tendencies plague the masses. Political power and economic wealth accumulate to the upper echelons at the expense of the People. How is this so? Didn’t Capitalism determine that those with wealth and power “simply” earned it? The problem is that monopolistic competition is as old as time immemorial. When you aggregate a group of people, you inevitably see society branch out into a Pyramid structure. In many cases even religion is utilized to ensure that the wealth-elite can divide and conquer. Look to the Hindu Caste System for this example. The problem with monopolistic competition in economics and politics is that it inevitably creates self-serving Oligarchies. Oligarchy takes resources from the people and therefore takes away comfort from the population at large.
Freedom isn’t free. Libertarianism proclaims that fewer regulations promote economic growth for society. They claim that wealth trickle’s down. This is an assumption that must be disputed at every turn. Small Government Conservative philosophy is sold as Freedom. It, in fact, takes freedom away from most individuals. They claim that Government regulation is repressive and inefficient. The argument being made here is that true freedom is achieved through rights and resources. Wealth and opportunity are the way to best serve a Nation’s population. The more resources one has and the ability to do as one pleases (within reason) is true freedom. Lower regulation has a history of accelerating wealth and power to the Investor Class of society. Supply side economics has a dismal history of trickling down.
Conservatives ask, “Why is this even a problem”? The problem is that history is repeating itself. The United States was founded to provide hard fought Freedoms and Rights to its people. This cannot be squandered. Look at today’s political and economic environment. We have a flawed electoral system that has been rigged to benefit those with the most money to invest in politicians. The Oligarchy of wealth through Corporate Control of the top 1% is creating rampant inequality and discomfort. The rise of discontent has skewed voters’ notions and have fomented age-old nationalism. The wealthy are very good at dividing and conquering. We don’t need to see another economic crash due to de-regulation. Climate Change due to unsustainable economic growth can no longer put the World at risk. We do not deserve the discomfort of massive debt to achieve a chance for a successful career. We do not need to destroy lives for economic gain abroad in the name of National Security. Ultimately, a just and equitable Government can only be achieved by curbing the plague of monopolistic tendencies. Government is not the problem; it is the solution. It is the vanguard against free-market tendencies that take away true comfort from most citizens worldwide.