economic actor who used his reason to
capitalize on opportunities presented in the free market to become massively wealthy from what all were told were innovations that benefitted the entire nation. All stay with us today, as leaders believe it is as an empire that
America must remain.
But there are consequences of first wanting to be and then wishing to remain an empire, consequences which readily reveal themselves if only one looks. The primary consequence is the sacrifice of truth to power. No where is this more evident than in the myth of the rugged individualist, who serves to underpin the scrappy colonialists fighting savages and the well-heeled intellectual founders standing against the Crown, a myth that soon congeals around one figure: the economic actor who uses his wit and guile to accumulate not just wealth, but the power money can buy. The goals of empire bear a cost that needs now, as was needed then, to be paid.
Thus, the embrace of unbridled capitalism: first it fueled the engine of growth that would make the nation’s destiny manifest; and now, as it has been throughout history, there is the need to feed the monster that has been created. And the food upon which the monster feeds is ever more legislation and regulations that promote the security of those who chase wealth, namely legislation producing higher and higher rates of return on investment and lower and lower taxes for those benefitting from such returns. Such requires of course the active participation of elected officials, whose campaigns and positions are financed for the most part by wealthy individuals and large corporations needing to engage in activities that increase revenue within commercial and military enterprises which both protect investments at home and expand markets across the globe.
And so, the cycle continues as greater risks require greater mitigation to those offering up the cash, with more and more money flowing to the coffers of those willing to do their bidding, whether they be congressmen, senators, or presidents.2 It is, in short, the cost of doing business in what the very same call the “free market,” a market that soon reveals itself to be neither free nor a market, being instead an artificially contrived space created through a set of rules and regulations that protect investors, their investments, and their assets. Seen in this way, campaign contributions are simply the cost of doing business. They cover the cost of entering the casino of free-wheeling capitalism, a fee all too many are willing to pay for a spin of the wheel or the roll of the dice when the return is high enough and the risk low enough.
What else explains the massive disparity of income in the country, where the average personal wealth of people in the top one percent is more than a thousand times that of people in the bottom fifty percent,3 where the collective net worth of America’s top twelve billionaires has now surpassed $2.7 trillion,4 with the top three wealthiest individuals each possessing more wealth than the bottom fifty percent of Americans.5
A sad commentary on the country’s priorities, given ninety percent of children in the 1940s
Whether chieftain or king, communist or fascist, dictator or state authoritarian, all at one time or another believed some external force legitimated their position and drove their action – whether that was blood or ideology, religion or alliances. In doing so, each recognized something beyond themselves. Today, that is no longer true. Today’s tyrant embraces and acts upon only that which he sees, desires, and believes.
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