A thoughtful and thought provoking essay. I appreciate your ability to organize and lay out the things many of us worry about but can't quite articulate. Your continual optimism for democracy's survival gives me hope. Thank you.
Democracy has thrived best when not only all have equal say on equal footing (nothing like Citizens United) and when the span of wealth inequality was small. When in the economic sphere was not dominated by what we consider extreme concentration and market power. This is especially true in media. This country has gone through times when this was not true and it lead to devastating consequence (Civil war) or to progressive reforms resulting from the golden age of robber barons (Teddy Roosevelt).
Pre-civil war it can be argued the South was an oligarchy of large slave owners/land owners subjegating poor whites to second class, but at least not being slaves. The north was more industrial, more immigrant oriented, wealth concentration not as bad as the South and if anything, the New England textile industry being held hostage by the southern oligarchs.
However, the need to concentrate power and industrial scale war in the North led to increasing wealth concentration and political machines (Tammany Hall for example) created a new oligarchy replacing the antebellum Southern oligarchy.
Only the progressive reforms pushed by Teddy Roosevelt and FDR stemmed the tide until the 1970s.
Since the 1950s, libertarian ideas of freedom...started slowly taking over. Libertarians care not about inequality and only about their own freedom to do as they please, but not caring about the consequences of who got hurt, who lost, who had control...it is a fantasy that we can all operate as we wish and everybody has control over their own destiny. It is a sick lie, that finally won the day with then Chicago school, Reagan, and Thatcher.
We are now suffering from end stage libertarian rot. Total selfishness (why should I spend money to help a anybody else but me or my chosen cohort). Musk’s bullshit ideas of free speech (I can say what I want, it I do not have to suffer consequences) that reeks of Animal farm “all speech is free, some speech is freer than others” to paraphrase.
As a society and government, this libertarian rot has created the impression of a zero sum game among a large segment of the populous as encouraged by the emerging oligarchy. Ideas such as “justices” “fairness” “societal good” are now anathema among such a large segment of the country because it runs contrary to the “I’ve got mine” zero sum game that has been encouraged the libertarian thinking and reinforced by the new oligarchy that flood the zone with this message.
In closing, as an economist and having taught economic principles for years the key aspects of a perfectly competitive market (market for ideas and discourse):
1) no one market participant or group of participants can set the market price (can control speech and discourse by flooding then zone)
2) homogenous product (speech is homogenous...topics may not be)
3) no barriers to entry or exit (about control of media or having money to drive the narrative)
4) perfect information (this means all people agree on objective facts and can access those facts)
5) no externalities (no unwanted or unaccounted consequences...but when speech borders on creating a “clear and present danger” as we are seeing more and more, speech has externalities). In the alternative externalities are considered and are incorporated into the market for speech.
Michael, my apologies for the long winded comments and thoughts. I am grateful you are doing this and happy to support your work. And thankful to you and those that follow you to allow all of us to be heard!
America is considered to be a Republic, a nation in which citizens vote for representatives who are responsible to them. A Democracy is a gov't directly responsible to the people who rule,calling for equality of rights , opportunities, and treatment.How many Americans today could define these terms?As usual, in my opinion, everything goes back to education and an understanding of the principles for which this country is supposedly known. My father taught a class called Problems in American Democracy. I have his textbook of the same name, printed in 1956. It lists an objective for each chapter as well as discussion suggestions at the end of each. His students indeed learned that American history is alive, always changing, growing, overcoming. Now, we have DeSantis and others banning books, teaching material must be approved by those he chooses,no mention of slavery as it would make white people feel bad, guilty, and allowing parents who had no idea of how to teach their children during the stay at home pandemic time,to now call the shots, once, screaming on
the street at kids wearing masks.
Unfortunately, we are more and more becoming a land of haves and have nots. Money, not the people, rules. And the majority of our representatives are extremely rich, many making their fortunes in corporations that are considered people and thus, free to thrive on the backs of their poorly paid employees. The richest of them is Rick Scott of Florida-$300,000,000.He who wants to get rid off medicare, was CEO of a company fined $1.7 billion for medicare fraud. Elon Musk is worth, no kidding here, $10,077,116,351. Although some states are now paying more, the official minimum wage in America is still $7.25/hr. It would now take 1 1/2 hours of work to buy a dozen eggs and a loaf of bread. Only those with funds can send their children to college, the cost is so great; many donating, thus buying entrance.Although it is Biden's wish to pay off college debt, I am against it. How is that fair to give so much when millions do not attend and get no reward. Lower the interest rates. The Republicans are all heated about entering immigrants, but they are hard workers for the most part for little pay. Those trump Mexican drug smugglers and rapists are out everyday in my Florida neighborhood spreading mulch, clipping hedges, mowing and blowing, temperatures in the 90s. Is it fair to give a free ride to some and work to death, others? But so has it ever been; even Jesus said,"The poor you will always have with you." It is a problem that the US needs to work on, but problems are not solved these days, so divided are we. We no longer produce goods, only technology. So many companies are now owned by China and England, and globalization has led to loss of jobs. Pittsburgh used to thrive on steel production. Now, we buy it from Mexico, Brazil, even Russia, Small farmers have a hard time making a living with high expenses and climate problems. More and more are owned by well to do absentee owners.The only plans ahead for a Republican House of Rep. are to seek revenge on the Democrats and continue on the hunt for Hunter. Thus, we have those armed voter checkers thinking they are patriots, believing the craziness of a Marjorie Greene or Lauren Boebert. And no one from either party wants to get rid of guns though every day, in one way or another, 316 Americans die from gun shots.
There is a lack of communication, and thus, few interested in taking part in local government. Information , often false, is learned from the internet, trump's Truth Social is a joke, CNN is going down hill and forget twitter. My grandmother taught what we would now call communication, how to speak, how to get along even with different beliefs, solving social and economic problems together. I have her book on elocution, published in 1886.
Speaking of economics, many experts are saying we are in for bad times, perhaps a recession. Interest rates are rising to stop inflation but decreasing the real estate boom. Technology companies see it coming; look at the number of people they are laying off or firing to counter their loss of profits. Other companies , too, are cutting jobs, from 7/11 to Amazon to Disney to even Substack, the sponsor of these columns, -14% of workers.
Americans no longer believe their reps represent. It didn't start with Nixon but he sure contributed to it. As did Reagan with his never true trickle down economics and his Nicaragua affair, and Bush 43 and cohorts starting the Iraq war based on lies that they knew were lies. Then, there is trump. I took a test one time to see how big my vocabulary is, came to 22,500 words, and I'll tell you, it would take every one of them to describe what he has done and hopes to do.
So, yes, America has problems. It will take years to solve any of them , and that may be hoping against hope.
A thoughtful and thought provoking essay. I appreciate your ability to organize and lay out the things many of us worry about but can't quite articulate. Your continual optimism for democracy's survival gives me hope. Thank you.
Yes we need more democracy. But first we need to remove the for-profit motive and funding from it. Without that first, reform is impossible.
Democracy has thrived best when not only all have equal say on equal footing (nothing like Citizens United) and when the span of wealth inequality was small. When in the economic sphere was not dominated by what we consider extreme concentration and market power. This is especially true in media. This country has gone through times when this was not true and it lead to devastating consequence (Civil war) or to progressive reforms resulting from the golden age of robber barons (Teddy Roosevelt).
Pre-civil war it can be argued the South was an oligarchy of large slave owners/land owners subjegating poor whites to second class, but at least not being slaves. The north was more industrial, more immigrant oriented, wealth concentration not as bad as the South and if anything, the New England textile industry being held hostage by the southern oligarchs.
However, the need to concentrate power and industrial scale war in the North led to increasing wealth concentration and political machines (Tammany Hall for example) created a new oligarchy replacing the antebellum Southern oligarchy.
Only the progressive reforms pushed by Teddy Roosevelt and FDR stemmed the tide until the 1970s.
Since the 1950s, libertarian ideas of freedom...started slowly taking over. Libertarians care not about inequality and only about their own freedom to do as they please, but not caring about the consequences of who got hurt, who lost, who had control...it is a fantasy that we can all operate as we wish and everybody has control over their own destiny. It is a sick lie, that finally won the day with then Chicago school, Reagan, and Thatcher.
We are now suffering from end stage libertarian rot. Total selfishness (why should I spend money to help a anybody else but me or my chosen cohort). Musk’s bullshit ideas of free speech (I can say what I want, it I do not have to suffer consequences) that reeks of Animal farm “all speech is free, some speech is freer than others” to paraphrase.
As a society and government, this libertarian rot has created the impression of a zero sum game among a large segment of the populous as encouraged by the emerging oligarchy. Ideas such as “justices” “fairness” “societal good” are now anathema among such a large segment of the country because it runs contrary to the “I’ve got mine” zero sum game that has been encouraged the libertarian thinking and reinforced by the new oligarchy that flood the zone with this message.
In closing, as an economist and having taught economic principles for years the key aspects of a perfectly competitive market (market for ideas and discourse):
1) no one market participant or group of participants can set the market price (can control speech and discourse by flooding then zone)
2) homogenous product (speech is homogenous...topics may not be)
3) no barriers to entry or exit (about control of media or having money to drive the narrative)
4) perfect information (this means all people agree on objective facts and can access those facts)
5) no externalities (no unwanted or unaccounted consequences...but when speech borders on creating a “clear and present danger” as we are seeing more and more, speech has externalities). In the alternative externalities are considered and are incorporated into the market for speech.
Michael, my apologies for the long winded comments and thoughts. I am grateful you are doing this and happy to support your work. And thankful to you and those that follow you to allow all of us to be heard!
America is considered to be a Republic, a nation in which citizens vote for representatives who are responsible to them. A Democracy is a gov't directly responsible to the people who rule,calling for equality of rights , opportunities, and treatment.How many Americans today could define these terms?As usual, in my opinion, everything goes back to education and an understanding of the principles for which this country is supposedly known. My father taught a class called Problems in American Democracy. I have his textbook of the same name, printed in 1956. It lists an objective for each chapter as well as discussion suggestions at the end of each. His students indeed learned that American history is alive, always changing, growing, overcoming. Now, we have DeSantis and others banning books, teaching material must be approved by those he chooses,no mention of slavery as it would make white people feel bad, guilty, and allowing parents who had no idea of how to teach their children during the stay at home pandemic time,to now call the shots, once, screaming on
the street at kids wearing masks.
Unfortunately, we are more and more becoming a land of haves and have nots. Money, not the people, rules. And the majority of our representatives are extremely rich, many making their fortunes in corporations that are considered people and thus, free to thrive on the backs of their poorly paid employees. The richest of them is Rick Scott of Florida-$300,000,000.He who wants to get rid off medicare, was CEO of a company fined $1.7 billion for medicare fraud. Elon Musk is worth, no kidding here, $10,077,116,351. Although some states are now paying more, the official minimum wage in America is still $7.25/hr. It would now take 1 1/2 hours of work to buy a dozen eggs and a loaf of bread. Only those with funds can send their children to college, the cost is so great; many donating, thus buying entrance.Although it is Biden's wish to pay off college debt, I am against it. How is that fair to give so much when millions do not attend and get no reward. Lower the interest rates. The Republicans are all heated about entering immigrants, but they are hard workers for the most part for little pay. Those trump Mexican drug smugglers and rapists are out everyday in my Florida neighborhood spreading mulch, clipping hedges, mowing and blowing, temperatures in the 90s. Is it fair to give a free ride to some and work to death, others? But so has it ever been; even Jesus said,"The poor you will always have with you." It is a problem that the US needs to work on, but problems are not solved these days, so divided are we. We no longer produce goods, only technology. So many companies are now owned by China and England, and globalization has led to loss of jobs. Pittsburgh used to thrive on steel production. Now, we buy it from Mexico, Brazil, even Russia, Small farmers have a hard time making a living with high expenses and climate problems. More and more are owned by well to do absentee owners.The only plans ahead for a Republican House of Rep. are to seek revenge on the Democrats and continue on the hunt for Hunter. Thus, we have those armed voter checkers thinking they are patriots, believing the craziness of a Marjorie Greene or Lauren Boebert. And no one from either party wants to get rid of guns though every day, in one way or another, 316 Americans die from gun shots.
There is a lack of communication, and thus, few interested in taking part in local government. Information , often false, is learned from the internet, trump's Truth Social is a joke, CNN is going down hill and forget twitter. My grandmother taught what we would now call communication, how to speak, how to get along even with different beliefs, solving social and economic problems together. I have her book on elocution, published in 1886.
Speaking of economics, many experts are saying we are in for bad times, perhaps a recession. Interest rates are rising to stop inflation but decreasing the real estate boom. Technology companies see it coming; look at the number of people they are laying off or firing to counter their loss of profits. Other companies , too, are cutting jobs, from 7/11 to Amazon to Disney to even Substack, the sponsor of these columns, -14% of workers.
Americans no longer believe their reps represent. It didn't start with Nixon but he sure contributed to it. As did Reagan with his never true trickle down economics and his Nicaragua affair, and Bush 43 and cohorts starting the Iraq war based on lies that they knew were lies. Then, there is trump. I took a test one time to see how big my vocabulary is, came to 22,500 words, and I'll tell you, it would take every one of them to describe what he has done and hopes to do.
So, yes, America has problems. It will take years to solve any of them , and that may be hoping against hope.