How can we have a legitimate democratic political system without a democratized economy

January 22, 2009 · Posted in Finance, Government, Politics, Social Change, Social Issues, Society, Thoughts on the economy · 1 Comment 
Too Big for the Average Joe

Too Big for the Average Joe

Recently an acquaintance of mine, sent me an email with several questions in it.  One of these questions I found more intriguing then the others, and it goes as follows.

How can we have a legitimate democratic political system without a democratized economy? In other words, when wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of a few at the expense of the many, what’s to stop the rich and powerful from buying up, owning, and operating the American government, and running it to suit their own self serving ends?

The answer as unpleasant as it may be, is NOTHING.  The other day I was listening to David Cay Johnston a New York Times best selling author and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and economist talk about the fiscal imbalance in America and how the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer.  Although this is not shocking in and of itself, what is shocking is some of the subject matter he addressed.  Here is a link to his article on Mother Jones I think everyone should read – http://www.mojones.com/news/feature/2009/01/fiscal-therapy.html

David Cay Johnston mentions in this article that the top 1,000 wage earners in America make one percent of the total salaries paid.  In other words, out of the 200 million or so employed people in the United States 1,000 of them take 1 penny for every dollar earned by the rest.  This is amazing, truly amazing.  Furthermore, the lower 90% of wage earners, or roughly 180 million people earn less money on an equivalency basis then they did in 1973.  Yep that is correct, you are truly worse off than your parents, if you do the same work.

It really does make since if you think about it.  The poor rarely vote, the poor never lobby and the poor never become representatives of the people, so who cares about them.  It costs money to be in office, it costs money to run for office, it costs money to get politicians to care about you, so if you do not have money what good are you?

There are several key points in the Johnston article that deserve their own post, so I will stop this one now, and address the others later, but keep the question in mind, and if you come up with a different answer, please let us know.

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