We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Money Talks

Click here to access article by Nathan J. Robinson from Jacobin. 

Robinson criticizes liberals for believing that one can legislate free speech (influence) in a society that creates gross inequality in the distribution of money. Money is influence. 

Capitalism creates classes by essentially dividing people into "owners" of productive property and workers who work in their property for wages controlled by the owners. The owners will always come of better in this system because of their control of wages. Over time this control has inevitably resulted in what we see today: a small segment of the population who are rich and vast number of people who tend to be poor and powerless (without influence). Thus, you can have many laws regulating the use of money to influence the political process, but money (influence) will always be used by capitalists to dominate society. Capitalists will always find ways to work around any laws or regulations that tend to restrict their influence. This last conclusion has been demonstrated throughout the history of capitalist societies.
...money not only buys political power, it is political power. Its possession confers godlike capability, and its deprivation creates servitude. With money one can manipulate public taste, ruin one’s enemies, and build, destroy, and conquer.