Click here to access article by Alison Fitzgerald from Bloomberg News.
This article from a mainstream Wall Street source provides a very revealing report on how major corporations have been guiding state legislatures to enact laws favorable to their interests. Because I have been an avid follower of right-wing so-called think tanks and policy advocate organizations, I was astonished to discover this organization, American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC,--and, it has been in operation for 38 years!
I have been well aware of the numerous right wing political non-profits that influence legislation at the federal level in Washington, DC. But this group functions as a stealth capitalist controller of legislation at the state level. It's obvious why Bloomberg, whose readers are mostly Wall Street connected, finally reported on this organization now: the LA Times recently reported that Common Cause has asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the tax status of this nonprofit organization.
(After a few minutes of googling ALEC, it appears to me that information about this stealth conservative organization has been mostly reported only in a relatively few obscure left-wing publications in the last few years.)
Using these hidden think tanks and advocacy non-profits together with their direct and indirect financing of political candidates, the capitalist class effectively controls what laws are passed by our government institutions, and how laws are enforced. These activities along with many forms of indoctrination help to maintain the facade of democratic process in government
It is very important to understand the background and fundamental purpose of these conservative organizations that function behind the scenes of government. The capitalist classes that emerged triumphant after the American and French Revolutions (more gradually elsewhere) were saddled with a lot of democratic rhetoric that they had used to gain the support of peasants and working people of that age in order to topple the rule of the aristocracy. Once they gained power, their next task was to limit as much as possible any real democratic functioning of government. Thus, this new class has had to resort to all kinds of subterfuge and stealth operations to subvert any real democratic organization of society and to pursue their interests of wealth accumulation and power.
The earliest acts of this ruling class in the US serves to illustrate how little support they had for democratic principles and where their real interests lay: the passing of the patently unconstitutional Sedition Act of 1798 and the establishment of the Bank of North America, a private bank to issue loans to our government and to create legal money for US citizens to conduct their business.
The entire history of these practices is difficult to uncover for obvious reasons. Ruling classes always write their own histories and record events to cast a favorable light on their past. Some historians like Howard Zinn have tried to report some of the methods of this class to subvert any real democracy, but I believe that he only scratched the surface. But, there are many other books, not always easy to find, that shed some light on this subject. I recommend reading Wealth By Stealth by Harry Glasbeek, The Anglo-American Establishment by Carroll Quigley, Gangster Capitalism by Michael Woodiwiss, The Secret Team by L. Fletcher Prouty, and other books I've listed on this blog.
