The Democracy Conundrum

Democracy is the best political system invented, but it’s been hijacked

People have flocked to this country from all corners of the earth since its inception. It stands for hope, freedom of thought and expression, and unlimited potential. The principles of democracy are generally attributed to the ancient Greeks, but for the most part democracy has been a rarity in history and is still so to the present day. Most of the world lives in some state of oppression, which includes incarceration without due process, torture and genocide. To live in a democracy is a rare and precious privilege.

Democracy in the United States is wildly imperfect. The success of our country was founded on the backs of slaves and furthered by successive waves of immigrants who were for the most part indentured servants of the wealthy. Whether working fields of cotton on a plantation, or being subjected to fourteen hour days in textile mills that often burned to the ground, millions of people suffered and died unjustly to build the wealth of a few.

The game was rigged from the beginning as King James I of England saw the New World as a commercial enterprise to extract natural resources for mother England. After other failed attempts the first colony was established in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, which managed to survive, barely, through the kindness of the Wampanoag Indians who kept them from starving to death in their first winter. From the beginning the United States was a business venture. The Jamestown colonists were not on a mission of exploration, discovery, or the tenets of freedom, but rather for profit and they were willing to risk their lives and kill to get it. The ensuing American Revolution nearly 200 years later wasn’t about heroism, it was about anger towards the English government taxing, regulating and controlling the finances of the colonies. It was about money and power.

It’s always about money and power. The robber baron industrialists of the late 1800s highlighted by Cornelius Vanderbilt, J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and Jean Paul Getty were ruthless in their business practices and exploitation of labor. From the beginning, our Constitution was undermined by greed and power. The battle between democracy and capitalism existed from the beginning and is eternal. The freedom of democracy allows toxic capitalism to flourish.

The robber barons of the past have lineage today. Their heirs and names are still all around us, however, there’s a new crop of robber barons with power the old school couldn’t imagine. The new school has 24/7 access to our minds, location and most intimate desires and emotions through social media, web advertising and yes, even old school television. They track us, analyze us and predict our behavior. We are commodities in a vast data base. The new high tech robber barons are highlighted by Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, all sociopaths leading us over the cliff.

Democracy is undermined by it’s own basic tenet, freedom of thought and speech. Without it you can’t have democracy. It depends on a sense of honor and decency. Those who pursue wealth and power at any cost are destroying democracy. However, if you control speech and thought you end up in a totalitarian state. That is democracy’s conundrum.

This is the first time we’ve stared into a literal abyss. Human behavior has always been bad, but now it’s cumulative effect coupled with technology could result in our literal extinction. If ever the principles of democracy had to overcome the tenets of capitalism, it’s now, they are not one and the same. Somehow the masters of capitalism have to convinced us they are. Capitalism is unbridled greed. Democracy is human freedom. They do not coexist, one is warfare for profit at any cost, the other has a conscience governed by decency and equity. If equity and decency don’t overcome a planet dying of greed, we’re in deep trouble.

Every one of us has a voice. One thing multinational corporations understand is money. Cancel your subscriptions to Facebook and Amazon Prime. Stop shopping at big box stores. These are actions that don’t require any energy, but could have a profound affect. Ask your friends to join you. We have the power if we organize. That is the controllers, the wealthy one percent’s greatest fear.

A better world is in our grasp if we reach for it.

Geoff