Almost in every country in the world, governments are trying, trying really, really hard to “boost” economic growth. They don’t care that it’s not their job to do or that by doing this sort of hack job; they doom future generations to misery. They do it because its’ easy, it works in the short term and everyone, especially their investor bank buddies win big time. But who exactly orders, bribes and shits on others? Let us dissect.
In this piece in particular, I am going to write exclusive about the United States government and its relationship with business, its history with big banks and big corps and the probable future it is heading in.
History
In the beginning of the 20th century, America was at the forefront of industrialization, and economic growth; it soon would surpass the UK to become the leader of the free, economic enterprise. America owes this massive success to immigration and the vast amounts of people filled with hope and desire to live in a free country. Labor was cheap, plenty and diverse and there was lots of job to fill, roads to build and houses to put.
At the time, there were several ultra-rich fellows that pretty much owned all the oil, all the steel and the railroads and much of the big banks in the US, they were: Andrew Carnegie, J.P Morgan and John D. Rockefeller. They pretty much owned two fifth of the country through trusts, or basically monopolies.
They owed much of their wealth to government railroad contracts through the Pacific Railroad Acts that took place after the Civil War during a period of reconstruction. Government paid them to build railroads, and boy did they build em’.
Then came a man by the name of Teddy Roosevelt, or the Trust Buster. He broke up the monopolies these gentlemen had, like Rockefeller’s Standard Oil through the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Even though the anti-competition monopolies were broken up, the power of money has not disappeared, in all regards it has increased. The relationship between government and big business grew as the powers to enforce and damage its wealth have been increased. Business was on the offensive.
Since both Teddy and Frank Roosevelt became the absolute antagonists of corps and banks through their quite extensive government enforcement, the corporate overlords and bankers decided to never let this happen again. Beginning in the fifties, big banks and corporations expanded enormously their legal and lobby presence in Washington. Money flowed into the pockets of congressmen and representatives, campaign funding became extensively expensive, to force the aspiring politicos to seek funding from outside sources, like Enron or J.P Morgan.
This culminated in the Reagan era and its embrace of money and greed in politics, Reagan sealed the deal and put America on its course into a corporatocracy.
The Mechanism
In abstract, this is how the relationship between big business and government works: Politicians need money to advertise themselves and become popular enough to become elected. Campaigning is a very costly affair, costing about 30-50 million dollars to elect a senator in a major state. None of them have that kind of money, so they go to corporations or corporations go to them and they strike deals.
If I get elected, I will protect gas, I will protect oil, I will vote no for that and yes for that, that kind of a deal.
They get financed and win the election, therefore serving the interests of corporations in the government. Pretty easy.
Once they get into government and work there for a year or two, they actually have to pass some good legislation for their state or district believe it or not, some promises have to be kept to get reelected. To pass favorable legislation, they make deals with other politicians and other corporations, making this a game of who gets what.
So in the end, it is impossible for anyone to resist and stand up to corporations because they feed them and they feed their buddies in government, if anyone decides to commit political suicide, they will quickly be accused of an affair, and lose all their friends and money.
The Future
What can be done to save America from going into this dark, Orwellian hell hole? How can we stop the mechanism? If every politician is bought, and no one can get elected without corporate funding, how can we get honest diplomats and straight thinkers into the government?
I’m afraid there are more questions than answers in the end. No plan of action, at least at this time, is sufficient enough to make the gears of the mechanism work the opposite way. Corporations make money. Politicians want money. People buy stuff. People want stuff. The dark side of our greedy, consumerist nature manifests in our government. Corporations consist of people, the output of which has a clean logical need: to increase profits.
We all want more money. We all want more comforts and better living. It’s our nature. So if anything can be done to stop the consumerist mechanism, it is to change the human nature.
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