Big is beautiful but small consolidates power

I told you so!  Okay, not you, probably, but listen up you 15 or so people from my Election Law seminar, Spring Semester, 2003, who teased then dismissed me as a hyperbolic worrywart when I pronounced my views that the U.S. was fast approaching an oligarchy.  To you, I say, with verve: I told you so!  Ha!

Hmph.  I don't really feel any better.

People used to make fun of me for my long neck, too.

Oh?  You still laugh?  Think I'm that kind of person who's going to search for some variant power structure to label the government because I'm trying to drum up fear or confusion among readers?  Okay.  I get it.  That's a trend.  Truth is, I ain't no Glenn Beck.  I actually know what oligarchy means.  Fascism too.  And communism, socialism, representative democracy and direct democracy and autocracy.  Wanna play Trivial Pursuit with me?  Grandma didn't sign me up for Teen Jeopardy for nothing.

This morning, I read this post by Paul Krugman, one of my favorite economists because he consistently rises to the challenge of recognizing the role of the working classes in the function of our broader economy.  Indeed, even the Free Exchange blog at The Economist is affirming my man Krugman on a topic that has been making my blood boil over the last couple weeks.  Namely, the ridiculous budget cuts the Republican house is proposing and passing in its willfully blind siege on the deficit.  The Economist reviewed Paul's column from last week, in which he aptly labeled the current budget debate as a sham orchestrated by wannabe deficit hawks with no more bite to their beak than my furry cocker spaniel has to her bark.  The programs on the chopping block are not the programs pilfering from the nation's wallet.  The Economist blog provides this tasty morsel: non-defense discretionary funding in 2008 is at precisely the same level as it was in 1963.  That would be 3.6 percent.  The programs on this small budget line did not and are not breaking the bank.  Thus, focusing cuts on this area is a fool's errand.  It will get the U.S. no closer to solving its deficit woes than the Army's sponsorship of a NASCAR car will solve its problems with obese recruits.  (By the way, the House of Representatives did NOT cut its $7 million annual sponsorship of NASCAR.  Really.)

Krugman lodges an appropriate charge on those clipped hawks: by looking to slash spending in those areas where money already isn't, they are effectively snatching food from the "mouths of babes" (and their mothers and siblings).  Indeed, they are also skinning and feathering those babes' giant yellow bird friend and jeopardizing access to health providers working at Planned Parenthood.  (Much like the name of the organization suggests, Planned Parenthood ain't just about abortions.  If so, they might be called Unplanned Abortions.)  Oh, and they passed cuts to the Securities and Exchange Commission, just as it prepares to enforce new Wall Street reforms targeted to address some of the problems that caused the financial meltdown in the first place.  Nothing like removing a beating heart to ensure death.  Works every time.

This week, Krugman describes the impetus behind the ongoing Wisconsin protests.  It isn't just an attempt to end collective bargaining; it's a politically inspired effort to consolidate power away from the working class folks who unions represent.  In other words, the Republican governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, is cashing a literal and figurative check provided by those big money interests who prefer not to compete with all those tedious union demands diminishing their profits.  Note, I didn't say diminishing the economy.  I said, their profits.  Because that's their interest, not the improved quality of life of those who might do the work to obtain those profits.  Guess what that consolidation of power in the hands of the wealthy is called?  Oligarchy!  

The budget cuts being sought in the House are much the same.  By gutting the already paltry programs that benefit the working classes and those ephemeral social niceties like education, arts and public media, and avoiding cuts or limiting spending that benefits very wealthy and corporate benefactors, the House is assuring that power remains in the hands of the wealthy.  Mostly, in the form of cash.

So, if you laughed at me 8 years ago, that's cool.  But get used to the word: oligarchy.  Because that's what you've got now.  And don't think for a minute that you've got a shot at sharing that power.  If you aren't driving the train now, it's pretty damn unlikely you're going to get a shot in this life.