An End To American – And Global Oligarchy

By David Anderson

16 September, 2015
Countercurrents.org

A worldwide revolution is about to begin. It is too early to tell whether it will be sudden and painfully crushing or gradual and peaceful, but it will come. It will be a battle between the dispossessed and the very rich.

We saw one of the early signs in the US with the Wall Street protests. Since then the societal uneasiness fueled by a disparity between wealth and opportunity that sparked that protest has continued to grow in America. We also see it now throughout the world in the restiveness of ISIS and other such religiously fanatical groups. Recently we are seeing it in the Middle Eastern and African migration pressures. Millions of people are angry. They have been cut out of the system.

Three elements are at play: exponential population growth, climate change and the amassment or enormous wealth by the very few. My comments here will concentrate on that third aspect; the amassment or enormous wealth by the very few.

Throughout the entire planet from London to New Delhi to New York to Lagos to Moscow a moneyed oligarchic class has become the dominant political and economic force. This is now evident in America where billionaires are buying elections. That American wealth is highly concentrated through filial (family) and other mutually beneficial loyalty. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. You help my kids, I help yours. We humans are programed that way. We are filial and economic animals.

European history is replete with this story as is Asian and Middle Eastern history. It currently describes the extreme maldistribution of wealth in China. Even Soviet Marxism could not defy the rule. In America we saw it during the Gilded Age (1865–1900); then in the roaring twenties. Now in the twenty-first century we are seeing it throughout the world. Only we are not talking about multi millions in dollars, we are talking about multi billions. Any way you look at the figures, throughout the planet there is a massive concentration of wealth forming at the top of the pyramid.

As productive to a society as the climb to the top can be; history has shown that over succeeding generations it has always led to wide distortions in wealth which in turn has led to a fracturing and ultimately disintegration of underlying order. Social, political and economic mobility in the middle and at the bottom becomes extremely difficult. Only a very few are able to climb the ladder into the heights of those who have attained oligarchic power. Entry becomes rigged in favor of the blood line by way of massive wealth transfer to succeeding generations; giving rise to political privilege, selective inter marriage, superior education and medical care.

One way that oligarchs are able to postpone a disintegration of underlying order is to control the disenfranchised by making them believe that change will do them harm, that it will take something away. This is accomplished by building into the minds of the disenfranchised an emotional attachment to controlling archaic images. These images can be religious or other. As a consequence, a sense of fright prevents them from understanding the extent of their disenfranchisement. They are left unable to evaluate the real reasons for their lesser societal position. This holds them back from developing the higher order of critical thinking skills that would enable them to understand their plight.

Another approach is simply to buy loyalty in the intellectual world by way of the carrot and the stick. Oligarchic control over the economics profession is a case in point. In spite of the 2008 horror, the Milton Friedman Chicago School of Hayek free market self-destructive economics still rules the roost among American economists. We see the same pattern among economists in other developed countries.

An important part of this strategy is the elimination of intellectual inquiry among the disadvantaged and dispossessed. In America today we can observe this in the anti-intellectualism of the right wing media. Often it demeans the American Ivey League schools and their graduates; in fact all academia. Scientists giving alarms about global warming are marginalized. This leaves those who are uneducated unable to distinguish between truth, fallacy and fancy.

The 21st century media revolution throughout the world has sped up this whole process. Distortion of information is cleverly crafted so as to plant seeds of doubt in the mind of the listener, viewer or reader. Millions can be exposed to a completely untrue untruth in a few minutes or hours. Each crafted untruth is designed to fester in the recipient’s mind, to sit there in its cranial silence as would a bacterial infection from an abscessed tooth. Then, as the untruth searches out old biases hidden away in the gray matter of the brain—often rooted in religious or other “beliefs,” it quickly spreads like an infection. From this psychosomatic obfuscation and deception deeply held opinions are formed. Opinion then turns into truth which then takes on the power of belief.

In America this clever playbook of the oligarchs will not be without serious consequences. Today the picture remains one of confusion. Media deception continues with intensity. The interests of the oligarchical “elite” prevail. Far right extremists are elected to congress. That congress remains deadlocked. Many pressing needs sit in limbo. Some, such as climate decisions, a crumbling American infrastructure, mediocre education (except for the elite) and medical costs (40% more than other industrialized nations) are left unmet. Low tax rates allow wealth and privilege to continue to accumulate at the top. Middle and lower class wages stagnate.

As the debate over this and other oligarchic issues goes on, the greatest challenge of all; that of accommodating not just American but all human civilization to the environmental demands of the planet remains unaddressed. The new geological epoch now emerging—being named the Anthropocene—escapes the attention of those media outlets under the control of the industrial and financial oligarchs. After all; cap-and-trade or a carbon tax or banking regulations or environmental controls would cost businesses a lot of money! And the cost of the fuel for their private jets would skyrocket. In fact it might even put some of them out of business!

In America there are solutions to all of these problems, but it would appear they remain far too demanding intellectually for many to grasp. Because obfuscation and deception as here described has reached deep into the American psyche, it is even dangerous politically for those liberal Democratic presidential contenders who speak and act with conviction to gain entry into positions of power. And it is not just America. The same is true in other countries.

All the evidence points to the fact that the wealthy “elite” in America – and the wealthy “elite” throughout the world, want to keep it this way and then be able ultimately to grab the final prize; total control over all society to assure genomic perpetuation so that for generations to come their offspring will be able to find themselves ensconced safely in the finest prep schools and universities and in guarded estates and multimillion dollar city apartments, and be able to continue to buy, as this generation is now doing, the politicians, media interests, think tanks and university trusteeships.

But it will not continue. A look at world history, revolution after revolution, shows that it never has.

David Anderson brings together a wide range of interests in his writings, namely; theology, history, evolutionary anthropology, philosophy, geopolitics, and economics. He has written three books. A fourth titled “Our Planetary Challenge - Moving Beyond a Fast Approaching Critical Fork in Our Evolutionary Road” is near completion. (see http://www.inquiryabraham.com/new-book.html ) It is about a necessary geo political, social, religious, economic paradigm shift for human survival. The book calls for a radically different understanding of the relationship of Homo sapiens to Planet earth and the cosmos. It challenges the implicit ecological legitimacy of our political, social, religious, and economic institutions and makes recommendations as to how they can be restructured in order to meet oncoming demands. It spells out in chronological detail what is likely to occur if this does not take place.

David is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the University of Hawaii (Harvard Asia Pacific) Advanced Management Program. Over a thirty year career he was an international risk manager and senior executive at several of America's premier multinational institutions. During that period he became increasingly aware of the underlying cultural, institutional and religious causes of past and present civilizational dysfunction and conflict.