Sunday, June 11, 2017

We've Lost All Sense of the Common Good

The only way to rebuild a Common Good is to radically decentralize political, financial and media concentrations of ownership and power.
The theory of American civics is that the competitive process of every group advocating for its narrow self-interests will magically generate the Common Good, that is, a political and social order that serves everyone's common/shared interests.
Unfortunately, that's not how civic life functions in real-world America. We have completely lost any sense of a Common Good. All we have now is a cut-throat competition between entrenched special interests for a fatter slice of the pie while the bottom 95% have essentially no political voice and a rapidly diminishing say in the economy.
The problem with the theory that competitive advocacy magically generates the common good is advocacy is horrendously asymmetric: corporations and the wealthy have massively well-funded campaign and lobbying industries as their advocates, while the bottom 95% have no equivalent resources or organized efforts to advocate for their interests.
So what we have now is a competing set of self-serving elites claiming that their interests are in the Common Good. This is visibly, obviously, painfully false; each elite/ cartel/ interest group is only trying to sell its crassly self-serving agenda as being in the Common Good as a crude propaganda tool.
Nobody actually believes Big Pharma's agenda (jacking up off-patent generic medications that cost $10/dose last year to $400 or $4,000/dose this year because, well, they have 40,000 lobbyists and billions to contribute to politicos in our pay-to-play "democracy") serves the Common Good. It very clearly serves a powerful, wealthy few at the expense of everyone else.
Every special interest, from global corporations to public unions, makes the case that their own interests are identical with the Common Good--especially if more public money is required.
As I explain in my books Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform and Resistance, Revolution, Liberation: A Model for Positive Changethis is the corrupting fruit of centralization: when lobbying a few hundred politicos and a handful of top bureaucrats can result in billions in additional public spending sluicing into the coffers of special interests, there is no need to persuade the populace of the benefits to the Common Good of the proposed spending: you just spend a few tens of millions in our pay-to-play "democracy" and then reap billions as the payoff.
This is the direct result of ever-increasing centralization of political and financial power. The concentration of power creates compellingly tiny targets for those seeking to bend policy to reward their entrenched interests.
It's much easier to bend a handful of people with concentrated power (most of whom need millions of dollars in campaign contributions to maintain their power, rendering them extremely bendable) than it is to persuade tens of millions of citizens.
This prostitution of the Common Good in service of elitist special interests has corrupted the very concept. Nobody believes that there is a Common Good any more; everyone knows that appeals to the Common Good are nothing more than thinly veiled partisan pitches for policies that enrich the few at the expense of the many.
In this toxic atmosphere, no wonder partisanship is soaring, with Independents abandoning the run-by-and-for-special-interests political parties en masse.
With the Corporate Media in thrall to these same corporate/self-serving elites, it's also no wonder than public trust in the mainstream media is plummeting to all-time lows. The "news" isn't so much "fake" as it is designed to push narratives that benefit self-serving elites.
As entrenched interests compete to protect their profitable skims, scams, monopolies and fiefdoms, the bottom 95% are slipping into darkness. "The lifestyle you ordered" is not just currently out of stock--it's no longer being produced.
Corporations and entrenched interests exist for one purpose: maximize profits for shareholders/ members. The Common Good means nothing, is worth nothing, except as a flimsy marketing ploy.
Self-interested lobbies do not create a Common Good. They actually destroy the Common Good by redefining the political, financial and social order as nothing more than a zero-sum game in which the winners gain centralized power and the chumps (the bottom 95%) are manipulated by the political parties and corporate media into focusing on a fastpaced and wonderfully distracting circus of pyrotechnics, spinning mirrors and freak shows.
The Common Good cannot possibly be served by ceding power to privately owned, profit-maximizing corporations and self-serving state elites. The only way to rebuild a Common Good is to radically decentralize political, financial and media concentrations of ownership and power.
If we accept a pay-to-play "democracy" as legitimate, we are accepting a corporatocracy that partners with self-serving state fiefdoms to enrich the powerful few at the expense of the powerless many.



If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.
Check out both of my new books, Inequality and the Collapse of Privilege ($3.95 Kindle, $8.95 print) and Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform ($3.95 Kindle, $8.95 print, $5.95 audiobook) For more, please visit the OTM essentials website.

NOTE: Contributions/subscriptions are acknowledged in the order received. Your name and email remain confidential and will not be given to any other individual, company or agency.
Thank you, Jamie M. ($5/month), for your splendidly generous pledge to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership.
Thank you, Charles R. ($50), for your magnificently generous contribution to this site -- I am greatly honored by your steadfast support and readership.

Terms of Service

All content on this blog is provided by Trewe LLC for informational purposes only. The owner of this blog makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site. The owner will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information nor for the availability of this information. The owner will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages from the display or use of this information. These terms and conditions of use are subject to change at anytime and without notice.


Our Privacy Policy:


Correspondents' email is strictly confidential. This site does not collect digital data from visitors or distribute cookies. Advertisements served by a third-party advertising network (Investing Channel) may use cookies or collect information from visitors for the purpose of Interest-Based Advertising; if you wish to opt out of Interest-Based Advertising, please go to Opt out of interest-based advertising (The Network Advertising Initiative). If you have other privacy concerns relating to advertisements, please contact advertisers directly. Websites and blog links on the site's blog roll are posted at my discretion.


PRIVACY NOTICE FOR EEA INDIVIDUALS


This section covers disclosures on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for users residing within EEA only. GDPR replaces the existing Directive 95/46/ec, and aims at harmonizing data protection laws in the EU that are fit for purpose in the digital age. The primary objective of the GDPR is to give citizens back control of their personal data. Please follow the link below to access InvestingChannel’s General Data Protection Notice. https://stg.media.investingchannel.com/gdpr-notice/


Notice of Compliance with The California Consumer Protection Act
This site does not collect digital data from visitors or distribute cookies. Advertisements served by a third-party advertising network (Investing Channel) may use cookies or collect information from visitors for the purpose of Interest-Based Advertising. If you do not want any personal information that may be collected by third-party advertising to be sold, please follow the instructions on this page: Limit the Use of My Sensitive Personal Information.


Regarding Cookies:


This site does not collect digital data from visitors or distribute cookies. Advertisements served by third-party advertising networks such as Investing Channel may use cookies or collect information from visitors for the purpose of Interest-Based Advertising; if you wish to opt out of Interest-Based Advertising, please go to Opt out of interest-based advertising (The Network Advertising Initiative) If you have other privacy concerns relating to advertisements, please contact advertisers directly.


Our Commission Policy:

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I also earn a commission on purchases of precious metals via BullionVault. I receive no fees or compensation for any other non-advertising links or content posted on my site.

  © Blogger templates Newspaper III by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP