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| Montesquieu, |
“The deterioration of every government begins with
the decay of the principles on which it was founded.”, said
Montesquieu, (Charles Louis de Secondat) (1689-1755), a famous French
political philosopher who lived during the European "Age of
Enlightenment".
In fact, putting this in the context of
the US Constitution and the intended way America is supposed to
function, it follows,“Congress makes the laws, the president carries
them out, judges decide controversies, and the citizens may be penalized
only by a jury of their peers”,
Unfortunately, in reality, this is not how the US functions as a political entity anymore.
America
is now ruled by a uniformly educated class of persons controlling the
commanding heights of bureaucracy, of the judiciary, education, the
media, large corporations, and that force wields political power through
the political establishment.
Its control of access to
prestige, power, privilege, and wealth exerts a gravitational pull that
has made the political elites its major accomplices.
As
to the economy : “Think of the American economy as a large apartment
block. A century ago—even 30 years ago—it was the object of envy. But in
the last generation its character has changed."
"The
penthouses at the top keep getting larger and larger. The apartments in
the middle are feeling more and more squeezed and the basement has
flooded. To round it off, the elevator is no longer working. That broken
elevator is what gets people down the most.” said Lawrence Katz,
Harvard University economist, already back in 2010.
British
Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965) once noted that “democracy
is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” Indeed,
democracy is a very fragile political system that can sometimes fail the
very people it is designed to serve.
American
president Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) defined it as “a government of the
people, by the people, and for the people.” He would turnover in his
grave if he saw how his Republican party defines the functions of
Government today.
But democracy is at its worst when an
oligarchy takes control of a country’s institutions and imposes its own
agenda. Such is the case, unfortunately, in today’s United States.
Money interests, not the sovereign people, control the political system;
they control the corporate media system, they control the U.S. Supreme
Court and much of the judicial system and, one can even argue that they
control a large chunk of the academic system.
The U. S.
economy, like most industrial economies, is an open economy. This means
that goods and services can be exported and imported while facing a
minimum of border taxes and other barriers to international trade. For a
quarter of a century now, it has also meant that the U. S. economy is
part of the economic globalization model.
The later
goes much further than free trade: it means that corporations and banks
can move their capital, technology and production plants around the
world in search of the greatest profit and the best investment
environment. Many economists believe that this globalization model has
been pushed too far and has become a major cause of economic stagnation
in the industrial economies.
In an open economy,
keynesian-type stimulus policies of deficit government spending or of
tax reduction do not work properly, essentially because stimulus
policies of this type are the equivalent of heating a house in winter
with the windows and doors wide open. The new deficit spending may help
the world economy, since much of the new spending ends up abroad, but
the domestic multiplier effect of such spending can be very low. This
means that such an economic stimulus in an open economy may not be as
effective in stimulating economic activity as hoped and, in some
circumstances, it can do more harm than good.
Nevertheless,
many politicians (and some economists cling to the old idea that
lowering taxes for the rich when the government is in deficit or new
non-infrastructure government deficit spending can stimulate the
economy.
This obviously does not work, at least not if
the new deficit spending is not focused domestically. Spending deficit
money in Afghanistan or in Iraq doesn’t much stimulate the U.S. economy!
What
works in an open economy are policies geared toward changing relative
prices in order to encourage domestic production and employment. First
of all, a lowering of the real exchange rate can encourage net exports
and stimulate domestic production and employment, provided the
government does not sustain excessive domestic absorption through
unproductive large deficits.
Another approach to move
relative prices in favor of domestic production and employment is to use
the tax system accordingly. Presently, many American corporations are
hardly taxed at all on their profits when they operate abroad. Some
appropriate taxation of these profits can encourage repatriation of
capital and support additional domestic investments. It may be argued
that the American political system is not flexible enough to allow for
the use of tax policies to encourage domestic production and employment.
If so, this would be another indication that the current state of the
political system in the U. S. is inimical to economic progress.
The results of the present day US economic policies are everywhere to be seen. The United States has reached
levels of inequality in wealth and income that used to be seen only in
some backyard third-world countries.
Specifically,
therefore, when it comes to politics, it is also in the best interest of
any country to avoid giving power to idiots, ignoramuses, incompetents,
devious and delusional characters or to demagogues. If not, watch out.
The records show — More countries are destroyed by their own politicians rather than by foreign armies.
Donald
Trump’s claim to be an enemy of 'rule-by-inside-deal' is counter
intuitive. His career and fortune have been as participant and
beneficiary in the process by which government grants privileges to some
and inflicts burdens on others. Crony capitalism is the air he
breathes, the only sea in which he swims, his second nature. His recipe
for “fixing” America, he tells us, is to appoint “the best people”—he
names some of his fellow crony capitalists—to exercise even more
unaccountable power and to do so with “unbelievable speed.” He assures
the voter that, this time, it will be to “make America great again.”
Sure, tell us another one Mr.Trump.
Hillary Clinton's
approach is to "improve on the system" as she says. She's also embracing
the label of "insider," declaring that she knows "what it takes to get
things done". With Hillary it is probably the word "insider" which
worries most Americans,specially those who believe that the US political
system is rotten to the core.
Bernie Sanders's call
for a political revolution is at the center of his political appeal.
Progressives don't just love him because his policy proposals are more
left wing than Hillary's. They love the fact that he calls America's
political and economic system by what it is: corrupt.
America's
choice for President in November 2016 will either be as significant as
the declaration of independence on July 4, 1776, or the final chapter in
the systematic destruction of the American Democracy..
.
EU-Digest
