In a democracy, the people should be in charge, but in America, we the people are not in charge.
The problem is so self-evident it doesn’t need to be explained, but super-simply, just envision calling your representative in Congress. Then envision Jeff Bezos calling his Congresscritter. You’re going to talk to an answering machine, and leave a message that an intern might listen to, and send you a form letter in reply. Bezos won’t even call the same number; he’ll call the Congresscritter’s private line, and get everything he wants.
In my more optimistic moods, I think that’s a problem that can be solved.
Start by taxing corporations at a reasonable rate, with no loopholes, as the price for doing business in America.
Regulate corporations. At a bare minimum, big businesses should be prohibited from harming Americans and/or America. Where it’s shown that a company’s products, practices, and decisions are flat-out harmful, make sure that harm is illegal.
If the harm continues, fine the fuck out of them and make arrests beginning with the CEO.
If the harm continues after that, then — since “corporations are people” — invoke the death penalty: nationalize criminal corporations, fire everyone in upper management, and continue the enterprise but
without the lawbreaking, with decent human beings in charge, and with all profits funneled into the federal budget.
Anti-trust should be a real thing again. Any company
that controls more than 25% (maybe less than that) of its industry should be broken into separate companies. We want competition, not one-company control.
You can’t totally solve the problems, because criminals will always be among us, but we don’t have to let the biggest and most obvious criminals get away with their crimes. Regulate, fine, imprison.
Of course, the crux of the problem is that Congress itself is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chevron, Disney, and Microsoft.
The solution to that, comes from Thomas Jefferson:
“What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
4/21/2021
Republished 1/6/2025
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