Trump’s second term is answering that question with devastating clarity.

Our institutions are not just buildings or agencies. They reflect us – our ideals, our hopes, and even our future. If we allow them to be hollowed, or even destroyed, we will lose our democracy – surrendering our freedom to fascism and authoritarianism. If we fight to rebuild them—anchored in the Common Good—they can live again.

Institutions as the Foundations of Democracy

Institutions are not abstractions. They are the bones of democracy, the connective tissue of our society. They are the safeguards that protect us from tyranny, arbitrariness, and the corruption of unchecked power. They are the guardians of the Common Good.

For decades, Americans assumed that their institutions—though imperfect—were durable. The National Parks belonged to all of us. The Justice Department pursued fairness. The Census counted us equally. Public broadcasting told us the truth. The State Department upheld alliances.  Voters could vote by airmail and use voting machines.

But what happens when a leader decides not to steward institutions, but to hollow them out? What happens when loyalty to a man replaces loyalty to the law, to truth, to history, to the people?

Donald Trump’s presidency has answered this question. His first term weakened the foundations. His second term, which began in 2025, is demolishing the pillars.

This demolition of our Democracy is not accidental. It is the strategy of authoritarianism: dismantle, delegitimize, and dominate.

This is the very definition of misleadership – leadership which destroys the Common Good.

Let us count the ways.

1. National Parks & Public Lands

 Before Trump:
America’s national parks and protected lands were celebrated worldwide—“America’s best idea.” These lands were set aside for the public, conserved for future generations. Presidents of both parties expanded protections, treating nature as a shared inheritance.

First Term:
Trump shrank Bears Ears and Grand Staircase–Escalante monuments by millions of acres. He opened sacred lands to mining, oil, and gas drilling. Environmental reviews were bypassed, and the voices of Indigenous communities were silenced.

Second Term:
In 2025, Trump accelerated leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, weakened the Antiquities Act, and gutted rules protecting water and forests. The Department of the Interior became an arm of extraction industries. Public land is no longer held in trust—it is treated as a business asset to be sold off.

The Department of the Interior laid off 1,000 National Park Service employees, a nearly 20% drop in park workforce in some cases.  At Yosemite, cuts in personnel forced rangers into tasks like restroom maintenance and led to a surge in overtime and search-and-rescue missions.

Consequences for the Common Good:
Biodiversity loss, Indigenous dispossession, park visitor dissatisfaction and climate damage. A common inheritance privatized for short-term profit.

2:  Public Broadcasting (PBS/NPR)

Before Trump:
Public broadcasting was one of the most trusted institutions in America. PBS documentaries and NPR journalism connected millions of citizens to fact-based reporting and culture.

First Term:
Trump repeatedly threatened to eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). NPR journalists were attacked as “fake news.”

Second Term:
In 2025, the administration slashed CPB’s budget by 30%. Political appointees were installed on oversight boards. NPR affiliates in rural areas lost funding, forcing closures. PBS had to seek corporate sponsors, eroding independence.

Consequences for the Common Good:
A misinformed citizenry. Public broadcasting reduced to private influence. Truth itself put at risk.

3: Voice of America (VOA)

Before Trump:
VOA was a beacon of American credibility worldwide. Its independence made it a trusted source in countries where truth was scarce.

First Term:
Trump installed loyalists in leadership and pressured VOA to promote his narratives. Journalists resigned in protest.

Second Term:
In 2025, VOA became an overt propaganda channel. International credibility collapsed. Journalists were pushed to repeat White House talking points on China, Ukraine, and immigration.

Consequences for the Common Good:
The U.S. lost its moral voice abroad. Authoritarian regimes celebrated. The US has lost a way to counter misinformation or to pursue the truth on the global stage.

4: History of Slavery & American Sins

Before Trump:
Schools were slowly integrating honest accounts of slavery, Jim Crow, systemic racism, and Native genocide into curricula. The 1619 Project symbolized this reckoning.

First Term:
Trump launched the “1776 Commission” to promote “patriotic education” and ban “critical race theory.”

Second Term:
By 2025, the Department of Education tied federal funding to state compliance with “pro-American curricula.” History standards were rewritten to minimize slavery, colonization, and racism. Teachers who dissent face dismissal.

Consequences for the Common Good:
Historical amnesia, and institutional erasure of the truth. A nation unable to face its sins cannot heal them.

5: Arts & Culture (NEA, NEH, Smithsonian)

Before Trump:
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) funded community projects across the U.S.—theaters, museums, libraries. Art and culture were treated as public goods.

First Term:
Budgets proposed eliminating both agencies. Funding survived, but barely.

Second Term:
In 2025, funding cuts of 40% forced small arts institutions to close. Federal support for museums dwindled. Art and culture became dependent on wealthy donors, reinforcing inequality.

Consequences for the Common Good:
The arts became privatized luxuries instead of democratic expressions of creativity.

6: Environmental Protections (EPA)

Before Trump:
The EPA regulated air and water quality, enforced emissions standards, and protected human health.

First Term:
Trump rolled back more than 100 environmental rules. The Clean Power Plan was scrapped. Climate science was suppressed.

Second Term:
In 2025, a former coal lobbyist ran the EPA. Emissions regulations collapsed. U.S. climate pledges abandoned. Climate denial returned as official policy.

Consequences for the Common Good:
Increased pollution, rising health risks, and the loss of America’s climate leadership. The loss of biodiversity.

7: Healthcare (ACA/Medicaid)

Before Trump:
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) expanded healthcare to over 20 million Americans. Medicaid was strengthened.

First Term:
Trump failed to repeal ACA but weakened it through executive orders and lawsuits.

Second Term:
By 2025, Medicaid eligibility was narrowed. Subsidies shrank. RFK Jr., as Health Secretary, gutted vaccine policy. Millions lost coverage, women’s reproductive care restricted.

Consequences for the Common Good:
Health became a privilege, not a right. The most vulnerable suffer first. Increased mortality rates for infants and women.

8: Immigration 

Before Trump:
Deferred Action for Childhood (DACA) protected “Dreamers.” Refugee admissions held steady.

First Term:
Trump imposed the Muslim ban, reduced refugee admissions, and separated families at the border.

Second Term:
In 2025, family separations quietly resumed. Refugee cap dropped near zero. DACA frozen in courts. Deportations surged – some 1.2 million immigrants have been removed from society – leading to a crisis in the labor workforce. The administration doesn’t acknowledge habeas corpus.

Consequences for the Common Good:
Humanitarian crises at the border. America’s moral credibility shattered. Loss of illegals lead to rising prices of food, construction, and infrastructure-related services.

9: Department of Justice / Judiciary

Before Trump:
The DOJ enforced civil rights laws and was seen as largely independent.

First Term:
AG Barr used the DOJ to protect Trump and attack his critics.

Second Term:
In 2025, Harmeet Dhillon gutted the Civil Rights Division. Voting rights cases dropped. DOJ loyalty tests proliferated. Over two-thirds of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division staff are expected to leave their jobs, accepting a resignation offer as the Trump administration moves to drastically reshape the agency.

Consequences for the Common Good:
The law was weaponized for partisan purposes. Equality before the law has eroded.

10: Census & Voting Systems

Before Trump:
The Census was nonpartisan, ensuring fair representation and resources.

First Term:
Trump tried to add a citizenship question, aiming to suppress counts of immigrants.

Second Term:
In 2025, gerrymandering expanded so that black Americans have less representation. Census methodology skewed. Voter ID laws proliferated under DOJ approval.

Consequences for the Common Good:
A distorted democracy. Some voices silenced; others amplified unfairly. The GOP holds on to power at the expense of the people’s wishes.

11: Education 

Before Trump:
Title IX protections ensured equity. Federal support for student loans expanded access.

First Term:
Betsy DeVos dismantled borrower protections and weakened Title IX enforcement.

Second Term:
Trump attacks major universities such as Harvard and Columbia, on accusations of antisemitism and reduces previously granted funding for many student science projects.  In 2025, federal funding tied to “a patriotic curriculum.” Charter schools expanded, public schools underfunded. Trump cancels many foreign students from coming to American universities that accepted them.

Consequences for the Common Good:
Education became a battlefield of ideology, not a ladder of opportunity. America’s educational and scientific future is threatened.

13: State Department / Diplomacy

Before Trump:
The State Department relied on a professional corps. Alliances were stable.

First Term:
Diplomatic corps hollowed, Paris Accord abandoned, NATO weakened.

Second Term:
In 2025, further staff exodus. Partisan loyalists replaced career diplomats. NATO fractured. Trump raises tariffs on its close allies. Allies bypass America.

Consequences for the Common Good:
U.S. global influence diminished. Allies no longer trust America.

14: Consumer Protection (FTC, CFPB)

Before Trump:
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) protected consumers from predatory finance and monopolies.

First Term:
CFPB defanged under pro-industry leadership.

Second Term:
In 2025, antitrust actions abandoned. FTC slowed enforcement. Tech and finance corporations operate unchecked. Staff and contractors at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have been told they cannot “perform any work tasks.”

Consequences for the Common Good:
Consumers exposed to predatory lending, monopoly abuses, and privacy violations.

15: Social Safety Nets (SNAP, SSI, WIC)

Before Trump:
Social safety nets such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and the Wicked 7 Project ( WIC) reduced hunger, supported children, and alleviated poverty.

First Term:
Trump proposed deep cuts to food stamps and SSI, blocked in Congress.

Second Term:
In 2025, work requirements were reinstated. Funding cut. Eligibility narrowed. Millions lose food assistance.

Consequences for the Common Good:
Food insecurity and poverty rise. The poor and vulnerable abandoned.

What Next?

We listed 15 institutional areas that Trump and his MAGA (Make America Great Again) followers devastated.  Sadly, Trump’s actions changed MAGA to MAWA (Make America Weak Again).  Foreign countries are shocked and dismayed by how rapidly America sunk from the world’s Leading Democracy to a collapsing Empire with crumbling power.

Trump talks about acquire Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal.  Trump had the audacity to dictate new tariffs that he would charge not only to his enemies (China 50%), to neutral countries (India 50%, Switzerland 39%) and to his allies (Canada and Mexico 25%).  At the United Nations Security Council in June 2025, the U.S. was effectively the only country opposing an effort to move toward peace—specifically, it vetoed a resolution calling for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza.  

Within America, instead of Trump uniting Americans, he deepens divisions daily. His purpose is to openly vilify and destroy the Democrats and their party and to set himself up as a lifelong dictator. Seriously, does anyone doubt this still?

What will it take to stop this madness and restore Democracy in the USA? Time is running out.

IMAGE credit.

Predicting the winner of a U.S. Presidential election is especially hard in this election year. The candidates are running close to 50-50 and voters are highly polarized. The two candidates have extremely different views of what is the Common Good.

So we choose not to make a prediction.

However, we want to vote. If this was an election in Australia, we would have to vote or pay a fee for not voting.  Furthermore, we would have to rank our candidate preferences if there are three or more candidates.

But we are American citizens. Also, we are largely independent voters.  We aren’t one-issue voter although this would make it easy.  For example, what if we cared only about abortion and voted for the candidate who favors abortion rights for women. We really want to consider all the policy differences between the two candidates.  

How can we do that?

Let’s imagine the economic, social and political outcomes that are likely to follow from each candidate being elected.

Our best step is to list the outcomes that we expect to follow with each candidate if elected. We stand ready to revise our views.  In fact, we invite you, the reader, to look at the two lists.  Feel free to add missing outcomes.

You can send your revised list to us >>  info (at) fixcapitalism dot com >>

Here are our initial lists:

What will happen if Trump wins the 2024 Presidency?

1. Economic chaos as higher prices result from Trump’s rising tariffs and irrational trade policies
2. Cutbacks and/or elimination of Social Security, Medicare, and the possible repeal of Obamacare
3. Social chaos with increased violence towards minorities, workers, and union organizers
4. Political arrests targeting opponents (Trump has also said anyone criticizing the Supreme Court should be jailed)
5. Government appointments not based on merit but ideology (existing government employees will be purged unless they are loyal to Trump)
6. Fewer dependable allies from abroad as NATO(and the EU) is abandoned; China becomes stronger as Taiwan is abandoned
7. Russian power increases as Ukraine is left to itself; US pivots to possible war against Iran
8. Climate problems worsen – pollution regulations are eliminated; drilling allowed in National Parks
9. Polarization and hatred worsen as “remigration” and forced deportation is scaled up
10. Leadership focuses on past grievances – including personal vendettas against people who didn’t support Trump
11. Possibility of mental deterioration of Trump after election – leading to the installation of JD Vance as President
12. Women lose their reproductive rights, and other civil rights as well
13. More tax cuts for the rich and corporate interests, leading to further deficits (military programs to increase at the expense of everything else)
14. Increase in Christian Nationalism and intolerance for other faiths
15. Implementation of Project 2025 and abandonment of constitutional boundaries

What will happen if Harris wins the Presidency?

1. Lower prices as Inflation continues to fall; corporate price-gouging is dissuaded
2. Major job creation with new factories and new investments in renewabletechnologies
3. Higher taxes on the super-rich and corporate profits to support better health and education – this funds Social Security and eliminates austerity measures
4. Strong dependable allies abroad – NATO is supported to create a better, secure future
5. More progress in controlling climate problems – investment in renewables and battery technologies
6. Her international experience will further peacemaking to reduce international disputes
7. Union support instead of opposition and more worker benefits including a higher minimum wage
8. Less polarization and more goodwill amongst the general population; opposition to the culture wars
9. Leadership is younger and motivating for younger generations
10. Women’s rights are secured nationally and across states; abortion rights are strengthened
11.  Church and state are kept separate and America avoids a decline into Christian Nationalism by embracing a culture of respect
12.  Increased regional investments in Latin America to encourage residents to remain in their home countries
13. Support for a two-state solution regarding Israel and Palestine
14. Support for  job-creation through small business and start-up incentives
15. Corporates and billionaires pay a fairer share of taxes

Does this comparison of likely outcomes help you choose your candidate?

ASK: Which candidate is working for the Common Good? Which candiadte is working for the future wellbeing of our children?  Which candidate has demonstrated a commitment to justice?

May the best candidate win.

The National Labor Relations Board was prevented on Tuesday from moving forward with an unfair labor practices case against the social services tech company Findhelp, after a Trump-appointed judge granted the Texas-based firm’s request for a temporary injunction.

“This is yet another move by a Trump-appointed judge in favor of wealthy corporations.”

In the Northern District of Texas, U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman ruledin favor of Findhelp’s claim that administrative law judges at the NLRB have unconstitutional protections from being dismissed by the White House.

The argument has been used by other large companies including billionaire Elon Musk’s aerospace firm SpaceX and a subsidiary of the fossil fuel giant Energy Transfer, which have both also obtained preliminary injunctions from Trump appointees in Texas, shielding them from labor rights cases.

In the SpaceX case, the NLRB argued that “granting an injunction would encourage any employer or labor union unhappy with scrutiny of their labor practices to seek preliminary injunctions against NLRB proceedings.”

Starbucks, Amazon, and Trader Joe’s have also joined the corporate effort to strip the NLRB of its ability to carry out its duties as a federal agency tasked with protecting workers from unfair labor practices. The companies have claimed that the agency’s structure, which was established by the New Deal’s National Labor Relations Act nearly a century ago, violates the president’s “removal powers” under Article II of the U.S. Constitution.

“Prior to the New Deal, judges claimed things like overtime and child labor rules were unconstitutional,” said journalist Ryan Grim.

Lawyers for the NLRB argued in the Findhelp case that the company is not entitled to relief from a court until the president tries to remove the administrative law judge assigned to Findhelp’s case, but Pittman said he was “unpersuaded by the NLRB’s arguments.”

Pittman cited a precedent established by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which ruled in 2022 that removal protections for the Securities and Exchange Commission’s judges were unconstitutional.

This month, two federal judges—one appointed by former President Barack Obama and one by President Joe Biden—have rejected other corporate challenges claiming the NLRB is unconstitutionally structured, teeing up a potential U.S. Supreme Court case to settle the matter in the future.

Tuesday’s ruling comes 18 months after the Office and Professional Employees International Union filed a complaint with the NLRB, saying Findhelp had illegally fired and coerced workers who were involved in organizing their workplace. The employees had voted 95-52 in favor of joining the union.

With Pittman’s injunction in place, an NLRB administrative hearing on whether Findhelp unlawfully fired organizers and surveilled employees will not move forward.

“The NLRB protects Americans’ right to unionize, fight unjust firings, and collectively bargain for higher wages,” said the U.S. Congressional Progressive Caucus. “Without it, employers can ignore labor laws and deprive workers of their rights. This is yet another move by a Trump-appointed judge in favor of wealthy corporations.”

Has capitalism taken us over the cliff? And why can’t we stop?

Marjorie Kelly‘s most recent book, Wealth Supremacy: How the Extractive Economy and the Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today’s Crises is one of the most important explanations of how wealth and power have created an unlivable world and sacrificed the future for the greed of a few.

Why aren’t the SDGs working? Why can’t our politicians do the right thing?

The first answer: wealth supremacy.

Wealth supremacy is defined as the cultural and political processes and attitudes by which persons of wealth accumulate and maintain prestige, privileges, and power that others lack.

The impact of wealth supremacy is everywhere.  Kelly explains:

It’s about status, in a culture where the wealthy are revered as the possessors of godlike powers. It’s about influence, including the power to control philanthropy. It’s about political and legal power-including the power to finance candidates, to influence lawmaking through lobbying, and to escape the justice system that ensnares those without wealth.

(And, in case you were wondering, Kelly shows us the link between wealth supremacy and white supremacy).

The second answer: capital bias.

Capital bias is defined as the idea of making as much money as possible, which primarily benefits those who are already wealthy.

Kelly explains that this bias is present in the systems and institutions that allow money to wield significant influence. Capital represents the active side of wealth. It’s the money that’s expected to keep growing endlessly. Capital is what drives wealth, and it does this through various means like making profits, setting the rules of accounting, and blurring the line between speculation and investment.

When you put wealth supremacy and capital bias together, you have the “DNA of our capital-centric economic system.” These intertwined biases shape how the system operates, grows, and sustains itself. The goal is to keep the rich at the top, safe and comfortable, and capital bias is the way they achieve this. Capital bias is the essence of the system, and this system is what we call capitalism.

The Root Cause of the Polycrisis

Kelly shows us that systemic wealth extraction has become “the deep force sapping the resilience of our society, driving, exacerbating, or profiting from the largest crises of our day.”

The interconnected world of systemic risks–climate change, biodiversity loss, deepening inequality, and rising authoritarianism are converging into what’s being called a polycrisis.  Kelly explains that while ecological overshoot is one root cause of the polycrisis, equally implicated is financial overshoot: the accumulation of too much financial wealth, even as the system remains intent on a limitless more. US financial assets are five times the size of GDP, a ballooning since the 1950s, when assets and GDP were roughly equal in size.

Kelly spells out the connections:

The long rise of irresponsible consumption has been driven by the corporate drive to maximize profits. Our efforts to tackle climate change have been blocked by the misdirection of fossil fuel companies and the capture of politics by monied interests.

As a global food crisis has unfolded, corporations have been out there using inflation to hide outsized price increases.? The white working class, left adrift by the loss of good jobs, finds its anger misdirected into racial and misogynistic hatred by the conservative forces determined to retain or reinstate the social order governed by wealth, by men, by whites.

Many of us don’t fully grasp how the complex, obscure, mathematical rules and norms of our extractive system lie behind these crises. It’s rarely explained to us how expanding pools of great wealth create and rely upon the precarity and indebtedness of the rest of us. Instead, our culture tends to view “wealth creation” as benign and wonderful. This bias toward wealth makes it difficult for us to digest the warnings of economists that the world is awash in far too much financial capital, just as the atmosphere is awash in too much carbon.

Naming the Disease that Ails Us

Kelly’s expose shows us the way out: the first step must be to name the disease, to in see how wealth supremacy lies at the very core of our economic system, and our mental map of reality itself.  The narratives we are taught perpetuate wealth supremacy – Kelly calls theme the myths of wealth supremacy.

The relentless financialization of everything leads to the decimation of workers, as capital drives labor income – and labor itself–out of the economy. She adds: Even more frightening is how the hard right, fueled by plutocratic dark money, now seeks to eradicate democracy in its quest to keep powering the machine that supports … the “unseen ruling class.”

The 7 Myths of Wealth Supremacy

Kelly maps out the seven myths of wealth supremacy—the bias that institutionalizes infinite extraction of wealth by and for the wealthy and is the hidden force behind the polycrisis:

1. The Myth of Maximizing—No amount of wealth is ever enough.
2. The Myth of Fiduciary Duty—Corporate managers’ most sacred duty is to expand capital.
3. The Myth of Corporate Governance—Corporate membership must be reserved for capital alone.
4. The Myth of the Income Statement—Income to capital must always be increased, while income to labor must always be decreased.
5. The Myth of Materiality—Profit—that is, material gain-alone is real, while social and environmental damages are not.
6. The Myth of Takings—The first duty of government must be the protection of private property.
7. The Myth of the Free Market—There should be no limits on the sphere of influence of corporations and capital.

Kelly’s explanation of how these myths block us from doing the right thing for the future is a tremendous contribution to the growing debate around regeneration, and a regenerative economy.  Kelly and Ted Howard defined the democratic economy in their book The Making of a Democratic Economy:

A democratic economy is an economy of the people, by the people, and for the people. It’s an economy that, in its fundamental design, aims to meet the essential needs of all of us, balance human consumption with the regenerative capacity of the earth, respond to the voices and concerns of regular people, and share prosperity without regard to race, gender, national origin, or wealth. At the core of a democratic economy is the Common Good, in keeping with the founding aims of democracy in politics.

The Steps towards a Democratic Economy

SO what must be done?  Kelly offers a blueprint for the shift we need:

1. Breaking the Trance: We Participate in System Change
   When We Change Our Minds
2. Pranks, New Naming, and Other Subversive Acts: Helping Others to Awaken
3. The Democratic Economy: Imagining Its Design, Seeing Its Models Demonstrated
4. Democratizing Finance: Pathways Toward a Next System of Capital
5. Beginning Where You Live: Building Community Wealth

Each of these steps is explored in detail in her magnificent book!

I’m especially struck by Kelly’s clear explanation of the differing visions we see in the politics of our time, not just in the US.  Here’s Kelly again:

“In the economic world envisioned by neoliberals, the rights-bearing citizens are corporations and investors. Democracy is about protecting human rights and the rights of nature.”

Which one do you choose?

Repurposing the Corporation

In our book on regeneration, we argue that the corporation is obsolete. Kelly agrees. Here’s her take on what needs to happen:

The challenge is to envision, and create, private enterprises and investing processes that remove capital bias. Enterprises may still be profit making; that’s an imperative of staying in business. What is dangerous, … is the unfettered aim of profit maximizing.

There’s much, much more.  We’re running out of time, and Kelly’s timely book is a force for the change we so desperately need.

About Marjorie Kelly

Marjorie Kelly is a Distinguished Senior Fellow with The Democracy Collaborative and has authored several books before this one, including The Making of a Democratic Economy with Ted Howard, Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution, and The Divine Right of Capital: Dethroning the Corporate Aristocracy

Kelly argues instead for the democratization of ownership: public ownership of vital services, worker-owned businesses, and more. And she sketches the outlines of a nonextractive capitalism that would be subordinate to the public interest. This is an ambitious reimagining of the very foundations of our economy and society.

Kelly and her colleagues at The Democracy Collaborative played a pivotal role in advising and designing the launch of the Fund for Employee Ownership, now hosted at the Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland. Originally consisting of a network of three worker-owned firms, the fund has expanded to include four new firms through conversions. Additionally, Kelly co-authored research on the role of capital in scaling up employee ownership and conducted research and convening on the model of 50 employee-owned firms that are also B Corporations, which she terms “next-generation enterprises.” Jay Coen Gilbert credits Kelly with inspiring the creation of the B Movement of B Corporations through her book “The Divine Right of Capital.” Prior to her current role, she served as a Fellow at the Tellus Institute and co-founded and served as president of Business Ethics magazine.

GET the BOOK >> Wealth Supremacy: How the Extractive Economy and the Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today’s Crises

Christian Sarkar is the co-author (with Philip Kotler and Enrico Foglia) of REGENERATION: The Future of Community in a Permacrisis World – IDEA BITE PRESS (May, 2023)

The real goal of billionaire-funded Social Security rhetoric is to prevent the public from drawing a connection between Social Security’s finances, the working-class retirement crisis, and the ludicrous amounts of wealth held by America’s billionaires.

Consider the billionaire.

I’m not talking about people who were born into wealth; they have their own issues. Let us specifically consider the so-called “self-made” wealthy person, the driven CEO or investor. He (and it is almost always a “he” in our society) is likely to share some characteristics with other billionaires and members of his cohort. Social science and simple observation tell us that these powerful figures are more likely than other people to be:

●greedy

●addicted to making money (which is psychologically distinct from greed)

●obsessed with making money, which leads to bad behavior

●surprisingly worried about the money they have

●less empathetic and more self-interested than other people

●breakers of certain laws and social norms

●less charitable on a percentage basis

●very politically influential

●and, determined to cut Social Security.

About that last item: While there may be exceptions here and there, the billionaire class overall is overwhelmingly opposed to Social Security. Most wealthy people would, in fact, like to see its benefits slashed. A 2013 study compared the political opinions of the wealthy with those of voters as a whole and found “major disagreement” between the two groups regarding Social Security. Among all voters, there was a 46 percent gap in favor of expanding its benefits rather than cutting them. The wealthy had the opposite take; they favored cuts, rather than expansion, by a gap of 33 percent.

The tax question surely accounts for some of the billionaires’ antipathy toward Social Security but, even so, their feelings seem to run unusually high on the subject.

Strikingly, the richer someone was, the likelier they were to want Social Security cuts. Each additional $10 million in personal wealth added measurably to the desire for Social Security cuts. The authors note that “this finding may help explain why cutting these popular programs has remained on the political agenda.”

Ya thinks?

Billionaires pay for think tanks and news outlets which fill the airways with lurid talk about the program’s costs. Billionaires and corporate CEOS have more political influence than any other part of society. That’s why, despite the outcome of the recent ‘debt ceiling’ crisis, they still represent an existential threat to Social Security.

Distraction

The real goal of billionaire-funded Social Security rhetoric is to prevent the public from drawing a connection between Social Security’s finances, the working-class retirement crisis, and the ludicrous amounts of wealth held by America’s billionaires.

We are supposed to be horrified, for example, by the gap between Social Security’s income ($1.244 trillion for this year) and its cash outlays ($1.237 trillion). We are not supposed to notice that Michael Bloomberg’s wealth gain since September of last year ($17.7 billion*) would cover almost the entire 2023 shortfall of $22 billion all by itself, or that the entire amount could be recouped by throwing in Bill Gates’ gains during the same period.

That’s right: the nine-month income of two billionaires alone would erase Social Security’s entire actuarial imbalance for a full year. (And 2022 was a bad year for billionaires; “bad,” of course, being a very relative term.)

A trillion-plus dollars sounds like a lot of money, and it is. But the personal wealth of just ten Americans would cover Social Security’s entire budget for an entire year. Not that it would, at least under current law. The law dictates that Social Security’s costs be covered by a payroll tax levied for that purpose alone. But a wealth tax, or something like it, could be a popular option if the program faces a real funding crisis.

There are already sound proposals to “scrap the cap” on income that is taxed for Social Security, and to include investment and other sources of income in that tax. Billionaires would face a tax hike under these proposals, although their total taxes would still be well below mid-20^thcentury norms.

The tax question surely accounts for some of the billionaires’ antipathy toward Social Security but, even so, their feelings seem to run unusually high on the subject.

What They Say

The billionaires’ vituperation toward Social Security can be seen in Elon Musk’s ill-informed tweet about it (which The Intercept’s Jon Schwarzably dissected). It can be found in CEO conclaves like “Fix the Debt,” where the heads of corporations like JetBlue, Bridgestone, and Microsoft, as well as government largesse recipients like Honeywell, GE, Boeing, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs assembled to attack programs “entitlements.”

It oozes through op-eds like this one from predatory billionaire Steve Schwarzman, who magnanimously promised to “share the pain” of financial sacrifice with elderly Social Security recipients living on a few hundred dollars a month. (5.5 million seniors reportedly faced food insecurity in 2021; Schwarzman “took home a record $1.27 billion for 2022”.)

The goal is to frame Social Security cuts in false, technocratic terms as the inevitable outcome of simple arithmetic. They want it to look as if the decision to cut benefits made itself. That way, they leave no fingerprints on the corpse of retirement security.

It’s reflected in Mitt Romney’s bitter words at a 2012 fundraiser, when he told a roomful of fellow rich people that “they”—it’s always “they,” not “us”—”they believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, that they are entitled: to health care, to food, to housing, you name it.”

Added Romney, “That’s an entitlement.”

Most of all, it can be seen in works of the late billionaire Peter G. Peterson, a conservative hedge funder and former Nixon cabinet member who lavished money on politicians from both parties in pursuit of his curious obsession: to reduce government spending, with a special focus on cuts to Social Security and Medicare. The foundation, astroturf groups, and think tanks Peterson created have worked for decades to elevate the national debt above all other policymaking concerns, regardless of the effect on working Americans, with a special focus on cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

The goal is to frame Social Security cuts in false, technocratic terms as the inevitable outcome of simple arithmetic. They want it to look as if the decision to cut benefits made itself. That way, they leave no fingerprints on the corpse of retirement security.

Why They Hate

But why? Why do the ultra-wealthy hate Social Security so much? It’s not just self-interest, although there is certainly that. The answer lies in the anthropology, as well as the accountancy, of the billionaire class. Social Security represents everything the typical billionaire loathes, including community, solidarity, and the empowerment of the working class.

Social Security isn’t charity, and that galls them. Social Security is run for working people – people who know they have earned those benefits.

Billionaire CEOs belong to a group whose membership is earned through obsession, greed, competitiveness, and lack of empathy. It is a population self-selected for sociopathy and work-life imbalance. It’s hard to make a billion dollars without cheating people, and it’s hard to cheat people when you see them – really see them, through the eyes of understanding and emotion. That’s why someone like Schwarzman can equate his own “sacrifice” (of what, a fifth or sixth yacht?) with the suffering of an ailing grandmother trying to get by on $75 per week.

It’s impossible to bargain with them by telling them they already have enough money to live like an emperor. At that level, money works the way social media likes work for some other people: it doesn’t affect their lives in any material way, but it boosts their sense of worth and validation. That’s why they’ll never quit. That’s why they’ll never say, “I have enough.” There is always someone else who is gaining on them every time they stop to eat, sleep, make love, express an emotion …

Sure, they’ll write a check to charity from time to time. That’s good for the ego. It brings applause, praise, black-tie dinners, and fawning requests for more money. But Social Security isn’t charity, and that galls them. Social Security is run for working people – people who know they have earned those benefits. Pay a tax, with no effusive speeches or stroking of the ego for America’s 0.001 percent? The idea offends their sense of self-importance.

This is why they love to hear politicians like Alan Simpson insult Social Security recipients by calling them “greedy geezers.” They think they’ve won life’s race. People who have lived other kinds of lives – filled, perhaps, with love and kindness rather than competition and exploitation – are losers to them. In their minds, people like that are nothing. For them to ask anything of the wealthy is, well, impudence.

Controlling the Discourse

Unfortunately, the billionaire class increasingly controls US news outlets. Their obsession has warped the national discourse for decades. It has wormed its way into the media ecosystem, as billionaire-funded think tanks, lobbying groups, and politicians flood the airwaves and newspapers with false talking points about the “unaffordability” of such programs. “Both Medicare and Social Security are going broke and taking a larger share of the budget in the process,” ABC’s Martha Raddatz once told the national audience for a vice presidential debate. (Neither half of that statement is true.)

Their obsession is reflected in a news industry that has been increasingly centralized under billionaire control. Media elites sometimes sounded like jilted lovers when they reported that neither party pushed for Social Security or Medicare cuts in the debt ceiling deal.

The Washington Post, which often channels billionaire views on Social Security, ran a must-read article under the headline, “How a billionaires boys’ club came to dominate the public square.” As Michael Scherer and Sarah Ellison note,

“Technological change and the fortunes it created have given a vanishingly small club of massively wealthy individuals the ability to play arbiter, moderator and bankroller of not only the information that feeds the nation’s discourse but also the architecture that undergirds it.”

The billionaires’ obsession is also reflected at non-profit outlets like NPR—which, despite the word “public” in its name, relies heavily on corporate and billionaire donors for survival.

Dialing for Dollars

What the billionaires say, usually goes. “… (E)conomic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy,” a 2014 study found, “while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.”

Things have only gotten worse since then. Billionaires poured nearly $1 billion ($881,000,000) into the last round of congressional elections. How does this affect policy? Politicians who carry out the wishes of billionaires, corporate CEOs, and lobbyists raise more money, of course. But there is also a process of acculturation, where elected officials become so steeped in the world of elite consensus that they come to believe in it themselves.

Consider, for example, the infamous slide deck which advised incoming Congressional Democrats to spend four hours a day on “call time” and one hour per day on “strategic outreach,” both of which involve raising money for their next campaign. Imagine spending four to five hours a day calling people who despise Social Security, and it soon becomes clear that only a miracle has protected Social Security so far—and miracles don’t last forever.

It would be a mistake to assume that the recent “debt ceiling deal” means that Social Security is safe.

Unless you’re a candidate with mass support like Bernie Sanders, campaign fundraising requires constant immersion in the anti-Social Security mindset of the ultra-wealthy—which, when combined with the GOP’s longstanding hostility to the program, means that the people who make our laws are steeped in a worldview that considers “entitlement programs” expensive and superfluous.

That’s why it would be a mistake to assume that the recent “debt ceiling deal” means that Social Security is safe. Neither party wanted to take the unpopular step of calling for benefit cuts in this round of negotiations. But the billionaires and corporations who drive our political system won’t stop trying. That’s how they got where they are; by persisting until they win.

Previous attempts to cut Social Security have come in the form of ‘bipartisan commissions’ whose role was to obscure the process and shield both parties from blame. (Mitt Romney’s TRUST Act would follow the same playbook, as would other billionaire-backed proposals.) The White House has correctly called these commissions “death panels,” which may be one reason why billionaires primarily contributed to Republican candidates in the last election cycle. But public opinion must be mobilized to prevent any further softening of President Biden’s position on Social Security, before the billionaires let their money do the talking in the 2024 race.

Because, when it comes to money in politics, Bob Dylan’s words hold true: money doesn’t talk, it swears.

Richard (RJ) Eskow is a freelance writer. Much of his work can be found on eskow.substack.com. His weekly program, The Zero Hour, can be found on cable television, radio, Spotify, and podcast media. He is a senior advisor with Social Security Works.

This article was licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

In our book – REGENERATION: The Future of Community in a Permacrisis World, we point out that in the US today, we see that our politicians can’t even stand up to the NRA, let alone address climate collapse.  Instead, they distract us with culture wars and fake controversy – banning books, and literally canceling democracy via gerrymandering and voter suppression.

Shouldn’t our governments be promoting the Common Good?  Isn’t that the definition of regenerative governance?  Here’s a citizen’s checklist we compiled – does your government check the boxes?

If you were to grade your elected government officials against their support  for the Common Good, you might get a better idea if they really care about you and your children’s children.

Christian Sarkar, Philip Kotler, and Enrico Foglia are the co-founders of The Regenerative Marketing Institute, and the joint authors of REGENERATION: The Future of Community in a Permacrisis World.

Comparisons between the United States under Trump and Germany during the Hitler era are once again being made following the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Even in the eyes of German history scholars like myself, who had earlier warned of the troubling nature of such analogies, Trump’s strategy to remain in power has undeniably proved that he has fascist traits. True to the fascist playbook, which includes hypernationalism, the glorification of violence and a fealty to anti-democratic leaders that is cultlike, Trump launched a conspiracy theory that the recent election was rigged and incited violence against democratically elected representatives of the American people.

This is not to say that Trump has suddenly emerged as a new Hitler. The German dictator’s lust for power was inextricably linked to his racist ideology, which unleashed a global, genocidal war. For Trump, the need to satisfy his own ego seems to be the major motivation of his politics.

But that doesn’t change the fact that Trump is just as much of a mortal danger to American democracy as Hitler was to the Weimar Republic. The first democracy on German soil did not survive the onslaught of the Nazis.

If America is to survive the attacks of Trump and his supporters, its citizens would do well to look to the fate of Germany and the lessons it offers Americans looking to save, heal and unite their republic.

From Nazi ideology to democracy

The Weimar Republic, the first democracy on German soil, was a short-lived one. Founded in 1918, it managed to survive the political turmoil of the early 1920s, but succumbed to the crisis brought about by the Great Depression. It is therefore not the history of the failed Weimar Republic but rather that of the Federal Republic, founded in 1949, that provides important clues.

Just like Weimar, the West German Federal Republic was founded in the aftermath of a devastating war, World War II. And, just like Weimar, the new German state found itself confronted with large numbers of citizens who were deeply anti-democratic. Even worse, many of them had been involved in the Holocaust and other heinous crimes against humanity.

During the first postwar decade, a majority of Germans still believed that Nazism had been a good idea, only badly put into practice. This was a sobering starting point, but Germany’s second democracy managed not just to survive but even to flourish, and it ultimately developed into one of the most stable democracies worldwide.

How?

Denazification: ‘Painful and amoral process’

For one, there was a legal reckoning with the past, beginning with the trial and prosecution of some Nazi elites and war criminals. That happened first at the Nuremberg Trials, organized by the Allies in 1945 and 1946, in which leading Nazis were tried for genocide and crimes against humanity. A further significant reckoning happened during the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials of the mid-1960s, in which 22 officials of the SS, the elite paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party, were tried for the roles they played at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

To protect the new German democracy from the political divisions that had plagued parliamentary government during the Weimar period, an electoral law was introduced that aimed to prevent the proliferation of small extremist parties. This was the “5 percent” clause, which stipulated that a party must win a minimum of 5% of the national vote to receive any representation in parliament.

In a similar vein, Article 130 of the German Criminal Code made “incitement of the masses” a criminal offense to stop the spread of extremist thought, hate speech and calls for political violence.

Yet as important and admirable as these efforts were in exorcising Germany’s Nazi demons, they alone are not what kept Germans on a democratic footing after 1945. So, too, did the successful integration of anti-democratic forces into the new state.

This was a painful and amoral process. In January 1945, the Nazi Party had some 8.5 million members – that is, significantly more than 10% of the entire population. After the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany, many of them claimed that they had been only nominal members.

Such attempts to get off scot-free did not work for the Nazi luminaries tried at Nuremberg, but it certainly did work for many lower-level Nazis involved in countless crimes. And with the advent of the Cold War, even people outside of Germany were willing to look past these offenses.

Denazification, the Allies’ attempt to purge German society, culture and politics, as well as the press, economy and judiciary, of Nazism, petered out quickly and was officially abandoned in 1951. As a result, many Nazis were absorbed into an emerging new society that officially committed itself to democracy and human rights.

Konrad Adenauer, the first West German chancellor, said in 1952 that it was time “to finish with this sniffing out of Nazis.” He did not say this lightheartedly; after all, he had been an opponent of the Nazis. To him, this “communicative silencing” of the Nazi past – a term coined by the German philosopher Hermann Lübbe – was necessary during these early years to integrate former Nazis into the democratic state.

Where one was going, advocates of this approach argued, was more important than where one had been.

A dignified life

For many, this failure to achieve justice was too heavy of a price to pay for democratic stability. But the strategy ultimately bore fruit. Despite the recent growth of the far right and nationalist “Alternative for Germany” party, Germany has remained democratic and has not yet become a threat to world peace.

At the same time, there were increasing efforts to confront the Nazi past, especially after the upheaval of 1968, when a new generation of young Germans challenged the older generation about their behavior during the Third Reich.

Another crucial factor helped make Germany’s democratic transition a success: an extraordinary period of economic growth in the postwar period. Most ordinary Germans benefited from this prosperity, and the new state even created a generous welfare system to cushion them against the harsh forces of the free market.

In short, more and more Germans embraced democracy because it offered them a dignified life. As a result, philosopher Jürgen Habermas’ concept of “constitutional patriotism” – as one interpreter put it, that citizens’ political attachment to their country “ought to center on the norms, the values and, more indirectly, the procedures of a liberal democratic constitution” – eventually came to replace older, more rabid forms of nationalism.

In the coming weeks and months, Americans will debate the most effective ways to punish those who instigated the recent political violence. They will also consider how to restore the trust in democracy of the many millions who have given their support to Donald Trump and still believe the lies of this demagogue.

Defenders of American democracy would do well to study carefully the painful but ultimately successful approach of the Federal Republic of Germany to move beyond fascism.

The United States finds itself in a different place and time than postwar Germany, but the challenge is similar: how to reject, punish and delegitimize the powerful enemies of democracy, pursue an honest reckoning with the violent racism of the past, and enact political and socioeconomic policies that will allow all to lead a dignified life.

Sylvia Taschka, Senior Lecturer of History, Wayne State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The cover of the May 20, 2020 issue of Forbes magazine carries a picture of Larry Ellison, billionaire founder of Oracle Corporation. On page 114, there’s a Billionaires Index that runs six more pages in very small print.  The following becomes clear:

1. Almost every country has billionaires. Even Venezuela and Zimbabwe each has one billionaire.
2. The U.S. has the largest number of billionaires, around 624.
3. China has the second largest number of billionaires, 390. Not bad for a country professing communism. In fact, the number of Chinese billionaires is even higher, because Hong Kong is listed separately with 66 billionaires, and independent Taiwan adds additional 40 Chinese billionaires.
4. Germany has 110 billionaires, Russia has 102 billionaires, followed by India with 94 billionaires.
5. Each of the remaining countries has fewer than 100 billionaires, with many in Australia, Canada, France, Switzerland.
6. I would guess that there are more billionaires who were not known by Forbes or not counted because their wealth couldn’t be estimated. This would include royals, dictators, and criminals. I would venture that the world has somewhere between 2,000 to 2,200 billionaires. The estimated total net wealth of the world’s billionaires is over $8 trillion.

Our thesis is that billionaires could become a force for good – especially if their resources were used for the Common Good. There are three way this can happen:

1. The billionaires suddenly realize that the Common Good of the planet is an important goal for them, so they join forces to save humanity and Nature,
2. Our governments make billionaires pay their “fair share” of taxes, or
3. Society decides that billionaires shouldn’t exist, and our governments simply tax them out of existence.

Will the billionaires agree to higher taxes? In the recent US elections, we recall that Bernie Sanders suggested billionaires should be taxed out of existence, while Joe Biden warned us against demonizing the wealthy.

There’s a common myth that there will always be billionaires. And the media worships billionaires like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett who illustrate that some billionaires can work for causes that are beyond their own selfish interests.

Where do Billionaires Come From?

We should start by asking where do billionaires come from?  Do they just spring out of the fertile digital soil of Silicon Valley?  Can anyone – with enough hard work – become a billionaire?

So how do you become a billionaire?  Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, explains four sources of wealth:

• Inherited Wealth: around 60 percent of wealth in the US is inherited. The best chance you have of becoming a billionaire is to marry or be born into intergenerational riches.
• Monopolies: Jeff Bezos’ Amazon accounts for nearly 50 percent of all e-commerce retail sales in America. Our patent and trademark systems, which have been extended in duration, create billionaire like George Lucas and Oprah Winfrey.
• Insider Information: Hedge fund billionaire Steven A. Cohen made “hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal profits” – through his expertise in insider trading. This is not an isolated incident.
• Politics: You can invest in politicians – or even bet on them, like racehorses – through your timely campaign contributions. Americans for Tax Fairness estimates that Charles Koch and David Koch and/or Koch Industries could save between $1 billion and $1.4 billion combined in income taxes each year from the Trump tax law―and that doesn’t include how much the Koch Industries save in taxes on offshore profits or how much their heirs will benefit from weakening the estate tax.

Good luck with these four strategies.

Without them, the average US worker would have to work for 25 thousand years to become a billionaire.

How has the number of billionaires grown over the past few decades? In 1996 there were 423 billionaires spotted in the wild.  In 2019, that number rose to 2,153. Billionaires constitute just 0.00003 percent of the world population, but they currently own the equivalent of 12 percent of the GWP (gross world product) and a much larger percentage of the total wealth of the world.

Interestingly, even as COVID destroyed the economy, billionaires got richer – to the tune of $10.2 trillion.

The Billionaire’s Defense

Arguments used to defend billionaires are often based on the story that without billionaires, society would not progress – innovation and philanthropy would diminish – making life even worse.  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, worth $70bn, explains this in an appearance on Fox News. Billionaires should not exist in a “cosmic sense,” but in reality most of them are simply “people who do really good things and kind of help a lot of other people. And you get well compensated for that.” He warned about the dangers of ceding too much control over their wealth to the government, allegedly bound to stifle innovation and competition and “deprive the market” of his fellow billionaires’ funding for philanthropy and scientific research.

“Some people think that, okay, well the issue or the way to deal with this sort of accumulation of wealth is, ‘Let’s just have the government take it all,” Zuckerberg said. “And now the government can basically decide, you know, all of the medical research that gets done.”

So who decides what research gets done?  The drug companies?  The billionaires themselves?  There is a serious argument to be made that allowing billionaires to decide societal priorities is profoundly undemocratic.  Should mega-rich donors like Bill Gates drive philanthropy, usurping the role of democratic governments to decide what social ills to tackle and how?

Even in terms of innovation, Zuckerberg is wrong.  The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) reports that while in the 1970s almost all innovation winners came from corporations acting on their own, more recently over two-thirds of the winners have come from partnerships involving business and government, including federal labs and federally-funded university research. Moreover, in 2006, 77 of the 88 U.S. entities that produced award-winning innovations were beneficiaries of federal funding.

Facebook, for all Zuckerberg’s talk about innovation, makes the bulk of its profits from selling access to customer data via advertising.  It’s certainly not a fountain of societal innovation.

Unfortunately, the record of billionaire activism is not always a stellar example upholding human values or even democracy, for that matter.  The John Birch society, for example, was principally backed by Fred Koch, the father of the infamous Koch brothers. The society famously attacked Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement, as well as JFK – with a campaign to spread hate just two weeks before his assassination in Dallas. This thread of regressive billionaire activism continues to this day. The John Birch society’s tired slogan – “this is a republic, not a democracy” is now being amplified by the Trumpists.

These are billionaires who are not interested in the Common Good.  In fact, it is their actions that have driven our society to a level of public insecurity and mistrust, not seen since the 60s, or the Civil War, as some have argued. Clearly, not all billionaires are interested in saving the world.

Will Billionaires Solve the World’s Biggest Problems?

Our world is plagued with wicked problems.  Recently, we started a project studying what we can do to mitigate the 7 most Wicked Problems in the world. COVID-19, for example,would be classified under “health and livelihood” and hopefully the new vaccines will get the coronavirus problem under control within a few years.

Note that one of the Wicked7 problems is inequality.  As a problem, it also contributes to other problems such as war and health and livelihood.  Inequality is an insidious and growing problem and it is intrinsically related to the growing number of billionaires in the world.  As the number of billionaires increase, and average incomes remain the same, income inequality grows as a problem.

Given that these wicked problems are an existential threat to our future as a civilization, why is it that the smartest minds in the world are still busy working on algorithms to maximize advertising efficiency or building financial instruments for hedge-fund profits?

What would happen if the world drafted Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Jamie Dimon, and Jeff Bezos – gave them a mission to find solutions to “save the planet in the interest of the common good” and then presented their “solutions” to the governments of the world – put them to a global vote? The Big 5 CEOs could afford to be paid nothing for this challenge. Well, isn’t that what they should be working on?  Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever, could also be drafted as the project manager of this Manhattan Project to save humanity. Let’s lock them in a “zoom-room” for the next six months and see what they come up with – we’re pretty sure their businesses will continue doing well without batting an eyelid.

Narrowing the Distance between the Rich and the Poor?

We also must ask: what would happen if our governments started working for the Common Good?

What would it mean to the world if we (1) got rid of monopolies, (2) stopped the use of insider information, (3) prevented billionaires from buying off politicians, and (4) made it harder for the billionaires and their corporations to avoid paying taxes?

You can’t – as the late Paul Polak used to say – “donate your way out of poverty.” Billionaires know that just giving money to the poor is not a lasting solution.  The statement is often made “don’t give fish to the hungry, just teach them how to fish.” The task is how to create a better education and better skills in people so that they can create value for others and get paid for the value they create.

A quick review of the history of taxation in the US shows us what’s been going on: for too long, too many wealthy persons have paid taxes on their wealth at a lower rate than their secretaries!  Today’s top U.S. marginal income tax rate is 37%.  This is the rate paid on the last bracket of income, not on the whole income.  The rich person pays substantially less that 37% on his or her total income. The 37% bracket only affects persons earning an annual income of $518,400 or more.

Look at how high the top bracket income tax has been historically.  The rate was almost 80% in World War 1, over 90% in World War II, and pushed down over time by Republicans to a low of 37%.

This 37% top tax rate seems ridiculously lower compared to Scandinavian countries that pay a top income tax rate of 70%. What do Scandinavians get back for this very high marginal tax rate. They get back “freedom from insecurity.”  Scandinavians don’t have to pay for medicines, surgeries, college education, maternity leave, longer vacations, and so on.  The evidence is clear that many Americans might prefer to live in a country with higher taxes on the rich, than in today’s America where at least 15-20% of U.S. citizens can’t meet their basic needs without help.  Yes, most of us have plenty to eat but the important things we need like health care and a college education are priced as luxury goods.

Isn’t it interesting that US citizens have to pay US taxes no matter where in the world they earn their money, but our US corporations don’t have to do the same.  And we thought corporations were people too!

Americans for Tax Fairness points out the  loopholes:

• Tax avoidance through offshore tax loopholes is a significant reason why corporations, which paid one-third of federal revenues 60 years ago, now pay one-tenth of federal revenues.
• U.S. corporations dodge $90 billion a year in income taxes by shifting profits to subsidiaries — often no more than a post office box — in tax havens.
• U.S. corporations hold $2.1 trillion in profits offshore — much in tax havens — that have not been taxed in the U.S.
• General Electric, which uses a loophole for offshore financial profits, earned $27.5 billion in profits from 2008 to 2012 but claimed tax refunds of $3.1 billion.
• Apple made $74 billion from 2009-2012 on worldwide sales (excluding the Americas) and paid almost nothing in taxes to any country.
• 26 profitable Fortune 500 firms paid no federal income taxes from 2008-2012. 111 large, profitable corporations paid zero federal income taxes in at least one of those five years.

The simplest solution is to end tax “deferral.”  Corporations would pay taxes on offshore income the year it is earned, rather than indefinitely avoid paying U.S. income taxes. This would also remove incentives to shift U.S. profits to tax havens, and it would raise $600 billion over 10 years.

Why isn’t this happening?  Ask your local Senator or Congressperson.  Chances are they are too busy raising campaign funds for their re-election.

Passing a higher tax on the rich only slows down the growth of their wealth.   Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have called for a wealth tax. Elizabeth Warren proposed that households should pay an annual 2% tax on their net worth above $50 million, and a 3% tax on every dollar of net worth above $1 billion.  She recently added possibly raising the billionaire wealth tax rate to 6 percent instead of 3 percent to help pay for “Medicare for All.”  Note that the working poor and the middle class do not pay higher taxes. The wealth tax is only paid by very rich.

Another solution is to raise the estate tax.  Wealthy persons need a plan describing how their wealth should be divided upon their death.  They cannot be allowed to avoid paying estate taxes on their wealth. Married couples won’t pay any inheritance tax on the first $22.36 million in exemptions. The tax on the remaining wealth after exemption is 40 percent.

The estate tax could yield more if two changes occurred:

1. lower the tax-exempt amount to a much lower number, and
2. increase the tax rate on the remaining amount from 40% to a much higher number – say 70%.

The government should increase the estate tax rate in a further effort to reduce the growing concentration of wealth in the U.S.  Yet Republicans argue that higher estate taxes will lead to more avoidance and also lead talented people to work less hard or threaten to leave the country.  I would counter-argue that there are a great many civic-minded talented people waiting to move up the wealth ladder and take their place.  The tough issue is what the government will do with the higher estate taxes? Will it be used by government to increase wages and jobs?  Or will it go into more defense spending and more bureaucracies? Why don’t we ask citizens to decide?

Convincing Billionaires to Consider the Future of the Planet

Let’s return to how to encourage the super-rich to give back more of their wealth to society.  Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett carried out an excellent approach to this problem, with their giving pledge. They recruited billionaires to make a commitment to distribute half of their wealth to philanthropic causes within the next 10 years.  Today 211 billionaires have made this pledge. Furthermore, each billionaire describes the cause(s) that might get his or her “give-back.” There is an argument to be made that if the rich have to “give back” to society, they took too much from society to begin with.

The recruiting effort is continuing.  Imagine how many low income persons would benefit if 2,000 billionaires, not just 211 would implement a giving pledge.

Billionaires face the problem of identifying which giving causes would do the most good.  This problem faces all the billionaires, including the largest ones: Jeff Bezos ($200B), Bill Gates ($98B), Bernard Arnault and family ($76B), Warren Buffett ($67.5B), Larry Ellison ($59B), Amancio Ortega ($55.1B), Mark Zuckerberg ($54.7B), Jim Wolcott ($54.6B), Alice Wolcott ($54.4B), and S. Robson Walton ($54B).

Billionaires prefer giving away their money to their favorite causes rather than giving their money as taxes to the U.S. Treasury.  They want to control who gets the money. They might not want to see the money go to make or buy more weapons of war.

This problem has been dubbed “gilded giving” by the Institute for Policy Studies. Here is their description of the problem:

The charitable sector is currently experiencing a transition from broad-based support across a wide range of donors to top-heavy philanthropy increasingly dominated by a small number of very wealthy individuals and foundations. This has significant implications for the practice of fundraising, the role of the independent nonprofit sector, and the health of our larger democratic civil society.

• Risks to charitable independent sector organizations include increased volatility and unpredictability in funding, making it more difficult to budget and forecast income into the future; an increased need to shift toward major donor cultivation; and an increased bias toward funding heavily major-donor-directed boutique organizations and projects. The increasing power of a small number of donors also greatly increases the potential for mission distortion.
• Risks to the public include an increasingly unaccountable and undemocratic philanthropic sector; the rise of tax avoidance philanthropy; the warehousing of wealth in the face of urgent needs; self-dealing philanthropy; and the increasing use of philanthropy as an extension of power and privilege protection.

This privatization of charity and the job of government does not bode well for democracy or the common good.  Yet there are exceptions.  When Andrew Carnegie, the richest man at the time, decided to start giving back money to good causes, he landed on a brilliant idea.  He wanted to raise the educational level of average Americans. Instead of giving money to colleges, he decided to build public libraries, first in America and later around the world. With public libraries, persons would have access to books and be able to build their knowledge in whatever field of interest. Young students could sit quietly in a library, do their homework and chance on seeing a book that might change their life.

Lessons from the Gilded Age

The U.S. simply needs to look back at history, to our Gilded Age, to see what can be done to curb wealth growth.

President Theodore Roosevelt, elected in 1901, moved to break up the monopolies. John D Rockefeller’s Standard Oil was split into 34 separate companies, including the predecessors of Exxon, BP and Chevron.

What’s stopping us from doing this today?

We need to convince billionaires that contributing to an equitable and harmonious society is as pleasurable as earning a lot of money.

The Danger to Democracy

Finally, are billionaires a threat to democracy? 

Both Trump and Biden raised a substantial part of their campaign contributions from billionaires.  Apparently the total cost of the 2020 election was close to $14 billion, making it the most expensive election in history and twice as expensive as the previous presidential election cycle! The Institute for Political Innovation points out: although people tend to think of the American political system as a public institution based on high-minded principles, it’s not. Politics behaves according to the same kinds of incentives and forces that shape competition in any private industry.  Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter sound the alarm, and make suggestions on what can be done to unrig our political system.

Rebecca Henderson points out that in the U.S. and the UK, only around 30% of the youngest voters feel that it is “essential” to live in a democracy, compared with upwards of three-quarters of voters born before WWII.

She explains:

If government is the counterweight to the free market, democracy is the force that ensures that governments do not devolve into tyranny, seizing control of the markets in the process. I believe that strengthening democracy is the only way to ensure the widespread survival of free-market capitalism, and with it the prosperity and opportunity that has changed the lives of billions of people. It’s also the only way to tackle the world’s biggest threats, from global warming to inequality. Business has the resources, political power, incentives, and responsibility to make significant progress in this endeavor. Indeed, it has widespread support. People today report trusting their employer more than the government or the media, and a recent global survey finds that 71% of respondents believe that “it is critically important for my CEO to respond to these challenging times.”

So, the final outcome of this debate is political.  And that is not always, as history has taught us, a pleasant outcome.

Studies show that as income inequality grows, so does social unrest and populism.  The threat of fascism increases exponentially.

It’s time to come to our senses as a society, and put a stop to this unbalanced economic system.  Times of crises call out for public leadership in service of the Common Good.  Absent that leadership, businesses have a responsibility to not be silent, and more importantly, to act.

In a Democracy, that means all of us, billionaires, businesses, and citizens, must act in a transparent way to:

1. ensure the public is given access to the truth, and protected from misinformation and “alternative facts.”
2. ensure elections will be fair and free (without the imposition of poll taxes, and other suppression techniques)
3. promote policies for the Common Good, instead of tax-breaks that serve narrow, special interests.

In short, businesses should support Democracy, and protect society from corruption.  Without this basic understanding, we will see a government, institutions, and markets that are no longer trusted by the consumer or the citizen.  We will be unable to react to other, more difficult, challenges, and the government of the people, by the people, and for the people will perish from this Earth.

If you’re a billionaire, ask yourself: what kind of world do I want to leave to my children?

The rest of us should ask ourselves this question as well. Our time as humans on this planet is almost up. Who will lead us?

In our work on cultural narratives, we’ve proposed that cultural narratives create meaning for our place in the world, and provide a map for the journey ahead. The structure of a cultural narrative can be diagrammed as follows:

In politics, the structure of a cultural narrative becomes an ideological framework for living and thinking about the world.

With the case of Trump and Biden, we see a struggle between two narratives: “MAGA” vs the “American Dream.”

Trump’s MAGA narrative can be diagrammed as follows:

The press, of course, cannot bring itself to see this, because to do so would require acknowledgement of their complicity with the existing system.  So they condemn specific incidents of hate or fear, but never connect the dots.

Biden’s American Dream narrative was the original myth of the USA. It is the old story we learned in our textbooks – of the Statue of Liberty and the immigrants who came to this country to create a better life for themselves and their progeny:

Here’s the problem.  While it is still a view that many hold dear, the American Dream lies in tatters because of staggering inequality and the lack of opportunities of upward mobility.  The middle class is shrinking, and everywhere citizens feel the threat of rising unemployment and poverty. COVID has accelerated the crises.

Trump can fool some of the people all of the time.  White supremacists are infiltrating protest groups to incite and cause violence. Trump yells “Law and Order” even while he incites violence. It’s time for our citizens to demand better.

Will Biden be able to bring back the American Dream?  He must acknowledge the mistakes of neoliberalism and globalization and renew the American Dream.

The challenge: get government to work for its citizens again.

Is that a third narrative?

Trump will do anything to be re-elected. His opponents are limited because they believe in democracy. Trump has no limits because he doesn’t.

Here’s Trump’s re-election playbook, in 25 simple steps:

1. Declare yourself above the law.

2. Use racist fearmongering. Demand “law and order” and describe protesters as “thugs”, “lowlife” and “rioters and looters”. Describe Covid-19 as “Kung-Flu”. Retweet posts from white supremacists. In your campaign ads, use a symbol associated with Nazis.

3. Appoint an attorney general more loyal to you than to America, and politicize the Department of Justice so it’s lenient on your loyalists and comes down hard on your enemies. Have it lighten the sentence of a crony convicted of lying under oath. Order investigations of industries you dislike.

4. Fire US attorneys who are investigating you.

5. Fire independent inspectors general who are looking into what you’ve done. Crush any whistleblowers you find.

6. Demean and ignore the intelligence community. Appoint a director of national intelligence more loyal to you than to America. Demand that the head of the FBI pledge loyalty to you.

7. Pack the federal courts with judges and justices more loyal to you than to the constitution.

8. Politicize the Department of Defense so generals will back whatever you order. Refer to them as “my generals”. Have them help clear out protesters. Order the military to surveil protesters. Tell governors you’ll bring in the military to stop protesters.

9. Purge your party of anyone disloyal to you and turn it into a mindless, brainless, spineless cult.

10. Get rid of accumulated experience and expertise in government. Demean career public servants. Hollow out the state department, the Department of Justice, Health and Human Services, and public health.

11. Reward donors and cronies with bailouts, tax breaks, subsidies, government contracts, regulatory rollbacks and plum jobs. Put their lobbyists in charge of your agencies. Distribute $500bn in pandemic assistance to corporations in secret, without any oversight.

12. Coddle dictators. Don’t criticize their human rights abuses. Refuse to work with the leaders of other democracies. Withdraw from international treaties.

13. Create scapegoats. Demonize migrants and lock up asylum-seekers at the border even if they’re children. Put a white nationalist in charge of immigration policy. Blame Muslims, Mexicans and Chinese.

14. Denigrate and ridicule all critics. Describe opponents as “human scum”. Attack the mainstream media as purveyors of “fake news” and “enemies of the people”.

15. Conjure up conspiracies against yourself supposedly led by your predecessor and your opponent in the last election. Without any evidence, accuse your predecessor of “treason”. Fabricate a “Deep State” out to get you.

16. Downplay real threats to the nation, such as a rapidly spreading pandemic. Lieabout your utter failure to contain it. Muzzle public health experts. Urge people to go back to work even as the pandemic worsens in parts of the country.

17. Encourage armed supporters to “liberate” states from elected officials who disagree with you.

18. Bribe other nations to investigate your electoral opponent and flood social media with lies about him.

19. Use rightwing propaganda machines like Fox News and conspiracy theory peddling One America News to inundate the country with your lies. Ensure that the morally bankrupt chief executive of Facebook allows you to spread your lies on the biggest media machine in the world.

20. Suppress the votes of people likely to vote against you. Intimidate voters of color. Encourage Republican governors to purge voter rolls, demand voter ID and close polling places.

21. Seek to prevent mail-in ballots during the pandemic. Claim they will cause voter fraud, without evidence. Threaten to close the US postal service.

22. Get Vladimir Putin to hack into US election machines, as he did in 2016 but can now do with more experience and deftness. Promise him that in return you’ll further destabilize America as well as Nato. Allow him to put a bounty on killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

23. If it still looks like you’ll be voted out, try to postpone the election.

24. If you’re voted out of office notwithstanding all this, refuse to leave. Contest the election, claim massive fraud, say it’s a conspiracy, get your cult of a political party to support your lies, get your propaganda machine to repeat them, get your justice department to back you, get your judges and justices to affirm you, get your generals to suppress any subsequent rebellion.

25. Declare victory. Memo to America: Beware Trump’s playbook. Spread the truth. Stay vigilant. Fight for our democracy.

Robert Reich, is the Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time magazine named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the the twentieth century. The author of many books, including the best-sellers Aftershock, The Work of Nations, Beyond Outrage and, Saving Capitalism. He is also a founding editor of The American Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, “Inequality For All.” Reich’s newest book is “The Common Good.” He’s co-creator of the Netflix original documentary “Saving Capitalism,” which is streaming now.

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