In discussions with senior executives across several industries, the following topic inevitably shows up: what can we do to reduce risks to our business due to geopolitical instability (which is code for Trump). This essay is an attempt to start this conversation, not just with businesses, but with countries as well.

UPDATE: Try the De-Americanization App >>

The Collapse of the American Model

The American Empire is crumbling. Its institutions are corrupted by money and special interests, its corporations worship shareholder primacy at the expense of people and planet, its culture exports hyper-consumerism and false promises. For decades, governments and businesses worldwide have been taught to imitate this model — only to find themselves ensnared in dependencies that strip away sovereignty.

“De-Americanization” is not anti-American. It is anti-dependency. It is the recognition that the U.S. system — financialized, extractive, exploitative — no longer serves as a viable model for the future. For governments, it means reclaiming autonomy from the dollar, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Washington’s geopolitical grip. For businesses, it means breaking free from Madison Avenue spin, Wall Street finance, and Silicon Valley monopolies to rediscover their own cultures, stakeholders, and ecosystems.

The question is simple: Will the world collapse with America, or regenerate beyond it?

Why De-Americanize?

The world has been living under the shadow of the American model for decades. We have been taught that “bigger is better,” that Wall Street knows best, that consumer culture is the pinnacle of progress. But today the cracks are visible everywhere. The empire’s institutions are failing, its corporations are extractive, and its culture has hollowed out the imagination of entire societies.

To de-Americanize is not to reject the American people. It is to reject the dependency on a system that no longer works. It is to reclaim sovereignty, resilience, and regeneration. The reasons are clear.

• Political Instability

America itself has become unstable. Polarization, authoritarian drift, contested elections, and economic misleadership — the U.S. is no longer the anchor it was. To tie your fate to a collapsing political system is reckless. Dependency on instability guarantees collapse.

• Sovereignty at Risk

Nations and firms that rely on U.S. finance, defense, or tech live in a fragile illusion of independence. If Washington shifts policy, imposes sanctions, or tightens controls, entire economies can collapse overnight. Sovereignty that passes through Silicon Valley servers or Wall Street clearinghouses is not sovereignty at all. Dependency is fragility.

• Systemic Risk

The U.S. system itself is unstable. Overleveraged, financialized, addicted to short-term profit. The 2008 global crash revealed how fragile the model is, and how quickly the damage spills across borders. Today, the dollar itself has become a weapon — militarized through sanctions, exclusion, and coercion. To rely on a fragile empire is to inherit its instability.

• Cultural Colonization

Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and Madison Avenue have colonized imaginations across the planet. Local stories, languages, and aesthetics are drowned out by Americanized fantasies of endless consumption. To de-Americanize is to tell our own stories, elevate our own knowledge systems, and resist cultural homogenization disguised as freedom.

• Economic Extraction

Value flows outward. U.S. platforms and consumer giants siphon profits from local economies, strip data from citizens, and repatriate wealth to Wall Street. What remains is dependency and precarity. De-Americanization is the act of reclaiming value for local communities, keeping profits — and dignity — rooted in place.

• Sustainability vs. Extraction

The American model externalizes costs — onto workers, onto the environment, onto the future. It is a system built to burn the commons and call it growth. De-Americanization is not just about survival. It is about shifting to regeneration: circular economies, commons stewardship, equitable systems that nourish instead of destroy.

• Geopolitical Multipolarity

The unipolar world is gone. A multipolar order is emerging, messy and contested. To survive, nations and companies must be flexible, not tethered to a single declining empire. De-Americanization is preparation for a world where power is distributed, not monopolized.

The Signs of Crisis: What are the Triggers driving De-Americanization?

The case is not complicated. The American model has failed. Its promises of prosperity were built on exploitation. Its stability is an illusion. Its culture is colonization.

De-Americanization is not anti-Americanism. It is survival. It is sovereignty. It is the reclamation of futures stolen by dependency.

The question is not whether the U.S. will collapse under its contradictions. It already is.
The question is whether the rest of us will collapse with it — or regenerate beyond it.

Here are the seven crisis triggers that accelerate de-Americanization.

1. Financial Shock – The Dollar as Weapon
   The dollar has long been sold as a neutral currency. But it is not neutral. It is political, and increasingly weaponized. Sanctions, asset freezes, and dollar-denominated debt traps remind the world that the dollar is not a global commons, but a U.S. instrument. A sudden collapse in confidence, a sanctions overreach, or a liquidity freeze could turn dependency into paralysis. The lesson: a reserve currency that can be switched off by one government is not a safe foundation for sovereignty.
2. Supply Chain Disruption – Fragility Exposed

Food, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors — the lifelines of modern economies. When these flow through U.S.-controlled routes or suppliers, disruption is inevitable. Pandemic shortages, shipping crises, and geopolitical trade wars show how fragile “just-in-time” really is. In a world of cascading risks, dependency on U.S. agribusiness or chipmakers is not efficiency — it is fragility dressed as optimization.

3. Regulatory Shock – Empire by Force

U.S. regulations do not stop at U.S. borders. From financial compliance regimes to extraterritorial sanctions, Washington extends its “law” across the globe. Companies that do not comply risk losing market access, funding, or legitimacy. A single rule change in Washington can paralyze operations in Africa, Asia, or Latin America. This is empire by dictat — and it is why regulatory sovereignty is non-negotiable.

4. Technology Cutoff – Silicon Valley as Switch

Modern economies run on data, cloud, chips, and algorithms. Yet the infrastructure is concentrated in the hands of U.S. corporations. If AWS or Google Cloud is shut off, entire economies go dark. If chip exports are blocked, industries halt. If patents are enforced selectively, innovation stops. Technology is no longer just commerce — it is control. De-Americanization begins with technological sovereignty.

5. Consumer Backlash – The Cultural Revolt

Culture is not soft power; it is hard economics. Brands that once sold Americana as aspiration now face rejection. Boycotts, cultural backlash, and demands for local authenticity grow stronger with each executive order by President Trump. The more a company wraps itself in American identity, the more vulnerable it becomes to rejection in a multipolar world. Consumer sentiment moves faster than supply chains — and it punishes dependency.

6. Climate Crisis – When Nature Breaks the Model

The U.S. food system is built on monocrops, fossil fuels, and fragile logistics. Hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, droughts in the Midwest, wildfires in California — each disrupts global supply chains. Climate does not recognize empire. When monocrop failure in America ripples into food crises worldwide, dependency becomes famine. Only regenerative, local systems offer resilience in the age of climate chaos.

7. U.S. Political Instability – Empire in Decline

The greatest risk comes from within. America itself is now unstable — polarized, authoritarian-leaning, and politically brittle. Contested elections, institutional breakdown, or a slide into authoritarianism would destabilize not just the U.S., but every system dependent on it. To tie sovereignty to such a volatile political system is reckless. De-Americanization is, at its core, a hedge against empire collapse.

De-Americanization for Governments: Reclaiming Sovereignty (and the Future)

The first responsibility of government is to protect its people. Yet too many governments have ceded this duty to Washington, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley. The result is a hollow sovereignty — borders on paper, but dependencies in practice. To reclaim the future, governments must de-Americanize their foundations.

1. Admit the Dependency

Begin with honesty. Audit your reserves, your food systems, your data, your defense. Where do your seeds come from? Who owns your banks? Where are your servers hosted? Who controls your fighter jets? If the answer is Washington or Silicon Valley, then sovereignty is an illusion. You cannot manage what you refuse to measure. The audit is the mirror.

2. Diversify Fast

Dependency is fragility. Build resilience by diversifying — quickly. Forge regional alliances. Create trade corridors outside the dollar. Develop sovereign digital infrastructure that does not collapse if Silicon Valley flips a switch. Multipolar diplomacy is not luxury — it is survival. The world is no longer unipolar; to act as if it is, is to invite collapse.

3. Rebuild the Commons

A society that outsources its water, its schools, its healthcare, its justice, has already surrendered. The commons are the backbone of resilience. Privatization weakens people and strengthens dependency. Rebuilding the commons is not charity — it is security. When food, water, and justice are shared, the nation endures. Collective security must continue – even without the United States.

4. Renew Your Culture

Empire colonizes not only territory, but imagination. Governments must stop importing their stories from Hollywood, their textbooks from Washington, their algorithms from Silicon Valley. To renew culture is to elevate indigenous knowledge, to teach local history, to invest in regenerative economics. A people who know their own story cannot be ruled from afar.

5. Lead Differently

Leadership is not domination. True leadership is regenerative. Build coalitions for climate justice. Share models of circular economy. Invest in regional security built on cooperation, not exploitation. The world does not need another empire — it needs examples of sovereignty without violence, prosperity without extraction.

Collaboration and Interdependence

De-Americanization for governments is not retreat. It is renaissance. It is the refusal to let the decline of one empire dictate the collapse of all. Sovereignty is not only independence from Washington — it is interdependence with neighbors, with nature, with the future.

The nations that admit, diversify, rebuild, renew, and lead differently will not only survive the fall of the American model — they will inherit the future.

De-Americanization for Businesses: Understanding the Real Risks of Collapse

Corporations have long mistaken growth for dependency — mistaking Wall Street’s approval for real value, mistaking Silicon Valley’s platforms for progress, mistaking Madison Avenue’s tricks for trust. But the American model of business is dying. Extraction, speculation, and short-term profit have destroyed resilience. For businesses to survive — and to thrive — they must de-Americanize.

1. Audit Your Chains

Start with radical transparency. Map your dependencies — who funds you, who supplies you, who owns your digital backbone, who shapes your brand story. If your finance runs through Wall Street, if your data sits in AWS, if your identity is borrowed from American consumer culture — you are fragile. Dependency hides in plain sight. An audit reveals the choke points.

2. Decouple and Diversify

Every dependency is a liability. Begin cutting the cords. Localize supply chains. Diversify markets beyond U.S. demand. Seek capital from sovereign wealth funds, regional banks, or regenerative investors — not Wall Street’s quarterly machine. Diversification is not inefficiency — it is resilience.

3. Regenerate the Business Model

The age of extraction is over. Regeneration must replace exploitation. Build businesses that create value for communities, ecosystems, and employees — not just shareholders. Circular economies, stakeholder equity, transparent supply chains — these are not costs, they are survival strategies. A company that destroys its soil, water, and people will not endure.

4. Rebrand Truthfully

The American way was to manipulate. To sell lifestyles and illusions. That age is over. Trust has become the only sustainable currency. Businesses must rebrand truthfully — telling stories rooted in local culture, in real partnerships, in verifiable impact. Authenticity cannot be outsourced to Madison Avenue. It must be lived.

5. Lead Differently

Leadership is not cornering the market. It is opening the commons. Share regenerative practices, open-source solutions, and sustainable methods. Build alliances with peers, even competitors, to restore ecosystems and empower regional and local communities. True leadership will not be measured in market share, but in how much you restore.

The Future of De-Americanized Business Ecosystems

De-Americanization for business is not retreat from globalization — it is renewal of globalization on different terms. Businesses that free themselves from American dependencies will become resilient, trusted, and regenerative. New trading coalitions and alliances can be built rapidly – if there is a shared commitment to de-Americanization.

The corporations that dare to audit, decouple, regenerate, rebrand, and lead differently will not just outlive the American model — they will redefine what business means in the 21st century.

A Crisis Implementation of De-Americanization

In calm times, de-Americanization could be imagined as a slow reform. A decade-long transition, carefully managed, negotiated with patience. But the world is not calm. Crises compress time. A single shock can collapse a system in weeks. Currency turmoil, sanctions, supply chain breakdowns, climate disasters — each accelerates the timeline. What was once a 20-year project is now a 3-year scramble.

We are already there. The storm is not on the horizon — it is upon us.

The First 100 Days: Survival

The priority in a crisis is not elegance. It is survival. When the American model falters, dependency becomes catastrophe. The first 100 days are about stopping the bleeding:

• Freeze Capital Flight
  Wealth evaporates in a panic. Without capital controls, reserves vanish into offshore accounts or Wall Street instruments. A government or firm that cannot freeze the outflow will collapse.
• Secure Payroll and Liquidity
  People must be paid. Panic turns to revolt when wages stop. Businesses must prioritize liquidity over profit; governments must protect public payroll above all else.
• Stockpile Essential Inputs
  Food, fuel, medicine, chips. Every economy has critical inputs. In a crisis, U.S.-linked supply chains dry up. Stockpiling is not inefficiency — it is life insurance.
• Transition Data and Operations Off U.S. Platforms
  Dependency on AWS, Microsoft, Google is fragility. A switch can be flipped in Washington and whole economies go dark. Sovereign data is survival.
• Communicate Transparently to Preserve Trust
  People can endure hardship if they trust leadership. Lies, spin, and silence destroy legitimacy. Crisis management is not only logistics — it is narrative.

Actionable next steps (100–180 days)

• Build a tariff/export “digital twin” of your supply chain; simulate 10–25% duty scenarios and instant BIS rule changes.

• Qualify a second site + supplier for your top 10 revenue SKUs (contracted volumes, line trials booked).

• Stand up an export-compliant SKU squad (legal + architecture + PMO) for rapid re-binning when rules move.

• Refinance/raise with non-politicized capital where possible; scrub covenants for government control optics.

• Harmonize to a global ingredient baseline to reduce U.S.-only reformulation overhead and recall exposure.

• Segment data + keys by region (SaaS, logs, model weights) with clear subpoena boundaries.

The 2-3 Year Crash Program: Renewal Under Fire

Once the bleeding is stopped, rebuilding must begin. But there is no time for the luxury of gradual reform. The crash program is about embedding sovereignty into the foundations of economy and culture.

• Build Sovereign Tech Stacks and Payment Systems
  Regional clouds, open-source platforms, local chip fabs, multipolar payment corridors. Every dependency on Silicon Valley and Wall Street must be replaced with resilient alternatives.
• Establish Regenerative Local Supply Chains
  No more monocrop dependence, no more single-source fragility. Food, energy, and manufacturing must be grounded in regenerative local systems that restore soil, water, and community wealth.
• Rebrand Away from U.S. Identity
  A company or state tethered to American imagery will face backlash. Rebrand as sovereign, rooted, regenerative. Authenticity replaces Americana.
• Anchor in Culture, Commons, and Stakeholder Value
  Long-term resilience depends not only on economics but on meaning. Governments must reinvest in schools, water, and justice. Businesses must create value for workers, ecosystems, and communities. Culture must be renewed from within, not imported.

Industry Vulnerabilities

• Tech – Most exposed to U.S. tech bans and export controls.
• Food & Agriculture – Tied to U.S. monocrops and vulnerable to climate.
• Finance & Energy – Anchored in the dollar, exposed to sanctions.
• Consumer Brands – Exposed to cultural backlash and identity rejection.
• Defense/Pharma – Dependent on U.S. legitimacy and regulation.

What should Key Industries Do?

The table below captures a summary of our ideas. The details are specific to each company of course. 

The De-Americanization Strategy Toolkit (what companies are actually doing)

1) Footprint Diversification (“China+1…+N” and “USA+1”)

Move assembly/componentization into multiple jurisdictions to arbitrage tariff/ex-control lines and qualify for local content rules.

2) Product Segmentation for Controlled Markets

Design “export-compliant” SKUs for restricted jurisdictions (reduced compute, different interconnects).

3) Supplier Base Re-wiring & Dual-Sourcing Critical Inputs

Build mirrored BOMs (e.g., U.S./EU + ASEAN), qualify alternates, and modularize so single-country shocks don’t halt final build.

4) Corporate (Re)Structuring to Ring-Fence Risk

Spin-offs, carve-outs, or holding-company redesigns to separate “U.S.-centric” from “global” businesses.

5) Financing Mix that Minimizes Political Strings

Prefer private/ally-market capital; if accepting U.S. subsidies, avoid equity-like upside or governance hooks that create “state-instrument” optics abroad.

6) Currency & Invoicing Diversification (De-Dollarization Light)

Set contracts in EUR/JPY/CNH where feasible; add FX collars and multi-currency AR/AP netting to blunt tariff-induced price shocks.

7) Data-Sovereign Architectures

Adopt multi-cloud with strict data-localization (EU, India, ASEAN), in-region encryption key custody, and sovereign PaaS variants to reduce reach of U.S. subpoenas.

8) Export-Control Readiness & “Compliance DevOps”

Embed a real-time rules engine (ECCN mapping, end-use/end-user screening) in quoting/fulfillment; maintain “kill-switch” SKUs tied to new BIS rules.

9) Ingredient & Label Strategy for Food/CPG

Shift away from U.S.-specific additives toward globally acceptable baselines to avoid dual formulations.

10) Contractual Risk Transfer

Bake in tariff/sanction pass-through clauses, movable INCOTERMS, and material adverse policy change (MAPC) triggers to reprice or reroute quickly.

11) Talent & IP Hubs Outside Single Jurisdictions

Spread critical R&D across allied regimes; ensure IP ownership structures prevent export-control “taint.”

12) Listings, IR & Banking Diversification

Pursue dual listings and multi-bank relationships outside the U.S. to keep capital access if OFAC/BIS actions disrupt dollar rails.

Case Studies 

Here are some early thoughts;

Intel: Government Ownership as Risk

When the U.S. government acquired ~10% of Intel, it blurred the line between state and corporation. For foreign partners, Intel became less independent — a U.S. political tool. This case illustrates why tech sovereignty matters: reliance on U.S. platforms makes companies and nations vulnerable to Washington’s whims.

Heinz Spin-Off: A Fork in the Road

Kraft Heinz split into two firms: Global Taste Elevation (Heinz, Philadelphia, sauces) and North American Grocery (Kraft Singles, Oscar Mayer). The split allows Heinz to rebrand globally, diversify supply chains, and pivot from Americana ketchup to a regenerative taste company. Meanwhile, the grocery unit remains locked in U.S. food culture. A lesson: de-mergers can themselves be a de-Americanization strategy.

Nestlé: Incremental Decoupling

Nestlé’s move to eliminate synthetic dyes in U.S. foods reflects how non-U.S. firms adapt to American consumer norms while trying to maintain global flexibility. But incremental reforms are not enough. True sovereignty requires deeper decoupling from U.S. agribusiness and branding systems.

The Path Forward

De-Americanization is not about rejecting innovation. It is about rejecting dependency. It is the refusal to collapse alongside a failing empire.

The roadmap is clear:

• Governments must reclaim sovereignty in finance, commons, and culture.
• Businesses must localize, regenerate, and lead differently.
• In crisis, time compresses: survival first, regeneration next.
• Across industries, vulnerabilities differ, but the imperative is the same.

The American model is failing.

The question is: will your country, your business, find a way to regenerate beyond it?

Stay tuned. Capitalism is changing.

UPDATE: Try the De-Americanization App >>

There is a growing incidence of toxic leadership in organisations across the world. This is clear from anecdotal evidence as well as research which suggests that one out of every five leaders is toxic. My own research shows that closer to three out of every ten leaders are toxic.

This cancer of toxicity threatens the well being of both individuals and organisations. It also affects the performance of a society and country. That’s why there is a pressing need for leaders to understand the nature, dynamics and evolution of toxic leadership and organisations.

The word “toxic” comes from the Greek “toxikon” which means “arrow poison”. In a literal sense, the term in its original form thus means to kill (poison) in a targeted way (arrow). Toxic organisations and leaders therefore are those who deliberately destroy the fabric of the institution.

What makes a toxic leader?

Toxic leadership represents the “dark” side of leadership. It affects individuals as well as organisations.

In the case of individuals toxic leadership refers to ongoing, deliberate, intentional actions – the “arrow” – by a leader to undermine the sense of dignity, self-worth and efficacy of an individual – the “poison”. This results in exploitative, destructive, devaluing and demeaning work experiences. These destructive actions may be physical, psychosocial or even spiritual when they diminish a person’s meaning and purpose.

A toxic organisation is one that erodes, disables and destroys the physiological, psychosocial and spiritual well being of the people who work in it in permanent and deliberate ways. In other words, an organisation becomes metaphorically a “poison pill” for employees.

Workplace bullying is similar to toxic leadership, but is just one form of it. Bullying is more centred on individual, one-on-one, physical or emotional abuse by any one individual, including a leader, on another person.

In contrast to toxic leadership, healthy, authentic leadership nurtures and affirms the dignity, worth and efficacy of an individual. It creates enabling, empowering and meaningful work experiences.

And a healthy, authentic organisation is one that nurtures and grows the physiological, psychosocial and spiritual well being of its organisational members.

Can toxic leaders be competent?

Leadership toxicity and incompetence are not directly related. Both competent – getting the desired results – and incompetent leadership can be toxic.

If a narrower definition of competence is used – only focusing on technical and professional competencies – a toxic leader may still be seen as competent because they are “delivering the goods”. This is particularly true if a short term view is taken. But over the longer term their short term success is unsustainable. This is because they are destroying their teams, departments or organisations in the process.

If a comprehensive, long term view is taken toxic leaders are incompetent because they are not competent across all domains of a well-rounded leader. Taking a comprehensive view, leadership qualities include personal attributes, technical and professional competencies, values and attitudes, and conduct.

I believe that toxic leaders, regardless of their level of technical and professional competence, are incompetent. After all, competent leadership is all about getting things done with people.

Typical toxic leaders

Five typical toxic leaders exist:

• The Cold Fish: the ends justifies the means. So any decision and action is justifiable in terms of the results desired.
• The Snake: the world serves me in the endeavour to satisfy my personal needs like greed, status and power.
• Glory Seeker: personal glory and public visibility at any cost, regardless of whether I have made any real and meaningful contribution.
• Puppet Master: absolute, centralised control over everything and anyone, under all circumstances.
• Monarch: ruling the organisation as if it is my kingdom. All of its assets are available for my personal use.

The more prolific these toxic leaders are in an organisation, the more toxic the organisation. The table below profiles these toxic leaders.

Typical toxic organisations

The typical manifestations of a toxic organisation resulting from toxic leadership are:

• Negative emotional moods and mood swings: anger, despair, despondency, frustration, pessimism and aggression.
• Unproductive and meaningless work.
• Destructive and counterproductive conduct.
• Employee physical and emotional disengagement and withdrawal such as absenteeism, lack of contribution, and turnover.
• Unethical, deviant conduct: theft, fraud and sabotage.
• Poor well-being and health.
• Low (team) morale and work satisfaction.
• Organisational dis-identification and low organisational commitment.
• General life dissatisfaction.

But organisations can be toxic in their own right through the organisational culture they have. Organisational culture refers to shared ways of seeing, interpreting and acting upon the world that becomes ingrained in an organisation’s DNA. It’s the glue holding it together and provides an organisation with a way of looking at and relating to the world.

When toxic patterns become ingrained into the DNA of an organisation the following patterns emerge:

• Paranoid: the defensive, afraid, suspicious, trusting no-one or nobody organisation.
• Compulsive: the over-planned and over-programmed organisation.
• Hyperactive: the impulsive, unfocused organisation, acting like an adolescent.
• Deflated: the energyless, depressed and impotent organisation.
• Delusional: the reality estranged, make-believe organisation, living in a world of its own.
• Conscienceless: the unethical, amoral organisation.

There appears to be a growing incidence of the cancer of toxic leadership and organisations. This is in no uncertain terms endangering the well being of organisational members, compromising future sustainable organisational, community and societal performance and success, as well as the very continued existence of them.

This article is based on a longer, more comprehensive academic paper.

Theo Veldsman, Professor and Head, Department of Industrial Psychology and People Management, University of Johannesburg

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

BY Rebekkah Markey-Towler, The University of Melbourne

On his first day back in office as United States president, Donald Trump gave formal notice of his nation’s exit from the Paris Agreement – a vital global treaty seeking to rein in climate change.

Before signing the order, Trump declared his reasons to an arena of cheering supporters, describing the global agreement as an “unfair, one-sided Paris climate accord rip-off”.

Of course, this is not the first time Trump has withdrawn the US from the Paris deal – he did it in 2017, during his first term in office.

On one hand, Trump’s move is a huge blow to efforts to global climate action. The US is the world’s second-biggest emitter of greenhouse gas pollution, after China. The country is crucial to the global effort to curb climate change.

But given Trump’s climate denialism, it’s actually better that the US absent itself from international climate talks while he is in power. That way, the rest of the world can get on with the job without Trump’s corrosive influence.

A quick refresher on the Paris Agreement

Signed by 196 nations in 2015, the Paris Agreement is the first comprehensive global treaty to combat climate change.

Its overall goal is to hold the increase global temperatures to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C.

Scientists say meeting the more ambitious 1.5°C target is crucial, because crossing that threshold risks unleashing catastrophic climate change impacts, such as more frequent and severe droughts and heatwaves.

Under the agreement, each nation must make national plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to help reach the global temperature goals. These plans are known as “nationally determined contributions”.

What Trump’s withdrawal means

Under Trump’s last presidency, the US was only out of the Paris deal for four months, due to the time it took for the retreat to take effect. President Joe Biden rejoined the agreement in early 2021.

This time, the US withdrawal will become official more quickly – after a year. Then, the US will join Iran, Libya and Yemen as the only United Nations countries not party to the agreement.

The US can keep participating as a party to the Paris agreement until January 2026. That means it may try to negotiate at the COP30 climate change conference in Brazil this year.

COP30 is a big deal. It is when each country is due to present its new nationally determined contributions. The US withdrawal means it is unlikely to bring a new contribution to the meeting – if it attends at all.

Should the US show up, its presence would potentially destabilise negotiations. That’s why removing Trump-backed negotiators from the climate talks going forward is a good outcome.

If the US stayed in the tent under Trump, its negotiators could, for example, agitate to weaken any deals struck at future COP meetings. We saw such tactics from Saudi Arabia at COP29 in Baku. The oil state repeatedly disrupted the talks and in one instance, sought to alter important text in the agreement without full consultation.

With the US out of the way, the other parties to the Paris agreement have a better chance of progressing climate negotiations.

At this stage, it doesn’t appear other countries are preparing to follow Trump out the door. This is despite controversy at the COP29 talks when Argentinian president Javier Milei ordered his negotiators to withdraw only a few days in. Milei had previously described the climate emergency as a “socialist lie”.

At this stage, Trump has not withdrawn from the Paris Agreement’s parent convention, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. So after it withdraws from the Paris deal, the US can still attend COP meetings, but only as an observer.

Onwards and upwards

Of course, there are downsides to the US withdrawal from the Paris deal.

Leaving the Paris agreement means the US is no longer required to provide annual updates on its greenhouse gas emissions. This lack of transparency makes it harder to determine how the world is tracking on emissions reduction overall.

Under the Biden administration, the US contributed funding to help developing nations adopt clean energy and cope with climate change (albeit delivering less than it promised). Trump is expected to slash this funding. That will leave vulnerable nation states in an even more precarious position.

While the US was technically only out of the Paris deal for a short period last time, the process was destabilising. It weakened what was an unprecedented show of international solidarity and sent a damaging message about the importance of climate action.

Trump’s latest withdrawal is a similar blow to morale. It’s particularly galling for Americans fighting for climate action, and those struggling with its devastating effects – most recently, the unthinkable fires in Los Angeles.

But Trump’s withdrawal can easily be reversed by a new US president. And we can expect other parties to Paris, such as China and the European Union, to continue to play a leadership role, and others to fill the vacuum.

What’s more, as others have noted, Trump cannot derail global climate action. Investment in clean energy is now greater than in fossil fuels. When Trump last pulled out of Paris, many US state and local governments pressed ahead with climate policy; we can expect the same this time around.

And the vast majority of the rest of the world is still pursuing emissions reduction efforts.

So overall, the US exit from Paris is probably the best of a bunch of bad options. It mutes Trump’s capacity to destabilise international climate action, allowing others to step into the breach.

Rebekkah Markey-Towler, PhD Candidate, Melbourne Law School, and Research fellow, Melbourne Climate Futures, The University of Melbourne

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

Is your business degenerative? Is it following the well-thumbed playbook of corporate crapitalism?

Here’s an undeniable truth: most businesses are degenerative. They exploit, extract, and destroy – decimating the Common Good. Let’s confront the ugly reality of how most companies operate:

1. You Can’t Kill Your Customer and Call It Value Creation

It’s basic: if your business harms your customers, it’s doomed. Selling junk food, addictive products, or predatory services might work for a while, but it’s a race to the bottom. You can’t build trust—or a future—on exploitation. Long-term value means putting people’s well-being at the core of your business.

2. Business Is Part of Nature, Not Apart from It

A no-brainer. All business depends on the beneficence of Nature, yet most treat Nature like it’s disposable. The truth is, your business can’t thrive if the planet doesn’t. Whether it’s your supply chain, energy consumption, or waste management, ask yourself: are you regenerating or destroying? The future belongs to companies that heal, not harm.

3. Spreadsheets Don’t Lead, People Do

If your CEO runs the business by spreadsheet, you’ve already lost. Decisions made by algorithms and bottom-line thinking strip humanity out of the equation. Customers and employees aren’t data points—they’re people. Businesses that fail to connect on this level will be replaced by, well, algorithms. Real leadership is about purpose, empathy, and vision—not just numbers.

4. Profiting from Suffering Won’t Last

You can only profit from pain for so long. Sweatshops, environmental destruction, wage theft—they all come back to bite. Public outrage and growing awareness will destroy businesses that thrive on suffering. A regenerative business profits by solving problems, not creating them.

5. Hedge Fund Rule Equals Extraction

When hedge funds run the show, businesses stop being businesses. They become extraction machines, sucking out value for short-term profits and leaving employees, communities, and ecosystems in ruin. These companies strip-mine everything they touch. Real businesses build—extractive ones destroy.

6. CEO Pay: How Much Is Too Much?

When it takes over 100 years for your workers to earn what your CEO makes in a year, you have a problem. Inequality within organizations is a ticking time bomb. Pay disparities demoralize workers, erode trust, and fuel resentment. It’s not just about fairness; it’s about survival. Companies that share the wealth will endure. The others? Good riddance.

7. Does Your Business Give Back More Than It Takes?

Communities are the backbone of any business. But how many companies extract from their communities without giving back? If your business takes more than it contributes, it’s not just unsustainable—it’s parasitic. Businesses that reinvest in their communities create loyal customers, happier employees, and long-term resilience.

8. Do Your Employees Fear You?

When employees are afraid to speak up, to organize, or to challenge the status quo, your business is broken. Fear kills creativity, innovation, and loyalty. A thriving business creates a culture of trust, respect, and empowerment. Fear-driven workplaces collapse under their own weight.

9. Do Your Leaders All Think the Same?

When leadership is homogenous, you get groupthink. Homogeneity limits perspective, stifles innovation, and reinforces the status quo. Diversity isn’t just about representation—it’s about better decision-making. If all your leaders vote the same, think the same, and act the same, your business is on autopilot—heading for a crash.

The world doesn’t need more degenerative businesses. It needs regenerative organizations. Regenerative businesses don’t just reduce harm—they create value for people, communities, and the planet. They restore what’s been destroyed. They repair what’s broken. They rethink what’s possible. They regenerate the Common Good.

The path forward is clear. The question is: will your organization make the Big Shift, or will it double down on crapitalism?

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)

I wasn’t aware of climate change until the 1980s — hardly anyone was — and even when we recognised the dire threat that burning fossil fuels posed, it took time for the role of animal production in warming the planet to be understood.

Today, though, the fact that eating plants will reduce your greenhouse gas emissions is one of the most important and influential reasons for cutting down on animal products and, for those willing to go all the way, becoming vegan.

A few years ago, eating locally — eating only food produced within a defined radius of your home — became the thing for environmentally conscious people to do, to such an extent that “locavore” became the Oxford English Dictionary’s “word of the year” for 2007.

If you enjoy getting to know and support your local farmers, of course, eating locally makes sense. But if your aim is, as many local eaters said, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, you would do much better by thinking about what you are eating, rather than where it comes from. That’s because transport makes up only a tiny share of the greenhouse gas emissions from the production and distribution of food.

With beef, for example, transport is only 0.5% of total emissions. So if you eat local beef you will still be responsible for 99.5% of the greenhouse gas emissions your food would have caused if you had eaten beef transported a long distance. On the other hand, if you choose peas you will be responsible for only about 2% of the greenhouse gas emissions from producing a similar quantity of local beef.

And although beef is the worst food for emitting greenhouse gases, a broader study of the carbon footprints of food across the European Union showed that meat, dairy and eggs accounted for 83% of emissions, and transport for only 6%.

More generally, plant foods typically have far lower greenhouse gas emissions than any animal foods, whether we are comparing equivalent quantities of calories or of protein. Beef, for example, emits 192 times as much carbon dioxide equivalent per gram of protein as nuts, and while these are at the extremes of the protein foods, eggs, the animal food with the lowest emissions per gram of protein, still has, per gram of protein, more than twice the emissions of tofu.

Animal foods do even more poorly when compared with plant foods in terms of calories produced. Beef emits 520 times as much per calorie as nuts, and eggs, again the best-performing animal product, emit five times as much per calorie as potatoes.

Favourable as these figures are to plant foods, they leave out something that tilts the balance even more strongly against animal foods in the effort to avoid catastrophic climate change: the “carbon opportunity cost” of the vast area of land used for grazing animals and the smaller, but still very large, area used to grow crops that are then fed — wastefully, as we have seen — to confined animals.

Because we use this land for animals we eat, it cannot be used to restore native ecosystems, including forests, which would safely remove huge amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. One study has found that a shift to plant-based eating would free up so much land for this purpose that seizing the opportunity would give us a 66% probability of achieving something that most observers believe we have missed our chance of achieving: limiting warming to 1.5℃.

Another study has suggested that a rapid phaseout of animal agriculture would enable us to stabilise greenhouse gases for the next 30 years and offset more than two-thirds of all carbon dioxide emissions this century. According to the authors of this study:

The magnitude and rapidity of these potential effects should place the reduction or elimination of animal agriculture at the forefront of strategies for averting disastrous climate change.

Climate change is undoubtedly the biggest environmental issue facing us today, but it is not the only one. If we look at environmental issues more broadly, we find further reasons for preferring a plant-based diet.

The clearing and burning of the Amazon rainforest means not only the release of carbon from the trees and other vegetation into the atmosphere, but also the likely extinction of many plant and animal species that are still unrecorded.

This destruction is driven largely by the prodigious appetite of the affluent nations for meat, which makes it more profitable to clear the forest than to preserve it for the indigenous people living there, establish an ecotourism industry, protect the area’s biodiversity, or keep the carbon locked up in the forest. We are, quite literally, gambling with the future of our planet for the sake of hamburgers.

Joseph Poore, of the University of Oxford, led a study that consolidated a huge amount of environmental data on 38,700 farms and 1,600 food processors in 119 countries and covered 40 different food products. Poore summarised the upshot of all this research thus:

A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use. It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car, as these only cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Poore doesn’t see “sustainable” animal agriculture as the solution:

Really it is animal products that are responsible for so much of this. Avoiding consumption of animal products delivers far better environmental benefits than trying to purchase sustainable meat and dairy.

Those who claim to care about the wellbeing of human beings and the preservation of our climate and our environment should become vegans for those reasons alone.

Doing so would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other forms of pollution, save water and energy, free vast tracts of land for reforestation, and eliminate the most significant incentive for clearing the Amazon and other forests.

This is an edited extract from Animal Liberation Now by Peter Singer (Penguin Random House).

Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics in the Center for Human Values, Princeton University

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

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.