A sickness unto death>
The Denver Post>
In the slow, miserable, heartbreaking decline of the American democracy, there came a moment of irreversibility. For me, and
I dare to think history will confirm, it was the Supreme Court's decision last month in Citizens United vs. The Federal Election
Commission -- the ruling that basically overturned all limits on financial expenditures by corporations and other interests
in federal election campaigns.
I had long felt the sickness of our body politic was fatal. The high court simply confirmed my diagnosis. The government of,
for and by the people not only cannot long endure, it's dead. We have passed on from democracy (a government founded upon
the consent of the people) to plutocracy (a government controlled by money) without even the benefit of last rites or a decent
wake.
All the dysfunctions of our governance now being documented -- the scandalous failure of health care reform in the Congress,
the total inability of the public sector to address truly major crises like global climate change or the unprecedented public
debt, the uncivil and undemocratic behavior of the leadership of both major political parties, the collapse of all public
trust in the legislative branch of government, etc. --have a single source: the control of our government by moneyed interests.
The Republic that Jefferson and Madison gave us no longer belongs to most of us; it belongs to the rich and the corporate.
But this is not news. It is, however, important for people of goodwill to understand as they seek some road to responsible
citizenship. Nostalgia is no nostrum.
Being too old to move -- during civil rights days and the Vietnam War, we talked of moving to Canada -- today I simply choose
to move on. The high court, in a poorly reasoned decision, has basically protected their version of speech (founded on the
stupid metaphor that speech equals money) at the expense of the highest freedom of all, the freedom of a people to govern
themselves. Self-governance is that freedom protected by the totality of the U.S. Constitution, that all other freedoms --
speech, assembly, worship, ownership of property, due process of or equality under the law -- ultimately depend. Lose that
singular right, as I believe we now have, and ultimately you will lose the farm.
In his book "Wealth and Democracy" (Broadway Books, 2002), Kevin Philips both decried where the ship of state was headed and
predicted our inevitable foundering on the rocky shoals of wealth. He was as prescient at the beginning of this century in
predicting the coming plutocracy as he was back in 1968 in predicting the emerging Republican and conservative majorities
that have dominated our national politics since the Reagan years.
So now what? Well, though as an aging liberal populist I have little stomach for it, the answer is pretty much straightforward:
Make alliances with persons and enterprises that possess both great wealth and good conscience and buy power directly. As
one of my MBA students once proposed when we were discussing campaign finance and corporate interests, "Why don't we just
cut out the 'middle man' [i.e., voters] and auction off public offices directly? Wouldn't a free market solution be far more
efficient than this mess of ineffective FEC regulations?"
The Roberts court answered that question for us all last month. The market is open this year until Nov. 2. Be sure to consult
your investment adviser well in advance. After all, don't you want the best government money can buy? more>
Buie Seawell is professor of business ethics and legal studies at the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business.
