Cover Photo by RDNE
This morning I want to talk about ‘democracy’, because it is a word over utilised by those whose concept of it differs in no small way from most of us.
This is reflected in a very accurate quote by Justice Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) US Supreme Court, which I repeat today:
‘We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.’
Justice Louis Brandeis
Today of course, that is exactly what we have; great wealth concentrated in the hands of a very few, the wealth holders, the very same few that control our so called ‘democracy’ in the Western world.
Let’s look at some facts that our media never reports.
According to analysis by the Fight Inequality Alliance, Institute for Policy Studies, Oxfam and the Patriotic Millionaires:
‘An annual wealth tax of up to 5% on the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires could raise $1.7 trillion a year, enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty, fully fund the shortfalls on existing humanitarian appeals, deliver a 10-year plan to end hunger, support poorer countries being ravaged by climate impacts, and deliver universal healthcare and social protection for everyone living in low- and lower middle- income countries.’
Oxfam‘s 2020 report also says:
- Since 2020, the richest 1% have captured almost two-thirds of all new wealth – nearly twice as much money as the bottom 99% of the world’s population.
- Billionaire fortunes are increasing by $2.7bn a day, even as inflation outpaces the wages of at least 1.7 billion workers, more than the population of India.
- Food and energy companies more than doubled their profits in2022, paying out $257bn to wealthy shareholders, while over 800 million people went to bed hungry.
- Only 4% in every dollar of tax revenue comes from wealth taxes, and half the world’s billionaires live in countries with no inheritance tax on money they give to their children.
- A tax of up to 5% on the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires could raise $1.7 trillion year, enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty, and fund a global plan to end hunger.
Well it isn’t happening, not under a Liberal Govt or Labor.
Let’s look at recent elections in the United Kingdom, or perhaps I should call it the Disunited Kingdom, because there is a rising tide of discontent and anger over government policies that have created the crisis which has been placed on the backs of the most vulnerable.
A labour government has been elected, predictably promoted by all the privately owned mass media. The Labour Party, led by Sir Keir Starmer, won the largest number of seats. Labour won the election with 411 seats and 34% of the vote across the UK. It received a lower vote share than any party forming a post-war majority government.
So we have a Labour Government, whose Prime Minister Keir Starmer immediately claimed they had discovered a $22 billion ‘black hole’ left by the Tories and told people they would have to begin ‘belt tightening, not at the top but by taking the fuel subsidy from pensioners.’
It is precisely why Labour has been elected with the support of the mass media, to implement punitive policies that the Tories were fearful of introducing. Starmer is wooing the trade unions to back up his unacceptable policies and with a few exceptions they have fallen into line.
So, how is democracy for the people working in the UK where an election has just been held?
City Harvest reports that:
Homelessness in the UK has increased by 74% since 2010, more than 300,000 people are homeless on any given night. The UK has the highest rate of homelessness in the First World. It also has a huge poverty rate, which the Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates at more than 1 in 5 people in the UK live in poverty.
At the end of 2023/24 public sector net debt was £2.6 trillion, or 98% of GDP. This is equivalent to around £37,900 per person in the UK.
By any measure, the UK’s trade in weapons is sizable – with the country being rated as the seventh-largest exporter of arms in the world. Is this a democracy?
So, what is democracy? Does the Western World, who boast we stand for democracy, have it? And if so, how democratic is it? Is it even really democracy?
Wikipedia says ‘democracy is a system of government in which state power is vested in the people or the general population of a state.’
I want you to ask yourself today, how much power do you wield in our society?
The wealth holders consider democracy is amply demonstrated by the right of the people to vote in politicians every three to four years, and then to refrain from interfering in their actions or policies from election day.
Those same wealth holders also control the mass media which provides us with the information/propaganda they want disseminated, and with which they ensure the majority imbibe, information/news that is stripped of any genuine truth. The wealth holders thus influence the voting patterns of the people by promoting who they want in power, or who they want out of power. Since there is little alternative information to challenge the mass media, this works very well for the wealth holders.
Of course, the wealth holders prefer to have in power the party that serves them genuinely and openly, the Liberal Party here, the Tories in the UK, and the Republicans in the US. However, when the economic situation deteriorates into crisis, as it is today, they need to place the burden of that crisis on the backs of the majority by cutting services, jobs, wages and conditions, in order to maintain their super profits – thus unrest begins to bubble and new and more effective tactics are required.
When the mass of the people are no longer reconciled with the propaganda being provided, other methods of control are implemented, and today that is what is happening in the US, the UK and here in Australia.
When propaganda alone fails, when the conservative governments have milked the wealth of the nation through privatisation, inequitable taxation and savage attacks on unions and civil rights, have left the masses without services or unaffordable services and are fearful of public unrest, what is the next weapon in the arsenal of the wealth holders? To ensure the election of a Labour Government – a government which will carefully maintain their system, a government which will introduce more savage legislation believing workers will accept it, because it is introduced by a party born from and identified with the working class.
It is my contention that we no longer have a party we can vote for that will bring any form of democracy, genuine democracy, a democracy that serves our needs; that parliamentary democracy is a farce and tool to mislead the population into a dead end street, and that this malaise is growing fast.
So let’s test out my contention, my view, and see if it holds water.
Let’s use the US where elections are imminent as an example, as it is the country which claims to be the greatest democracy in the world and strives to ensure that it remains the world’s hegemon.
This great democracy is currently in severe debt, $35 trillion US dollars. To put that in perspective, The Peter G Peterson Foundation in July 2024 says ‘this sum equals roughly the value of the economies of China, Germany, Japan, India and the UK.’ Yet, this is a nation that is pouring billions of dollars into maintaining the wars in Ukraine and Palestine, dollars that should be serving the needs of the American people.
Poverty in the US is consuming their society. According to the US Census Bureau’s 2022 Current Population Report, 37.9% of Americans are considered impoverished – that is a total of roughly 126 million people. According to the Mind over Money survey by Capital One and The Decision Lab, 77% of Americans report feeling anxious about their financial situation.
The Commonwealth Fund finds ‘half of working-age Americans struggle to afford health care; nearly one-third saddled with medical debt’, and that ‘regardless of insurance status or type, health care costs and medical debt are causing many Americans to forgo care, leading to worsening health.’
Prisons-
The United States leads the world in total number of people incarcerated, with more than 2 million prisoners nationwide (per data released in October 2021 by World Prison Brief). Significantly, the percent of Black Americans in the general U.S. population is 13%, while the percent of people in prison or jail who are Black is 37%.
War-
Which nation has conducted the most wars since the Second World War? According to Joseph J Kelly III, Bachelors of World History, ‘by far, the country that has been involved in the most wars in the past one hundred years, if wars are defined as all wars, military conflicts, military occupations, large scale rescue missions, and policing and peacekeeping actions performed by military units, the answer is the United States of America.’ Of the 248 armed conflicts occurring since World War 2, the US has initiated 201. The United States accounts for nearly 40% of global military spending.
Democracy is not just a word; it is an integral part of the world we deserve. But it is not something we will ever get in the current system, because ‘democracy’ belongs to the wealth holders and their lackeys, and we will not own it until their control of the world’s resources and wealth are taken back by the people who created and continue to create that wealth – those that work to live.
Fight Against Inequality Network Inc. 