June 10^th

George Will’s column today is a lengthy exposition concerning money in politics; stated briefly, he’s all for it. He is urging us toward a plutocracy, indeed he needn’t bother because we are already there. We’ve been there since the Republic was founded. Washington was the richest man in the colonies. He owned thousands of acres of land, seven thousand acres in his Mount Vernon estate alone, and thousands more wilderness acres. At his death he owned well over a hundred slaves. Unlike modern politicians, however, there is no evidence that he enriched himself as a result of his high office.

A few modern politicians have also refused to enrich themselves: Witness Harry Truman who as a past President refused lucrative service on boards of director because he said that they don’t want me; they want the past President of the United States and that office is not for sale. Truman left office without a pension except for a meager one from his WW 1 service. Not all past presidents felt that way; contrast that with Ronald Reagan who following his Presidency collected two million dollars for some speeches to the Japanese. No doubt the Japanese wanted to listen to him because he had been a fine actor.

We now have people serving in Congress specifically to enhance their value as lobbyists. That’s where the real money is. We have the example of Dennis Hastert who has gone from a high school wrestling coach to Speaker of the House, to a very wealthy lobbyist. Dennis is now being investigated for withdrawing millions of dollars from his accounts and lying to federal authorities as to the reason. How does a former high school wrestling coach find himself able to pull 3.5 million dollars from his assets for whatever purpose? Ask your government!

The answer is that money talks…well, not really, it yells. Here’s the scenario: Some legislation is needed, which if passed will favor the oil industries’ profits. The multimillionaire officers of several oil companies have a strong interest in seeing this legislation done so they notify their several dozen lobbyists who start calling on their old buds in Congress, even writing model legislation for them so they don’t have to bother doing it themselves. Promises of support are exchanged, reelection money is assured and the oil magnate’s incomes will increase as well. What’s not to like? The rich are thus able to control the legislative branch and by doing so get even richer. It is a vicious (or virtuous) circle depending on whether or not you are in George Will’s and Ronald Reagan’s camp or you think Truman had the right idea.  The enormous wealth gap is getting even bigger; it’s a positive feedback loop, more wealth leads to more influence which leads to more wealth. Class warfare; certainly, and the winning class is obvious.

What’s the answer? Let’s look at the history of countries with grossly unequal distributions of wealth and power: there was France in 1789, Russia in 1918 and China in 1949. These revolutions were in no case entirely due to unequal wealth but in every case they were propelled partly by this inequality. Could it happen here? We’ll see.