The System is Rigged

by Alan Gilburg

For many years free market advocates (politicians, economists, pundits) have bombarded us with the unending virtues of the free market. Along with this we have been told by these same people of the vices of the government, that kills anything it gets its nasty bureaucratic hands on. This almost sounds like a Medieval battle between the forces of God and those of the devil. Like so many things in our time we are at the mercy of moral absolutes that lure us from seeing the real world of “gray” that is neither black nor white. My contention is that it would be wonderful if the so-called “free market” were actually free.

The System is Rigged

• The wealthy, well-born, well-connected, and powerful have always rigged the system to favor them and their interests since the beginning of time…no matter what
• And what is so clear is that they are not interested in sharing; they always want more and are willing to do whatever it takes to insure that they get and keep getting more
• In such a rigged system, the “haves” continue to get more; and the “have-nots” continue to get less
• Among the wealthy, well-born, well-connected, and powerful paying taxes has always been considered an outright vice, to be avoided at all costs, hence tax shelters, off-shore bank accounts, foundations and the like, to avoid paying as much as possible
• Adam Smith, the 18th Century father of capitalism, knew that the single-minded pursuit of profit by capitalists would result in a law of the jungle; however, in his small town world in Scotland he believed that the Protestant ethic and the need to maintain an upstanding reputation in their communities would keep capitalists from succumbing to their worst instincts
• We no longer live in villages and so the wealthy, well-born, well-connected, and powerful live in gated communities and are well insulated from any contact with ordinary people whose lives are effected by their decisions; their reputations only matter among themselves
• Further proof of the rigged system is now showing up in the widening unequal distribution of wealth as the wraps have been removed from tax and regulatory policies so that the wealthy, well-born, well-connected, and powerful continue to pile up ever greater percentages of the wealth pie at the expense of everyone else.

How is the System Rigged

• The political system is influenced by vast sums of money given as “legitimate” campaign contributions to elect candidates favorable to the wealthy, well-born, well-connected and powerful. 
• The major industry in Washington and most state capitals is lobbying by the wealthy, well-born, well-connected and powerful, who in many cases actually write the laws that legislators are only to glad to pass
• Campaign contributions end up influencing the tax code: who do the lion’s share of loopholes benefit? Who can get away with paying little or no taxes on large amounts of wealth? Who can take advantage of tax shelters, write-offs, offshore bank accounts and the myriads of legal ways of avoiding taxes? Certainly not ordinary citizens!
• Then those contributions show up in the billions we set aside for corporate welfare to the oil and gas industry, agribusiness, pharmaceuticals, transportation, and, of course the military-industrial complex. Every Congressional budget is filled with earmarks that throw subsidies toward one corporate entity or another
• We all agree that we need to support small businesses, but it’s the huge corporations that have the deep pockets and sway the system to favor them, so small businesses end up fending for themselves, like the rest of us.
• The industries that sell to the military have managed to place manufacturing facilities in virtually every congressional district so that nothing can be cut from the military budget without creating unemployment and hardship in some congressional district. So we continue to build obsolete military equipment, for the sake of “keeping people employed”

Inherent Problems with a Rigged System

• Since the wealthy, well-born, well-connected, and powerful are usually a tiny minority (the 1%) who consistently benefit from the rigged system, they continually risk the specter of revolt by the huge majority the (99%) who become dissatisfied with the meager crumbs they receive
• Democracies create problems for system riggers because the power of the vote can actually limit the power of the powerful minorities who rig things to benefit only themselves; if the truth were known they would find it very difficult to get away with the continued rigging of the system
• Further, an unjust system is inherently unstable and unsustainable, especially now with our ability to communicate instantly and widely

How to Retain Power and Keep the System Rigged

• The power brokers turn to the great American resource of marketing and “spin” with the goal of creating fear and anger that ordinary people are going to lose their cherished ways of life to powerful enemies lurking right within our own land
• The standard tactic is divide and conquer. Turn the 99% against one another, especially turn whites against Blacks
• They divert the attention of a majority of ordinary people away from their own best interests and get them to feel threatened and endangered by those who might challenge the rigged system
• They begin by demonizing the people of color, poor, immigrants, pointy-headed elites, welfare queens, intellectuals, gays, traitorous liberals, in short anyone who may want to challenge the rigged system; and they make the government the enemy painting it as curtailing our freedoms and poisoning our way of life
• So now we are told that we have vast numbers of welfare cheats stealing our hard-earned tax money, millions of fraudulent voters cramming our ballot boxes, hordes of illegal immigrants taking away our jobs, living off welfare, and trashing our communities, out-of-touch liberal elites sinisterly controlling the media and the education system and taking our guns away, dangerous gays who are bent on converting our children to their abominable way of life, traitorous liberals who want to prevent us from being Christian and tainting us with godless communistic ways, not to mention coddling the terrorists, drug lords, criminals, rapists, and child molesters that terrify us
• Having demonized all these people we can mercilessly pursue them, throw them under the bus, build prisons and call for extended police protection, and stringent laws that punish these evil groups and individuals
• Following the advice of Josef Goebbels, the Nazi Chief of Propaganda, the system riggers keep telling the lies over and over to the point that people start believing them
• Most of the examples I have given are made by those on the right, but the left is not innocent. The left also uses fear as the prime motivator to mobilize its adherents to keep the right from “taking over” the world and destroying the America we have built

What Needs to Change for the American People to Benefit

• Over our entire history as a nation the government has generally supported the wealthy, well-born, well-connected and powerful, enabling them to reap profits often at the expense of ordinary people
• Occasionally when corporate scandals are more than can be covered up the people demand that the government level the playing field and limit the privileges of the wealthy, well-born, well-connected, and powerful. Some examples in our history are:
• Curbing the monopolies that arose in the late 19th Century by breaking up the trusts
• Instituting laws that protect workers: allowing collective bargaining and the right to strike, outlawing child labor, protecting worker health and safety, and compensating workers that are injured on the job
• Making corporations take responsibility for cleaning up their messes and preventing them from creating new ones so our environment can sustain life on earth
• Instituting graduated income taxes so the wealthy, who benefit most from the rigged system, end up paying a larger share to benefit those who can’t pay
• Making sure our food and medicines are safe and effective
• Insuring our bank accounts against bank failures, something that occurred with unfailing regularity throughout the 19th and early 20th Centuries
• Providing ordinary workers with a modest pension upon retirement through Social Security, as well as disabled and injured people with no other means of support
• Providing elders with medical care at a time when they most need it
• At one time the government used to provide substantial scholarship funds to needy and deserving students to make sure our people get the educations they need to become fully contributing citizens
• In the current climate of anti-government anger we need to make the case for the appropriate role of government in our lives
• Much of the anti-government sentiment is actually directed at Congress where members have been acting like squabbling children, refusing to cooperate or work together to address the nations pressing issues

What Can Citizens Do?

• GET SMART! Pay attention! Become informed! Follow the money! Make sure the economy rewards people who are willing to work so they can care for their families and not have to rely on outside services
• Let your elected representatives hear from you
• Join citizens lobbies and make your voices heard in the corridors of power. Politicians only respond to pressure, whether it’s from powerful lobbies or large groups of citizens who make their cases well known
• VOTE. This is the usual remedy in a democracy. However, we all know the system is rigged, broken, bought and paid for. 
• We tried this in 2008 by electing Barack Obama, but he has proven unable to pull off the changes he promised because of the broken and rigged system
• We have a Congress filled with squabbling children who only know how to throw sand at each other. We have 2 political parties, one of which is utterly ruthless, the other mostly clueless. So the choice is often between a Storm Trooper or C3PO
• And to top this all off the Supreme Court has given its supreme judicial approval to rigging the system by letting corporations and wealthy individuals spend as much money as they have to insure the system is rigged forever
• PROTEST: This means hitting the streets in large enough numbers to get the necessary attention that makes change possible
• REVOLT: This is a drastic measure that becomes inevitable when the keepers of the System make Protest impossible. Remember, we did this in 1776.