Who Can NOW Say America Has Not Become a Mega-Corporate Dictatorship? by Eric Zuesse
(2020-02-08 at 12:03:26 )

Who Can NOW Say America Has Not Become a Mega-Corporate Dictatorship? by Eric Zuesse

Jon Hellevig posted on January 16th at The Saker, "Capitalism in America: How a Dismal Decimal is Robbing Americans Blind" the most extensive and up-to-date compendium anywhere, of data on economic inequality in America, and one fact especially stands out from it: "Today Top 1% are losers compared with Top 0.1% - the Dismal Decimal - who are where the music plays. Top 0.1% now holds as much wealth as Bottom 90% combined." These top 0.1% people also donate the lions share of the money that finances political ads and organizations for their candidates and against the candidates who are financed instead by the other Partys billionaires. Any candidate who is not backed by the billionaires of any Party is a rarity and (except for the independent Bernie Sanders, who is truly an exception) has no realistic chance of winning or keeping a seat in the United States Congress.

That drastic inequality of wealth in America - "Top 0.1% now holds as much wealth as Bottom 90% combined" - is calculated by Deutsche Bank, in their January 2018 study "United States Income and Wealth Inequality". Here is more from that study:

On page 3 is shown that the United States is comparable to Chile, Israel, Mexico, Portugal, and Turkey, as being at the top of the nations studied, in "inequality in household disposable income."

On page 6: "A record high 30% of households have no wealth" in the United States.

On page 7: All-time high median net worth in constant dollars was 2007, at $119,000, declined to $67,000 in 2010, and rose to $78,000 by 2016.

On page 8: "United States: Top 0.1% owns as many assets as the bottom 90%"

On page 10: United States has higher income-inequality than any other OECD nation.

On page 11: Income-inequality is rising faster in United States than any other OECD nation.

On page 15: Top 1% in pre-tax income in the United States in 2014 was $1.3 million+.

Top 0.1% was $6 million+.

So: if the top 0.1% in income in the United States of America are also the top 0.1% in wealth in America, then the individuals in America who draw $6 million+ annual income own as much as do all 90% who are not in the top 10%.

When a nations billionaires control not only its mega-corporations but its government, that small group - who do business with one-another - constitute a national dictatorship which is just as bad as in feudal times when a tiny aristocracy (who also did business with one-another) controlled the government and were a collective dictatorship over the entire nations population.

A king is not required in order for there to be a dictatorship. Most dictatorships are aristocratic, not monarchical. Furthermore, in almost all monarchies, the king represents, and comes from, his class - the aristocracy. A collective dictatorship is no better, or worse, than is a one-person dictatorship.

There are, according to the latest count by Forbes (as of 2019), 607 billionaires in the United States, and these people include, for example, Jack Dorsey who controls Twitter, and Eric Schmidt and John Doerr who mainly control Google, as well as Mark Zuckerberg who controls Facebook.

Of course, Bezos, Buffett, the Waltons, the Kochs, and hundreds of others, are also among these 607: but, still, it is this group of people (plus perhaps a hundred of the mere centi-millionaires) who actually control mega-corporate America including its government - they also hire and control millions of employees and other agents such as law firms and lobbyists - and the other 330 million United States of Americans do not possess such control, but instead only work for them, and sell to them, and buy from them, and view the world through their media.

Most importantly, the other 330 million Americans receive their television and radio and newspaper and magazine "news" from the countrys billionaires, and vote for the United States President and members of Congress on the basis of that news, which is virtually entirely filtered by appointees of these 607 people, not only as being controlling owners of the media but as being (controlling) the largest advertisers in all of the major media. The largest advertisers participate, with the media-owners, in controlling the media.

It is all the same group of fewer than a thousand individuals, who collectively control the United States of America.

Some of them - such as Trump, and Bloomberg, and Steyer - are also in politics or trying to be, because they want to be controlling America even more directly than they already do, so that their power will be even greater than it already is.

Of course, Donald Trump has already succeeded at this, and we can see from what he has been doing to America as its President, a fair representation of the billionaire class political intentions, though he is more blatant about it than, for Example, Tom Steyer is, who was the biggest political donor in the 2016 campaign year, having given $91 million to help Hillary Clinton and other Democratic politicians.

He was the top donor that year to defeat Bernie Sanders, and thus help Ms Clinton win the Partys Presidential nomination; so, that is the type of Democrat which this billionaire actually is: a neoconservative and a neoliberal.

No matter what Tom Steyer and another Democratic Party Presidential candidate, Michael Bloomberg, might say in order to win votes, that is what they all actually are: neoconservative, and neoliberal.

They support American imperialism, and they support Americas billionaires - they are the actual beneficiaries from American imperialism, and from an American economy that funnels more and more of the nations wealth into their control.

Here are some recent studies which document this dictatorship:

"After United States killing of Irans General Soleimani, narrative control on social media is getting worse"

"Top Assange Defense Account Deleted By Twitter"

"The United States Police-State Is Now Undeniable: The Assange Case"

"America Is One-Dollar-One-Vote, Not Really One-Person-One Vote."

"Trump Tax Cut Hands $32 Billion Windfall to Americas Top Banks"

"Capitalism in America: How a Dismal Decimal is Robbing Americans Blind"

If America were a democracy, then there would ne no "narrative control on social media," because social media would not be allowed to censor whatever they want to censor.

They would not have that power. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the Government from punishing anyone for any type of "speech," but does not say anything to limit Americas aristocrats from censoring out whatever they want to be censored-out - using their "social media" so as to reduce the ability of anyone to say or to link to what those super-rich do not want the public to have access to. Censorship by the billionaires is accepted in the United States of America.

Consequently, Julian Assange is kept imprisoned (in one way or another) for around a decade and is now being drugged in a British maximum-security prison while awaiting extradition to the United States for final slaughter, and he has never been convicted of anything, but Americans - alone of all the worlds people in this regard - approve of this, and accept both a Democratic President Obama and a Republican President Trump perpetrating this illegal punishment of him for revealing truths about their dictatorship.

And, also consequently, the United States has a higher percentage of its people in prison than does any other nation - and virtually all of them are lower class, not the type of criminal who murders by giving an order or by signing a contract or by selling a dangerous or toxic product but by knifing or shooting someone. The crooks who do the most harm are the richest ones, and they do not merely violate the laws, they (through their lobbyists etc.) also write the laws.

This working through agents, whom they pay, is how it comes to be that the United States of America is now scientifically proven to be one dollar one vote instead of one person one vote.

And that is how it comes to be the case that the billionaire Donald Trump can push into law a $32 billion taxpayer-giveaway to the investors and top executives in Americas biggest banks, which then use the money to increase stockholder dividends and to cut their workforce.

And, as "Capitalism in America: How a Dismal Decimal is Robbing Americans Blind" documents, it is no longer the top 1% but now is instead the top tenth of one percent who are raking money in from the poorer 99.90% of the United States population.

You have now got to be pretty rich in todays America in order to be robbing from virtually everyone else. "Top 0.1% now holds as much wealth as Bottom 90% combined." The top 0.1% are now scamming even the rest of the top 1%.

But, of course, in this nation where the top 0.01% have been writing the laws (via their lobbyists) for decades now, none of them is anywhere among the millions of United States of Americans who are in prison.

To be that rich is to have a stay-out-of-prison card, no matter how many people you have harmed or even killed by your dangerous or harmful products or services, such as trick mortgage contracts or toxic pharmaceuticals.

So, realistically, now: Who can say that the United States of America has not become a mega-corporate dictatorship?

Reprinted here from the "Strategic Culture Foundation" provides a platform for exclusive analysis, research and policy comment on Eurasian and global affairs. We are covering political, economic, social and security issues worldwide. Since 2005 our journal has published thousands of analytical briefs and commentaries with the unique perspective of independent contributors. SCF works to broaden and diversify expert discussion by focusing on hidden aspects of international politics and unconventional thinking. Benefiting from the expanding power of the Internet, we work to spread reliable information, critical thought and progressive ideas.