Corporatocracy Explained

By John Ballard

Ending paragraphs of Why Afghans Dig Empire Graveyards by Nicholas J. S. Davies...

Afghans believe that it was they who brought down the Safavids and the Soviets. While the Afghans definitely did their part, the forces that led to the collapse of those empires were really much closer to home in both cases.

The real graveyard of the Soviet empire lay in the Kremlin, where absolute power insulated its leaders from the forces at work in the real world beyond its walls. The Afghan war was only one of many causes of discontent and dissolution within the Soviet political and economic system.

A quiet underground movement of non-violent popular opposition grew steadily beneath the surface until, in defiance of all conventional wisdom, it burst through into the light of day and the U.S.S.R. was quite suddenly dissolved.

The American people now face a similar crisis. It should be no surprise that a predatory political and economic system that won't provide healthcare, public services or economic opportunity to its own people is also resorting to war and militarism in a desperate effort to feed its insatiable appetite for growth and profit.

Since the 1970s, America's leaders have consolidated their political and economic power into effective monopolies. Most industries are dominated by two or three huge firms, and the political system is controlled by a similar duopoly.

Research on economic competition has established that such near-monopolies take on many of the characteristics of actual monopolies, stifling innovation and competition, destroying smaller businesses, exploiting employees, building inefficient bureaucracies and spending more on marketing than on research and development.

The U.S. health insurance industry employs 30 times as many administrative staff as it did in 1970. American firms spend $290 billion per year on advertising, almost $1,000 for every person in the country.

And corporate control of politics has systematically dismantled every mechanism that could restore effective management or halt the system's relentless drive to devour everything including itself. Looking for solutions from any of the leaders promoted by such a dysfunctional system is pure folly.

However, by learning from the example of popular movements in other countries throughout history, ordinary people in the United States can organize politically to elect very different people to public office and to stimulate mass public opposition to war, militarism and corporate politics.

It is the policy of the United States, not that of Afghanistan, that is filling the graveyards, and the great game that can stop the funerals will not be played out in Afghanistan but in Washington and in local communities all over the United States as Americans begin to organize for a post-imperial, post-corporate and more democratic future.

He's correct, but frankly, I think he's overly optimistic.