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Edited on Mon Jul-12-04 09:57 AM by dumpster_baby
The neoliberal corporate capitalist regime that has taken control of both parties has allowed large aggregations of capital to control us. The more capital is aggregated into the control of fewer entities, the easier it is to organize and coordinate efforts to control America through propaganda, lobbying, etc. Also, as more capital is aggregated into these entities, the more power they have.
It is a positive feedback loop mechanism: Suppose a number N (where N=7, in this case) Entities {a,b,c,d,e,f,g} control a total sum of $C of capital, each having an amount of capital equal to $C/N, which is $C/7 in this case. Furthermore, they are able to coordinate and organize to protect their capital and consolidate their gains and also use their collective power to gain a competitive advantage over other business entities.
Also they can organize activities that will increase their profits. For example, they may pass laws that make American workers more dependent on their jobs and less mobile (e.g., laws designed to thwart development of universal healthcare). However, the ability to coordinate and cooperate is inverse to their number. More entities are harder to organize, and less are easier to organize. With 7 entities, let us assign a cooperation factor of M. M = 1/N * T, where T is some constant or factors.
Then at some particular time, 4 of these entities {a,b,c,d} manage to get the upper hand (gain more capital) over the other 3 and use their advantage to elimiate {e,f,g}. Now these 4 control more money individually, and they are smaller in number and therefore easier to coordinate and cooperate, thus their lobbying activities, issue management, etc., are easier to organize and are thus more effective.
This dynamic repeats in a cycle, eliminating and consolidating the members of the set. The set collectively grows smaller and more powerful, more easy to organize and effective.
The members of the set are the players in corporate capitalism.
Now, turning to the particular dynamics of political memes in America: A political meme is just political idea that can spread from one person to another. We might say that memes about politics and how to run America may classified into ideas that favor corporations over people (give corporations more power, allow them more profit at the expense of workers), or ideas that favor people over corporations, giving them more power, make them more mobile, give them greater choice of jobs, more demand for their services and skills, more them less dependent on any one job or employer, etc.
Our urban sprawl and ever-longer car commutes have atomized and separated us from "bottom-up" political memes, separated us from the neighborhoods where we were indoctrinated in bottom-up politics in the urban neighborhoods, isolated us from the grange-hall, bottom-up politics of the rural areas. Those mechanisms of bottom-up political meme propagation are things of the past. And we will pay a price for that by having a smaller middle class and a larger lower class.
We are isolated from any grassroots political community. So our political knowledge comes from "top down" mass media sources. We are like captive prisoners of war in some POW camp being brainwashed. Trapped in our cars, commuting an hour or more to work, a critical mass of Americans have been brainwashed by the talk radio. With so little time left, we just plop down in front of the TV, once again a captive audience for top-down political memes.
But it really does not have that much to do with the GOP vs Dem. That is just spy vs spy tragicomedy. Yes, corporate-capitalist agents have used think-tank issue management to further the neoliberal agenda more often through the GOP than the Dems. Yes, the think tanks are more closely aligned with the GOP. Yes, the GOP is the frontman for the neoliberal corporate capitalism that controls America. But Clinton was definitely a pawn of corporate capitalist neoliberalism, too. A greedy and grasping man, he wanted everything he could get from them.
So the Democrats are almost as bad. Or at least they were that way in the 90s.
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