A capitalist friend asked on Facebook how we can rightfully accuse the wealthy of exploiting the system. This is my answer, in the form of a narrative about the absurdity of a system that just so happens to be a capitalist republic:
The world has businessmen who do business and make money. The world has political offices that are filled by people who win elections. The world has a mainstream populace who works 9-5 and spends the rest of their time with their beautiful sons and daughters and the rest of their time watching football. The world has a small percentage of educated people who think pretty hard about politics and do lots of research into current events and know exactly which candidate they believe in. And finally, the world has people who like money and power and return favors.
What happens in this world is as follows: a businessman, let's call him Leonardo DiPaprio, actively searches for an aspiring politician who likes money and power and returns favors. He finds one, let's call her Jill Gates, and creates a super PAC. He then gives the super PAC $1,000,000 to give to Gates, and sends her a text message: "how great would it be if you cut taxes by $1000 per family for healthcare services that could generate a certain healthcare business $5000 per family. million dollar idea, wouldn't you say ;)"
Gates runs a political campaign. Joe Beaver from down the street is the people's man--miraculously, 95% of people agree with his views. However, Joe Beaver has only $10,000 to his name and runs maybe 5 ads. They play at 3:00 am on some local news network. Jill Gates has the option to run 50 ads during football games on ESPN, as well as google AdSense for people looking up her election, as well as Facebook and Youtube ads in her community. In these ads, Gates says 9/11 a lot, she uses simple language that appeals to working class families, and talks about how much less people will pay in taxes. She doesn't mention in these ads that she plans on taking all money from government health insurance, so that those who spend $1000 less a year in taxes would spend $5000 more in health insurance premiums to replace those government-based services.
Well, the 1,000,000 people who spent no more time on politics than the ad they saw while drunkenly watching football will go into a voting booth to save $1000 a year on taxes. If their choice is between a no-name and somebody they trust will save them money in taxes, why would they vote for Joe Beaver? Oh, and the 100,000 people who actively did research on Joe Beaver will see that he is the perfect candidate for office, because who the fuck has ever had policies that 95% of people agree with. They will vote for Joe. Too bad their vote is completely worthless against the masses, whose only exposure to politics comes through ads, which cost money, which Joe does not have. Now Jill Gates is in power.
Now people see lower taxes and are happy with Jill Gates, but they are mad at the private healthcare companies. They yell at rich people. Rich people do not care about being yelled at, because they are rich. Rich Leonardo DiPaprio's company earns $50,000,000 more that year.
Now, because of what went down, the company is making tons more money and the employees of this private health insurance company now have many more policies to look after, because the business that was being done through government health care is now being done through their private industry. and let's say their work increased by 100%. The company sees $50,000,000 in profits. Since it was CEO Leo's work (a text message and a donation) that gave the company the windfall, he suggests the board distribute $1,000,000 to the workers as 20% bonuses for their 100% increased extra labor, $4,000,000 into a new industrial park building, $5,000,000 to each board member as a bonus, and $10,000,000 to himself. They do this, and they each bathe in money the next day.
Leo texts Jill Gates: "let's keep it up. u have another election coming up..."
Next election comes up. Gates and Leo have lunch. An hour later, his super PAC gives her $2,000,000, twice as much as before, because he got mad profits from her earlier policy. So far he's made $7,000,000 off of Gates. Gates runs against Joe again. Joe has managed to double his fundraising, because the people who loved him are fed up with Gates's antics. Joe can now run ads at 2 AM instead of 3 AM. Gates, with her doubled campaign revenue, runs a $500,000 market research program to find out what exactly her voters care about. She then spends $500,000 on making her ads really fuckin cool, and she uses the same $1,000,000 as before to get the same great advertising spots. Now there are debates among the electorate--"Have you heard of this Joe Beaver guy? I hear his policies resonate with 95% of the electorate, which I didn't even think was possible!" "No way, Joe doesn't have the experience it takes to run government. You know who has experience? You know who's really savvy? Jill Gates! Let's re-elect her, because she is really good at government."
Jill Gates is really good at government. Would it be unbelievable if, in this fictional account, Jill Gates won this election? Because, in this story, she wins the election.
Now Jill Gates goes up to one of her democrat congresspeople, for the sake of the argument let's call her Billary Clinton, and says "I will veto your favorite bill unless you also get me votes for this bill I'm about to hand you, which is rather important to me. Actually, I will veto every piece of legislation you and every democrat writes until you vote for my bill right here." This matters to Billary, because her Congressional session is only 60% democrat. Even with a majority she can't defy Jill Gate' ultimatum, because even total solidarity among the democrats couldn't get a 2/3 majority vote. So Billary proposes this pre-written piece of legislation bearing her name, titled "Taxation makes CEOs work less hard so let's stop taxing CEOs so much". It so happens that Billary and her fellow democrats stand strong. She has told them about Gates's ultimatum, and pleads with them to pass this single bill, because if they don't support her on this one, then she can't support them on other important bills. So everybody votes for this bill, because the Democrats have to support Billary, and the Republicans eat that shit up anyway.
Now, if we know Gates, we know that Leo isn't her only sugar daddy. She's smart. She keeps her options open. Would it surprise you if she did the same for any big corporations that could afford her price tag? Her "endorsement" of a bill isn't free. In this story, she actually has a number of entities (from health insurance, the NRA, private defense contractors, investment banking, etc.) with whom she has "relationships". On countless bills that pass through her Congress, she has developed many working relationships with various Congresspeople like Billary.
In fact, isn't it great for everybody involved? Leonardo DiPaprio is pleased. Jill Gates is pleased. Billary Clinton is pleased. Families pay $1000 less in taxes per year to the government, and they only have to pay $5000 more a year to insurance companies! And Gates makes money from pretty much every one of her major policy actions in Congress.
Just wait for next term...
HAPPY ENDING
(also read my posts on modern corruption in the US and a quantitative analysis of its extent.
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