A Modest Proposal for Global Egalitarianism

By Hank Pellissier

Editor’s Note: The ideas and proposals expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect those of the Hampton Institute.

Walking under the freeway past the homeless encampment, you hear a voice, “I need 50 cents.” Ignoring the beseecher, you scan the news on your smartphone: Jeff Bezos now has $300 billion. Ahead, you see a struggling woman forced into an ICE van, next to signs promoting two candidates you despise but realize will control your future.

Does society have to be like this?

No. This essay will present an option, grounded in justice and liberty.

Global Egalitarianism is a political philosophy structured on the moral ideal of truly establishing all human beings as equals. 

We believe that concept, don’t we? All humans are equal in importance. This maxim inspired American and French revolutions, abolition of slavery, the women’s suffragette movement, gay rights, and every effort to overthrow a tyranny. 

All People Are Equal is the compassionate principle of modern, democratic civilization - we embrace this belief and expect others to react with anger if this ethos is violated. 

Earth should be an Egalitarian Planet. But it isn’t. 

Equality is distant dream today due to economic, social, and political institutions that divide rich and poor, powerful and powerless, bordered nations from bordered nations. 

In our 2020 world, people aren’t equal. The power of a rural, single mother in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is insignificant compared to a man addressing his cabinet at 1900 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC. 

• The richest 1% earn 26.3 times more than the bottom 99%.

• There are 2,095 billionaires, but 71% of people live on less than $10 a day.

• There are more slaves on Earth than ever before.

• One person has visited every nation on Earth but millions have never been out of their village.

• 750 million people would emigrate, if they could.

• 52% of people are dissatisfied with their democracy, and 71 nations aren’t democratic.

• 4.5 million Americans have PhDs, but 775 million people in the world are illiterate.

Let us obsolete these depressing statistics and establish global egalitarianism instead, using the tools of Wealth Redistribution, Open Borders, and Pure Democracy. 

WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION

Robin Hood is an egalitarian champion because he ‘robbed from the rich and gave to the poor.’ Many others - like Juraj Janosik (Slovak folk hero), Phoolan Devi (‘Bandit Queen’ of India), and Jose Mujica (President of Uruguay) conducted illegal philanthropy similar to the fictitious yeoman of Sherwood Forest. Today the most laudable proponent of wealth redistribution might be Kshama Sawant of Seattle; she spearheaded the movement for $15/hour minimum wage and she’s presently seeking to nationalize Amazon.

“Redistribution” evokes fear and rage in the upper class; clutching their pearls they hiss, “I worked hard for my money” despite 60% of US wealth being inherited. Most middle income people also bristle when ‘leveling’ is considered - it’s derided as communist thievery to support ‘lazy people.’

Truth is, economic history is a long tragedy of powerful entities enriching themselves by stealing from the poor and middle class. Ethical people are appalled that peasants worked 4 unpaid days a week for their landlord, but today’s situation, where Warren Buffett ($82.47 billion) pays less taxes than his secretary is identically unjust.

The rich don’t need all their money; they just buy unnecessary toys with it, like 169 cars, or giraffes ($40,000 - $80,000) and platinum Arowana fish ($300,000), or a kitchen remodel every three years. I know a man living alone in a $40 million house; his beach town has 147 homeless people. Money doesn’t even ‘buy happiness’ - researchers discovered that more wealth simply creates more want. 

The “Happy Nations” list exhibits the smallest divide between rich and poor. Happy Nations have a smaller ratio between CEO & worker salaries - in #1 Finland the average CEO salary is $99,515 - in #18 USA it is $820,616.

How rich or poor would everyone be if wealth was divided equally, amongst the world’s inhabitants? What’s the PPP per capita? The answer is $17,110 - similar to China and Costa Rica. Plus - if the world had ‘open borders’ - economists estimate global wealth would elevate 50%—150%. For simplicity’s sake, let’s just double the first figure, for $34,220 - a digit between the economy of delightful Slovenia and popular Portugal. 

This figure would lift 2.7 billion people out of their present-day poverty, and of course, lower spoiled others to a more modest standard of living. Solid gold toilets would lose their customers - egads!

How can money be redistributed? Multiple methods exist; let’s quickly discuss a few:

Reparations - Fairness requires that assets stolen from a region are returned, in full, even if the assets were stolen many years ago. Unpaid labor should also be recompensed. It’s evident that Africans and Diasporans of African descent deserve retribution for the enslavement, exploitation, and colonization of their continent. India also deserves to be paid back ($45 trillion?) for the precious treasures the British overlords robbed during colonization, plus the 15-29 million Bengalis who starved to death in the World War II era famine, due to food diverted by Winston Churchill. Similarly, the Dalits (untouchables) deserve compensation from their oppressors for the subjugation they’ve endured. 

Armenians and Greeks deserve reparations from Turks; Congolese deserve reparations from Belgium (King Leopold enslaved the populace on rubber plantations and killed 10 million); South Africans deserve reparations for apartheid; Native Americans deserve reparations from European invaders; Jamaica deserves reparations from Britain; South Korea deserves reparations from Japan; Vietnam deserves reparations from the USA; Serbia deserves reparations from NATO, and Haiti deserves reparations from France. 

Land Reform - Property is overly-owned by the already-prosperous, who enrich themselves further via rentals and extracting resources. Revolts are launched to distribute land fairly, but not often enough and they aren’t always successful. (Model land reforms occurred in Cuba and South Korea.) Oftentimes, land reform is stymied by foreign powers who want to continue gorging themselves with the status quo. Guatemalan and Chilean leaders, for example, wanted land reform but were overthrown by USA-instigated coups. 

Land could be distributed equally, globally. The figures on this are fantastic. If 7.8 billion people divided all the habitable land on Earth, there’d be 2.3 acres per person, claims a University of Texas study.

The Federal Land Dividend strategy of Zoltan Istvan is also worth considering. His idea is to lease USA public land (the government owns 40% of USA acreage, worth $150+ trillion) to provide $1,000 month dividends to citizens. This proposal is a fusion of UBI, Nationalization, and Land Reform tactics. 

Nationalization - Public ownership of a region’s resources and industries is a sure-fire way to equitably distribute profit. Norway’s nationalization of its North Sea oil serves as an exemplary example; the profits guarantee the citizenry with free health care, free education, and pensions. Similar situations are evidenced elsewhere: Bolivia nationalized gas, petroleum, hydroelectricity, and lithium - the latter move led to Evo Morales’s ousting in a coup engineered by US shenanigans. Cuba nationalized all private businesses and factories, including 36 US-owned sugar mills; this led to its decades-long pariah status. Chile nationalized copper; Mexico and Venezuela nationalized oil; Pakistan nationalized steel mills; Quebec province in Canada nationalized hydroelectric; Sri Lanka nationalized tea, rubber, and cocoa; Italy nationalized Italia airlines; India nationalized banks, etc. 

Nationalization exists worldwide, but still, only a small fraction of resources are publicly owned. Far more could be done. The Socialist Alternative party has an egalitarian agenda: they want the 500 biggest corporations in the USA to be publicly owned. Nationalization is fairer than today’s system where products are created by billionaires who pay workers demoralizing salaries. (Apple workers in China work 60 hour weeks for low pay in unsafe conditions). 

Taxation - Progressive income tax, wealth tax, property tax, inheritance tax, sales tax, value-added tax (VAT), and other levies can be used to encourage wealth redistribution. The USA rich were taxed up to 91% in the 1950’s, an era with far better economic equity than today. French economist Thomas Piketty believes “billionaires should be taxed out of existence”; his viewpoint is supported by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “No billionaires”, in my opinion, is a very permissive limitation. I personally think no one needs more than $10 million - this easily guarantees you ‘never have to worry about money again.’

Wages - Minimum wage and maximum wages policies can be used to level the financial field. Luxembourg has the highest minimum wage in the world per nation - $14.12 an hour - but in the USA, that’s topped in at least 17 cities that offer $15/hour or more. If personal wealth, globally, was capped at $34,220 annually, as I previously suggested, $20/hour in a 36-hour work week would be sufficient. Maximum wages only exist in Cuba - this strategy was voted on in Switzerland in 2013 but it failed to pass, receiving just 34.7% of the vote. An obviously target for maximum wage limits is the USA, where corporate CEOs are paid 361 times more than workers.

Universal Basic Income - UBI has accelerated quickly from ‘crazy idea’ to ‘practical solution.’ Early implementations in Canada, Namibia, Finland, Alaska and Stockton, California, suggested its potential. Andrew Yang campaigned for President with UBI as his signature goal. 20th century proponents like Martin Luther King Jr. and Richard Nixon suggest UBI’s major party appeal; Libertarians also appreciate its ability to reduce welfare bureaucracy. UBI guarantees citizenry - either all or selected segments - a monthly check to spend as they please. The Covid-19 pandemic sharply increased interest in UBI; by September 2020 policies were planned for Spain and 20-30 USA cities. 

Corporate Sharing & Worker Power - Germany gives workers significant representation in management, with 50% of the supervisory board of directors elected by labor. Their seat at the table guarantees they won’t be mistreated, like warehouse workers at Amazon, who are automatized and “treated like robots” - or at Tesla, oft-accused of racial hostility and discrimination. Strong unions also provide “higher wages, better benefits, increased economic mobility, and reduced poverty.”

Communes & Cooperatives - Numerous egalitarian communities exist, where members live and work together, sharing labor and profit from their enterprises. Examples include Twin Oaks Intentional Community in Virginia, Hutterite colonies in Canadian and US prairie states, and kibbutzim in Israel. Cooperatives and collectives also thrive worldwide, with research indicating they are more productive than hierarchal companies. Spain has more than 18,000 co-operatives, a legacy from the anarcho-syndicalist movement that preceded the Spanish Civil War. 

OPEN BORDERS

Open Borders are essential in creating Global Egalitarianism. Allowing free and easy immigration to every corner of the planet will deliver these benefits:

• People with specific job skills can relocate to an area where their potential can be maximized.

• People seeking education in their field of interest can move to receive the training they want.

• Commercial items can be transported easily without punitive tariffs and inspections.

• Economists claim Open Borders would elevate global wealth by 50% - 150%. This seems obvious: today millions are unable to produce their potential because they live in environments unsuitable to their skills.

• People with an aversion or disinterest in the culture of their homeland can relocate easily to other cultures where they can intellectually and emotionally thrive.

• People trapped in an overpopulated region or an area ‘going underwater’ due to climate change, can settle smoothly into a safer or less-crowded geography.

• Dangerous mindsets like patriotism, nationalism, and xenophobia will be avoided if everyone can relocate internationally, establishing cordial relationships across the globe.

• War between hostile nations will become increasingly rare if individuals see themselves as global citizens, instead of warriors for a single state.

• Understanding and empathy for all humanity will be elevated if borders are eliminated. Today’s demarcation of WE vs. THEM promotes dehumanization and suspicion of the ‘other.’

• 10. Cultural forms and intellectual ideas will flourish if access is enhanced.

Arguments against Open Borders are listed below, with rebuttals. 

Criminals will escape their homelands and invade unsuspecting neighboring nations!

   — Easily preventable. Access to international travel can be denied to those with a criminal record.

Immigrants from impoverished lands will migrate and seize all the best jobs in foreign lands.

   — Studies indicate most people choose not to move. Example: residents from the impoverished state of West Virginia ($24,774 per capita) seldom relocate 500 miles to the wealthy state of Connecticut ($76,456 per capita). This objection also lacks the morality that global egalitarianism requires. Is it ethical to deprive someone of livelihood because they didn’t grow up as your neighbor? Should their value be lessened because they’re categorized with the subhuman label of ‘alien’? Thirdly, immigrants are generally hired in employment niches the natives lack sufficient numbers to fill. Example: USA needs computer engineers, who are subsequently hired from China, India, Russia, etc. 

Local Culture will be destroyed. 

   — This is the weakest argument of all, as anyone who has eaten a juicy fish taco in Minnesota can testify. Culture survives because it provides joy and speaks to the human condition. Ghanaians celebrate both Christian and Muslim holidays, because they’re all fun. Music, art, cinema, literature and cuisine always borrow across borders: Cubism was inspired by West African masks; the violin (invented in Italy) is instrumental in Chinese concerts; spicy peppers, originating in Peru, are essential in Korean cooking; Nobel Prize novels and Oscar-winning films are applauded everywhere. 

PURE DEMOCRACY

Global Egalitarianism requires huge improvement in politics so all people are truly equal. Most democracies in the world are terrifically flawed; many have been re-classified as ‘oligarchies’ - rule by the rich. Pure Democracy is a goal no nation has yet attained, or is even close to. Achieving this has to be done incrementally. Below are suggestions in approximate order:

• Abolish Anti-Democratic Institutions. Many systems today subvert the will of the majority. These institutions need to be eliminated, or drastically reformed. In the USA this initial step requires abolishing the Senate and the Electoral College, electing Supreme Court justices, and transferring commander-in-chief powers from the President to the House of Representatives.

• Campaign Finance Reform. Political contests need to be publicly-financed - no outside money at all. Candidates abusing this must be disqualified.

• Abolish Lobbyists. Politicians cannot accept funding or favors from corporations and special interest groups; this obviously influences their votes. Washington DC needs to cleanse itself from all potential bribery.

• Ranked Choice Voting. This helps select politicians the majority can at least tolerate, and it eliminates the need to vote for ‘the lesser of two evils.’

• Adopt the Parliamentary System. Presidential government (adopted by 52 nations) is far less democratic than the Parliamentary system, enjoyed in 102 nations. The Parliamentary system enables smaller party representation, it reduces the power of the Executive branch, and it encourages multi-party collaboration.

• Encourage Secessions. Individual political power is elevated if the citizen belongs to a smaller group. A voice is more likely to be heard if it is one voice out of 100,000 - 10,000,000 instead of one voice out of 300,000,000 - 1,300,000,000. Eight of the Top Ten “Most Democratic Nations” have 10 million people or less, and none has more than 35 million people. To guide the world towards this, support separatist groups in Catalonia, Galicia, Flanders, Scotland, Chiapas, California, Texas, and Darfur - and support the desire of Berbers, Kurds, Yakuts, Batwa, Canarians, Balinese, Karenni, Assamese, Uygurs, Punjabi, Rwenzururu, and dozens of other ethnicities to govern themself.

• Demand Initiatives and Referendums (also known as Proposition or Plebiscites). “R & I’s’ provide ballot measures to the citizenry, so they can directly vote on reforms advanced by other citizens. (Surprisingly, 24 states do not even offer this option) Switzerland and Ireland offer the most referendums in Europe. In Asia, The Philippines is prolific with plebiscites.

• Poli Sci Education Required? Fear of ‘mob rule by idiots’ is often just elitism, but it would be alleviated if citizens has to pass information and logic tests for the right to vote.

• Abolish Politicians. Representative democracy is flawed because politicians are often narcissistic, authoritarian, and corrupt. If direct democracy referendums are in place, there’s no need for conniving intermediaries.

• Emulate Rojava Communalism - Rojava - the Kurdish autonomous zone in northern Syria - governs itself with a ‘communalist’ structure, designed by American political philosopher Murray Bookchin. Rojavans enjoy enormous power at the community level; its ‘bottom-up system’ provides a voice to everyone. The long-term goal of communalists is to organize Earth’s inhabitants into thousands of self-governing communities that are intrinsically linked into non-competitive, ever-large confederacies.

CONCLUSION

Do you find these utopian ideas preposterous? Science fictional? A wonky, cringe-inducing re-write of John Lennon’s “Imagine’?

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Disillusionment with the status quo, twinned with social media, can create rapid change.

Global Egalitarianism is the future we need.

References

Introduction

Jeff Bezos - $300 billion https://www.ccn.com/jeff-bezos-300-billion-amazon-becomes-worlds-8th-largest-economy

Global Egalitarianism https://globalegalitarianism.wordpress.com/about/ https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5_96 https://simoncaney.weebly.com/global-egalitarianism.html

equality inspires revolutions, etc. https://www.nps.gov/revwar/unfinished_revolution/01_all_men_are_created_equal.html

richest 1% earn 26.3 times more than bottom 99% https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/07/29/5-mind-blowing-statistics-about-the-richest-1.aspx

2,095 billionaires https://indianewengland.com/2020/04/forbes-releases-34th-annual-list-of-global-billionaires-includes-several-indians-and-indian-americans/

71% of people live on less than $10 a day https://money.cnn.com/2015/07/08/news/economy/global-low-income/index.html

more slaves on Earth than ever before https://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/slaves-time-human-history-article-1.3506975

One person has visited every nation on Earth https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/man-has-visited-every-country-in-the-world/

750 million people would emigrate, if they could https://news.gallup.com/poll/245255/750-million-worldwide-migrate.aspx

52% of people are dissatisfied with their democracy https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/02/27/satisfaction-with-democracy/

71 nations aren’t democratic https://www.reference.com/world-view/countries-democracy-8f9e05f7d96a76e7

775 million adults are illiterate https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/global-rate-of-adult-literacy-84-per-cent-but-775-million-people-still-cant-read/article4528932/#:~:text=There%20are%20775%20million%20people%20in%20the%20world,in%20their%20footsteps%20because%20they%20aren%27t%20attending%20school

Wealth Distribution

Juraj Janosik (Slovak folk hero) https://www.slavorum.org/juraj-janosik-legendary-slovak-thief-turned-hero/

Phoolan Devi (‘Bandit Queen’ of India) https://www.britannica.com/biography/Phoolan-Devi https://medium.com/@mishra18tanvi/phoolan-devi-the-real-bandit-queen-of-india-2fb09b35d17f

Jose Mujica (eventual President of Uruguay) https://nationalinterest.org/commentary/jos%C3%A9-mujica-uruguays-robin-hood-guerrillas-9066

Kshama Sawant of Seattle - $15/hour minimum wage https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2014/05/kshama-sawant-seattle-socialist.html

nationalize Amazon https://theoutline.com/post/6587/nationalize-amazon-make-bezos-our-bitch?zd=1&zi=ys72jrku

60% of US wealth inherited https://evonomics.com/americans-get-rich-stay-rich/

peasants had to work 4 days a week unpaid for their landlord http://www.lordsandladies.org/serfs.htm#:~:text=The%20daily%20life%20of%20a%20serf%20was%20dictated,the%20lord%27s%20mill%2C%20and%20pay%20the%20customary%20charge.

Warren Buffett pays less in taxes than his secretary is identically unjust https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/338189

unnecessary toys… like 169 cars https://www.thethings.com/priciest-cars-jay-leno-owns-and-cheapest/

giraffes ($40,000 - $80,000) https://www.exoticanimalsforsale.net/giraffe-for-sale.asp

Asian Arowana fish ($300,000) https://nypost.com/2016/06/05/this-fish-is-worth-300000/

beach town has 147 homeless people https://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/story/2019-10-01/aliso-viejo-denounces-federal-judges-statement-alleging-it-dumped-homeless-in-laguna-beach-shelter

more wealth simply creates more want https://www.livescience.com/10881-global-study-money-buy-happiness.html

“Happiest Nations” https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2020/03/20/ranked-20-happiest-countries-2020/#29f843517850

#1 Finland the average CEO salary is $99,515 https://www.payscale.com/research/FI/Job=Chief_Executive_Officer_(CEO)/Salary

#18 USA it is $820,616 https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/chief-executive-officer-salary

per capita income - $17,110 - similar to China and Costa Rica https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-per-capita/

Open Borders - global wealth would elevate 50% - 150% https://openborders.info/utilitarian/#:~:text=Utilitarian%20justifications%20for%20open%20borders%20hinge%20on%20the,economic%20production%20%28see%20our%20double%20world%20GDP%20page%29

Reparations

Africans deserve reparations https://nehandaradio.com/2020/05/25/tafi-mhaka-europe-should-pay-reparations-for-colonising-africa/

India deserves reparations https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-33618621

Dalits (untouchables) deserve compensation https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/india-dalits-reservation-representation-suraj-yengde-6523483/

Armenians deserve reparations from Turks https://ahvalnews.com/armenians-turkey/turkey-may-face-reparation-demands-after-us-recognises-armenian-genocide-turkish

Greeks reparation from Germany https://breakingnewsturkey.com/world/greece-demands-germany-pays-war-reparations

Congolese reparations from Belgium https://www.africanexponent.com/post/9792-will-belgium-ever-apologize-to-drc-and-pay-reparations

South Africans reparations for apartheid https://www.egalitarianplanet.org/south-africa-reparations-for-aparthied

Native Americans reparations from European imperialists https://study.com/academy/lesson/native-american-reparations.html

Jamaica reparations from Britain https://moguldom.com/189262/jamaica-wants-britain-to-pay-billions-in-reparations-for-slavery/

South Korea reparations from Japan https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-08-17/japan-korea-and-the-tquestion-of-how-to-pay-for-historic-wrongs

Vietnam reparations from the USA https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/18/opinion/the-forgotten-debt-to-vietnam.html

Serbia reparations from NATO https://europediplomatic.com/2019/09/15/moscow-suggests-us-reparations-for-yugoslavia-bombings/

Haiti reparations from France https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/01/haiti-reparations-france-slavery-colonialism-debt/

Land Reform

Cuba land reform https://cubaplatform.org/land-reform

South Korea land reform https://www.economist.com/asia/2017/10/12/for-asia-the-path-to-prosperity-starts-with-land-reform https://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/opinion/sa-could-model-its-land-reform-on-the-success-achieved-in-south-korea-10450729#:~:text=South%20Korea%E2%80%99s%20land%20reform%20is%20regarded%20as%20one,impact%20on%20agricultural%20productivity%2C%20which%20later%20sustained%20poverty-reduction

Guatemalan coup https://www.umbc.edu/che/tahlessons/pdf/historylabs/Guatemalan_Coup_student:RS01.pdf

Chilean coup https://foodfirst.org/publication/agrarian-reform-and-counter-reform-in-chile/

7.0 billion people divide Earth - 2.3 acres each https://foodfirst.org/publication/agrarian-reform-and-counter-reform-in-chile/

The Federal Land Dividend - Zoltan Istvan https://www.businessinsider.com/basic-income-with-federal-land-dividend-2017-7

Nationalization

Norway nationalization https://mg.co.za/article/2011-09-08-oil-together-now-nationalisation-lessons-from-norway/

Bolivia nationalization https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/bolivias-nationalization-oil-and-gas https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bolivia-power-nationalization-idUSTRE64013020100501

Bolivia coup engineered by US for lithium https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/morales-claims-orchestrated-coup-tap-bolivia-lithium-191225053622809.html

Cuba nationalizes 36 US-owned sugar mills http://en.cubadebate.cu/news/2015/08/10/cuba-nationalizes-us-companies/

Chile nationalized copper https://www.chemeurope.com/en/encyclopedia/Chilean_nationalization_of_copper.html

Mexico and Venezuela nationalized oil https://www.yahoo.com/news/brazil-venezuela-mexico-three-ways-nationalize-oil-150004780.html

Pakistan nationalized steel mills https://www.egalitarianplanet.org/pakistans-nationalized-steel-mills

Quebec nationalized hydroelectric https://www.egalitarianplanet.org/hydro-qubec-why-nationalize-the-electricity-sector

Sri Lanka nationalized tea, rubber, and cocoa http://teasrilanka.org/history

Italy nationalized Italia airlines https://www.businessinsider.com/alitalia-nationalized-by-italy-history-2020-3

India nationalized banks https://www.oneindia.com/feature/full-list-of-nationalised-banks-in-india-2718000.html

Socialist Alternative wants the 500 biggest corporations in the USA to be publicly owned https://www.socialistalternative.org/about/

Apple workers in China work 60 hour weeks for low pay in unsafe conditions https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/electronics/9174900/Apples-Chinese-staff-work-60-hours-a-week-independent-audit-finds.html

Taxation

US rich were taxed up to 91% in the 1950’s https://americansfortaxfairness.org/tax-fairness-briefing-booklet/fact-sheet-taxing-wealthy-americans/

Thomas Piketty “billionaires should be taxed out of existence” https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/12/billionaires-should-be-taxed-out-of-existence-says-thomas-piketty.html

‘no billionaires’ - Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/24/politics/bernie-sanders-ultra-wealth-tax-billionaires/index.html https://dailycaller.com/2019/10/02/aoc-billionaires-should-not-exist/

$10 million - ‘never have to worry about money again.’ https://www.getrichslowly.org/is-10-million-enough/ 

Wages

Luxembourg minimum wage - $14.12 an hour https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-countries-with-the-highest-minimum-wages.html

USA 17 cities with at least $15/hour minimum wage https://time.com/3969977/minimum-wage/

vote in Switzerland 2013 failed, receiving 34.7% of the vote https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/24/switzerland-votes-against-cap-executive-pay

USA CEOs are paid 361 times more than workers https://popularresistance.org/why-are-ceos-paid-361-times-more-than-their-average-employees/

Universal Basic Income

UBI in Canada https://www.egalitarianplanet.org/mincone-experiment-in-dauphine-manitoba

UBI Namibia https://www.egalitarianplanet.org/ubi-in-nambia

UBI Finland https://basicincome.org/news/2019/04/finland-further-results-from-the-famous-finnish-ubi-experiment-published/

UBI Alaska https://www.egalitarianplanet.org/alaskaubi

UBI Stockton, California https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-02/stockton-extends-its-universal-basic-income-pilot

UBI Martin Luther King Jr. https://www.egalitarianplanet.org/martin-luther-king-jr

UBI Richard Nixon https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/05/richard-nixon-ubi-basic-income-welfare/

Libertarians UBI https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/libertarian-case-basic-income

UBI Spain https://www.businessinsider.com/spain-universal-basic-income-coronavirus-yang-ubi-permanent-first-europe-2020-4

UBI 20-30 USA cities https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/08/08/universal-basic-income-gains-momentum-in-america

Corporate Sharing and Worker Power

Germany worker representation - 50% of the supervisory board of directors https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-08-24/why-german-corporate-boards-include-workers-for-co-determination#:~:text=Wherever%20on%20that%20spectrum%20your%20views%20lie%2C%20it,or%20require%20some%20such%20form%20of%20employee%20%E2%80%9Cco-determination.%E2%80%9D

Amazon workers “treated like robots” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/05/amazon-workers-protest-unsafe-grueling-conditions-warehouse

Tesla accused of racial hostility and discrimination https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-04-12/tesla-workers-claim-racial-bias-and-abuse-at-electric-car-factory

Union benefits https://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/economy/reports/2016/06/09/139074/unions-help-the-middle-class-no-matter-the-measure/

Communes and Cooperatives

Twin Oaks Intentional Community in Virginia https://www.twinoaks.org/

Hutterite colonies http://www.hutterites.org/

Kibbutzim https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/history-and-overview-of-the-kibbutz-movement

collectives more productive than hierarchal companies https://cccd.coop/news/%EF%BB%BF-worker-cooperatives-are-more-productive-normal-companies

Spain 18,000 co-operatives https://www.theguardian.com/social-enterprise-network/2012/mar/12/cooperatives-spain-mondragon

Open Borders

Open Borders General Info https://openborders.info

Open Borders elevate global wealth 50% 150% https://openborders.info/double-world-gdp/

USA imports computer scientists   https://www.prb.org/usforeignbornstem/

Cubism inspired by West African masks https://www.pablopicasso.org/africanperiod.jsp

Pure Democracy

Abolish Anti-Democratic Institutions https://hankpellissier.com/sixteen-reforms-to-improve-usa-democracy

Ranked Choice Voting https://www.fairvote.org/rcvbenefits#:~:text=%20Benefits%20of%20Ranked%20Choice%20Voting%20%201,more%20voices%20are%20heard.%20Often%2C%20to...%20More%20

Superiority of the Parliamentary System https://lebassy.blogspot.com/2006/07/superiority-of-parliamentary-system.html

“Most Democratic Nations” https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/democracy-countries

Separatist and Secessionist groups https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secession

24 states do not have Referendums and Initiatives https://ballotpedia.org/States_without_initiative_or_referendum

Switzerland and Ireland offer the most referendums in Europe https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/switzerland-held-9-referendums-already-2016-11727#:~:text=Switzerland%20has%20been%20holding%20referendums%20since%20the%2018th,to%20the%20polls%20more%20often%20than%20the%20UK.

Rojava Communalism https://itsgoingdown.org/the-communes-of-rojava-a-model-in-societal-self-direction/ https://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2020/08/20/the-two-faces-of-kurdistan/ https://roarmag.org/essays/communalism-bookchin-direct-democracy/

Murray Bookchin https://www.britannica.com/biography/Murray-Bookchin

A High Road for the 21st Century

[Photo credit: Black Socialists in America]

By Russell Weaver

In the 1990s, American scholar Joel Rogers proposed the term “High Road” to refer to policies and institutions that jointly uphold and advance the three social values of shared prosperity, environmental sustainability, and participatory democracy. Shared prosperity refers to improvements in human well-being and equal opportunities for all humans to “participate in and benefit from” the activities that produce those improvements. Environmental sustainability refers to “efficient use, maintenance, and restoration of the environmental services needed to support human life.” And participatory democracy refers to governance according to the maxim of “of, by, and for the people.”[1]

While these values are as laudable and fundamental to social life today as they ever were, the intersecting and multiplying crises coming to a head in the 21st Century – climate change, the global COVID-19 pandemic, systemic racism, racial and gender oppression, state violence, police militarization and police brutality, mass surveillance, political polarization, rising inequality, and so many others – call for an updated definition of the High Road. One that makes explicit not only what the High Road stands for, but what it opposes. One that is overtly connected to a broader theory of change regarding how to build a High Road future. One that offers allies a specific set of criteria on which to evaluate policies and practices in order to inform advocacy strategies and grassroots campaigns. In short, 21st Century crises demand a 21st Century High Road (“High Road-21”).

Importantly, the High Road that Rogers built still possesses a rock-solid foundation, and we are not calling for its wholesale replacement. High Road-21 is simply about broadening and repaving the surface, painting brighter lines, and installing new lighting to illuminate the paths that lead away from the harmful, discriminatory, gridlocked systems in which most of us have spent the majority of our lives, and to which we’re told that there is no alternative.

There are alternatives. Below, we articulate four key pillars of an alternative, High Road system for the 21st Century. We then translate each pillar into one or more High Road-21 policy objectives, and we briefly situate the resulting vision into a broader theory of change. We conclude with a call to action: we ask readers to endorse this statement, and to join us in our attempts to embrace and enact High Road-21 principles and values in our many, ever-changing social roles.

The Four Essential Pillars of High Road-21

Four main, interlocking and interdependent pillars hold the 21st Century High Road in place.

Pillar 1: The High Road is Anti-Racist

High Road-21 is anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-misogynist, anti-ableist, anti-homophobic, anti-transphobic, anti-classist, and opposed to all other forms of prejudice. While the original High Road principle of shared prosperity is consistent with this pillar in spirit, being for shared prosperity is not enough. It is just as critical to be against all policies, institutions, norms, rules, regulations, conventions, and practices that produce, reinforce, or fail to dismantle the structures and systems that give rise to inequitable outcomes in the human population. As such, High Road-21 explicitly rejects all sources of inequity, violence, and oppression.

A policy or institution is anti-racist if it “produces or sustains racial equity between racial groups.” To be anti-racist is to recognize that there:

“is no such thing as a nonracist or race-neutral policy. Every policy in every institution in every community in every nation is producing or sustaining either racial inequity or equity between racial groups.”[2]

Following from these observations, one objective of High Road policy in the 21st Century is to actively tear down, with the intent to fully eradicate, the sources of racial, social, economic, environmental, and political inequity and injustice that presently transcend all scales of our shared society, from the local to the global.

Pillar 2: The High Road is Restorative and Reparative

Whereas High Road-21 is against policies and institutions that produce and sustain inequity, it is for policies and institutions that (1) advance equity in the pursuit of justice, and (2) realign and rescale human activities so that they progressively repair and enhance the ecological systems in which an equitable and just society is capable of flourishing. In other words, High Road-21 is in part a reparative and restorative project.

In line with notions of reparative[3] and restorative[4] justice, the High Road-21 agenda aims to explicitly recognize and purposefully redress the harms caused by a legacy of Low Road – i.e., racist, inequitable, extractive, destructive – policies and patterns of social-political-environmental relations. That means that High Road-21 is committed to:

·         Including all parties – including voices for nonhuman species and ecological systems – as full, authentic participants in decision-making processes that affect them, and which have previously rendered disproportionate levels of harm onto some of them;

·         Creating new opportunities for encounters with or interactions between those parties so that all become aware of the ways in which existing institutions produce and distribute harm across our social and environmental systems;

·         Devising new solutions and crafting new institutions and policies that make amends for these patterns of harm; and

·         Striving to reintegrate or resituate parties into their shared environments with new tools and infrastructure to become caretakers and community members, not competitors.[5]

Along these lines, another objective of High Road policy in the 21st Century is to actively invest in, and develop mechanisms that convey, material and symbolic reparations to the people, places, and ecosystems on which inequitable, extractive institutions and policies have thrust disproportionate levels of harm.

Pillar 3: The High Road is Cooperative and Solidaristic

As evidenced by the list of commitments laid out above for Pillar 2, High Road-21 adopts and advances the values of democratic participation, social cohesion, government responsiveness, and the spirit of compromise.[6] Put differently, High Road-21 is cooperative and solidaristic. It views democratic society as a common-pool resource. Like a fishery or other commons, a democratic society can deliver benefits to all of its constituents. Also like a fishery, however, a democratic society is vulnerable to the polluting forces of greed, short-term profit-seeking, hyper-individualism, and rival competition. Low Road policies and institutions that reward or otherwise promote these tendencies undermine the health and well-being of our common-pool democratic society.

High Road-21 recognizes that a common-pool democratic society is most likely to be sustainably managed – and strengthened – when its members share a sense of identity and solidarity with one another. Shared identity and solidarity fuel and sustain the trusting, reciprocal relationships that are vital for prosocial cooperation to emerge and challenge the Low Road system’s prevailing forces of antisocial competition.[7] Solidarity and the cooperative tendencies that it unleashes are buttressed by processes and rules that provide for democratic self-governance and self-determination, equitable distributions of contributions and benefits, and fair and inclusive decision-making.[8] Low Road policies and practices that concentrate wealth and power in the hands of the few are necessarily anti-solidaristic, giving rise to the patterns of inter-group conflict and competition that are so visible in our contemporary crises.

Thus, a third objective of High Road policy in the 21st Century is to actively build new and reinforce existing mechanisms that produce solidarity and trust and promote cooperative tendencies among diverse members of society.

Solidarity and cooperation among humans contribute to the sustainable management of a democratic society. However, a cooperative, democratic society cannot thrive in the absence of healthy, supportive, life-giving ecological systems. Since at least the Industrial Revolution, an extractive, anthropocentric policy agenda has treated ecological systems as inexhaustible sources of free materials, and bottomless sinks for wastes and debris. Arguably the most visible form of human environmental impacts, global climate change, is just one – albeit the most dramatic, large-scale, and urgent – example of the environmental degradation and destruction caused by human activities.

Although human impacts on the physical world occur virtually everywhere and affect all ecosystems, environmental degradation and destruction disproportionately harm communities of color.[9] Thus, for moral reasons that are rooted both in (1) a land ethic[10] and respect for the environment, and (2) a social contract and respect for fellow humans, High Road-21 is committed to building solidarity and cooperation between humans and nature. As such, a fourth objective of High Road policy in the 21st Century is to actively create new and reinforce existing mechanisms that decenter human activities on the planet, realigning and rescaling those activities so they promote the healthy, unimpaired functioning of ecological systems.

Pillar 4: The High Road is Prefigurative

To say that High Road-21 is prefigurative is to say that it is at once visionary and practical. It builds and showcases rules, institutions, and social-environmental relations in the here-and-now – using tools of the present – that model what a High Road society can be in the future. In other words, the 21st Century High Road is not a destination to be reached at some unknown point in the future. It is a path that is already under construction across the planet – a path that leads away from the racist, extractive, short-term, Low Road infrastructure that we’ve been investing in for centuries.

It’s time to finally let the costs of those Low Road investments, and the harmful infrastructure they erected, sink. High Road institutions like worker-owned cooperatives and community land trusts,[11] mutual aid networks,[12] and local agricultural cooperatives and independent grassroots political parties,[13] are modeling what a High Road, sustainable, cooperative, democratic economy and society can look like…if we choose to invest in it. On that note, a fifth objective of High Road policy in the 21st Century is to immediately and actively defund or otherwise withdraw economic support from Low Road institutions, programs, and regulatory systems, and to redirect those resources to the anti-racist, reparative, restorative, cooperative, solidaristic High Road alternatives that already exist and are continuing to emerge throughout society.

High Road-21 and the Dual Power Theory of Change

The Four Pillars of High Road-21 are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. They are all vital to the structural integrity of a 21st Century High Road. As such, they should not be treated as separate elements than can or ought to be built one at a time.

Still, it is a useful thought exercise to consider the individual Pillars somewhat sequentially, in reverse order, insofar as doing so tells a story of change. If the vision is an anti-racist, reparative, cooperative, solidaristic, High Road democratic society, then how do we exit off the Low Road and start moving in that direction?

According to the theory of change to which High Road-21 subscribes,[14] one answer to this question is that we prefigure the envisioned society by modeling it in the here-and-now. That is, we use the tools and resources at our disposal in the present to build equitable and democratic institutions that directly challenge the future viability of the Low Road. For example, we:

• Form place-based “people’s assemblies” wherein participatory or direct democracy procedures set policy agendas that inform “organizing campaigns…and long-term institution building and development work” to challenge the status quo.[15]

• Organize independent political parties and mobilize voting blocs to advocate for and elect candidates – and pass referenda – that challenge Low Road power structures.[16]

• Establish community land trusts and co-housing opportunities to challenge traditional concepts of private property and property ownership.

• Build cooperative businesses to challenge stockholder-centered enterprise designs.

• Create benefit corporations, social enterprises, and limited-profit firms to challenge conventional views that businesses must put profits first, minimizing costs and maximizing revenues with every decision.

• Set up public and community-owned banks, utilities, and energy grids to challenge the misguided belief that market competition makes the private sector better suited to provide these essential goods and services.

The list goes on and on. The point is not to name every variety of High Road institution, but to affirm that they exist. Here. Now.

Collectively, these High Road institutions form the building blocks of a democratic, High Road base of real political and economic power. As that power base grows and becomes more distributed over space, it competes for economic and political legitimacy with the prevailing Low Road power base.

The notion that a democratic power coexists and competes with the concentrated power of the ruling class is what is meant by dual power.[17] To build dual power is to invest in High Road institutions and policies that are “of, by, and for” the people in a democratic society – institutions and policies designed and operated in contraposition to prevailing, highly uneven patterns of power and privilege.

According to the dual power theory of change, as the High Road expands, society can become more equitable, democratic, inclusive, and sustainable. However, while the presence of prefigurative High Road institutions and voting blocs is a necessary condition for weakening the Low Road power base, it is not sufficient. Rather, it is also essential to build solidarity between High Road institutions, and between those institutions and the population at large. If we are all to eventually live on the High Road together, then we need to see and get to know one another. The High Road, in other words, cannot be built without strong networking, organizing, and mobilization.

With a visible, networked, and expanding alternative to the Low Road in place, the potential for social cooperation – in the form of collective withdrawal from the Low Road economy and movement toward High Road alternatives – grows. As this potential gets realized, the scales start to tip in favor of the High Road. Eventually, the swelling democratic power base gains legitimacy. With added legitimacy comes greater political power to dismantle preexisting inequitable, racist, Low Road policies, and to make amends for their legacies. In other words, a strong base of legitimate democratic power paves the way for restorative and reparative measures that undo the harms of the past. In their place, the High Road power installs sustainable and anti-racist fixtures that guarantee equity and justice for all.

Over time, the interplay of (1) dismantling and making amends for mechanisms that lead to inequity and environmental destruction, and (2) building equitable, sustainable mechanisms to take their place, closes off the Low Road and helps the few who remain stuck in its gridlock to join the rest of us on the High Road.[18]

In sum, the 21st Century High Road is the welcoming, sustainable infrastructure on which we build dual power. It’s where relentlessly democratic, equitable, anti-racist, solidaristic institutions, campaigns, and policies will allow all humans to flourish as equal members of healthy, well-functioning ecological systems. Simply put, it’s where we go from here.

Take Action

To add your name and/or the name of your organization to the list of parties who support the 21st Century High Road agenda laid out above, visit www.highroad-21.org and click on the “Endorse” link at the bottom of the page. Onward, in solidarity.

Notes

[1] Rogers, Joel. “What does 'high road' mean?” University of Wisconsin-Madison, COWS, 1990. Last accessed 3 June 2020. https://www.cows.org/_data/documents/1776.pdf

[2] Kendi, I.X., 2019. How to be an Antiracist. One World/Ballantine. (p. 18).

[3] International Center for Transitional Justice, n.d. “Gender and Transitinoal Justice: A Training Module Series.” Last accessed 4 June 2020. https://www.ictj.org/multimedia/interactive/gender-and-transitional-justice-training-module-series

[4] Centre for Justice and Reconciliation, n.d. “Lesson 1: What is Restorative Justice?” Last accessed 4 June 2020. http://restorativejustice.org/restorative-justice/about-restorative-justice/tutorial-intro-to-restorative-justice/lesson-1-what-is-restorative-justice/

[5] Ibid.

[6] Fung, A., 2019. Saving Democracy from Ourselves: Democracy as a Tragedy of the Commons. In Satz, D. and Lever, A. eds. Ideas That Matter: Democracy, Justice, Rights. Oxford University Press, USA.

[7] Ostrom, E., 1990. Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge university press.

[8] Atkins, P.W., Wilson, D.S. and Hayes, S.C., 2019. Prosocial: using evolutionary science to build productive, equitable, and collaborative groups. New Harbinger Publications.

[9] Bullard, R.D., 2000. Dumping in Dixie: Race, class, and environmental quality. Routledge.

[10] Leopold, A., 1989. A Sand County almanac, and sketches here and there. Oxford University Press, USA.

[11]Colón, J.M., Herson-Hord, M., Horvath, K.S., Martindale, D. and Porges, M., 2017. Community, Democracy, and Mutual Aid: Toward Dual Power and Beyond. The Next System Project, https://thenextsystem.org/sites/default/files/2017-07/Symbiosis_AtLargeFirst-corrected-2.pdf.

[12] Mutual Aid Networks, n.d. Last accessed 3 June 2020. https://www.mutualaidnetwork.org/

[13] Akuno, K., 2014. The Jackson-Kush Plan: The Struggle for Black Self-Determination and Economic Democracy.

[14] Colón et al. Also see: Akuno, K., Nangwaya, A. and Jackson, C., 2017. Jackson rising: The struggle for economic democracy and black self-determination in Jackson, Mississippi. Daraja Press.

[15] Akuno.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Black Socialists of America. “Dual power map.” Last accessed 3 June 2020. https://blacksocialists.us/dual-power-map

[18] Rogers, Joel and Wright, E., 2015. American society: How it really works, 2E. New York: WW Norton. (p. 228).

Contact: Russell Weaver is Research Director at the Cornell University ILR Buffalo Co-Lab.  rcweaver@cornell.edu | http://highroadpolicy.org

Donald Trump and Erik Prince's Privatization of War

(Pictured: Corporate mercenaries in Afghanistan)

By James Richard Marra

During my career as a business analyst, I learned much about why and how some businesses succeed while others fail. Failure may result from higher wage levels, employee health insurance costs, or market conditions. Nevertheless, it generally occurs due to poor management: owner incompetence, arrogance, and greed, insensitivity to fundamental business factors and best practices, or a flawed understanding of their markets and competitors.

I bring this up because the neofascist governance in Washington and its corporate partners are wooing Americans toward another imperial catastrophe in the Middle East, this time involving Iran. For these capitalists, much is never enough. So as expected, the military-technology-surveillance complex (MTSC) wishes to expand its profitable productive capacity into new or under-exploited war-commodity markets. The success of this expansion depends upon careful attention to geographic, material, and operational considerations. Best business practices demand that the MTSC develops a sound plan by first consulting experts in these areas. These factors might include those identified by the famous military theorist Carl von Clausewitz. For von Clausewitz, the three pillars of warfare are strategy, operations, and tactics. Within the MTSC’s production and marketing plans, these required military functions are transformed into profitable exchange values - money. If this program is managed well, the sky is the limit. If not, failure will likely come.

With these thoughts in mind, we might consider the case of Erik Prince, the ex-Navy Seal and founder/CEO of the failed and criminally mercenary service provider Blackwater. In 2018, Prince, the brother of Education Secretary, and public-education privatizer, Betsy DeVos, approached the Trump Administration with a proposal to privatize the Afghan War. Prince’s dog-and-pony show claimed that the war could be waged more economically and efficiently, while deploying fewer troops in smaller specialized units. 

Neofascists, like Steve Bannon, invited further discussion and exploration. This is not surprising because fascism of any sort, including today's neofascism, is an artful alliance of an anti-conventional and zealous "Leader," a hyper-nationalistic culture, and an exceptionally exploitative form of capitalism. Trump's fascism gets its "neo" in part from the fact that today's capitalism is largely unfettered, "neoliberal," finance-and-service-dominated, and monopolized. This current form differs from the manufacturing capitalism that dominated the world economy from the 1920s to the 1980s. Furthermore, history reminds us that, while Hitler disliked “industrialists,” he admired Henry Ford to the extent that, in 1938, he bestowed upon him the Grand Cross of the German Eagle.

Now, capitalism opposes worker control over their labor power. The military command structure epitomizes this, as unions are banned and the demands made upon military labor (soldiers) go unquestioned. Likewise, fascist governance requires that workers absolutely obey the will of the political Leader, as it is transformed into the productive operations in which workers participate.

Both Prince and Bannon recognized a profitable business opportunity enabled by the structural efficiencies fascism offers within a privatized war market. In this model, military needs are continually identified and marketed by the Leader and the MTSC through their political minions and the capitalist media. Once workers are indoctrinated to the benefits of war, the MTSC transforms those needs into corresponding commodities. Vast amounts of capital are provided by taxes largely levied upon the working class. Politically trumped up fears of the working class not only provide a market incentive, but also mobilize workers’ labor power, both on and off the battlefield.

Trump’s military and other members of the MTSC balked at Prince’s scheme. Generals Mattis, Kelly, and McMaster ensured that Prince’s folly was a non-starter. Given this, a question arises: How could a neofascist mercenary's neofascist proposal to a neofascist Leader fail? Prince is neither an idiot nor a novice. His operational capabilities have been successfully field-tested, are marshaled by a highly skilled cadre of special-forces experts, and bolstered by significant international technical and political support.

It occurs to me that Prince’s business failure significantly resides in his misunderstanding of the contemporary war market and its players. He doesn’t understand his competitors’ collective business model, its functional role within the neofascist governance, or its monopolistic structure. Prince’s arrogance leads him to believe he can slither his way directly to the top of the neofascist food chain, biting off a prime piece of the war market without complaint from the big players. That might work if the market were immature, and competition largely relevant to profitability. But today’s market is both mature and well organized. Leading participants synergistically avoid price wars, fight unions and organizing efforts, fund think tanks and lobbyists, contribute to the campaign coffers of servile politicians, and meet together at national and global conferences to determine market rules.

Dominant corporations viscously defend themselves from the competitive risks presented by new and less mature companies. Thus, corporations join in a “co-respective” market behavior that largely guarantees their continuing control and profitability.

Alex Hollings asks:

So why didn’t Trump...a business man that values bottom-line savings, sign off on it?...Steve Bannon, Trump’s recently fired chief strategist, was said to support Prince’s plan, but the Generals Mattis, Kelly, and McMaster have all dismissed it.  For those in Bannon’s corner, they argue it’s because he’s the outsider, free from the political pressures of the military industrial complex.

A congressional aide attending the meeting reported, “The adults hate it.”

There is another potential problem, although one that might offer a silver lining for Prince: the laws that govern American wars. These pesky laws make it more difficult for any privatized war business to control production, supply, and operational management. For a privatized war commodity to be successful, businesses require that civilian leadership regularly deliver new war-needs, which would motivate market demand. While both Democrats and Republicans are quick to fund occasional “short” wars, that isn’t enough. What is needed is a government that will go to war as unhesitatingly and continually, as Hitler did devouring the nations of Europe. A fascist leadership is ideal because it considers war to be among the noblest of human endeavors, and resists conventional or legal restraints imposed by “decadent” liberal democracies.

However, today’s renewed calls for limits upon the now imperial presidency from the American left illustrate the business risk represented by not appreciating the vicissitudes involved in political strategy. Prince’s short-term thinking led him to largely ignore the fact that presidents come and go. Public opinion changes with the lifting of a TV remote, and politicians the chase political winds like a bloodhound after a jackrabbit through a lush Kentucky meadow. Prince failed to appreciate that his business success hinged on controlling the dance card at a capitalist senior prom to which he is not invited.

My references to “neofascism” may annoy some folks: "You’re calling Trump a neofascist just because you don’t like his politics!” Although I find Trump's politics uniquely vile, that fact doesn’t inform my understanding of a “Futurist”-inspired fascism. To understand Futurism, let's allow it to speak for itself.

Futurists wish to

...sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and boldness.

...extol aggressive movement, feverish insomnia, the double-quick step, the somersault, the box on the ear, the fisticuff.

...to destroy the museum, the libraries, to fight against moralism, feminism and all opportunistic and utilitarian malignancy.

...glorify war - the only health-give [sic] of the world - militarism, patriotism, the destructive arm of the Anarchist, the beautiful ideas that kill, and contempt for woman.

These pleasantries might well have come from Donald Trump or one of his torch-bearing neo-Nazi devotees. But, they are offered by the founder of the Futurist movement, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, in Futurist Aristocracy (1923), edited by the Italian Futurist Nanni Leone Castelli. As such, they illuminate a frightening Futurist thread between contemporary Trumpian neofascism and its historical roots. Benito Mussolini was a Futurist of sorts, and was seen by many contemporaries, Italian or otherwise, as the epitome of the aggressive and spontaneous Futurist hero. Here are a few priceless insights from Benito Mussolini’s (with Giovanni Gentile) 1932 article “Doctrine of Fascism.”

[Fascism]...repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism....[W]ar alone brings up to their highest tension all human energies and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it.

For Fascism the tendency to Empire, that is to say, to the expansion of nations, is a manifestation of vitality...

Fascism attacks the whole complex of democratic ideologies and rejects them both in their theoretical premises and in their applications or practical manifestations. [F]ascism denies that the majority, through the mere fact of being a majority, van [sic] rule human societies; it denies that this majority can govern by means of a periodical consultation; it affirms the irremediable, fruitful and beneficent inequality of men, who cannot be leveled by such a mechanical and extrinsic fact as universal suffrage.

Against individualism, the Fascist conception is for the State; and it is for the individual in so far as he coincides with the State, which is the conscience and universal will of man in his historical existence.

Fascism, in short, is not only the giver of laws and the founder of institutions, but the educator and promoter of spiritual life. It wants to remake, not the forms of human life, but its content, man, character, faith. And to this end it requires discipline and authority that can enter into the spirits of men and there govern unopposed.

These happy thoughts tighten the historical thread that connects Mussolini’s historical fascism to Trump’s regime, as transmitted through pseudo-intellectuals like Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka. This fascist mentality now commands the most powerful military force in human history. Trump’s behavior in both deed and word is a litany of fascist, and therewith Futurist, virtues.

Possessing the legal and political prerequisites for endless warfare, war enterprises need capital to fuel ongoing accumulation. War profiteers understand that citizens purchase war commodities in the sense that they accede to the Constitutional requirement that they pay war costs through taxation. In the current war market, temporary wars no longer provide the required market potential or capital. Fighting temporary wars no longer makes market sense. Instead, the working class must purchase a product that is always urgently needed, requiring continuing maintenance, like the family car. To ensure the needed profitability, war is sold as an indispensable civic need, based upon a continually present danger. That danger comes conveniently from “terrorists,” a term whose meaning is so muddled that it can apply to anyone, anywhere, anytime, anyhow.

With the proper social and political indoctrination, and product marketing, citizens happily surrender their Constitutional right to decide against whom, where, when, and how they sacrifice themselves to the god of imperial war. They are invited by a monopoly of war service providers to choose between column A or column A. Americans now enjoy a neofascist Leader in the White House, and a semi-fascist congress willing to pass mushrooming military budgets. If there were a Constitutional challenge to this state of affairs, the matter would be decided by a Supreme Court infested with neoliberal sycophants. Thus, endless war, as always under capitalism, becomes a good business investment, and therefore good governance.

Under Trump's neofascism, the Leader commands the “supply side” of the war market. Taxes on war businesses are deeply cut, while those enterprises become decreasingly deregulated and increasingly empowered. Under contemporary capitalism, the distinction between the sales effort, which invents new needs, and commodity production is largely dissolved. With the rise of a privatized war market, the traditional relationship between democratic governance and the “invisible” divine hand that supposedly guides markets is, to echo Mussolini, "repudiated." The MTSC is now fully absorbed within the structural operations of the governance, and vice versa. The business role of the Leader is to manage a permanent war-marketing project that inspires the continuing development of new war commodities. Thus, the US Defense Department is “deconstructed” (to use one of Bannon’s favorite words), only to emerge refreshed as the Fannie Mae of American global capitalist dominance.

In sum, Prince’s business proposal was ill conceived, misinformed, and poorly timed. It suffered from management problems that most failed businesses experience. While Prince, like Trump, may have obtained some measure of business success by bullying the defenseless and lying about much, both have left an ultimate legacy of business failure and bankruptcy. Unfortunately, Trump was provided a place at the head of the capitalist table by a rapacious Republican Party and its white nationalist supporters. It will remain to be seen if Prince learns some lessons and abandons his unprofitable arrogance in favor of sound business judgment. For the sake of the American working class, I hope that won’t happen.