United States | News & Politics

Don't forget class conflict! Capitalism is about maximixing profit and does so by making it so that the captains with capital (used to purchase the means of production) have inordinate power over the other classes, with the main underclass being the workers (paid a wage by the capitalist).

We the people only have power to the extent that we can contradict and oppose this class with inordinate power. But that class has inordinate power! It fights back! They control the cops and the political class (legislators, executives, judges) does their bidding. If we get too uppity, they fire us. In fact, they have such influence over society, education, and finance that they set a national employment rate target to ensure we are always yoo afraid to lose our jobs rather than employers being too afraid to lose employees.

Historically, the only way to make strides is radical organized action that goes beyond the political actions they tell us to take. Working with political orgs that leverage direct action and escalations, just as was done to fight for the rights of black Americans, women, gay people, etc.

Though we should also recognize that the real brass tacks are not truly negotiable via legislative pushes or direct actions that achieved the former victories. It may be possible to claw back bits and pieces like banning lobbying (it would take an incredible effort to achieve this, as it is not overtly about the oppression of a group) but as I mentioned before, that would not remove money from politics, just remove legal bribery. The political class would still make decisions based on threats by capital, threats by finance, and the information we consume would be generated by people working at the direction of that class. True liberation requires a more thorough, principled, and disciplined approach that overthrows the capitalist order itself - not that this is easy, but it is probably at least as easy as banning lobbying in my estimation.