How the rich came to control America

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SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 1987 17 In conjunction with the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution, Socialist Action is printing a four-part series of articles by Paul Siegel on the topic of democracy in America.

In the first installment, which appeared last month, Professor Siegel reviewed many of the numerous struggles through which democratic rights were won in this country. He pointed out, however, that democracy remains extremely limited and superficial under capitalism. Socialists aim to extend and deepen this democracy.

Paul Siegel is Professor Emeritus at Long Island University. He has written several books on political and literary themes, including "Revolution and the 20th-Century Novel" (Pathfinder Press, 1979) and "The Meek and the Militant: Religion and Power Across the World" (Zed Press, 1986).

Following the Civil War, the enormous increase of wealth of the industrial capi -talists more and more made the United States a plutocracy that was democratic only in form.

Today, according to a study commis -sioned by the Federal Reserve Board in 1983, the wealthiest top 10 percent own 84 percent of this nation's assets and the richest 1 percent own half of the country's wealth.

Political democracy was fought for under the banner of "equality under the law." Every one, it was said, should be subject to the same laws; no one should have any special privileges by birth. But from the very beginning, the difference between rich and poor made this supposed equality a sham. • The essence of the matter was well expressed by the French socialist Anatole France, who wrote ironically, "The law in its majestic equality forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

With the present concentration of wealth, "equality under the law" becomes more of a sham than ever. The "rich and well-born" do not merely "check the imprudence of democracy," as the early American statesman Alexander Hamilton once noted. The rich effectively run the country for their own interests.

It is not a matter of a conspiracy that, once unmasked, can be thwarted. It is a matter of wealth attracting power as a magnet attracts iron filings.

The Rockefeller dynasty Let us take just one of the few powerful families that rule America: the Rockefellers. All of the many denun -ciations and exposures of John D. Rockefeller Sr., whose unscrupulousness and ruthlessness made him the most hated man of his generation, did not prevent him from building a dynasty that has been a central part of the country's aristocracy of wealth in this century.

Its power is indicated by a statement of Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio—a representative of midwestern capital —who was so piqued by his defeat in the 1952 Republican Party convention that he complained bitterly, "Every Republican candidate for president since 1936 has been nominated by the Rockefeller Chase Bank."

The Rockefeller influence has not been confined to the Republican Party. Both Kennedy and Johnson sought to have David Rockefeller become secretary of the treasury. David Rockefeller, although declining the position, "helped convince Kennedy to adopt" tax measures that resulted in "a massive redistribution of income from the poor to the wealthy." (quoted from "The Rockfellers: An American Dynasty" by Peter Collier and David Horowitz)

Most of all, however, the Rockefeller family has exerted its influence in politics through those who came from the executive levels of Rockefeller-supported institutions.

Such policy technicians as Walt Rostow, the foreign affairs adviser of Johnson; Henry Kissinger, the foreign affairs adviser and secretary of state of Nixon and Ford; and Zbigniew Brezinski, the foreign affairs adviser of Carter, were the products of Rockefeller institutes and think tanks.

Through such persons, as well as through their own direct influence, the Rockefellers have been in on most of the epoch-making decisions of contemporary history.

Aristocrats in Congress

The aristocracy of wealth to which the Rockefellers belong also controls Con -gress, which is closely tied to it. The lower house of Congress is called the House of Representatives, but its members are scarcely representative of the people.

It would be very hard, even with a magnifying glass, to find an auto worker or a steel worker among members of Congress. Most of them are corporation lawyers or businesspeople and have business interests that are directly affected by the legislation they enact.

This is even more true of the Senate, almost half of which is made up of people who either have a million dollars or close to a million dollars.

The high aristocracy of wealth, however, does not generally so much engage in the dirty work of politics as provide the wherewithal for it. Every wheeler-dealer politician is well aware that money greases the wheels of politics.

The enormous amount of money that it takes to gain visibility in election cam -paigns is for the most part supplied by business interests that often give money to the Republicans and Democrats at the same time. Whichever side wins, they win.

Both parties are devoted to shoring up the capitalist system and take for granted that workers thrown out of work will bear the brunt of the recessions inherent in the SERATE #******* detentch: if it Foi system. The differences between them are minor and subject to change.

"Friends" of labor?

Because the Republican Party has been more prone than the Democratic Party since the time of Franklin Roosevelt to cut social welfare, the Democratic Party, cultivating the image of the friend of the working people, has received the votes of many workers, of Blacks and other racial minorities, and of the poor.

But while Roosevelt was fulminating against the "economic royalists," more than 400 of them gave money to his party in the 1936 election campaign. Among the large contributors, as Ferdinand Lundberg pointed out at the time in "America's 60 Families," were members of the ruling families-the Dukes, the Pattersons, the Reynolds, the Vanderbilts, the Whitneys, and the McCormicks.

These were mainly representative of light industry and mercantile interests concerned with the retail market. Meanwhile, heavy industry and banking mainly backed the Republicans.

So, too, today, whatever differences between different sections of the ruling rich are reflected in the two major parties they control, both of these parties express the broad interests of the capitalist class as a whole, not the interests of the workers and the middle classes who vote for them.

The labor bureaucracy has often been said to be a partner in an alliance within the Democratic Party, but it is a partner only in the sense that a horse is a partner of its rider. The Democratic Party is no more a party of labor than a company union organized by a boss is a real union fighting for the rights of its members.

The company union may hold an annual picnic with free beer and speeches about the virtues of the partnership existing between the company and its workers, but that does not make it an instrument of the workers.

All in the family The two-party system turns everything to its use. Some years ago, legislation was enacted that set a limit on the amount of money that could be contributed to political parties and that provided for government financing of them. This supposed reform actually served to bolster the two-party monopoly, not to weaken it.

Government money goes to parties in accordance with the votes they received on the principle that those who have shall get Sreti BF.M #UST MONOPOL #U51. " paneler.

Franklin D. Roosevelt and those who have not shall remain in poverty.

At the same time, political action committees devoted to specific political causes but ostensibly not controlled by political parties receive a tremendous amount of money from the wealthy. Through these means the political system is more than ever controlled by big capital. The politicians compete as to who is to get the most gravy, but they are united in supporting the system that dispenses gravy.

Winner takes all

The two major parties also maintain their monopoly through state laws that require other parties to engage in the difficult task of obtaining large numbers of signatures within a short period of time before they can appear on ballots. Often even after they obtain these signatures, they are thrown off the ballot on technicalities or legal am -biguities. If they engage in costly law suits, these are usually decided after the The elections themselves are on a winner-take-all basis so that small parties do not get a share of representation proportionate to their votes. This is an ideal way of keeping small parties small, as many persons do not like to "waste" their votes by voting for a party that does not have an immediate chance of winning.

Instead they often vote for someone they don't really want in order to avoid someone else to whom they are strongly opposed. Thus no matter who is elected, it is someone they don't want.

The mass media give the Republican and Democratic parties another important means to maintain their political monopoly. This topic will be discussed further in next month's issue of Socialist Action.

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Socialist Action forum:

On Jan. 23, the San Francisco branch of Socialist Action organized a symposium on "Theater and the Fight for Social Justice."