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_😑_😑_😑===========😘*..::;; Millennium: Neoliberalism contre Democracy ;;::..**============😑_😑_😑_


The early supporters of neoliberalism believed that through war and international organization could they bring liberal democracies to oppressed nations around the world and simultaneously end war. Although liberal democracies have spread all around the world in the past half century, the age of neoliberal economic policy is an even newer ideological experiment that is being encouraged by the supreme economic powers on a global scale. Is deregulation of industry beneficial for the people? What implications have neoliberal policies had on the U.S. economy? Lastly, how has corporate American become more powerful than the democracy it was conceived under?

The term neoliberalism has come to espouse liberalization of labor and trade laws that were enacted during the Progressive Era which protected people from unrestrained capitalism. In more modern times neoliberalism has been trumpeted by the last five American presidents as the key to economic growth. Most would assume economic growth is good for the people of a nation; it raises investment value of U.S. businesses and allows business owners to offer more employment to American workers. That is at least what the idea of “trickle-down economics” proposes. Looking at real GDP growth rates would give us a good idea about the progress economies have made. Real GDP is the market value of all finalized goods and services produced within a country during a set period of time. According to the World Bank, 1981-1985 the United States’ real GPD growth rate was 2.33% and continued to go down with the except during Clinton’s last term in which it rose to 3.14%. The 2001-2005 real GPD growth rate fell to 1.46% and 2006-2010 fell even lower to 0.07%. Deregulation of industry certainly did not seem to positively affect our GDP growth rate.

Unfortunately, there is no statistical data to support the claim that deregulation would provide more jobs but there are sources that tell us where they invest these profits. Lexapro makes one-hundred percent of its two billion dollar profits in the United States, yet through the practice of “transfer pricing” the profits show up overseas where they don’t have to pay the thirty-five percent corporate tax in America and instead pay zero taxes. Many U.S. based multinational corporations now practice this to escape corporate taxes that would otherwise benefit the United States economy. Illegal immigrants paid $11.2 billion in taxes whereas General Electric (GE) paid zero in taxes while also receiving $3.2 billion in tax credits from American taxpayers. Legislation to combat this practice has been ruthlessly fought by corporate lobbyists which brings me to my first point on how our democracy has been tampered with, but first let me elaborate on what I mean by “democracy”.



What is it I mean by a "genuine" democracy? A word has never been so widely abused, except perhaps the word "socialism", in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries than democracy. By asking the question of genuine democracy, I am asking simply this: is the country ruled by the people? Do the people have direct sovereignty, a societal institution that gives all citizens equal political power through the democratic voting process?

First let’s start at the core of American democracy: congress. These representatives embody the people of their district or state and theoretically supposed to work for their interests. The first problem we run into is gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is the practice of redrawing district lines so if it is a Democratic or Republican strong area they will certainly win that district. In 2000, 98% of congressional seats were won by incumbents. This is nearly as competitive as dictatorial elections. Not only nationally has this put the American people at a disadvantage politically, but also in states like Texas, state legislators had purposely redistricted their map to significantly lessen the Hispanic voter base who often voted Democratic.

The second problem is that both Democrats and Republicans get to decide setting rules for third-party ballet access. For example, Carl Romanelli wanted to run for congress as a Green Party candidate. Both Democrats and Republicans only needed 2,000 signatures to have ballot access whereas Romanelli needed 67,070 signatures. Another example is in Georgia, if a third party candidate even wants to be on the ballot they must collect approximately 250,000 signatures. The fact that our democracy is nearly limited to two parties makes a melting pot democracy hard to truly represent the people. It seems so pointless to vote third party because you know they aren’t going to win, you only hope that your vote will inspire others to “throw away” their votes and eventually people miraculously hop on board in the future.



Both parties have given us neoliberal presidents since the 1980’s, but let’s not look at the individuals and focus on the parties. Recently, the Supreme Court threw out regulations that banned corporations from buying campaign commercials. It is also important to note that Obama had won his presidency without any public money, the first time since Nixon. These large private contributors and corporations have lobbied furiously against government regulations, for example Wal-Mart took part in lobbying to get rid of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. We can tell by Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index that America has become increasingly more corrupt, dropping from 16th to 24th least-corrupt.

To put these two points together, there has been a worrying trend between deregulation of the economy and politicians openly supporting policies that are against the working and middle classes interest. What seems to make this easier for them to do this is the mainstream media. In 1983, the media was owned by 50 different companies. Now it is 6 corporations that own 90% of the media. Those companies are GE, Newscorp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, and CBS. It has also become evident that mainstream media has become more increasingly radical in politicizing their news to suit their viewership’s ideology. If you watch MSNBC you can count on getting a more liberal pro-Democrat take on a story and then flip to FOX News and get a conservative pro-Republican take on the same story. There is no problem with getting different perspectives on the same story, but the viewer’s loyalty to one particular news provider only offers them that one perspective. This has fueled the polarization of the American people and has only distracted them about honestly looking at their political party instead of simply blaming the other party for all the nation’s ills.



The fact that your congressional representative is essentially already picked out for you by gerrymandering and the virtual impossibility of even running a third party candidate, that these same two-party congressmen and women are not only sponsored during their campaigns by corporations but also heavily lobbied by them, enact neoliberal policies which deregulate once regulated areas of industry seems to make clear the current state of our democracy is in. We no longer are a democratic republic based on meritocracy, we are a highly stratified class society where most people have little to no chance of climbing the social ladder or influencing public policy and that our role as citizens is not to elect people who represent our interest but to decide between two corporate sponsored candidates who will serve the interest of private interest groups. We citizens are merely a labor source and consumer demographic in a plutocratic social order. The recent decades before and after the millennium has shown that the world is in conflict: neoliberalism contre democracy.
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Written sincerely your's,
Comrade AlexSalmond



*Apologies, this is an American based article*

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In other news, I have had an excellent week meeting fellow People's Communist Party members and several other members of eUK. Congratulations to President ChewChewShoe for winning the election!