Lo studio non ha trovato alcuna correlazione tra l’opinione pubblica e la politica. Riportata graficamente, la probabilità che una qualunque proposta venga adottata è invariabilmente del 30% a prescindere dal supporto ricevuto da parte del pubblico. D’altro canto, però, la correlazione tra le preferenze delle élite economiche e le politiche adottate fa impennare la curva del grafico di 45°: il 70% delle politiche fortemente sostenute dalle élite si trasforma in politica del governo.

Niente di sorprendente. Il governo messo su dalla costituzione americana nacque in risposta alle lamentele delle élite, secondo cui i governi dei singoli stati erano troppo democratici, troppo sensibili al sentire popolare, tanto da infastidire seriamente le élite economiche. In molti dei nuovi stati indipendenti, coalizioni radicali in rappresentanza di agricoltori e piccoli commercianti passarono leggi di riforma fondiaria e di sospensione del debito, e si opposero all’aumento delle tasse per pagare le obbligazioni emesse durante la rivoluzione per pagare l’Esercito Continentale, e che attualmente erano nelle mani dei redditieri.

Gran parte della base elettorale che stava dietro la costituzione era formata dalle élite economiche, come quella terriera e quella mercantile. La loro costituzione – creata con un colpo di stato illegale contro gli Articoli della Confederazione – mise su un governo che era un’oligarchia gestita da élite economiche, e il cui controllo popolare era quanto più possibile nominale e indiretto. Il governo che abbiamo oggi, nonostante il linguaggio della propaganda ufficiale dei libri di educazione civica lo presentino come “democratico”, è ancora, nei suoi tratti essenziali, la stessa oligarchia messa su oltre 220 anni fa.

Costituzione a parte, è la struttura generale della società, dell’economia e del sistema politico americani, che rendono inevitabile il dominio di queste élite. Quando ogni aspetto della vita nazionale è governato da un intreccio di agenzie normative governative, alcune centinaia di grosse industrie e banche, giganteschi comitati burocratici, università e fondazioni di carità, e quando le stesse minuscole élite fanno avanti e indietro tra queste istituzioni, è ovvio che a far sentire di più la sua influenza sulla politica sono quelli che gestiscono queste grosse istituzioni. Sarebbe così anche con la riforma dei finanziamenti elettorali, presentate dai liberal come una panacea, perché il fattore principale in politica non è il denaro ma la supponenza di queste Persone Molto Serie che fanno politiche (che la gente come loro prende automaticamente per consigli seri) su ciò che è normale e naturale.

È inevitabile quella che Robert Michels chiamava la Dura Legge dell’Oligarchia: il fatto che, a prescindere dalla democraticità di un’istituzione, il potere tenda ad accumularsi nelle mani degli agenti e dei rappresentanti a spese dei titolari e dei rappresentati. È difficile trovare, anche in una comunità di poco più di qualche decina di migliaia di abitanti, un’amministrazione il cui programma non sia dettato quasi interamente da imprenditori edili, camera di commercio e amministrazione scolastica pubblica. Di fatto, molte “riforme” chiave delle amministrazioni cittadine promosse dai “progressisti” un secolo fa (circoscrizioni elettorali più grandi, rappresentanze generiche, governo locale diretto da un amministratore, elezione di indipendenti) miravano espressamente a ridurre l’influenza dei lavoratori ordinari e dei piccoli imprenditori sui governi locali per consegnare il potere a professionisti “competenti” della classe medio-alta.

In poche parole, quel genere di democrazia di cui parla Barney Frank non è solo una falsa rappresentazione della realtà americana. È del tutto impossibile. Gli stati nascono come comitati esecutivi della classe di potere, sono stati creati per servire gli interessi delle élite economiche imponendo scarsità artificiale, diritti di proprietà artificiali e monopoli che servono ad estrarre rendita da tutti noi. Aspettarsi qualcosa di diverso è come aspettarsi che un maiale voli.

Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.

The study found no correlation at all between public opinion and policy. Graphing the correlation, the chance any random policy proposal will be adopted is a flat 30% regardless of the level of public support. On the other hand the correlation between the economic elite’s policy preferences and the policies adopted shows up on the graph as a nice, neat upward-slanting line at 45 degrees, with a 70% correlation between strong elite support and policy adoption.

That really shouldn’t be too surprising. The government set up under the U.S. Constitution was created in response to elite complaints that  state governments were too democratic, too responsive to popular sentiment, to the point of seriously inconveniencing economic elites. In many of the newly independent states, radical coalitions of farmers and small tradesmen in the legislatures passed land reforms and stays on debt and opposed tax increases to pay off the Continental war bonds held by the rentier classes.

The main political constituencies behind the Constitution were economic elites like the landed and mercantile interests. Their Constitution — created by an illegal coup against the Articles of Confederation — set up a government designed as an oligarchy run by economic elites like themselves, with popular control kept as nominal and indirect as possible. The government we have today, despite the “democratic” civics book rhetoric in official propaganda, is still in its essential features the same oligarchy they set up over 220 years ago.

Leaving the Constitution aside, the overall institutional structure of the American society, economy and political system make such elite dominance inevitable. When every aspect of national life is governed by an interlocking framework of centralized government regulatory agencies, several hundred giant corporations and banks, and giant bureaucratic think tanks, universities and charitable foundations, and the same tiny elites shuffle back and forth between these institutions, it stands to reason that the main influence on policy will be the mindset of those running such large institutions. This would be true even with the liberal panacea of public campaign financing, because the main factor in policy is not money but the unconscious assumptions of the Very Serious People making policy (and the people like themselves they automatically regard as sources of credible advice)  about what is normal and natural.

What Robert Michels called the Iron Law of Oligarchy — the tendency, regardless of how nominally democratic an institution is, for real power to accumulate in the hands of agents and representatives at the expense of principals and the represented — is inevitable. You’d be hard-pressed to find even a local government in a community of more than a few tens of thousands of residents where policies aren’t set almost entirely by real estate developers, the Chamber of Commerce and the public school administration. In fact many key “reforms” in municipal government promoted by “progressives” a century ago — larger wards, at-large representation, city manager-board government, non-partisan elections — were deliberately designed to reduce the influence of ordinary workers and small businesspeople on local government and instead hand policy-making over to “competent” upper-middle-class professionals.

Simply put, the kind of democracy Barney Frank talks about isn’t just an unrealistic description of American reality. It’s flat-out impossible. States originated as executive committees of the ruling class, created to serve the interests of economic elites by enforcing the artificial scarcities, artificial property rights and monopolies by which they extract rents from the rest of us. To expect them to do otherwise is like expecting a pig to fly.

Translations for this article:

• Italian, Sul Governo Inteso Come “Ciò che Decidiamo di Fare Assieme”

“The challenges that face Appalachia are indeed great. To solve them, one must question why our “national interest” still lies in an “above all” energy policy. One must question how so much wealth has been extracted from the Appalachian coalfields while the communities there remain so poor. One must question why the largest consumers of fossil fuels are great militarized nation-states. One must question why such an ecological crisis is occurring. One must question the pervasive influence of the corporate monopoly on the people’s democracy. One must stand up for themselves, their community, their consensus and yes, even their biodiversity.

Today, these questions are being asked. Appalachia is rising.”

Corker noted in the interview he had been “assured” that a rejection of unionization would reward labor by sending new work to the plant. Crafty jargon from another Big Government conservative. Not only was this statement denied by VW, but now, because there is no union, the private company very well may halt expansion in the south.

The Chattanooga confrontation boils down to nothing but politics. Tennessee is already a “Right to Work” state, so if workers decided to join the UAW no employee would have had to join the union. Non-union workers at the plant would have avoided union dues (but received the benefits negotiated on their behalf by organized labor). There was no threat to conservative “Right to Work” laws, but Tennessee Republicans still meddled in the affairs of a private institution — because they loathe organized labor.

This has big implications for labor organizing in Tennessee. I am a Tennessean and a card-carrying member of United Campus Workers – Communication Workers of America (UCW-CWA), Tennessee’s higher education union. Tennessee Republicans do not believe I have the right to free association or to negotiate the conditions of my labor, and they will use their political clout to ensure I can’t. Let’s examine just what this means.

I am not endorsing the UAW or even the UCW-CWA. Big union, just as big business and big government, has its issues. However, I am endorsing voluntary association.

If workers come together to negotiate contracts with their employers that is nothing but the libertarian principle of freedom of association. If the bargaining process yields a voluntary contract between management and labor then what we have is yet another example of free association. This is simply co-operation in the work place. It is big government laws that tip the scale in favor of one group over another that are the problem. In Tennessee, “Right to Work” laws benefit capital at the expense of labor.

Republicans, by flexing their big government muscle, seek restrictions on voluntary transactions within a private company. They work to crush the very principle of free association. Regardless of how workers want to organize it is none of their business.

In liberty, freedom of association and voluntary contracts are the rule. The libertarian is not concerned with the rights of government — conservative or liberal, federal or state. The libertarian is concerned with individual rights — including the right to organize. Government laws restrict competition in the market and they restrict democracy on the shop floor. Without big government, labor would be liberated — free to smash government imposed privilege. Without big government, and moving beyond bossism, unions would once again dedicate their efforts to advancing the working class. It is government’s failure to respect voluntary contract, to leave the market alone, that is the real story of Chattanooga.

The solution is to smash the structures of big government that privilege one class over another in the first place. It’s not about politics or your next election, folks, it’s about free association.

The busted tank is owned by Freedom Industries, which uses the chemical for coal processing. Some 300,000 people have been directly impacted by the disaster, forced to wait in long lines at fire stations to receive potable water. There’s been a constant run on stores for the precious resource as well.

This is a story to often told in Appalachia. The Massey Energy coal slurry spill in Martin County, Kentucky (where 306,000,000 gallons of toxic slurry hit the town) and the TVA coal ash disaster in Kingston, Tennessee, are also part of the history of industrial disaster in the region. This history is wrought with class struggle, environmental degradation and corporatism. From the expulsion of Native Americans to the rise of King Coal, the Hawks Nest incident, the labor struggle, the Battle of Blair Mountain and the wholesale destruction of mountain ecosystems via Mountaintop Removal, Appalachia is on the front lines of the war with the politically connected.

The coalfields of Appalachia have long been home to impoverished people, overlooked by the affluent in the United States. Still, the “War on Poverty” has made its way into the Appalachian hills several times. Most famously, US president Lyndon Johnson singled out the region for his “Great Society” programs, and presidents 42, 43 and 44 have all tried to help the region as well. Instead of offering a new way forward, their programs further damage the area.

Much of the “War On Poverty” has been fought via economic engineering, centralizing the economies of West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky (along with parts of Tennessee and Virginia) into the hands of extractive fossil resource industries — notably coal and natural gas. The mechanization of these industries, however, has reduced the labor force. Specialized labor moving to the region has caused short-term booms and long-term busts. Once an extractive resource is exploited and gone,  communities are left to deal with mono economies and irreversible ecological destruction.

The challenges that face Appalachia are indeed great. To solve them, one must question why our “national interest” still lies in an “above all” energy policy. One must question how so much wealth has been extracted from the Appalachian coalfields while the communities there remain so poor. One must question why the largest consumers of fossil fuels are great militarized nation-states. One must question why such an ecological crisis is occurring. One must question the pervasive influence of the corporate monopoly on the people’s democracy. One must stand up for themselves, their community, their consensus and yes, even their biodiversity.

Today, these questions are being asked. Appalachia is rising.

Over the years numerous citizen coalitions have formed. These groups are networking together to ban the exploitation of Appalachia. Groups such as Appalachian Voices, Mountain Justice, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy  (see: ilovemountains.org), Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, and many others, have developed true grassroots movements across the region.  The Appalachian movement is building a sense of urgency around the plight of the weeping mountains, and the people who call them home. Movements work, the line has been drawn: The corporate state or its end — it really is that simple.

Which side are you on?