Oligarchy and Its Polemics
The Economist, like the Wall Street Journal, has a right-ward political bend in its commentary and position within the popular media landscape. It has to because its audience is corporations and the wealthy. This is no more palpable than in the commentaries of the author of ‘Schumpeter,’ a nom de plurme (24DEC16, The Economist, Capitalism and democracy). In a nutshell, Schumpeter comes down on the side of democracy under capitalism. Populism is an emotional response to inequality the direct result of democracy under capitalism employing a populist argument. In this way capitalist pattern of defending their elitism is by putting in place a buffer, a m idle class by convincing them they have something to lose were popular demands for equality were put into place. Yet populism is not a meaningful agenda to accomplish a set of goals for the welfare of society. Corporate power, and the especially the wealthy, use populism in the manner early American wealthy needed a middlen class of small business owners, cobblers and the like. Convincing a middle class that it had much to lose were the rest of society to expect fairness and equality meant only popular revolt. The use of such tendentious arguments to keep society in line is divisive and distracts it from their own interests.
The Economist, like the Wall Street Journal, has a right-ward political bend in its commentary and position within popular landscape. This is no more apparent than in the commentaries of the past author of ‘Schumpeter,’ a nom de plurme (24DEC16, The Economist column, ‘Capitalism and democracy – The West confronts a future of slow growth, social division and populist revolt). In a nutshell, Schumpeter is likely The Economist resident capitalist with a capital ‘c’ as indicated in the article’s title, ‘Capitalism and democracy.’ Therein lay the problem. Corporate power and extreme wealth corrupt political discourse and corrode the voting franchise sufficiently to make it difficult to understand that it is business under capitalism, not the other way round. Over time this imbalance creates inequality. Inequality inevitably leads to disaffection, discontent and disenfranchisement and, as one can imagine, creating a powder keg waiting for a spark within the hearts and minds of the majority of society. Where debate ought be around a whole new political activism built on an agenda to re-politicizing politics away from partisanship, establishing a new and inclusive political party reasserting American ideals of egalitarianism, social justice, solidarity, right to social protections and proper role of the state comprehensive safety net. Rather what we have is arch partisanship exploiting natural social divides to distract under the heading of populism.
