As the ever-increasing power of institutions dwarfs individuals

[Craig234]

In human history, we think of people. More specifically, of leaders.

In fact, our history is largely obsessed with them. We can all think of Egyptian Pharaohs and Pyramids, we don't pay much attention to the Egyptian people who built them.

Napoleon, Henry VIII, Genghis Khan, Stalin, Julius Caesar - we think of leaders when we think of history. The idea that a person changes things for better or worse. Put that leader in charge, and they can make big changes.

Sometimes it's groups of men, like the American founding fathers, but the idea is the same.

But I would argue that in modern society, institutions grow, and grow, and grow in power, and individuals are less and less important or able to change things.

Thomas Paine wrote a pamphlet and moved a nation to revolt. Today, there are hundreds of thousands of opinions written constantly, mostly product created and funded for a purpose, for a targeted audience, for a business. Fox will find something that outrages its white viewers, for example.

If Thomas Paine wrote today, he'd write a column for a paper or magazine, and nothing would happen. He'd be drowned out in the ocean of messaging, for various reasons.

The same applies to presidents. George Washington had some freedom to set precedents. FDR had some freedom to make economic changes in the backlash to the Great Depression.

But for the most part, presidents are only viable with the support of powerful interests, who have expectations for the person they support, and the president serve those interests. That's partly to do with money. There are boundaries for them while in office. Jimmy Carter tried to have the country accept the metric system, it didn't go well.

Presidents don't have that much power in many areas. They can talk and support policies, but businesses have trillions of dollars the president doesn't control.

Grover Norquist described what the right wants in a president:

We don't need a president to tell us what direction to go; we know what direction we want to go. . . . The Republicans in the House have passed 24-plus bills that create jobs and opportunity and strip out regulations. We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don't need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate. . . . [We just need to] pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become the president of the United States . . . [and] to sign the legislation that has already been prepared.

And that's often the role of the president - along with being expected to sell the American people on the 'stuff' they're given.

Again, as The Atlantic wrote about Norquist's view of trump:

Trump’s regulatory regime is Reaganite,” Norquist told me. “His tax cut is Reaganite. He’s more aggressive than Reagan on labor issues.” All that other stuff—the crazy tweets, the chaotic White House, the Russia investigation, the travel ban—is just noise. What Trump was really elected to do, Norquist maintained, were the things Republicans had been coveting for years. And Trump is already doing just those things.

For a CEO of a major corporation to become CEO, they have to be approved by people who have the interests of the corporation, and the agenda of the corporation. They can't just do what they want. If they aren't going to follow that agenda, they won't be selected, and if they act contrary to it while CEO, they'll be removed. They have some flexibility HOW they'll follow it - more of this product, less of that one - but it's all for the agenda.

One of the most famous incidents of the public, through their president, having a conflict with private business interests was JFK's clash with steelmakers. There were labor disputes, and JFK intervened in the national interest to mediate, and help an agreement be reached.

And then the steelmakers broke the trust, and raised their prices, which JFK viewed as against the national interest, and he 'went to war' against them. But the best he could do was give a speech, build public support, use things like government contracts a stick or carrot. His prestige, the presidency's prestige, was in question. Finally, he got one company to break and rollback the increases, causing the others to follow.

This is seen as a historic victory, but it's not exactly a huge change to society because of a leader. More and more, what's really powerful in society are the institutional interests, and people - voters, workers, politicians, executives - are either powerless and/or forced to serve those interests to have their position.

A president can't really 'lead a revolution', a CEO can't really change the business culture in the country, they're more cogs in the machine than powerful people able to change 'the system'. (1/3)

 

[Craig234]

Something powerful is the message of plutocracy - things like 'deregulation is good' - and the people can either enlist as soldiers in the plutocrat army, and promote, support, enacts its agenda - or they can be left out. But they can't really change the agenda. They might be considered 'an effective leader' of it if they can promote it well, but the agenda is basically institutional and locked in.

When a leader is able to make bigger change, it's more an aberration than something normal.

Even billionaires can't do much more. If a Bill Gates, a Jeff Bezos, a Tom Steyer, a Warren Buffet, a Michael Bloomberg, an Elon Musk, a Richard Branson, comes out with some desire to make a big change to our politics and economics, they can't really do that much. They can have a voice, make some donations, but they're marginalized if they go against the institutional interests.

Tom Steyer is one of the most politically active billionaires, he ran for president - to what effect? Michael Bloomberg is nationally famous, with political interests, former mayor of our largest city, who ran for president - to what effect? He's perhaps best known in politics for banning large sodas in his city.

Someone who could fight for real change - in a very uphill battle, likely not to get that much change - is Bernie Sanders, an unusual figure, but he couldn't get elected. So, his victories are a minimum wage increase here, an increased budget for health centers there - and he's the most powerful advocate for populist change in our politicians.

Every presidential election, the choice is presented as one that will have huge impact on our society, that will decide what our nation is like for years to come, typically called the most important election in a long time - this is generally false hype aimed at getting people to vote instead of saying 'not worth the bother', and non-voters are still the largest 'party'.

And that propaganda machine, presenting the leader as hugely important, as heroic, with the candidate saying loudly and often how much he cares about the people, of course is mostly false, hiding how much the selected candidate has been selected by powerful interests to do their agenda, and sell it to the people. A clear example of this was people's disappointment in Obama's 'hope and change', even if they preferred him to a Republican.

This is constantly the case. A soldier may be able to individual heroics, but it's all in service of using force for some powerful interest's agenda, however much they are constantly told 'patriotism' to motivate them. A scientist is very likely contributing to something that profits a company. A corporate lawyer can use legal skills, but it's to serve the agenda of a powerful client. (2/3)

 

[Craig234]

Perhaps an example here might be when Einstein suggested something that served institutional interests - the atomic bomb - but when he had second thoughts and spoke out against those institutional interests for restraint, he had little effect.

There's a song from the 1960's that shows some of the situation for the individual: "I'd love to change the world. But I don't know what to do, so I'll leave it up to you."

An example of systemic power, is how money has been weaponized in our political system, which in theory should be about the voters. But money is used to sell, indoctrinate, mislead voters 24x7, and to be essentially required for people to win election making the few donors able to select who will win, and once in office members of Congress spend half their time on the phone fundraising, and the money funds a 'lobbying' industry which is essentially deferred bribery, with over half of members and staff getting payoffs in lobbying when they leave public office. How do you buck that system? Reform would face the opposition of American's most powerful companies, and the majority of members of Congress who got their in that system and will be rewarded by it. A member or staff person could say they oppose the corruption, but to what effect?

Great Thomas Paine calls for revolutions can be read - in a Naomi Klein book, on a Thom Hartmann radio show, in an article in The Atlantic, Harper's, Mother Jones, The Nation, and so on - but what are the chances of that call for change changing something with institutional support? It's rare.

Occasionally, mass movements have a little effect, cause some tinkering, if enough people support them. Banning plastic straw here, police reform called for by BLM there, anti-gay discrimination law changed there.

But we are destroying so much of the planet - the climate, the rainforests, the oceans, the animals - we created the EPA in 1970, since then 60% of the world's animals have been lost. There are institutional interests, driven by the growing population, behind that. What is going to protect the environment? Who can?

When the US was founded, people could change things. People mattered, not corporations. If someone had a message, they could be heard; people weren't smothered in millions of 'messages'. 90% of the people were agrarian.

Now, it's institutions, corporations, interests that have power and rule, not people, not leaders. Leaders serve the interests, not the other way around.

People still have a romantic idea of leaders bringing change, but we have allowed institutions to prevent that.

It's a sort of craziness where people think rulers decide more than do they, and blame them pointlessly not understanding the prison our society has created for itself, just always saying they're dissatisfied with leaders.

We would need a large re-thinking of what democracy means and how to have citizens less smothered by propaganda and reduce the role of money on opinion and systems to even have some idea of how to restore democracy. And who is even advocating that?

And in the absence of such reform, we get the crazy. The partisan. People can support something - trump, centrism, BLM, something. But it's not really democracy, it's rule by institutions. (3/3)