Greece, Sandra Bland, the presidential campaign, and what they all have in common.
Greece is an example of what happens when unchecked corporate capitalism is allowed to seize control of a country. Take the IMF, which is controlled by the rich: its “structural adjustment program” (imposed invariably to a whole slew of countries throughout history) removes capital controls and opens a country’s currency to attack by financial speculators. “All over the world, banks and corporations are using their massive profits and cash holdings to increase stock dividends and jack up their share prices by buying back their own stock, rather than investing in production… they divert economic resources from productive activity to further enrich a tiny global aristocracy of bankers, CEOs, and speculators.” Instead of reducing Greece’s debt levels, the program caused the Greek government to default, forced its citizens into poverty, and brought in €2.5 billion in profits for IMF.
Another key player is Goldman Sachs, a U.S. investment banking company, that not only orchestrated purposefully opaque financial agreements with Greece which ultimately doubled its debt, but also profited enormously from its economic collapse–which, as it were, is the predatory lending behavior that caused the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis in America.
Goldman Sachs also happens to be the second biggest contributor to Hillary Clinton’s career. Our current presidential front-runner is also Wall Street’s top choice for president, with three of her top five career contributors being America’s biggest financial institutions. This is not a coincidence, nor is it exclusive to Clinton (either of them, as it were). American politicians are increasingly corporate employees, working for corporate interests. The less the government works for the citizens, the higher the profits on Wall Street.
Corporate capitalism’s goal is to siphon a country’s wealth to its elite, hence the ever-growing and mind-boggling economic disparity in this country, which is at record levels (our richest 1% captured 95% of the economic recovery after the 2008 crisis, which no doubt had a hand in the top 0.1% accumulating as much wealth as the bottom 90% of Americans). American corporations create this disparity by privatizing all forms of government service. A particularly timely example of how this manifests is in the arrest of Sandra Bland.
Criminal justice is a multi-billion dollar industry in America, and mostly has very little to do with justice or rehabilitating criminals (despite the fact that violent crime in America has declined, our incarceration rate has tripled since 1980). It is a huge source of revenue for governments, but much of this money goes to the private prison industry; for-profit mega-corporations are responsible for approximately 7% of state prisoners, 20% of federal prisoners, and 50% of America’s immigrant detainees. Incarceration of these prisoners was outsourced by governments that couldn’t afford them; the irony is that by doing so, governments actually commit themselves to higher rates of incarceration, as well as the curtailment of probation and parole, solely in order to satisfy the companies’ business models.
Consequently, we imprison more of our citizens than any other country in the world: though the United States only accounts for 4% of the world’s population, we house around 22% of the world’s prisoners. These prisons are filled by targeting the poor for arrest and fines for minor infractions, who are then often caught in a perpetual circle of extortion: if they can’t pay the fine, they go to jail, where they’re fined again for room and board and if they can’t pay that new fine, they go to jail again. Ultimately, the poor end up owing thousands of dollars for parking or traffic violations.
Mass incarceration disproportionately affects people of color, especially African Americans like Sandra Bland, who are often targets of unlawful, senseless, and outrageous racial profiling by the police. By the age of 23, 49% of black males, 44% of Hispanic males, and 38% of white males will have been arrested. Native Americans, despite being only 0.8% of the population, are the most likely of all minorities to be killed by the police.
After these companies make $5 billion annually off the exploitation of the country’s marginalized, they spend it on politics. Since 1989, the two largest for-profit prison companies in the US alone have spent more than $10 million on candidates since 1989 and nearly $25 million on lobbying. The second-largest private prison company, GEO Group, gives more to Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio than anyone in the Senate. In return, while Rubio was leading the House, GEO was given a $110 million state contract.
When a politician receives contributions from a corporation, that politician is politically indebted. They may ignore public opinion in favor of corporate interests; they may allow the donor special political access. Frankly, when the public is up against millions of dollars and deeply entrenched, almost omnipotent control, it is not enough to send a hashtag trending, nor is it enough to physically rally against Wall Street. “We, like the Greeks, are undergoing a political war waged by the world’s oligarchs. No one elected them. They ignore public opinion.” We must hold the government accountable for its shameless servility to corporate interests in exchange for personal profit. We must hold corporations accountable for their exploitation of our earth and labor, for their unscrupulous and inexhaustible greed, and for robbing us of our agency. We must hold ourselves accountable by being informed, demanding more, and removing the oligarchs and their panderers from positions of power by voting deliberately. We must reclaim the power they’ve taken from us to restore the democracy they’ve undermined. And we must be angry.
