VII.3                       Evaluating Society
             Case in Point: The United States of America
A society, and in particular, the functionality of its democracy, may be appraised by how much freedom and well-being its citizens enjoy in relation to the actual possible.
                                                                   This writer
Patriotism:                                       Freedom:
          My Country                      If you want to be free, there is but one way;
Where right, to be kept right         it is to guarantee an equally full measure of
And where not, to be put right.     liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other.
                   Carl Schurz (1829-1906) German-American statesman
 
Contents
A. Why was the U.S. Chosen?
B. Evaluating the U.S.
C. What Explains this Tragic Condition?
D. Why is the U.S. a Dysfunctional Democracy at the Federal Level?
E. Why are There No Funds to Meet Basic Social Needs?
F. Is the U.S. a Military Giant and Ethical Dwarf?
G. The Standard of Living Depends on Productivity.
H. Concluding Judgment

A.  Why Was the U.S. Chosen?

  • It is the most influential nation on the world scene. Also, it markets, sometimes coercively, its social ideology and democratic system to the rest of the world.

  • It is officially a constitutional democracy. The government's power is divided into the legislative, judicative, and administrative, thus, there is a system of checks and balances. This reduces or eliminates, at least in theory, the ancient problem that  "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" together with the sense of entitlement and invulnerability that comes often with it.

  • It is the oldest continually existing democracy with about 300 million citizens (2006).

  • It has a wholly secular constitution and the first where the government derived its powers from "We the People" rather than from a deity. Moreover, this document strongly implies a separation of religion (a private matter) and governing (a public matter). It is at least in theory a government by, for, and of-the-people.

  • It was founded in defiance of, and by fighting, a tyrannical monarch who claimed divine appointment. The "Founding Fathers" and others participating in this action were condemned by the doctrines of the Christian Scriptures. St. Paul, the  founder of the now dominant gentile (non-Jewish, contra St. James and St. Peter) branch of Christianity, explicitly states:

Let every soul be subject unto higher powers. For there is no power but that of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resisteth shall receive to them themselves damnation.
 
  • It has a large minority of fundamentalist "Christians" who ask "Why not gain the whole world plus my soul?" They, and their conservative allies, present a danger to the U.S. and the rest of the world. Their argument is a perilous untruth, namely, that "the U.S. was founded on Judeo-Christian principles." It is part of the propaganda to turn this country into a crusading theocracy. To support their claim, they point to the Declaration of Independence. However, this document had to use religious language because it had to justify its revolutionary action against the church-supported "Divine Right" claims of the King. This declaration is now merely historical and not part of the legal foundation. Moreover, only three of the Ten Commandments found their way into modern law. They are the rules against killing, stealing, and bearing false witness. Also, these rules predate the time of the Hebrew Scripture's Moses. Furthermore, these prohibitions have been present in all places, past and present, where people live together. Hence, there is no justification to exhibit these ancient religious, and mostly obsolete, rules in public places.
 
B.                                   Evaluating the U.S.
Concerning freedom, negative freedom is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution but positive freedom is not, for it is at best implied. By contrast, the constitutions of other industrialized nations have provisions for both. As already stated earlier:
     Negative freedom prohibits the state and other people from constraining or interfering with others as they attempt to conduct their private affairs. The idea is that the individual and the nation are both self-governing entities which have the right to determine for themselves their own destinies. However, negative freedom alone does not guarantee the practical conditions for self-determination, that is, for individuals to freely choose and implement their life plans. For under negative freedom, the majority is "free" to starve but a minority is "free" of social constraints to make a great fortune at the expense of the powerless many.  
     Positive freedom, by contrast, has a social dimension. It demands social justice that is achieved if and only if all entities get what they deserve, e.g., according to their contribution to society. The conditions for individual self-determination would thus exist to the extend possible. It follows hat the state has an enabling role and not just a hands-off one. To allow this kind of freedom for the many, the law must regulate powerful institution that would otherwise coerce the many for power and profit, thus, prevent their right to self-determination.  
Comparing the U.S. with Countries that Value Positive Freedom
To do this, one must decide on quality-of-life indicators which are at least in part the preconditions as well as the result of positive freedom. Also, one must consider what citizens may realistically expect, that is, what is actually possible in a given country. One researcher* did just that and compared the United States with six other industrialized nations, Canada, France, West Germany, Japan, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
     The United States is still the most productive country on earth. Therefore, the U.S.  has more means than any other country to satisfy a modern social standard of living, that is, to facilitate positive freedom. It follows that if the citizens of the above noted countries can have a certain quality of life, then there is no reason why the U.S. citizens should not have the same or better.
     More than sixty separate items concerning prosperity, quality of life, opportunity, personal security, and values were compared with these countries. The U.S. was below average in two-thirds of the cases (forty-three), and was at or near the bottom of the list in more than half (thirty-three).
At or near the bottom were such categories as:
1. Health care and coverage by health insurance,
2. Access to affordable long-term care
3. Life expectancy and infant mortality
4. Job security
5. Violent crime, success in solving crime, fear of crime
6. People living in poverty
7. Children living in poverty [22% of all, 42-46% African and Hispanic American]
8. Affordability of housing
9. Neighborhood segregation by race and income
10. Education: Student achievement in math and science

*The data was compiled by Derek Bok, President Emeritus of Harvard University, in his book The State of the Nation. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, © 1996. Bok is currently, 2006, once more President of Harvard University.

Finding: By comparison to other industrialized nations, the quality of life in key areas is for most citizens of the world's richest and most powerful country at or near the bottom. Hence, we must search for the causes that created and maintains this situation.

C.                     What Explains this Tragic Condition?
The fundamental underlying cause is a dysfunctional democracy that allowed the Federal Government to become an instrument of special interest groups.
                                                              This writer
There are about 35,000 registered lobbyists in Washington. Many of which represent antisocial conservative causes and foreign governments. Some corporations have more lawmakers represent them than lawmakers represent states. They are supported by think tanks, staffed by intellectual prostitutes, whose task it is to come up with "good" arguments to support bad policy. Also, some corporations are represented by more members of Congress than states. In this "democracy for hire," legislation favors the special interest at the expense of the large majority. Moreover, institutions crucial for the well-being of the people are not under democratic control. They are privately owned and operated for the benefit of a few. For example, prices, interest rates, and availability of loans are controlled by the shared monopolies of banks, insurance companies, and the large multinational corporations.
     But most detrimentally, the powerful Constitutional right  of the U.S. Government to print money and regulate its value (Article I, Section 8, Clause 5) was unconstitutionally removed from those who supposedly represent the people, the Congress and the President. This crucial power was delegated by Congress (Federal Reserve Act of 1913) to the Federal Reserve System in which seven governors share power with five presidents of privately owned commercial banks, the "member banks" of the Federal Reserve System. The governors, usually Wall Street friendly individuals, are appointed by the President for fourteen-year (!) terms.
     Thus, the nation's money regulation is decided in part by a special private interest--the commercial banks. This hybrid committee manages the money supply and controls interest rates. To a large extent they decide who shall prosper and who shall fail. They create and manage boom and bust cycles. For example, it is now widely accepted that the Great Depression was due to a shortage of the money supply as engineered by the Federal Reserve--there was no shortage of goods. However, during a bust, those with money can acquire assets inexpensively, that is, "for pennies on the dollar."
     As a consequence of this Government of, for, and by the special interest, the funds that would in other industrialized democracies go towards eliminating social injustice (restitutive justice) are not collected in the first place or spent elsewhere in the interest of a few. This is to the detriment of the large majority, about 90% of the people who are mortgaged to the hilt, but it is to the benefit of a very small group that represents about 1% of the population. Hence, we must ask: "Why is the U.S. a Dysfunctional Democracy at the Federal Level?" and "Why are there no funds to meet basic social needs?" 
 
D.                Why is the U.S. a Dysfunctional Democracy
                                   At the Federal Level?
In a democratic society the quality of government depends crucially on the ability of the voter to choose correctly from genuine alternatives. The citizens' ability is crippled when they are not informed and lack the talent to evaluate facts and options. If in addition there are no viable alternatives to choose from, then the democratic process will fail. A consequence is an absence of social justice, that is, a system where all would get what they deserve. It follows that justice is served if and only if all actually get what they earned. As this is obviously not the case in the U.S., one must expose the factors that prevent the election of a government of, for, and by the people.
It appears that the privileged have managed to establish and sustain a system that allows them to dominate others with their consent.
Such a system is sometimes called a "manufactured reality" by N. Chomsky, a "consensus reality" by J. C. Pearce or a "hegemony" by the Italian social philosopher Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937).  In his Selections from the Prison Notebooks, Gramsci defines such a system as:

The position of a dominant class which exercises control through its ability to achieve acceptance of a particular set of cultural values and norms. Such a class need not to exercise control through the defeat of political and economic challenges. The accepted world-view of the society may prevent the emergence of such challenges.

This behavioral-control ideology is further buttressed when:
  • The citizens are deprived of information. The mass media is controlled by a private power elite whose interests are different from that of the people. For example, the social truth is systematically withheld because it would cause moral indignation and a revolt at the ballot box. A cure would be the democratic control of the airwaves as in other advanced societies.
  • The citizens lack intellectual skills, thus, critical thinking ability. Reasoning is not taught, if at all, before indoctrination into belief systems that indirectly promote and supports the unjust status quo. Only one in five high schools has courses in this discipline and at the college level it is not even mandatory. A cure would be to raise critical thinking abilities to a level of importance equal with reading, writing, and arithmetic.
  • The citizens are so engaged in the struggle to make a living that they have little or no time to think about the struggle itself. Wages are driven down due to competition from illegal residents and the outsourcing to low-wage countries. However, it is a bonanza for those who control the economy--manufacture in starvation-wage countries and sell in high-wage ones. A cure would be enforcing existing immigration laws and the democratic control of large corporations.
  • The citizens often lack genuine alternatives to choose from. The U.S. has a so-called two-party system. The Republican Party, which is a big business party, and the Democratic Party, which is also business party but less so. Both parties are largely in the pockets of special interest groups. The Republicans solidly and openly so, the Democrats less so. Judging from voting patterns and legislation past in Congress, the Democrats as a group have at least something that comes close to a social conscience. This attribute is substantially absent in the mind set of the Republican leadership. A cure would be to change the system so that citizens who represent all people can be elected.
  • The citizens lack the funds to run for national office. Thus, the candidates of both parties depend on private donors for campaign dollars. The contributors in turn expect that the "playing field is leveled," meaning, tilted in their favor. This is part of an influence peddling scheme that does not even stop at the White House. A cure would be the public financing of campaigns that excludes all additional funds including the candidate's own. The best ideas and nominees would have a fair chance to win rather than those that are supported by the most money.
America's dysfunctional democracy will continue unless the conditions that devitalize the voter are corrected. In addition, a major institution, perhaps one to be formed, will have to mobilize the voting power of citizens for their own freedom and well being.
 
E.              Why Too Few Funds to Meet Basic Social Needs?
The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don't acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead.
                                                                       Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)
The two primary causes are the national debt and military spending. For example, let's look at the fiscal year 2007*. Almost 50% of the total outlay ($2,251 billion) of Federal Funds is now budgeted for current military spending (663 billion) and payments on interest debt from past military spending and Veterans' benefits(439 billion).
Please note:
  • Current military spending includes Dept. of Defense (449 billion), the military portion from other departments ($114 billion), and a supplemental appropriation for the war in  Iraq and Afghanistan (100 billion).
  • Past military spending payments consists of Veterans' benefits ($76 billion) and interest payments (353 billion) on 80% of the National Debt created by military spending primarily in the Reagan-Bush Administration (1980-1992, during which the National Debt quadruplet), and the current Bush Administration (2001-, during which the National Debt doubled), and a small left-over portion from Word War II.
  • Federal Funds (2,251 billion) do not include Trust Funds like Social Security because they are not part of the Federal Budget general fund. Trust Funds are separate accounts and their income and payments are not part of general revenue or outlays.
  • Of course, one may argue over the part of the National Debt attributed to military spending. Nevertheless, the 80% figure will increase when we add the entire National Debt interest payment to current military spending. The moneys for social services would then be even less.
*Data taken from tables in the "Analytic Perspectives" book of the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2007.
The social condition in the United States will get worse because the Fiscal Year 2007 Budget increased spending for the military and homeland security while slashing funds for social programs from such as education, healthcare, low-income housing, community block grants, etc. As calculated below, the present standard-of-living-reducing financial burden per annum on a family of four is $13,640.00.
The National Debt is currently, end of 2011, almost 15 trillion dollars
 
F.            Is the U.S. a Military Giant and Ethical Dwarf?
The current military spending of the U.S. is as much or more than that of all other nations together. This amount added to the National Debt, largely on account of past military spending, swallows the money that would normally improve the social condition. At present, the standard-of-living-reducing financial burden per annum on a family of four is $13,640.00. This sum consists of: $8,840.00 for currently  military spending ($663 billion/300 million population x 4) and $4,800.00 for interest on the current (end of 2009) national debt ($12 trillion/300 million pop. x 4 x .03 (3%)).
     Starving the beast is the name of the methodology to keep the many down and it has been practiced since 1980.  First, massive deficits are created by military spending and tax cuts that go for the most part to the very rich. Then, the deficit will be emphasized as a reason to cut social programs that would somewhat compensate the multitude for their contribution to society. Moreover, the same affluent group:
1. Pressures or buys lawmakers to pass laws that heavily favor them.
2. Then they pose as law-abiding and tough-on-crime citizens. Obeying the law is easy for them since they unfairly benefit at the expense of others.
3. Those who break the law, largely caused by socioeconomic conditions engineered by them, are met with violence in the form of imprisonment. The U.S. prison population has risen from 195,000 in 1968 to over two million in 2006. This is five times as high as in other industrialized countries.
4. Finally, they insult the many who end up with little or nothing by announcing that justice has been done. They thank God, who they modified in their own image, for the favors bestowed on them while ignoring the fact that the real source was social injustice.
     Antisocial personality disorder seems to afflict America's conservative leaders. At least all the characteristics of antisocial behavior are present:
1. Lack of social emotions such as empathy, guilt, and shame are exacerbated by moral and intellectual confusion.
2. The refusal to sign and break agreements that would make for a better world community. International treaties like: to create a permanent war crimes tribunal, treaty prohibiting the use of child soldiers, the agreement that bans antipersonnel landmines, the Kyoto protocol assigning targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas, etc.
     Moreover, the Doctrine of Preemptive War has made the world less safe and proven a disaster in Iraq. And the practice of extraordinary rendition is the euphemism used for sending terrorism suspects to countries that practice torture for interrogation.
3. Lying thru: propaganda, withholding the social truth, controlling education to prevent citizens from becoming self-governing rather than manipulated participants in a Functional Democracy.
4. Stealing thru legalized, though not moral, robbery (the Savings & Loan scandal), exploitation (forcing the American labor force to unfairly compete with hordes of non-citizens and countries that pay starvation wages), embezzlement (misappropriation of tax dollars to further the ambitions of plutocrats (the already very rich) and theocrats (the clerics).
5. Dereliction of duty. Instead of "protecting the people from enemies foreign and domestic," their foreign policy has created armies of fanatics and domestic policy has unleashed the forces of fundamentalist religion and unbridled capitalism. Both seek world domination; hence, their continued sabotage, ridicule, slander, and libel against the United Nation.
6. Violence, that is, military force as a first rather than a last resort has caused enormous sufferings to civilians and the death of well over three million innocent victims in Vietnam and Iraq. These actions are dismissed as unfortunate collateral damage. Sanctions and embargos that cause the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, e.g., children, are just as cruel and violent (Iraq).
7. To add insult to injury, the American people are then asked to die in wars to make the world safe for American style democracy and its social system. How could anyone want such a corrupt system? And it is pure, unadulterated madness to impose it by military force on others whose hearts and minds belong to fundamentalist clerics--it has next to n chance of success. After Vietnam and Iraq, hasn't America learned that you cannot defeat an ideology with brute force. And after the fall of several South American dictatorships, hasn't America learned that you cannot indefinitely prop up corrupt governments with dollars and military aid. And what about the removal of democratically elected governments that did not behave in favor of U.S. economic interests?
     In the light of this evidence, isn't the goal to make the world safe for democracy merely a pretense to create markets and make the world safe for American capitalism from which only an elite but not the many benefit?
 
Why didn't Americans heed President Eisenhower's warning (1961):

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. [my emphasis]

And they still  disregard President Wilson's (1856-1924) observation:
The great monopoly in this country is the money monopoly. So long as it exists, our old variety of freedom and individual energy of development are out of the question.
and
The truth is, we are all caught in a great economic system which is heartless.
 
G.           The Standard of Living Depends on Productivity
Productivity has quadrupled since the 1950s due to to mechanization, automation, computerization, and consolidation, that is, mergers. Yet, working hours have not been reduced, and the standard of living is now not much better than it was in the 1950s with its stay-at-home moms. American families work now more hours due to the large participation of women in the work force. It seems that the "Great Emancipator" had it right when he observed:
 
The effort of some to shift their share of the burden onto the shoulders of others which is the great durable curse of the race. . . . It has so happened, in all ages of the world, that some have labored [and now work for peanuts], and others without labor, enjoyed a large proportion [a lion's share] of the fruits. This is wrong and should not continue.
                                  Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) 16th U.S. President
 
Democracy and free market capitalism also exists side by side in the countries with which the U.S. was compared. But in these countries, the forces of unrestrained capitalism are tempered and controlled by lawmakers who represent the people to a greater extent. That is, these countries are social democracies while the U.S. is a capitalist democracy. And worse:
The U.S. is slowly but surely moving towards a plutocratic theocracy (where the very rich and clerics cooperate and share power). The plutocrats claim the God-given right to have more and harvest the fruits of labor of the many, while the clerics claim the divine right to control their minds. The true meaning of a term or concept is found in its application or practice.  But as the preceding demonstrates, the U.S. was neither founded on Christian principles nor do the policies of its power elite practice them. 
H.                                    Concluding Judgment

In the Soviet Union, capitalism triumphed over communism. In this country [the USA], capitalism triumphed over democracy.

                                               Fran Lebowitz (born 1950)

 

An honest politician is only one who, when he is bought, stays bought.

Politics is the second oldest profession and bears a resemblance to the first.

                                                 Unknown American cynic

 

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-65)

 

The Reagan-Bush years have exalted private gain over public obligation, special interests over the common good, wealth and fame over work and family. The 1980s ushered in a Gilded Age of greed and selfishness, of irresponsibility and excess, and of neglect.

                                                             Bill Clinton in 1991

 

Such is American business, I guess, where the desire for obscene profit mutes any discussion of conscience.

                                                       Bill Watterson (b. 1958)

 

The American version of capitalism works great for capitalists because gains are privatized while losses are socialized with the help of corrupt branches of government and inept voters.

                                                                    This writer

When a person donates blood regularly before it is regenerated by the body, then this individual will soon suffer from anemia. And likewise, an economy becomes anemic if the money in circulation, the lifeblood of the economy, ends up in the pockets of a few. To pull the economy out of recessions, and since World War II, the US Government had to stimulate the economy with ever increasing deficit spending. This cannot continue because the interest on the national debt will steadily diminish the quality of life for the many and eventually absorb the means necessary to keep this society functioning. Again, the maxim of Francis Bacon (1561-1626) comes to mind:
Above all things, good policy is to be used that the treasure and monies in a state be not gathered into few hands. . . . [Because] money is like manure [fertilizer] not good except it be spread.
If the preceding data and arguments of this chapter are correct, then America's current state of affairs is that of chaotic social disorder or one colossal snafu*.
*snafu was originally the military acronym SNAFU, (S)ituation (N)ormal (A)ll (F)ucked (U)p.