The ruling-elite of the corporate/financial/militarist Empire, which now fully controls our former country by hiding behind the facade of its TWO-Party modern 'Vichy' sham of faux democratic government (just as the Nazi Empire hid behind its crude one-party 'Vichy' French government), is already very aware of the Empire's power and position, but also aware of its vulnerability to civil disorder among average citizens.
A very good analysis of the global ruling-elite (if not overt candor about their 'empire') is detailed below in a current 'Atlantic" cover-article by Chrystia Freeland of Reuters --- which she will apparently expand upon in a forthcoming book/
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/01/the-rise-of-the-new-global-elite/8343/
Unfortunately, few among the general populace will read the article, the book, or the numerous other books that accurately diagnose this seminal problem coming to a head in the 21st century, and thus a chaotic and possibly violent reaction could well come about.
However, there may be some hope that those who understand the problems entailed in great income/wealth inequality and its negative externality fueled causation; Empire, may be able to counsel and effect a non-violent resolution to this systemic and existential problem.
In fact, some within the ruling-elite themselves may decide that a more graceful and non-violent unwinding of this Empire pathology of "Rogue Economics", as Loretta Napoleoni aptly calls it in her fantastic new book of that name (or negative externality looting as I call it), will reverse the arc of Empire --- as 20th century Britain initially appeared to try to accomplish.
In a sense, Ralph Nader's latest book, "Only the super-wealthy can save us now" is, despite its panning by some on the left, an attempt to counsel the logic of such an approach --- rather than a more conflictive resolution.
Let me just continue and describe how such a non-violent 'unwinding' might be effected.
First, what must be understood beyond the points that Napoleoni makes in "Rogue Economics" is that Empire is the pathology that leverages and feeds itself on such rogue economics --- as Empire is firstly an economic pathology, and only secondly effects politics, civil society, and ultimately abuses military power (and war) in an attempt to maintain the unsustainable extreme hierarchical structure of Empire itself.
To better understand how this modern (20th/21st century) ruling-elite Empire actually perverts real economics into rogue/predatory economics, we need to understand that the disguised tactic that is employed to accomplish this global 'looting' is that the looting is accomplished in a highly veiled and indirect manner by dumping negative externality costs on society to generate false profits, rather than more directly and recognizably just directly stealing money.
Today's modern Empire can not merely rush forth and 'directly' steal money from people and governments of the world today, but must utilize the much more disguised and devious method of dumping their own Empire negative externality costs on people, governments, global society, and the 'commons' of the global environment --- and by dumping such negative externality costs on others, the Empire and its elite 'indirectly' generate what appear to be profits, but are really false profits.
Economists' prescription of a way to avoid such negative externality cost dumping on people, governments, and the 'commons' is to assess a negative externality tax on those organizations which emit negative externalities. However, this is not generally done on a system-wide basis nor incorporated into the tax code structure in the US (nor many other countries). Neither is there generally a tax imposed on investments in firms which emit high levels of negative externality costs on society.
Therefore, legislation needs to be in place to provide a new organization that would analyse and assess negative externality taxes on firms (and investors in firms) which produce and dump negative externality costs on society/government/people --- similar to setting up and doing what the EPA does for the dumping of air and water pollution.
This might be called the Externality Assessment Commission (EAC), and like the EPA would have to be staffed with economists and scientists who would analyze major negative externality dumping corporations, and prepare weighted negative externality taxes directly applied to such corporations, as well as a scale of taxes for any investors' capital gains in various levels of corporations depending on the negative externality impact of such corporations.
While a significant amount of initial research, analysis, and grading of negative externality dumping impacts would have to be done to accurately and fairly reflect costs imposed on the 'commons' and on investors who tried to profit in corporations making false profits significantly created by dumping negative externality costs, the overall philosophy and method of doing so would essentially exactly reflect early American law relating to the charter and review of corporations to insure that they were acting in the 'public interest'.
However, instead of bluntly and in a black or white manner disallowing, or revoking the charter of corporations which were not found to be operating in the 'common interest' of the United States, the EAC would apply a more gradual negative externality tax (both on corporations and their investors) which were found to be abusing their economic privilege by raising their negative externality tax to reflect, and fully pay for, the real costs of externalities which they were unfairly profiting from by dumping such externalities.
Naturally, the EAC (Externality Assessment Commission) would constantly improve and refine the accuracy of such a negative externality cost dumping matrix both in terms of reacting to new products which, based on experience, started to show increased levels of negative externality impacts, and by reducing taxes on corporations, investors, and products which were redesigned and improved to reduce their negative externality output.
Thus the existence of an EAC would apply a gradual and effective positive pressure on corporations, and importantly investors, not to intentionally design products like cigarettes, dirty energy plants, and scheming financial products like CDOs, CDSs which are intended to profit by dumping negative externality costs on the public, the country, the government, or the 'commons' environment ---- and would influence the positive direction of a range of all products based on real negative externality cost experience as such highly dysfunctional costs become clear to EAC over reasonable time.
This macro approach to providing accurate 'cost' inputs to corporate producers and investors would be far more efficient, effective, timely, and fair to all concerned than the ad-hoc methods of today, in which catastrophic disasters, like cigarette caused cancer deaths, global warming, or financial collapses take place first, and only later are the negative externality costs assessed by judicial settlements, bankruptcies, prison sentences, etc. with deadly effect on corporations, executives, and investors who had knowingly participated in such schemes.
In summary, the EAC would not immediately be a perfect solution to the string of disasters we have been experiencing in environmental, financial, health, and other product liabilities, but a forward leaning and pro-active EAC would allow the predictability that US business claims to want, and it would not be based on a central control economy attempt to 'pick winners' --- but rather to alert deadly and disastrous losers to review the characteristics of any product they intended to bring out, and be mindful that its real costs (including negative externality costs) would be fully covered in a product that would actually be positive and profitable for the whole society and not just for a 'rogue element' trying to get rich by screwing society, the 'commons', the people in general, and our whole society.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
