For too long, progressives have blindly accepted science's role in humanity's progress without ascertaining whether the state of science is fair, unbiased, and serving the public good. Today's progressives need to call out corporate interference and the profiteering under scientific and public health organizations, as well as risky scientific experimentation such as "gain-of-function" research that uses genetic engineering and synthetic biology to make viruses more virulent and infective.
Have We Acquiesced to Corporate Power?
Our society has made incredible advances in bringing awareness to gender, racial, and environmental issues and bringing attention to the dangers of global warming and climate change. However, we have obviously failed to address a significant source of inequality in our society: corporate power dominance over public policy.
Who has the power in the United States? Political scientist G. William Domhoff answered the question in 2005: "Those who have the money -- or more specifically, who own income-producing land and businesses -- have the power. In this day and age, this means that banks, corporations, agribusinesses, and big real estate developers, working separately on most policy issues, but in combination on important general issues -- such as taxes, opposition to labor unions, and trade agreements with other countries -- set the rules within which policy battles are waged."
Domhoff's words equally apply to our Post-COVID world, but the industries have changed. Now we have the specters of Big Tech, Big Food, Big Agriculture, Big Energy, Big Pharma, the CIA and the military-industrial complex that call the shots in the government-political-economic sphere. They utilize many of the same tactics and dirty tricks as before, but have gotten even more sophisticated by presenting their goods and services and policies as essential to society. They paint their goods and services, no matter how anti-democratic and authoritarian, as serving the good of humanity, thus hiding their political machinations behind seemingly emotional feel-good messaging.
It's no secret that inequality in the United States has been rising over decades. Progressives historically have played an essential role in checking corporate power and the economic royalty's dominant influence on society. A focus on eliminating racism and gender equality without addressing political power inequity, however, has become self-defeating for progressives.
Do Our Institutions Represent Us or the Corporations?
Progressives have long relied upon the government and its institutions to ensure the equitable distribution of resources throughout society. But we have missed a very logical and powerful move by the corporatists to control the regulatory institutions themselves, such as the Food and Drug Administration, the US Department of Agriculture, and the Departments of Defense and Energy. The economic and corporate elite have basically deployed a successful strategy that has captured the regulators.
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