Democrats, Greens, Presidential candidates, and progressives should stand together in a war against BIG, using a war on BIG as an umbrella theme that covers too-big-to-fail, getting rid of billionaires, too-big government boondoggles like a grotesquely over-funded military, the too powerful mega-platforms (Amazon, Google, Facebook,) and multi-billion-dollar welfare for corporations like Amazon and energy companies,
Too big is dangerous, It is, in nature, a pathological state described as gigantism. Too big gives a few people too much power and influence It enables psychopaths, sociopaths and narcissists to engage in their predatory and sadistic propensities on immense scales.
The war against big is already underway, hence my title's emphasis on EXPAND.
There's been plenty of talk about "too big to fail" companies. They should not be allowed to exist, meaning break down the ones that do exist and make it illegal for new ones to get too big.
The trend to shift from centralization to localized is growing and strong.
Finally, with the voice of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the idea of getting rid of billionaires has received mainstream attention, after years of Thom Hartmann and I calling for it.
Finally, the power, predation and abuses of the big megaplatforms-- Facebook, Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft-- are being questioned, with even their existence challenged.
Finally, extreme wealth and the historically high wealth imbalance that now exists is being challenged, with a return to much higher taxes approved by over 60% of poll respondents.
All of these have one thing in common. They oppose some form of extreme bigness. They are also all issues or policy positions that are embraced by progressives.
I'll add a few more bigness issues that could add up to a new way of framing issues that could attract even more voters:
Big government is an issue that conservatives and Libertarians cleave to. I would argue that big government is an issue that progressives should start opposing. We already do when it comes to the military. We need to look at other aspects of government and make sure that they are not abusing power, or have people at their helm abusing power.
The feeling of powerlessness that many Trump supporters have felt is in part because of the way they see big government and big power. They saw Trump as someone who would change the balance of power. They may not see that he's betrayed them but they might see that people who are opposing BIG are on their side.
The solution to TOO BIG is bottom-up localization and prevention of consolidation and mergers. I challenge the idea that really big projects require really big companies. The bottom-up way to approach big projects is through smart cooperation and interdependence. This is how humans evolved to exist and co-exist. We can do big projects while staying small. It will take new ways of thinking and working in cooperation. We should develop a science of thinking SMALL. Kelvin McCampbell's book Making Massive Small Change takes many of the philosophical ideas of E.F. Schumacher's landmark book, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as If People Mattered and operationalizes them with practical approaches.
We need to develop a economic model and value system built on finding SMALL economic approaches, SMALL ways to deal with big challenges and SMALL ways to replace BIG, Top-down approaches. In technology, the trend is to make things smaller, even microscopic. The same ideas of making things smaller, and more bottom-up should be true for approaching economics, government, leadership, health care, the arts, the media, education and solutions to making the world a better place for all people.
If Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive leaders crystallize all of the above anti-big trends into one coherent Anti-BIG movement, it could bring in many new supporters. That could cause an avalanche in the 2020 elections at all levels on the ticket.
The only big that is important is the big inclusion of all the people in seeking social, economic and environmental justice.
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