Where did the power of the people go? To the corpocracy did it flow. Where will democracy power go? Back to the people with this manifesto! This article explains the meaning of power in the context of democracy vs corpocracy and then presents a manifesto to truly patriotic Americans to exercise their democracy power against the corpocracy.

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The root, "cracy" comes from the Greek "kartia" for power. Here are all the "---cracies" I could find: autocracy, bureaucracy, corpocracy, democracy, kleptocracy, mobocracy (yes, it's a word), monocracy, plutocracy, technocracy, theocracy, timocracy. This article picks out two of them, democracy and corpocracy, and contrasts their meaning and application of "cracy."

There is such an inherent conflict between these two "cracies" that they can't co-exist in the same nation and they don't coexist in America. In America the corpocracy rules with tyrannical-like power. The self-ruling democracy power of the people has been taken from the people.

Where did the power of the people go? To the corpocracy did it flow.

What "cracy" means without the prefix

Power in the abstract means control over human beings' life equations on their left side so that the outcomes on their right side are what are intended, not unintended:

Our Selves + Our Situations= Whether/How Much Health, Happiness, and Prosperity We Have or Don't Have  

What "cracy" means with the two prefixes

Demo---, Greek for people

Our Selves + A Democracy =More Health, Happiness, and Prosperity

for most of Us

Corp---, Latin for body

Our Selves + The Corpocracy=Less Health, Happiness, and Prosperity

for Most of Us    

Dissecting the meaning of power  

In a democracy its citizens have the power of freedom, the power of prosperity, the power of knowledge, the power of choice, and the power of responsibility. It all adds up to the power of the people; their self-rule and control of their own lives, not to the power of the corpocracy and its tyrannical rule over peoples' lives.

The power of freedom: How so?

Democracy, needless to say, is synonymous with freedom. But have we thought of freedom in the way that Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Roman Consul and Orator (106BC-43BC), thought of it? "Freedom," he said, "is participation in power." He wrote Western civilization's first democratic constitution and he prized freedom. So did the framers of the U.S. Constitution who were heavily influenced by Cicero's writings. The reason he believed freedom is participation in power is because power means control and a free people thus have more rather than less control over how much health, happiness, and prosperity they have. And in a democracy of self rule it is the shared, participatory power of the people, not the hoarded, tyrannical power of the corpocracy that governs.

The power of prosperity: How so?

The late Justice Louis Brandeis said, "W e can have a democracy or we can have great wealth in the hands of the few. We cannot have both." And we don't. We don't have a genuine democracy but we do have great and sometimes vulgar (i.e., ill begotten) wealth in the hands of one percent of Americans who possess nearly forty percent of all wealth in the nation.

In her magnificent book, The Real Wealth of Nations, Riane Eisler wrote a book about the "real wealth of nations." She argues that their real wealth ultimately depends not on their markets but on the quality of their human and natural capital and that the primary purpose of any economic system ought to be the promotion of human welfare and happiness.

That the real and full meaning of wealth and prosperity goes far beyond material wellbeing is no consolation to poor Americans (except, perhaps, those who believe in a prosperous after-life with their oppressors gnashing their teeth in inferno). They can't even get beyond poverty. They are powerless over their life's equations. Wealthy people manipulate their equations to get exactly the outcomes they want, outcomes that add up to yet more material wealth. America's corpocracy, moreover, is not about to help America advance toward meeting Article 25 of the 1948 United Nation's Declaration of Universal Human Rights that everyone on earth is declared to have the right to an adequate standard of living. Neither corporate balance sheets nor politicians' ledgers take that right into account. It's a pathetic fact courtesy of the corpocracy that America has the worse income inequality, the highest poverty rate, the highest unemployment rate, and the biggest war record of all advanced countries.

The power of knowledge: How so?

In a letter to James Madison in 1787, Jefferson wrote that "to educate and inform is the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." Democracy requires knowledge. It is not the knowing of how to acquire, keep and abuse excessive power and wealth but the knowing of what is required to be healthy, happy, and prosperous and also in knowing what is required to keep from losing democracy or to reclaim it once lost.

In his book, Idiot America, journalist Charles Pierce contends that stupidity and ignorance are being glorified in America. Democracy cannot survive in America's version of the Dark Ages where the corpocracy stands in for the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the church. When high school students take a miniature U.S. citizenship test, most flunk it. Ignorant high school students become ignorant adults, uncritical voters and ripe for demagoguery. This is an outcome exactly intended by the corpocracy that is starving before privatizing one of the hallmarks of a democracy, public education.

Knowledge is also represented in the left-most input of our life equations, namely, ourselves. Every human being has a psychological makeup of nine elements: needs; abilities; knowledge; values; beliefs; personalities; experiences; gender; and genetic predisposition. Being only one of nine doesn't diminish the importance of knowledge. I once debated when he was in his 90's Edward Deming (since deceased), the famous guru of total quality management. "Knowledge is everything," he said. "No sir," I responded, "the right application of the right knowledge is better." That combination, other elements being equal, gives us more control over our lives. That is true even living in a corpocracy. The more knowledgeable we are the better able we are to skirt, blunt or counteract the corpocracy.

The power of choice: How so?

It's axiomatic that being free, prosperous, and knowledgeable makes available a wide range of choices between the better and the worse in life. It also follows as night does day that the subjugated, the poor, and the poorly educated have a narrow range of choices available to them; they usually come down to bleak options like living wage, poverty-level wage, or no wage at all; emergency-room care or no care at all; slum housing or no home at all; and degrading welfare until no welfare at all.

The psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) theorized that there are five human needs starting with the lowest that had to be satisfied first, the physiological need to fill one's belly and to sleep protected under a roof and then on up to self-actualization, the artsy or aesthetic need that is nice to satisfy but not necessary for one's belly or sleeping. He tacked on a sixth one late in his life, the need to attain what he called "self-transcendence." He thought only a tiny fraction of humanity could ever get to this level. A huge fraction in corpocracy America, the powerless and the poor are struggling just at the first level.

The power of responsibility: How so?

If this last element of power is true, how is it we might ask that the irresponsible corpocracy has the most power in America? My answer lies first in the nature of choice, second in the nature of responsibility, and third in the nature of power without responsibility.

1. The nature of choice. Wayne Visser, author of The Age of Responsibility says that "Responsibility is the choice (emphasis mine) we make to respond with care." We can choose to be responsible or irresponsible. Passivity in the face of the corpocracy, even though it may have a boot on our face is being irresponsible to our own life equation and insensitive to those of others under the same boot. Being responsible for one's life equation means trying to exercise more control over it despite being under the boot.  

2. The nature of responsibility. Responsibility means meeting one's obligations and being accountable for one's actions and their consequences. Meeting obligations enhances reputation and credibility and has a positive, not negative effect on the outcome side of our life equations other considerations being equal. The same goes for accountability. It usually requires us to think through the longer term consequences of actions we are contemplating, and this in turn usually leads to actions with intended, not unintended consequences.

Responsibility, by the way, is one of ten universal ethical values. If most were breeched most of the time everywhere there would be no civilizations anywhere, only jungles. Ethical values that are honored are the glue of honorable civilizations.

3. The nature of power without responsibility. Power without responsibility is the exploitation and abuse of power. Power without responsibility is corrupt power and the sine qua non of corpocracy power. The exploitation and abuse of its ill-begotten power enables the corpocracy to control its own life equation at the terrible expense of America's life equation.  

Well, so what?

A friend of mine calls me a "social philosopher." Up to now this essay I guess has been social philosophy. As such it begs the question, "so what?" I am going to conclude this essay with my answer to it.

A manifesto for truly patriotic Americans

One conceivable scenario for the future of America's corpocracy is that Americans by and large will choose to do nothing to seriously oppose it and it will eventually self-destruct from a nuclear blowback by one or more of its aggrieved victims as a result of constant warring and militarism by the U.S. If that should ever happen it will be a pyrrhic victory for democracy. The second scenario is that Americans by and large will choose to wrest control from the corpocracy. That is what happened to the four earlier renditions of the corpocracy in America's history (the Crown's Corpocracy, the Robber Baron's Corpocracy, the Flapper Era Corpocracy, and the Cold War Era Corpocracy). The fifth, the Current Corpocracy began in 1971 and is stronger, more powerful, and more ruinous than any of the earlier renditions. And Americans by and large still have chosen to remain passive.

But Americans can choose to organize and unleash two-fisted democracy power against the corpocracy. I am not going to elaborate here on this power's parameters because I have already done so in earlier OpEdNews.com pieces (see, e.g., the two-part series on corporate reform, March 20 and March 25, 2012; and Organizing and unleashing two-fisted democracy power at a treadmill pace, February 23, 2012) other than to say the Democracy Coalition, one fist, is building steam, and the other, the U.S. Chamber of Democracy has stalled for awhile until recruiting is done for the Democracy Coalition.    

Falsely patriotic Americans say "My country right or wrong." False patriotism is dangerous and deadly. Truly patriotic Americans say "My country please do right and no wrong." True patriotism can be a rallying cry for us all to exercise our democracy powers of freedom, prosperity, knowledge, choice and responsibility. Here briefly is a manifesto for truly patriotic Americans to exercise their powers of democracy against the corpocracy.

Exercise the democracy power of freedom

Participate in meaningful, not just symbolic Fourth of July's actions demonstrating the power of the people against the corpocracy. Get involved in grassroots movements. Promote their melding into a massive show of democracy power, the Democracy Coalition (see its page at http://www.uschamberofdemocracy.com). Occupy Corpocracy!

Exercise the democracy power of prosperity  

Protest the ill begotten wealth of corporate America. Promote the attainment of real wealth for Americans, their well being and happiness.   

Exercise the democracy power of knowledge

Become more knowledgeable about what the nature of the corpocracy is and how it is ruining America. Learn more about the life equations and the "liberty quotients" (freedom/subjugation) of the "99%." Learn more about the existing sources of opposition to the corpocracy. Learn more about how to be a skilled social activist against the corpocracy. Then apply the knowledge by sharing it in social circles and by spreading it far and wide around and even through the mainstream media (e.g., write commentaries in response to articles in major newspapers)!

Exercise the democracy power of choice

First and foremost, choose to actively oppose the corpocracy. Second, choose the domain(s) of the corpocracy to oppose; the political domain, the legislative domain, the judicial domain, and/or the commercial domain. Third choose how to oppose it; boycotts, protests, litigation and/or any other means of peaceful opposition.

Exercise the democracy power of responsibility

Be an active foe of the corpocracy and a truly patriotic American, not a passive and unwitting ally of the corpocracy. To quote Mr. Visser, "Responsibility is the counterbalance to rights." If we expect the right to freedom, we have the responsibility to reclaim and protect that right. If we expect the right of social justice, we need to help make it available to every American. If we believe in the right to an adequate standard of living, we have the responsibility to help make it available to every American.

Where will democracy power go? Back to the people with this manifesto!

Authors Website: http://www.911rescueamerica.com

Authors Bio:

Retired organizational psychologist.

Author of "911!", The Devil's Marriage: Break Up the Corpocracy or Leave Democracy in the Lur ch; America's Oldest Professions: Warring and Spying; and Corporate Reckoning Ahead.

I may be aged but I am still an indefatigable foe of America's power elite who are ruining our nation and the world. If they wrongdoing and evildoing are not stopped there will be no humanity later this century. My newest book, "911!" explains why America needs rescued from the death grip of the power elite and proposes a detail plan for rescuing America and creating a new People's America.