Who needs conspiracies, when reality is so much worse? They're comforting, I suppose. But we need people to start participating in public life, with awareness of what's actually at stake. That isn't going to happen by yelling at them about Bill Gates, whatever you want to yell at them about Bill Gates.

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This is a review of the new book, "Levers of Power: How the 1% Rules and What the 99% Can Do about It" by Tarun Banerjee, Michael Schwartz, and Kevin A. Young

Who needs conspiracies, when reality is so much worse? They're comforting, I suppose. But we need people to start participating in public life, with awareness of what's actually at stake. That isn't going to happen by yelling at them about Bill Gates, whatever you want to yell at them about Bill Gates. This book is a very good place to start understanding the "balance of forces", the term the authors use in preference to "balance of power". This is the kind of illuminating nuance you find in this fascinating analysis of our current state of affairs -- or I should say, the context within which the national drama is playing out.

As state and local government "open up", what is driving this premature action, given the scarcity of testing and the storm of disinformation and distraction from the so-called leadership? There are real, ordinary, everyday reasons why "our" governments tell us they're on our side, and then turn around and do the bidding of Wall Street. And it is deeper than just campaign finance, although that plays a big part.

After reading "Levers of Power", it seems clear that the same Wall Street tactics that have blocked any response whatsoever to global warming, and have been eroding or exploding every agency and policy protecting public health and safety since the end of WWII, are in full swing, as usual. And they have levers and fulcrums to work their will. But none of it is happening in some pyramid by torchlight to the ominous hum of chanting fanatics. It's all right out in broad daylight, in the public record, in plain English.

This tome comes well-fortified against the the now-pervasive mistrust of facts. It answers questions. It answers questions raised by questions it also answers. It connects dots, and shows how Wall Street continues to corrupt and co-opt the public good. It reveals starkly how the government's primary design function has evolved to become narrowly focused on protection and extension of corporate profits to the exclusion of all else, including our own extinction. It delineates the small but terribly effective array of corporate strategies and tactics in operation throughout the three branches, citing case after case, from the ACA to the EPA, an unbroken track record of keeping control of the hen-house firmly in the paws of the foxes.

The basics: disinvestment, lawsuits, and campaign finance, more or less in that order. Surprisingly, campaign finance doesn't provide the longest lever of power. What really gets the attention of politicians, judges, legislators and policy-wonks alike, is the threat of disinvestment, aka: "Capital Strike". This may be a new concept to many of us. It describes massive, purposeful disinvestment by Wall Street, such as the current hoarding of two or three trillion dollars, mostly off-shore. The latest bailout was an attempt, like the one before it, and the one before that, to cajole business into bringing, not "jobs", but capital back into the system.

In this light the forty-fifth Chief Executive's bizarre antics stand out prominently as the attention-craving distractions they are. For one example, throwing open the coasts to oil prospecting was shocking and even terrifying, depending on one's awareness of the ongoing ecological catastrophe. But it was an empty gesture that, while returning much immediate political advantage at news-cycle level, could not be implemented, given the real threat of disinvestment. The reaction was swift, from tourism, hospitality (45's own business) and fisheries industries

"...who predicted massive disruption to their business if the proposal were enacted. Their concerns were then transmitted through a bipartisan coalition of governors from coastal states, including far-right Trump allies like Rick Scott of Florida and Chris Christie of New Jersey, who sought exemptions from the Department of the Interior and vowed to take legal action if the administration did not grant them. California officials promised to use their power over licenses to block needed pipelines. Less visible resistance came from the Pentagon, which had opposed a more modest proposal under Obama, arguing that increased drilling would disrupt coastal military exercises.102 This multidimensional opposition appears to have influenced a federal judge's March 2019 ruling against the proposal, as well as the administration's decision to respect the ruling while it appealed.103 The conflict highlights the limits of Trump's freedom to advance particularistic elite interests. He could eliminate safety regulations for existing offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, but he was unable to take actions on behalf of oil companies that would harm other corporate sectors and potentially constrain the military.104"

(Those little numbers at the ends of sentences? They refer to sources. This is not opinion, it's the result of actual research. Something you won't see a lot in your average scary conspiracy story. If you follow these citations, you can usually tell whether the authors are just tooting their own horn, or have something substantial to convey. They are not generally YouTube videos or websites. They are mostly other scholarly works, also well-researched and verified and fact-checked.)

The authors also show how public disruption can determine historic outcomes, as with labor strikes in the 1930s that gave us the decades of relative prosperity we now recall so nostalgically; the long, slow, courageous work of the Civil Rights movement; and the social upheavals that ended the Vietnam War.

This book doesn't spare previous administrations, either; on the contrary. Roosevelt did not bring the New Deal with him into the White House, he was "pulled around" by the action of the supposedly powerless. It rakes Obama over the coals with hard numbers. It shows beyond any doubt how the current occupant is a quite normal Chief Executive, upholding (and striving to increase) the same murderous traditions of foreign policy and anti-immigrant, racist domestic policy, all the while kowtowing, like every President, to the corporate class that calls the shots.

"Elite institutions' capacity to implement or obstruct the president's policies also determined how much Trump could do. For example, the administration was very successful at terrorizing, imprisoning, deporting, sexually assaulting, and sometimes killing immigrants. One prerequisite for that success was lack of resistance from relevant business sectors (such as agribusiness) and the support of relevant law enforcement agencies like ICE and the Border Patrol.105 The other prerequisite was institutional capacity. As immigrant rights advocates have often noted, Trump's predecessors, both Republicans and Democrats, handed him a massive detention and deportation apparatus that he could deploy."

It's the real story of the conflict itself -- not between flamboyant personalities or entrenched ideologies (although many familiar names are named), but a structural one between established institutions of power. It's the financial world versus public health and safety, peace and prosperity. And it's a glimpse into the shifting balance of forces between those at the top of the heap, and everyone else. The stakes are, as always, class survival. To most people, aka "the 99%", survival means food, water and shelter. To "the 1%", it means continued assurance of the unassailable privilege of ownership, and of limitless profit. That's what really determines government policy -- not the "Illuminati", but this abusive structural relationship. And it is quite Shakespearean enough without any added plot-twists.

Whenever the Wall Street Journal, or the head of the Fed, or just about anybody in the whole network talks about "Confidence", you know (especially after reading the book) that there is a negotiation going on, and it's painfully simple. They're talking about Investor Confidence. In our capitalist culture, investor confidence in turning a profit drives the economy, so it is what people's lives depend on. Wall Street has the whole economy as a bargaining chip. What's happening now, at the height of the global pandemic, is a massive, unprecedented capital strike. Wall Street has taken all the marbles -- the bailout intended, so we were told, to start the economy back up -- and gone home. What is it doing with all that moola? Sitting on it. We, the people, are effectively under siege. Our livelihood is at stake, until the corporations get their way. If they don't get "confidence" -- whatever way they define it -- we don't eat.

There is no other reason for this sociopathic behavior but to extort yet more favors from government, in the form of deregulation and lax regulatory enforcement and always, always, tax breaks and subsidies and exemptions. It works every time, as this book shows in case after case, generation after generation.

That's my review of "Levers of Power". It's a great book, buy it and read it, because it doesn't just describe the mechanics: it provides leverage.

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Ok. The banks are sitting on two or three trillion, with a "T", of your tax dollars, dumped into their laps with no oversight, like the way we treat children seeking asylum at the borders, no tracking, no paper trail. This hoarding continues, even as more bailout billions are being diverted into the pipeline. There is no way the politicians are going to risk being seen as anti-Business, by Business, their true constituency. They'll claw the money from other programs if they have to, and they will have to. Whatever public spending is still in place on the table, as far as they're concerned. Business will grab it, if we let them let them. From that phrase you can see that it's the "most affected" by regulation -- the corporations seeking more profit -- that people need to attend to, not their wholly owned elected officials.

With unprecedented profits now so completely assured, what could Wall Street possibly want now, in return for loosening up a little credit? What has the government got to sweeten the deal? What is left to deregulate? What subsidies can it find to throw down those ravenous, slavering corporate jaws? To answer that, don't we need but look at specific threats to corporate profit? Not exactly. For one thing, there's nothing left to give them. And there's a pandemic on. Balance of forces in play, and all that. I think we're on a whole new playing field now.

What has been revealed in the last couple of months, in the Great Mirror of Pandemic? I mean, what has now been seen by the largest number of people in history, many for the first time, and for many, merely confirming their worst fears?

Massive wealth disparity, stunning levels of systemic racism, murderous abuse of legitimate asylum-seekers, massive sabotage of the national medical capacity, theft and resale of life-saving medical shipments (by FEMA no less!), massive, worldwide pandemic profiteering, a near-shooting war between political factions, the two-pronged corporate assault on education of underfunding and privatization, criminal negligence and abuse of public-water supplies, as seen in Flint, Michigan, and other cities (lead in the drinking water!? Isn't that still a horrible crime of mass murder or something? Where are the cops?).

To find this answer in light of all that has emerged into public awareness, I think we can look beyond the usual regulatory issues, tax-havens, casino banking, insider trading, predatory loans, shaky derivatives, presidential-crony pardoning, child-sex trafficking, opioid-crisis profiteering... Did I forget anything? Yes, lots; but there's not much of that stuff left anyway.

But now, the pandemic has put everything on the table: Inequality itself has become both a justice and a civil-rights issue, revealed in the widely disparate death rates among diverse communities. Privatization of schools, prisons, public utilities and essential government functions that have been sold off to unaccountable, unelected private profit-making corporations. Criminal pollution of air, land, water and our own bodies by chemical, energy, and agricultural corporations. Wanton destruction of ecosystems and entire human cultures world wide in the blind, insatiable quest for more profit at less cost. And let's go the distance here: willful destruction of Planet Earth, forever, by greenhouse-gas emissions.

Try to remember that this is structural: built-in. Part and parcel of our culture. Not just a few bad apples: a whole rotten, unworkable set of cultural rules. Meaning, a revolution can only produce a different set of slave-masters. Meet the new Boss.

Then there's the rising idea of a general strike based on all of the above. This is people-power. The one force Wall Street truly fears. With public sentiment heating up faster than global warming (and we had better hope so!), and the corporate machinery stripped of its cover by a microscopic bug, the balance of forces, as the authors say, is shifting. And Wall Street is already months into their capital strike. Some might say they are running short of options.

What might corporations fear from people-power, in reparations, retribution, restorative justice, criminal prosecution, or just tar, feathers, torches and pitchforks?

How about nationalization: how about "social" media, how about the internet, why should these necessities of public health and safety be in private hands, and subject to such overwhelming, unrestrained, pervasive, invasive surveillance? Business will whine that our data is their private property, and the profits from it are theirs to use as they please. It's none of their business! Why are they allowed to assert such pernicious nonsense?

What about the rising idea, and this among a great many serious economists today, of a Universal Basic Income? Many calculate that at 20% of GDP. We waste that much food every day. Why should so much of our human family be enslaved to inadequate wages, when it is their labor that makes for so much private wealth?

There is no reason for these sad realities, other than basic cultural structures: our own culture.

Business is banking on public apathy, and it is not showing up as they might hope. Example: "opening up" has not brought crowds of eager workers back to the assembly lines -- oops, those are all automated now aren't they -- motels, fast-food joints, hair and nail salons, massage parlors, tattoo shops, private prisons, dog-walking services, "security" companies... People know it's too soon for that. We know it ain't "a little flu".

The public, that is, the people whose voices can be heard, which is those of us who still have internet access, are talking to each other for once, instead of about each other with those trollbots on "social" media. The Surveillance Capital, and it is a bonanza now what with Zoom being the only way to communicate, may be immensely profitable for Eric, and Jeff, and Mark, or whomever. But with everyone looking at the same germ, it's hard to segment them into those little tiny demographics that made those three guys the owners of the world. Hard to automate an election when people are keeping in touch with each other, and not just with the system.

The other public, that is, the people with few options left, not even "social distancing" let alone "social" media, are not out of the game. Consider that when the Soviet Union collapsed, there were millions of people with even fewer options left, and they had nothing to vote with but their feet. But that wall came down. There's a lot more walls now -- and a lot more people with few options left.

Wall Street may be in trouble, or not. And they may know it, or not. But they hold all that money, and could jump-start life again. The problem seems to be that they want it "back to normal". The "normal" where they held all the cards.

Just to spell this out: the Cost-Benefit Analysis that only counts anticipated corporate profit as "benefit" and potential corporate losses as "cost" is "Normal" to Wall Street. Anything other than "normal" is seen as an existential threat.

If their behavior over the past six or seven decades I remember is any indication, they aren't going to spend a dime, or more to the point, permit any government expenditures on anything in the public interest, if it doesn't boost their "confidence". And their "confidence" is the economic term-of-art that refers to the food you and I eat every day.

But now things are substantially different. Maybe even the Basic Cultural Rules have been upended. So if they don't get some of that confidence pretty quick, they stand a good chance of losing their, um, position. I'm not betting on anybody in that branch of Wall Street known as "the government" to notice this. So,

"Things should start to get interesting right about now." -- B. Dylan, "Stayed in Mississippi a Day Too Long"

The important thing to know about all this is that it is not personal, it's structural. Our economy is embedded in our culture, and our culture defines "freedom" as the inalienable right to spend your money any way you please, or not, regardless of your fellow human beings. The Cost-Benefit Analysis rules.

We can start by modifying that equation, adding integrity, accounting for true costs.

(Article changed on May 24, 2020 at 14:15)

(Article changed on May 24, 2020 at 15:49)

Authors Website: https://attentionage.com

Authors Bio:

I'm an old Pogo fan. For some unknown reason I persist in outrage at Feudalism, as if human beings can do much better than this. Our old ways of life are obsolete and are killing us. Will the human race wake up in time? Stay tuned...