Purchasing Political Power, At A Price

IT IS WIDELY KNOWN that the United States of America is a nation governed by the wealthy, for the wealthy, exactly as the founders intended. James Madison divided society into two classes, the "better sort", and the "lesser sort", and made it perfectly clear, in his writings, letters, and in his constitution, our constitution, exactly who the better sort were; men such as himself.By the "lesser sort", he meant the other ninety nine percent. After the Civil War, corporations took over from the wealthy land owners, and rule to this day. The facts are well known. Corporate money purchases political power, by purchasing politicians. Nobody does it better nowadays than Charles and David Koch. David died not long ago, Charles trudges on, undeterred, spreading his money among extreme right wing interests and politicians. The best monograph about the Koch industry dynasty is "Dark Money", by Jane Mayer. The book describes the criminality of Koch Industries, including the cancer epidemic among trailer park residents living near Koch refineries, which dump toxic waste into the environment, and only stop when stopped by government regulation and litigation. Poor people are easy to purchase, cheaper than politicians. Koch industries has contributed enough money to far right politicians to ensure Republican control of the Senate, for the time being. A new book, "Kochland" by Christopher Leonard, takes a more personal look at the brothers, and fins them personable, welcoming, charming. Leonard is impressed by the way in which the empire was built, one brick at a time, since the nineteen sixties, from a collection of small enterprises into a vast conglomerate. Equally impressive is then fact that the Kochs have resisted public ownership, thus turning down hundreds of million in immediate investor generated profit. Whether or not they intend to be, the Koch brothers, (R.I.P. David), are malignant to the American economic and political system, notwithstanding job creation. The damage done to the environment, the destruction of people's live, through the manufacture of fuel and plastics, and by their steadfast refusal to seek alternatives, is incalculable. They are libertarian, hateful towards any and all government oversight, not because they think it serves humanity, but because it serves their own interests; the acquisition of personal wealth. For people to acquire massive personal wealth is one matter. For people to use such wealth by purchasing political power, thus gaining and maintaining a disproportionate share of influence in a supposedly democratic system in which everyone has one vote, is quite another. As former Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis and others have pointed out, you can have great economic inequality or democratic citizen political equality, but you cannot simultaneously have both. Thus, our current oligarchy, our current plutocracy. The Koch brothers are quick to point out that they are merely succeeding, the American way, and using their wealth to influence politics, as anyone has the right to do. This is quite correct, and James Madison would doubtless approve. Or maybe not;within five years after Madison's constitution went into effect, he realized that it was a mistake, that the better sort had no interest in representing the interests of the lesser sort. Maybe he would be horrified at our present political and economic circumstances after all, as the rest of us should be.