Obviously, Citizens United sped up the process immensely. Not only undemocratic but also anti-free market capitalism.
https://open.substack.com/pub/thomhartm ... paign=postThe transition from a governmental society to a feudal one is marked by the rapid accumulation of power and wealth in a few hands, with a corresponding reduction in the power and responsibilities of government. Once the rich and powerful gain control of the government, they turn it upon itself, usually first radically reducing their own taxes, while raising taxes on the middle class and poor. Says Bloch: “Nobles need not pay taille [taxes].”
Bringing this to today, consider that in 1982, just before the first Reagan-Bush “supply side” tax cut, the average wealth of the Forbes 400 was $200 million. Just four years later, their average wealth had more than doubled to over $500 million each, aided by massive tax cuts.
Today, as the Institute for Policy Studies notes, “With a combined worth of $2.34 trillion, the Forbes 400 [individuals] own more wealth than the bottom 61 percent of the country combined, a staggering 194 million people.”59 Forbes magazine, for 2017, reported, “The minimum net worth to make The Forbes 400 list of richest Americans is now a record $2 billion. . . . [T]he average net worth rose to $6.7 billion.”60
While the Forbes 400 richest Americans have gone from an average wealth of $200 million in 1982 to over $6 billion today, the average wealth of working Americans stayed flat, in the face of explosions in the costs of health, education, and housing.
Median household wealth in 2013, for example, was $81,000—about the same as in 1983 (the first year of household wealth surveys by the federal government). 61 But the median price of a house in 1983—around $74,000 (or $180,000 in today’s dollars 62)—has, according to the US Census Bureau, risen to over $220,000 today (and it’s massively higher in most cities).63 In 1983, the average person working a minimum wage job could afford a college education; now there’s over $1.7 trillion in student debt.
And in 2017, Trump and his GOP doubled down on their plan to move America from democracy to feudal oligarchy by cutting more than $1.5 trillion in taxes, most of the cuts directed to the uber-rich and giant monopolistic corporations. As a result, massive companies like Amazon, Chevron, General Motors, Delta, Halliburton, and IBM paid nothing in federal income taxes the next year.
In every sector of our economy, big businesses have been concentrating power since the 1980s, and America’s once-strong middle class has been crushed under their heels...
