Dominant Power Structures

There is an old story about a Native American chief who was brought to Spain in the early years of colonization. When he saw the resplendent nature of the royal court after seeing the desperate poverty that everyone else lived in, he wondered aloud why the people did not kill the aristocracy for the obvious injustice they were doing to the people.

The same question could be asked today.

We live in a capitalist society, so we expect a certain amount of unequal wealth distribution. The promise of greater riches for harder, more innovative work is what incentivizes people to do and contribute more than they might otherwise do. Having lived in Africa, I have seen one of the alternatives to this system - In tribal culture, those who make even slightly more than they need are required by tribal norms to share with those who have less than they do. This is a great way to ensure survival for the tribe as a whole, but it also prevents anyone from being able to accrue enough capital to make bigger investments that will eventually lead to greater prosperity for all. So to be clear, I am not an anti-capitalist by any stretch of the imagination.

At the same time, however, has democratically-governed capitalism done away with the excesses of aristocratic greed? Did we really think aristocratic excess was nothing more than the product of an antiquated feudal system? Of course not. It wasn't the system that kept the powerful in control, it was the choices of everyone involved in the system that kept power concentrated in the hands of a few.

In the America of today, the people do not believe in inherited power. We have no kings and absolutely no inherited public offices. This is, obviously, a step in the right direction - but is it enough?

Today, although political power is no longer bestowed upon one's children, individual wealth is inherited from one generation to the next, and wealth still buys political influence. The aristocrats of old were thrown out of power by the rising merchant class, only to have them evolve into the "Robber Barons" of the 19th century and the financial "Masters of the Universe" in the 20th-21st centuries. The only backstop to this pernicious cycle is democracy, where the people can elect officials who will enact laws that prevent the most powerful from becoming a leach on the less fortunate. When the Great Depression hit in the 1930's, the people finally recognized that the wealthy elite had no credibility, and good, common-sense legislation was able to make its way through Congress into law.

And yet the wealthy elite still have considerable political power, which has only gotten stronger since the 1980's when everyone started to forget about the Great Depression and its causes. Top CEO's make thousands of times more money than their lowest-paid workers, and yet for some reason we do not see this as an outrage. In the past we shrugged our shoulders at unequal power and chalked it up to the "divine right of kings" to rule their lands. Now we shrug our shoulders because "the wealthy earned their money and should be able to keep it." Rarely do we as a society ask, "What did society do to help the wealthy earn their money, and what responsibility do wealthy people have to give back to the people and systems that pushed them up to the top?" Even more importantly, do we really believe that an hour of anyone's work is worth thousands of times more than anyone else's hour of work? What could possibly justify such thinking?

There is a reason why those in power remain in power, and it is not just because they have the resources to protect themselves from popular uprisings. They also have the power of ideas. If you convince a person that the powerful should remain powerful, he will not even try to rise up against you. You have won without ever having to crush an uprising. This is what all dominant power structures have in common - they justify unequal power distribution in a way that pacifies the least powerful. The justifications have evolved over time - from "Might makes right," to "The divine right of kings," to "The rich deserve their money."

If we wish to live in a society that works equally well for everyone, we have to stop believing in any idea that maintains dominant power structures. Sure, we live in a society that rewards merit more than any other that came before us, but that does not mean that merit is the only - or even dominant - factor in wealth accumulation. We have to recognize that power attracts the power-hungry, and any system that does not put the brakes on this natural human tendency will eventually become top-heavy and collapse under the weight of the wealthy elite's greed, excess, and a lack of accountability.