‘O’ Is for OligarchyBY MICHAEL VENTURA<strong>The</strong> Oxford English Dictionary’s definitioncites the clunky prose of American PoliticalScience Review: “An oligarchy is an organizationcharacterized by the fact that … the highestdegree of authority … [is] free from control byany of the remainder of the [organization].”“Oligarchy” is a big, bad word that definesa country we still call a republic.<strong>The</strong> United States became an oligarchyslowly, in plain sight, without need of conspiracies.A Supreme Court ruling in 1896 grantedcorporations more rights than individuals.From the mid-19th century to today, towncouncils, state legislatures, and the federalgovernment have given railroads, steel companies,oil companies, and the like every breakpossible. <strong>The</strong> outcome was what most peoplewanted: jobs, money, progress. <strong>The</strong> U.S. hadthe biggest and best commercial enterprisesin history. For a while, especially after WorldWar II, Americans lived high: Our population,just 5% or 6% of the world’s total, gobbledroughly 50% of the world’s resources.That could not continue indefinitely.Globalization began to change our statusin the 1970s, while large corporationsmerged into gigantic corporations. <strong>The</strong>gap between the top and the middlegrew by leaps. Again, it happenedmostly in plain sight.For instance, a great victory forcapital-“O” Oligarchy was wonwhen, beginning in the earlyEighties, insurance companiestook control of our medicalprofessions. In France or India,when the government condonespractices that the medical professiondoesn’t want, their doctors, nurses, shrinks,and med techs go on strike – and usually win.In America, ours didn’t make a peep.During President Bill Clinton’s secondterm, the financial industry was deregulated.Anyone who read newspapers could track thedevelopment of that disaster from beginningto end. But most Americans don’t read thetough stuff. <strong>The</strong> nature of banking and realestate completely changed, and America tookit in stride. After all, when this happened inthe 1990s, things were pretty flush for many,so: why worry?Everybody knew lobbyists had too muchpower, but no one marched on Washingtonabout that. Republicans mostly, but Democratstoo, gerrymandered state election districts sothat it was tough to dislodge an incumbent,and no one marched about that. No onemarched late in 2009 when the SupremeCourt decided that corporations could spendas much money in elections as they felt like.By then, Oligarchy was a fact of life. <strong>The</strong> peoplewith clout were out of sight, and, as we’veseen in the past year, the power of electedofficials became ever dimmer.lettersat 3amNow many are angry, on the right, theleft, and in the middle. Many yell about“socialism.” Occasionally you even hearthe word “oligarchy.” <strong>The</strong> yellers blameanyone but themselves. No one takesresponsibility for decades of passivity.Be that as it may, Oligarchy is here.<strong>The</strong> political structures of the republicare still operative but increasingly ineffectiveat stopping Oligarchy from itspurpose, which is to suck all resourcestoward the top.<strong>The</strong> U.S. Oligarchy can’t be describedwith classifications such as upper, middle,and lower class. Oligarchy dividessociety (with amazing success!) into rigidstrata or tiers.Top Tier is the “highest degree ofauthority … free from control.” A PaulSimon lyric defined them: “a loose affiliationof millionaires and billionaires.” <strong>The</strong>operative word is “loose.” Conspiracytheorists derail when they imagine tightlydisciplined cabals. To think the Top Tieracts in concert is to underestimate howviciously and constantly its componentscompete among themselves. An oligarchyis more like a clan: <strong>The</strong>yargue with each other butunite against the Other –that “other,” in this case,being everyone else.Beneath the Top Tier is theProfessional Tier. An oligarchydepends on professionals. <strong>The</strong>Professional Tier is highly paidand dependably subservient: politicians(up to the highest level), lawyers,doctors, shrinks, scientists, engineers,financiers, real estate magnates, communicators(high visibility print and broadcasttypes, especially), generals, spooks,high-level bureaucrats (governmental andcommercial), large-scale entrepreneurs, topscaleentertainers, university deans and professors(not lowly teachers), and experts ofall kinds, be they specialists in meteorology,tax codes, or fashion design. Doesn’t matterwhether they’re liberal or conservative. Aliberal lawyer, doctor, scientist, or inventoris as useful to capital-“O” Oligarchyas a conservative one because the notionthat “liberal” or “conservative” belief mattersis delusional in Oligarchy. As long asprofessionals perform their function, theirpersonal belief is as beside the point as whatthey eat for breakfast.Oligarchy pays the Professional Tier plenty– so much so, in fact, that they aresocially cut off from the tiers beneath them.Which is the point. Money is nothing tothe Top Tier. Pay the Professional Tier insix figures, and that, alone, effectively cutsthem off from the majority. <strong>The</strong> ProfessionalJASON STOUTTier works for its own interests, and its maininterest is that six-figure salary. Individually,they may do good works. That doesn’tchange the equation. Socially, they associateonly with one another and dutifully performthe functions necessary within the termsand limits of how Oligarchy defines “success.”<strong>The</strong>ir attachment to affluence makesthe Professional Tier co-conspirators in spiteof themselves.Beneath the Professional Tier is the SkilledService Tier. Every function that cannot be outsourcedis of the Skilled Service Tier. Soldiersand lower officers of the military, middlemanagement in commerce and government,plumbers, hairdressers, electricians, techs ofall kinds, cops, nurses, landscapers, constructionworkers, truck drivers, mechanics, K-to-12 teachers, folks who command the clothingor toy or furniture departments at Wal-Mart:<strong>The</strong>y don’t set policy. <strong>The</strong>y carry it out.<strong>The</strong> Skilled Service Tier is economically andsocially cut off from the Professional Tier andlight years distant from the Top Tier. <strong>The</strong>irpaychecks are usually large enough to makemany believe they’re “getting ahead” butusually low enough to keep them from thatimagined goal.Below the Skilled Service Tier is the tiermany of them command, the Unskilled ServiceTier: waitresses, clerks, cabdrivers, temps,floor-moppers, bedmakers, night watchmen,delivery people, and the like, who, at best,barely scrape by.Those beneath the Unskilled Service Tierare Spare Parts – a tier all its own, constantlyin flux between desperation and work (oftentwo or three jobs) amongst the UnskilledService Tier.In American parlance, the Professional andSkilled Service tiers are lumped together asthe “middle class.” Nothing could be furtherfrom the truth. In larger cities, these tiersdon’t live in the same neighborhoods andare socially cut off from one another. <strong>The</strong>Unskilled Service and Spare Parts tiers arewhat used to be called “working class”; inreality, their social function is to be so financiallyinsecure that anyone above their statusis frightened of sinking down to becometheir neighbors.We still call it the United States, but in theAmerican Oligarchy each tier is anything butunited. Each tier lives in a different country,with different laws, customs, education,assumptions, interests, and drastically differentoptions. What the tiers mainly have incommon is that they socialize only with thosein their own tier.<strong>The</strong> social distance between tiers is thecement of Oligarchy. Socially separate tiers cannotact in concert. Only action in concert effectsstructural change and threatens Oligarchy.Oligarchy thrives on a truth articulated byThomas Pynchon in Gravity’s Rainbow: “Ifthey can get you asking the wrong questions,they don’t have to worry about the answers.”To be continued.28 T H E A U S T I N C H R O N I C L E APRIL 9, 2010 a u s t i n c h r o n i c l e . c o m
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