We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, December 9, 2013

New Documents Show How Power Moved to Wall Street, Via the New York Fed

Click here to access article by Pam Martens from Wall Street on Parade

This pro-capitalist blogger is concerned about the concentration of power in the Federal Reserve in the New York branch which, in turn, is dominated by New York Banks. In other words, she criticizes this arrangement because it appears to represent in an undemocratic fashion only one section of capitalists. She seems to ignore the tendency for any form of power, based on institutional arrangements favoring certain sections of a society, to concentrate.

This reflects what members of the One Percent think about "democracy" and it is not unlike the views of the original founders of the US government, usually reverently referred to as the "Founding Fathers". The latter believed that only property holders were entitled to participate in elections and hold office. (Overtime this ruling class gradually allowed citizens, who had only their labor to rent in the capitalist labor market, to participate in elections and hold office only because the former had obtained so much control over the political system that produced candidates for office.) Today's ruling class believe that "democracy" means that capitalists make all major decisions. This is what One Percenters mean when they make numerous references to "democracy" in all their speeches and writings. 

This author is upset because only Wall Street bankers are allowed to participate in decision-making at the Fed regarding the money supply.