"Empowerment" is Invoked Toward Those Lacking Real Power

As we live through the "End of History" does its underlying conditions still exist? The lack of any credible alternative to "democratic capitalism" supposedly explains why no matter how much the structure of our economy falters we must except it. In its most abstract and hygienic definition democratic capitalism offers little hope for the masses. The emergent heroes of capitalism today show little moral deviation from the social darwinists of the 19th century.  

The triumph of capitalism thus far shows post-historical civilization features less class struggle and more class exploitation. The former didn't end in 1989. Rather so far the history of this post-history shows no viable movement exists around which working classes can promote their interests. That is unless you believe the rhetoric of "empowerment" expressed constantly by corporate whores and business media. They use this word to patronize working classes who have little "power." In that vein Faulkner claims in As I Lay Dying that we constantly express certain words to compensate for the dearth of the implied underlying condition:

So I took Anse. And when I knew that I had Cash, I knew that living was terrible and that this was the answer to it. That was when I learned that words are no good; that words are no good; that words don't ever fit even what they are trying to say at. When he was born I knew that motherhood was invented by someone who had to have a word for it because the ones that had people who never sinned nor loved nor feared have for what they never had and cannot have until they forget the words. [1]

A nation that constantly expresses the word freedom and working classes constantly hear they have power should study Faulkner more closely. Literature rather than current media punditry offers a better guide to comprehending how the prolific use of words disguises the harshness of underlying social conditions.

Several examples demonstrate The End of History is just acceptance of a neoliberal political economy. Working classes should question their being "empowered" rather than accepting the ethos of the neoliberal economy.

First, observe this simple yet revealing graph:

This chart is one example of corporations forging a power base that supersedes sovereign states. Working classes cannot hide their wages like corporations can hide their profits in tax-avoidance havens.

Facebook not to be outdone receives more advertising money from the U.K. government than it pays in taxes to it:

FACEBOOK made 113 times more in taxpayers’ cash for advertising than it paid in corporation tax last year.

Government departments spent £489,329 in 2014-15 on ads with the social media giant’s UK arm, which coughed up £4,327.

Facebook paid the tiny amount by recording a £28.5million loss in the UK, while handing staff £35million in share bonuses.

Globally Facebook made a massive £1.9billion profit in 2014 on revenues of £9 billion. UK revenues were recorded as £105million. [2]

These figures add credence to the view that states act as subsidiaries of global corporations. This demonstration of corporate power shows an ominous glimpse of working classes becoming more subjects of corporations. Libertarians can rejoice at this weakening of the state, but everyone else will experience the true impact of sovereign power being usurped by corporations. This shifting of power to corporations will not liberate the masses. Instead, it will just change the institutions that impose power over them.

Corporations worldwide evade taxes being levied on wealth they have extracted from many people. Meanwhile in the shadow of Silicon Valley a prosperity gap widens:

In 2013, the top 1 percent of income earners in San Francisco and the Peninsula made 44 times more than everyone else: about $3.6 million compared with $81,000 — the biggest disparity in the state, the study showed. The nonpartisan think tank also revealed that the region’s wealthiest residents saw a 220 percent increase in average income since 1989, compared with a 35 percent gain for the remainder of the population. [3]

If this stratification continues, will U.S. workers become mirror images, socioeconomically speaking, of China's workers? 

U.S. workers are "empowered" only insofar as they exercise such power within the limitations set forth in existing laws, especially the infamous the Taft-Hartley Act (1947). This act has been interpreted to mean employees are thereby legally prohibited from "picketing" on behalf of employees of other employers. Or in other words this law prohibits workers from engaging in "general strikes." Are corporations prohibited from colluding to weaken labor No way. 

Conservatives decry judicial activism and express fear of judges who "legislate from the bench." Many conservatives who engage in judicial activism, though, rhetorically smooth over their jagged hypocrisy by euphemistically claiming their duty of "maintaining the rule of law." 

Moreover, many GOP Senators quickly show no pangs of civic conscience in dropping any pretense of adhering to the sanctity of U.S. Constitution when the U.S. President usurps Constitutional authority in promoting the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and its Fast Track provision. In this case, they believe secrecy should be standard operating procedure, and such secrecy is used to the behest of corporations benefiting from policies negotiated in secret. The degree of secrecy used in negotiating the TPP shows both Congress and the Obama Administration have little respect for the working classes:

So who can read the text of the TPP? Not you, it’s classified. Even members of Congress can only look at it one section at a time in the Capitol’s basement, without most of their staff or the ability to keep notes.

But there’s an exception: if you’re part of one of 28 U.S. government-appointed trade advisory committees providing advice to the U.S. negotiators. The committees with the most access to what’s going on in the negotiations are 16 “Industry Trade Advisory Committees,” whose members include AT&T, General Electric, Apple, Dow Chemical, Nike, Walmart and the American Petroleum Institute. [4]

This lack of transparency exposes Barrack "This is the most transparent administration in U.S. history" Obama as just another puppet acting and governing to the behest of corporations, while mocking any hint of serving the people. Tragically, President Obama is not the only alleged "progressive" that mocks the plight of working classes.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton demonstrated her mocking of working class interests while colluding with corporate elites. She used rhetoric to enhance her image as a progressive diplomat while materially pandering to corporate interests when labor leaders in Colombia hoped she would use her influence to pressure Colombia's government to protect labor organizers. Colombia's labor leaders sought her assistance in late 2011 after the world witnessed a seemingly historically transformative movement dubbed with the progressive meme Arab Spring:

The State Department publicly praised Colombia’s progress on human rights, thereby permitting hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid to flow to the same Colombian military that labor activists say helped intimidate workers.

At the same time that Clinton's State Department was lauding Colombia’s human rights record, her family was forging a financial relationship with Pacific Rubiales, the sprawling Canadian petroleum company at the center of Colombia’s labor strife. The Clintons were also developing commercial ties with the oil giant’s founder, Canadian financier Frank Giustra, who now occupies a seat on the board of the Clinton Foundation, the family’s global philanthropic empire.

The details of these financial dealings remain murky, but this much is clear: After millions of dollars were pledged by the oil company to the Clinton Foundation -- supplemented by millions more from Giustra himself -- Secretary Clinton abruptly changed her position on the controversial U.S.-Colombia trade pact. Having opposed the deal as a bad one for labor rights back when she was a presidential candidate in 2008, she now promoted it, calling it “strongly in the interests of both Colombia and the United States.” The change of heart by Clinton and other Democratic leaders enabled congressional passage of a Colombia trade deal that experts say delivered big benefits to foreign investors like Giustra. [5]

Secretary Clinton refused to allow sentimental concerns like labor rights prevent her and oil companies from engaging in mutually beneficial collusion. The sheep supporters voting for her in the U.S. Democratic Party Primary elections see no moral confusion. Don't let abuses of power and blatant hypocrisy encourage your reevaluating your myopic support of an operative duly serving the military industrial complex and crony capitalism. Just drink more Kool-Aid and find reassurance in such cliched rationalizations as "they all do it....what about so and so?....."

Meanwhile, we ignore this socio-economic-political arrangement of corporations gaining decisive influence and power over lawmaking and venturing into mass behavior modification. One word that applies to this current arrangement is state capitalism. This arrangement earns less scrutiny and scorn from many. Rather, in this world neoliberals invoke the straw man of "socialist" to demean anyone stating concerns about such things like inequality. Empower corporations, wither the masses.

[1]. Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. First Vintage International Edition. October 1990. pp 173-4.

[2]. "Government hands Facebook 113 TIMES more cash for adverts than social media companies pay in taxes." The Sun. Feb 28, 2016. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/6963452/Government-pays-more-on-ads-than-Facebook-does-on-tax.html 

[3]. Palomino, Joaquin. "As Bay Area economy booms, the rich get richer, study shows." San Francisco Chronicle. February 26, 2016. http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/As-Bay-Area-economy-booms-the-rich-get-richer-6854937.php?t=a97e602d15&cmpid=twitter-premium

[4]. Brown, Alleen. "You Can't Read the TPP, But These Huge Corporations Can." May 12, 2015. The Intercept. https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/12/cant-read-tpp-heres-huge-corporations-can/

[5]. David Sirota, Andrew Perez, Matthew Cunningham-Cook. "As Colombian Oil Money Flowed To Clintons, State Department Took No Action To Prevent Labor Violations." International Business Times. Apr 08, 2015. http://www.ibtimes.com/colombian-oil-money-flowed-clintons-state-department-took-no-action-prevent-labor-1874464

***To view the Senate Bills related to current trade proposals see http://www.finance.senate.gov/legislation/details/?id=09a8e24a-5056-a032-52c2-e543475d6f92