Imagine that, for an attractive fee, you have been engaged as a consultant to the rich. They have a problem, or at least had a problem starting with President FDR. Our society celebrates formal equality and democracy (at least to the extent of holding regular elections), but the society is, in fact, grossly unequal in terms of wealth, and is becoming more so. How to protect and grow that wealth in a system where the mass of less affluent people vote (or at least could)? What are your recommendations?
Here are some ideas:
Popularize the concept of "free enterprisee" as a replacement for such phrases as "unregulated capitalism." Rely on "the market" for the alleviation of all troubles except foreign attack.
Appeal to Adam Smith's "invisible hand,", ignoring what he wrote about "moral sentiments."
Sponsor the myth of social mobility, despite the evidence. Support the modern equivalent of Horatio Alger stories, about how poor people who work hard can get rich
Argue that jobs wouldn't be created unless a few people were allowed to get grossly rich. That enterprise depends not on laws and practices that facilitate it, but on big financial "motivation."
Keep people isolated and cocooned as much as possible, defined as "consumers" at home with their nuclear families, TV sets, and stuff.
Foster suspicion against each new immigrant group. In addition, give people another group to feel superior to: the descendants of former slaves, regarded as "lazy" and "shiftless" at least since they started to be paid.
Demean below-average people (about half of all citizens) in school, in the mass media, in the workplace.
Allow "campaign contributions" and lobbying activities that amount to legalized bribery.
Define money as "speech."
Allow a "revolving door" between regulatory agencies and the private businesses that the agencies are established to regulate.
Define anything other than radical-right talk as praise for Soviet communism (red-baiting).
Punish union wrong-doing by laws that shrink unions while reacting to industrial or financial fraud not by criminal prosecutions but by fines that are a fraction of profits.
Facilitate globalization and automation, which drive down domestic wages, while failing to train some people effectively for the new types of jobs or to start a guaranteed income policy.
Shift the argument from economic inequality to "social issues" (even if little or nothing is or should be done about such issues as abortion, contraception, "the war against Christmas")
Create a communications system consisting of "private" TV and radio networks that can be manipulated by anyone who produces high ratings, even if the method is lies.
Sponsor a large military-industrial complex and "homeland security" apparatus that makes people feel "safe" or at least less insecure, whatever the reality.
Recruit soldiers disproportionately from the lower class, thank them for their service, and give them few benefits once they finish and are back in the "homeland."
Keep referring to this country as "exceptional," as "the last best hope of mankind, to give everybody something to be proud of.
Above all, delegitimize the government (as Reagan said, it's the problem, not the solution), so there's no appeal beyond the corporate system.
Start a network of so-called think tanks to issue a stream of reports based on your ideological propaganda
Move at the state level, apart from efforts on the federal level. This applies to state laws and rules, and to gerrymandering of House districts.
Give grants to universities to keep economics departments in favor of unregulated capitalism and inequality, and of neocon values.
Back Democratic Party politicians who adopt Republican values.
Arrest millions of poor people for victim-less crimes and then remove them from voting rolls.
Give disadvantaged people a strong man with whom to identify, a winner for all the people who feel they are losers.
Make it hard for poor people to vote by (a) having elections on a working day, (b) providing too few voting machines in poor precincts, (c) requiring forms of identification that many poor people don't have (d) disqualifying people who have been sentenced for a felony, including the possession or smoking of cannabis, (e) gerrymandering election districts to maximize the number of right-wing victories.
In these ways, wealth can be protected, even when voting is no longer limited to men of property. (To reverse this pattern, start anywhere.)
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