A Government is not a Business
The purpose of government is not to make profit, it is to protect and defend its citizens.
Government is not a platform from which a business deal is made. It is carefully structured to sleuth out the most important needs of all its citizens and provide for them. When it operates as it is built to do, its citizens are generally content. When it is gamed, in bad faith, for personal power and wealth, things fall apart and the government and its citizens have to move to defend themselves. The necessity to do this should never have evolved. But a well functioning government depends on people working in good faith, who are honorable, who seek truth and have guiding morals. As we know, sometimes people get into positions of power who don't have these qualities.
The unfortunate development of political positions being won by individuals who have the most money to spend has placed a significant number of people in Congress and some Presidents in the White House who have no moral compass.
We see the influence of unimaginable amounts of money on campaigns. Made worse when corporations were found to be citizens. Let's dive down the rabbit hole of history.
In 2010, when Obama was president, the Supreme Court found in the case called Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that corporations have 1st amendment rights to free speech and political spending. They named this “ corporate personhood” which holds that
corporations are associations of people and have certain constitutional rights. This allows, among many other things, corporations to make independent political expenditures and allows corporations to spend unlimited funds on elections. Also, a corporation is allowed to exist in
perpetuity. Even Voldemort would have envied this!
So, here we are. Both Democratic and Republican administrations have pushed more and more power and wealth into the hands of the few and in turn the recipients of this largesse have shown their gratitude by paying into more and more autocratic governments that will continue to
protect their economic and business advantages.
This is not hard to see. It is very hard to live through. And even harder to reverse. But this has been done before and can be done again. Good government is not a given. It has to be watched carefully (thank goodness for bureaucrats). But everyone needs to play a part and feel they can
be effective.
At Renew the Earth, renew the-earth.org, we have been developing over the past 20 years a concept that allows choice within our World Economic System. We call it a Parallel Currency.
This separate currency can only be used to provide basic human needs, food, shelter, education and health care. It cannot be invested or hoarded and will not cause inflation because it is destroyed when it reaches a bank.
Susan Caumont,
President, Renew the Earth
