Taxpayers, Stockholders and Citizens

Do you have ownership in America? I bet you imagine you do. I bet you think that because you were born in the U.S.A., you are among the “we the people” referred to in the Constitution of the United States of America. I bet you think that because you vote, or have a mortgage and a job, you enjoy the privileges of ownership in this nation.

Hey – I believe a lot of silly things, too.

The health care reform legislation that passed the House of Representatives yesterday is a very tired, weak and lame law. Why? Because “we the people” no longer have the power to influence our government to enact laws that are in our common interest. Why? Well, here’s how it goes in a nutshell.

In 1776 our common prosperity was rooted in the ideal of a common devotion to universal liberty, and to the lands of the original 13 colonies. These were lands of unimaginable abundance, which had been occupied for thousands of years by indigenous people. It's true that nearly 300 years prior to the American Revolution our European ancestors had decimated and domesticated those native people. And it's true that during those years the “peculiar institution” of slavery insured a dependable labor market. The framers of the U.S. Constitution, nonetheless, were idealists who were willing to take considerable risks to envision and create a “land of liberty” and a government that protected the rights and freedoms of individual citizens.

Governments have always taxed citizens to enable them to do the work we need governments to do, mostly to maintain a standing army. In the early days of the U.S.A., taxes were mostly voluntary, like the offering collected at church (which eventually became “pew taxes”, but that’s another story). Those who became wealthy as the result of the freedoms afforded them, contributed to the national treasury out of genuine gratitude for the fruits of their freedoms.

That didn’t last long.

Revolutionary zeal naturally cools into national identity and pride. Wealthy Americans began to galvanize the power they exercise through the payment of their taxes. Wealthy people naturally seek ways to exploit their power to further increase their wealth. By financing the government, they begin to assume control of the government, and thus are enabled to pursue their dreams of “building a better world”, a world in the image of the Modern Venture Capitalist, through the agency of that government.

Today, those in the upper income tax brackets – businesses and individuals – pay a considerable percentage of the nation’s taxes. They also invest in legislation to insure they can remain in those tax brackets. One of the great coups d’états of the wealthy was the legal establishment of the “corporation”. Corporations enjoy the legal status of individual citizens under U.S. law. This has resulted in more and more legal and political power percolating up from the citizenry to the corporate wealthy. This is why Washington is currently overwhelmed by handsomely paid lobbyists who outnumber elected legislators by 23 to 1 (down from 25 to 1 in 2008).

Corporations not only are able to pay for government influence, but they create their own constituencies – groups of people to whom they are accountable. In a democratic republic (our current form of government), an elected representative is presumed to be accountable to the people who elect him or her. In a corporation it is the investors – also known as “stockholders” – to whom corporate leaders are beholden. Stockholders are motivated above all by the pursuit of profit. They are discouraged from applying personal concern for social justice or environmental stewardship or the health and welfare of fellow citizens when they vote their company’s shares.

Today Corporations and their stockholders, as America's principle taxpayers, are no longer responsible as American citizens, or to American citizens. They are responsible to the “market”. Their corporate self-interest dictates that they do everything in their power to keep their tax money from being distributed by the government for the benefit of the commonwealth. Thus they have done and are doing whatever they can to prevent those taxes from being used to protect the citizenry from being exploited in the marketplace, including the medical marketplace.

If you’re a corporation or a stockholder in a large corporation, then I guess you DO own America. The rest of us … well, I guess we’re just a line item on the property list.