The corruption of our societies
Nearly all our economies’ problems arise from the concentration of power. Our system of freedoms has gradually been trampled over by monopolies of all kinds and to different extents, that have increased the costs of health, medicine, food, agricultural products, and a whole range of commodities and materials. It’s the tens of millions of independent businesses across the world who have been pushed to the brink, it’s the hundreds of villages and small towns around the globe that have been bled dry, it’s the communication networks and media outlets meant to be the best defence to protect our democracies that are being strangled, and it’s even the national security of countries like the US that finds itself compromised.
Nothing can be done about this confiscation of our economic and even state sovereignty without a return to a certain type of ideology, one that has been censured by a neoliberalism that – for the last forty years – has convinced us that only mercantilism and profit count for anything. Since, over the years, these monopolies have put us in both economic and political handcuffs, dismantling them will finally free up the energy and motivation needed to realise far-reaching structural reforms able to open up all kinds of opportunities, from creating better-paid jobs, a fair and equal healthcare system, long-term investment stimulation, and encouraging innovation, to finally taking the climate crisis seriously and fighting against it. We must therefore wake up and realise that the fate of the 21st century is being played out right now, and that’s it’s now or never that we’ll (re)define our foundations on a more just, sure, lasting and therefore prosperous basis. It is without delay that this cleansing of public utility must begin, especially given that the overwhelming majority of citizens of the Western world are all in agreement that the likes of Google, Facebook and Amazon are way too powerful and must urgently have their reaches restricted, or even be broken up.
And what if this resetting of the clocks came to us from the US and their President-elect, deciding to make steadfast use of the substantial legislative arsenal at their disposal that would allow them to deconstruct, in a decisive and unassailable way, this extreme concentration of private powers that has taken not just the American people hostage but the whole world? The redressing of these economic and financial predators would liberate an unprecedented amount of capital that is currently concentrated in very few hands and allow SMEs that today are being stifled by these behemoths to flourish. The future President Biden and his teams would do well to make this war against monopolies a top priority if they really want to fight against inequalities and restore national unity with a goal that has a wide consensus across the whole political spectrum. It is no longer tenable that the overwhelming majority of the American population, and beyond them the Western world, remain isolated, humiliated and impoverished to the benefit of a miniscule minority that impose diktats even to the States. May Biden endeavour to ascend to the echelons of Wilson in 1913, Roosevelt in the 1930s and Eisenhower in the ‘50s, who all defined their respective presidencies by fighting against these powers that are corrupting our societies.