not a high bar to clear, term limits favor capital
Consider term limits. The US Constitution was amended to enforce term limits in direct response to FDR’s popular 12-year presidency (he died in office, going on for 16). As a policy, it is self-evidently quite anti-democratic (robbing the people of a choice), but nevertheless it has been conceptually naturalized to the extent that the 2019 coup against Evo Morales was premised explicitly on the idea that repeated popular electoral victories constituted a form of dictatorship. If rotation was important to avoid corruption or complacency, corporations and supreme courts would institute term limits too. Term limits ensure that in the miraculous scenario that a scrupulous, charismatic, and intelligent individual becomes a rebellious political executive, they won’t be in power long enough to meaningfully challenge the entrenched power of corporate vehicles manned by CEOs with decades of experience. Wolfgang Schäuble, a powerful advocate of austerity policy in Europe, succinctly summarized the extent to which electoral democracy is subordinate: “Elections cannot be allowed to change economic policy.” One Party States and Democratic Centralism are not the result of lack of sophistication or cronyism, they are a proven bulwark that acknowledges that political power will often need to be exerted against the will of Capital, and so the wielders of said power must necessarily undergo a much more serious vetting process than a popularity contest.
This is interesting to consider, but I think it misses the mark a bit and term limits may be more a threat to corporate hegemony than you’d think.
As it stands in the US, politics in DC revolves around legalized bribery in the form of “campaign finance donations.” The longer you continue to give corporate handouts and tax cuts, the more bribe money you get for your campaign for your next term. People like Pelosi, Schumer, Biden, Graham, and McConnell have mastered this game resulting in their lengthy careers in fundraising. The return on investment for this is astounding btw - it’s often 10s of thousands in bribe money to capture a politician, equating to millions or billions in reduced taxation. Anyway, I think with term limits there’s just much less opportunity for these entrenched CEOs to attain a grip of power over lawmakers, and hope that this would result in more motivation for representatives to “do the right thing” and pass laws which benefit their constituents instead of the top 1%.
Much less opportunity is not quite right. Most people who get elected have their price. What you need to do instead is make the bribery illegal. Of course, it is not straightforward to do this when the people making the laws have been bought or promised cushy, high-paying jobs when their term limit is up. As it is shockingly cost-effective, the companies will keep doing it. Long story short, the defense you need is, therefore, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and that defense can only be achieved by a revolution.
not a high bar to clear, term limits favor capital
from https://redsails.org/why-marxism/
This is interesting to consider, but I think it misses the mark a bit and term limits may be more a threat to corporate hegemony than you’d think.
As it stands in the US, politics in DC revolves around legalized bribery in the form of “campaign finance donations.” The longer you continue to give corporate handouts and tax cuts, the more bribe money you get for your campaign for your next term. People like Pelosi, Schumer, Biden, Graham, and McConnell have mastered this game resulting in their lengthy careers in fundraising. The return on investment for this is astounding btw - it’s often 10s of thousands in bribe money to capture a politician, equating to millions or billions in reduced taxation. Anyway, I think with term limits there’s just much less opportunity for these entrenched CEOs to attain a grip of power over lawmakers, and hope that this would result in more motivation for representatives to “do the right thing” and pass laws which benefit their constituents instead of the top 1%.
Much less opportunity is not quite right. Most people who get elected have their price. What you need to do instead is make the bribery illegal. Of course, it is not straightforward to do this when the people making the laws have been bought or promised cushy, high-paying jobs when their term limit is up. As it is shockingly cost-effective, the companies will keep doing it. Long story short, the defense you need is, therefore, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and that defense can only be achieved by a revolution.