Money power trumps human values
THE election of Donald Trump as the US President a second time has stunned liberal democrats in the US and around the world. He says the US democratic system is rigged by his opponents. He claims that the liberal, elite establishment is against common, working people. He has risen again, lifted by forces of disenchantment that have been brewing for decades. A New York Times/Sienna College poll in October 2024 reveals that 45 per cent of the Americans believe that American democracy does not do a good job of representing the people. As many as 76 per cent believe American democracy is under threat from internal corruption (not Russian or Chinese interference). It is ironic that the US, the self-appointed defender of democracy around the world, is using its formidable military power and hegemonic control of the global financial system to undemocratically force Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela, which it claims are not democratic countries, into submission. There is no democracy today in international relations. Not even within the US, its citizens say.
The world is trembling. Liberals seem unable to understand how their policies and beliefs have caused the rise of authoritarianism. A wider lens is required to analyse the beliefs that have shaped 21st-century economic and social institutions. It reveals the excessive power of money to control institutions of governance at global and national levels.
The concept of ‘institutions’ is commonly limited to formal ‘organisations’, such as the executive government, courts, and elected assemblies, and checks and balances between them. This limited view misses the beliefs and ‘unwritten rules’ that shape the formation and behaviour of formal institutions. A ‘system’ encompasses norms, written and unwritten rules of conduct, and all actors within the system whose interactions form its behaviour. Economists Douglass North and Amartya Sen, and systems thinkers in other fields, take this wider, systemic view of institutions.
A systemic analysis of institutions explains the behaviour of systems at three levels. On the top are the visible phenomena about which data is easy to obtain. Beneath these are the interacting institutions that produce the phenomena. Deeper below are the beliefs and norms that shape and guide the institutions. Systems scientists use the picture of an iceberg to explain forces within a system. Visible phenomena are represented in the smaller portion above the waterline. Deeper forces that cause those phenomena are in the larger portion underwater. Systems thinkers delve beneath the waterline to analyse these forces.
Consider climate change. The consequences of climate change are visible in the unexpected heatwaves, hurricanes, floods and droughts being experienced around the world with greater severity. The proximate causes of global climate change are changes in the physics and chemistry of the environment — the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere, reduction of green cover, pollution of rivers and oceans, etc. — which climate scientists’ model to predict global temperature changes. The causes of these material changes are patterns of human activities with more material consumption and greater use of non-renewable energy. These increase the productivity and size of economies but create unsustainable pressure on the earth’s limited resources. The ultimate cause of unmitigated climate change is the pursuit of economic growth as the goal of human progress, and limited, mathematised models of economies disassociated from social forces. Neither climate scientists nor economists, with their limited models, can provide systemic solutions for climate change. We must go deeper into root causes, in beliefs and values embedded in these models.
Changes in three interconnected systems — systems of society, the economy, and governance — have caused the rise of authoritarian governments around the world. They have also disabled global governance. The ‘privatisation’ of economies, a thesis of the Washington Consensus which ruled the world after the collapse of the socialist Soviet Union in 1991, has given enormous power to large private sector institutions in the financial and business sectors. Money power controls the economy and the governance of societies. Financial investors have the right to sue democratically elected governments at international tribunals for infringement of their rights to make profits even when their contracts impinge on the rights of the country’s own citizens. The G7 cabal of rich countries, with less than 10 per cent of the world’s population, has been controlling the agenda of the global economy and setting the rules. These countries, led by the US, control the IMF and the WTO. The US, the leader of the Washington Consensus, also dominates the UN Security Council. It is holding COPs — the global climate summits — hostage: it is the global cop bullying the world into submission.
He who pays the piper calls the tune in politics, the media, policy think tanks and even in academic institutions. Systems’ analysis reveals why citizens, having lost faith in systems of electoral democracy, are electing authoritarian, ‘undemocratic’ leaders, even in the US. All three systems — of the economy, society and governance — are infected with money. Money rules the economy. The 21st-century ideology of economic governance is minimum government. Private is good and public is bad. Flows of money and trade across national borders must not be restricted.
The value of human lives in societies is measured by how much money an individual can earn; the worthiness of a nation by its GDP. Money power has infected governance systems too. Competing candidates need money to pay for expensive election campaigns. Over $16 billion was spent in the recent US presidential elections. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, gave the most money to support Trump. The latter has tasked him with reducing the size of the US government. Musk will assist the President in increasing the influence of the US abroad, cutting business deals with Russia and China, and keep US businesses, especially its powerful defence and tech industries, in control of global policies.
Money trumps human values. Money power has become a cancer in the governance of social and environmental systems. Like a cancer, money power multiplies itself. It shapes policies that enable those with money to make even more money. A global shift in power is necessary. Voices of nations and people with less wealth and more non-monetary wisdom must be heard more clearly in national and global governance systems to make the world a better place faster for those left behind by wealthy elites. This is the way to restore societal harmony and environmental sustainability before it is too late.
