Survival__ Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation - Charles George Smith [144]
Government, not just Federal but state, county and city, has two extraordinary powers: it can collect revenues via taxation, permits and fees, by force if necessary, and then distribute those funds however the officials in charge desire.
Theoretically, the voters can express their dissatisfaction with the decisions made every two or four years, but such referendums are inevitably diluted by distracting propaganda paid for by the Elites and high-castes who benefit most from maintaining the status quo.
I say "theoretically" for another reason: those on the receiving end of those stupendous revenues collected by the State have an asymmetric stake in the game: the potential losses in their own personal income are not just theoretical, they are very real, and so they mobilize their forces to protect their own fiefdom and perquisites with a frantic, desperate zeal unmatched by the voters, who have a much smaller stake in the division of tax revenues.
Thus the public employee unions, American Medical Association, pharmaceutical companies, trial lawyers, defense contractors and other Elites with asymmetric stakes funnel millions of dollars into the re-election campaigns of politicians. The net result, of course, is that the very expenses which have skyrocketed--public pensions and healthcare, to name but two--are "off the table," sacrosanct, untouchable.
For the politicians, there is an even bigger threat: should they cross the pharmaceutical industry, the AMA, the trial lawyers or any well-funded public employee union, these special interest groups will not just stop funding their campaigns--they will target them for extermination by funding an opponent.
Put yourself in the shoes of an elected official. You collect a small sum in campaign contributions from the general public--the non-Elite "little people" you are pledged to serve. You collect another larger sum from the party organs--political action committees, etc. Then you collect a sum five times greater than those two sources combined from a handful of powerful special interests who hold extremely asymmetric stakes in the game of distributing the tax swag/revenues.
Who are you going to ignore or even double-cross? Not the special interests who have funded your political power. Who you ignore or double-cross is the public, who has a small stake in every decision you make. You can count on that come election time, when an emotional issue can be blown out of proportion via propaganda to make the voters forget the "death by a thousand cuts" taxes and reductions in services they have suffered.
How many taxpayer/voters will write an angry letter to their local politician because parking fines doubled? They may grumble to friends, colleagues, et al. but they'll just pay it, fuming all the while.
How about that 1% increase to sales tax, the surcharge to the municipal water bill, the higher subway fares and the doubled fee to enter a state park? The typical voter is annoyed and frustrated by these additional taxes and fees, but it simply isn't enough money at any one time to trigger their political act of protest.
Added together, these additional taxes and junk fees total a stupendous sum--in the multiple billions of dollars. Yet because we "little people" pay them in small increments and only occasionally, then our stake in the game of distributing the tax swag is asymmetrically trivial compared to the players who are collecting the billions. They are playing for keeps, while we're playing--and losing--small money, again and again and again.
If you rounded up $100 from every neighbor, colleague, family member and other person in your own network, and walked into your local politician's office with $10,000 in a paper bag and a short list of items you wanted addressed, then you'd get a hearing.
Or if you collected 10,000 signatures to recall your local politician over these endless tax increases, then the politician would face a danger other than an desperate-for-swag special interest: an aroused, angry public who was organized to exterminate his/her political