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<title>D.2 What influence does wealth have over politics?</title>

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<h1>D.2 What influence does wealth have over politics?</h1>

<p>
The short answer is: a great deal of influence, directly and indirectly. 
We have already touched on this in <a href="secB2.html#secb23">section B.2.3</a>. 
Here we will expand on those remarks. 
</p><p>
State policy in a capitalist democracy is usually well-insulated from popular
influence but very open to elite influence and money interests. Let's consider 
the possibility of direct influence first. It's obvious that elections cost 
money and that only the rich and corporations can realistically afford to 
take part in a major way. Even union donations to political parties cannot 
effectively compete with those from the business classes. For example, in 
the 1972 US presidential elections, of the $500 million spent, only about $13 
million came from trade unions. The vast majority of the rest undoubtedly 
came from Big Business and wealthy individuals. For the 1956 elections, the 
last year for which direct union-business comparisons are possible, the 
contributions of 742 businessmen matched those of unions representing 17 
million workers. This, it should be stressed was at a time when unions had 
large memberships and before the decline of organised labour in America. 
Thus the evidence shows that it is <i>"irrefutable"</i> that <i>"businessmen contribute 
vastly greater sums of money to political campaigns than do other groups [in 
society]. Moreover, they have special ease of access to government officials, 
and they are disproportionately represented at all upper levels of government."</i> 
[David Schweickart, <b>Against Capitalism</b>, pp. 210-1] 
</p><p>
Therefore, logically, politics will be dominated by the rich and powerful
-- in fact if not in theory -- since, in general, only the rich can afford 
to run and only parties supported by the wealthy will gain enough funds and 
favourable press coverage to have a chance (see <a href="secD3.html">section D.3</a> 
for the wealthy's control of the mass media). Of course, there are many countries which do 
have labour-based parties, often allied with union movements, as is the 
case in Western Europe, for example. Yet even here, the funds available 
for labour parties are always less than those of capitalist supported parties, 
meaning that the ability of the former to compete in "fair" elections is 
hindered. In addition, the political agenda is dominated by the media and as 
the media are owned by and dependent upon advertising from business, it is 
hardly surprising that independent labour-based political agendas are difficult 
to follow or be taken seriously. Unsurprisingly, many of these so-called
labour or social-democratic parties have moved to the right (particularly
since the 1980s). In Britain, for example, the New Labour government which
was elected in 1997 simply, in the main, followed the policies of the 
previous Conservative Governments and saw its main funding switch from
unions to wealthy business men (sometimes in the form of "loans" which 
could be hidden from the accounts). Significantly, New Labour's success was
in part dependent on support from the right-wing media empire of Rupert 
Murdoch (Blair even consulted with him on policy, indicating his hold 
over the government).
</p><p>
Then there are the barriers involved once a party has gained office. Just
because a party has become the government, it does not mean that they can
simply implement their election promises. There are also significant 
pressures on politicians from the state bureaucracy itself. The state 
structure is designed to ensure that real power lies not in the hands 
of elected representatives but rather in the hands of officials, of the 
state bureaucracy which ensures that any pro-labour political agenda will 
be watered down and made harmless to the interests of the ruling class.
We discuss this in <a href="secJ2.html#secj22">section J.2.2</a> 
and will not do so here. 
</p><p>
To this it must be added that wealth has a massive <b>indirect</b> influence
over politics (and so over society and the law). We have noted above that
wealth controls the media and its content. However, beyond this there
is what can be called "Investor Confidence," which is another important
source of influence. This is <i>"the key to capitalist stability,"</i> notes 
market socialist David Schweickart. <i>"If a government initiates policies
that capitalists perceive to be opposed to their interests, they may,
with neither organisation nor even spitefulness, become reluctant to
invest [or actually dis-invest] in the offending country (or region or 
community), not if 'the climate for business is bad.' The outcome of such 
isolated acts is an economic downturn, and hence political instability. 
So a government . . . has no real choice but to regard the interests of 
business as privileged. In a very real sense, what is good for business 
really is good for the country. If business suffers, so will everyone 
else."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 214-5] 
</p><p>
Hence Chomsky's comment that when <i>"popular reform candidates . . . get 
elected . . . you get [a] capital strike -- investment capital flows out 
of the country, there's a lowering of investment, and the economy grinds
to a halt . . . The reason is quite simple. In our society, real power 
does not happen to lie in the political system, it lies in the private
economy; that's were the decisions are made about what's produced, how
much is produced, what's consumed, where investment takes place, who
has jobs, who controls the resources, and so on and so forth. And as
long as that remains the case, changes inside the political system can
make <b>some</b> difference -- I don't want to say it's zero -- but the 
differences are going to be very slight."</i> This means that government
policy is forced to make <i>"the rich folk happy"</i> otherwise <i>"everything's
going to grind to a halt."</i> [<b>Understanding Power</b>, pp. 62-3] As we 
discuss in the <a href="secD2.html#secd21">next section</a>, this is 
precisely what <b>has</b> happened.
</p><p>
David Noble provides a good summary of the effects of such indirect
pressures when he writes firms <i>"have the ability to transfer production
from one country to another, to close a plant in one and reopen it 
elsewhere, to direct and redirect investment wherever the 'climate' is
most favourable [to business]. . . . [I]t has enabled the corporation to
play one workforce off against another in the pursuit of the cheapest
and most compliant labour (which gives the misleading appearance of
greater efficiency). . . [I]t has compelled regions and nations to
compete with one another to try and attract investment by offering
tax incentives, labour discipline, relaxed environmental and other 
regulations and publicly subsidised infrastructure. . . Thus has
emerged the great paradox of our age, according to which those nations
that prosper most (attract corporate investment) by most readily
lowering their standard of living (wages, benefits, quality of life,
political freedom). The net result of this system of extortion is a
universal lowering of conditions and expectations in the name of
competitiveness and prosperity."</i> [<b>Progress Without People</b>, 
pp. 91-92] 
</p><p>
And, we must note, even when a country <b>does</b> lower its standard of
living to attract investment or encourage its own business class to
invest (as the USA and UK did by means of recession to discipline
the workforce by high unemployment) it is no guarantee that capital
will stay. US workers have seen their companies' profits rise while 
their wages have stagnated and (in reward) hundreds of thousands have 
been "down-sized" or seen their jobs moved to Mexico or South East Asia
sweatshops. In the far east, Japanese, Hong Kong, and South Korean workers
have also seen their manufacturing jobs move to low wage (and more 
repressive/authoritarian) countries such as China and Indonesia.
</p><p>
As well as the mobility of capital, there is also the threat posed by
public debt. As Doug Henwood notes, <i>"[p]ublic debt is a powerful way of
assuring that the state remains safely in capital's hands. The higher
a government's debt, the more it must please its bankers. Should bankers
grow displeased, they will refuse to roll over old debts or to extend
new financing on any but the most punishing terms (if at all). The 
explosion of [US] federal debt in the 1980s vastly increased the
power of creditors to demand austere fiscal and monetary policies to
dampen the US economy as it recovered . . . from the 1989-92 slowdown."</i>
[<b>Wall Street</b>, pp. 23-24] And, we must note, Wall street made a 
fortune on the debt, directly and indirectly.
</p><p>
This analysis applies within countries as well. Commenting on Clinton's 
plans for the devolution of welfare programmes from Federal to State 
government in America, Noam Chomsky makes the important point that 
<i>"under conditions of relative equality, this could be a move towards 
democracy. Under existing circumstances, devolution is intended 
as a further blow to the eroding democratic processes. Major
corporations, investment firms, and the like, can constrain or directly
control the acts of national governments and can set one national
workforce against another. But the game is much easier when the only
competing player that might remotely be influenced by the 'great beast' is
a state government, and even middle-sized enterprise can join in. The
shadow cast by business [over society and politics] can thus be darker,
and private power can move on to greater victories in the name of freedom."</i>
[Noam Chomsky, <i>"Rollback III"</i>, <b>Z Magazine</b>, March, 1995]
</p><p>
Economic blackmail is a very useful weapon in deterring freedom. Little
wonder Proudhon argued that the <i>"Revolutionary principle . . . is Liberty. 
In other words, no more government of man by man through the accumulation 
of capital."</i> [quoted by Jack Hayward, <b>After the French Revolution</b>, p. 177]
</p>

<h2><a name="secd21">D.2.1 Is capital flight really that powerful?</a></h2>

<p>
Yes. By capital flight, business can ensure that any government which
becomes too independent and starts to consider the interests of those who
elected it will be put back into its place. Therefore we cannot expect a
different group of politicians to react in different ways to the same
institutional influences and interests. It's no coincidence that the
Australian Labour Party and the Spanish Socialist Party introduced
"Thatcherite" policies at the same time as the "Iron Lady" implemented them
in Britain. The New Zealand Labour government is a case in point, where
<i>"within a few months of re-election [in 1984], finance minister Roger
Douglas set out a programme of economic 'reforms' that made Thatcher and
Reagan look like wimps. . . .[A]lmost everything was privatised and the
consequences explained away in marketspeak. Division of wealth that had
been unknown in New Zealand suddenly appeared, along with unemployment,
poverty and crime."</i> [John Pilger, <i>"Breaking the one party state,"</i> <b>New
Statesman</b>, 16/12/94]
</p><p>
An extreme example of capital flight being used to "discipline" a naughty
administration can be seen from Labour governments in Britain during the
1960s and 1970s. Harold Wilson, the Labour Prime Minister between 1964
and 1970, recorded the pressures his government was under from "the 
markets":
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"We were soon to learn that decisions on pensions and taxation were no 
longer to be regarded, as in the past, as decisions for parliament alone. 
The combination of tax increases with increased social security benefits 
provoked the first of a series of attacks on sterling, by speculators 
and others, which beset almost every section of the government for the 
next five years."</i> [<b>The Labour Government 1964-1970</b>, p. 31]
</blockquote></p><p>
He also had to <i>"listen night after night to demands that there should
be cuts in government expenditure, and particularly in those parts of
government expenditure which related to social services. It was not
long before we were being asked, almost at pistol-point to cut back
on expenditure"</i> by the Governor of the Bank of England, the stock
exchange's major mouthpiece. [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 34] One attempt to 
pressurise Wilson resulted in him later reflecting:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"Not for the first time, I said that we had now reached the situation 
where a newly elected government with a mandate from the people was 
being told, not so much by the Governor of the Bank of England but by 
international speculators, that the policies on which we had fought 
the election could not be implemented; that the government was to be 
forced into the adoption of Tory policies to which it was fundamentally 
opposed. The Governor confirmed that that was, in fact, the case."</i> 
[<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 37]
</blockquote></p><p>
Only the bluff of threatening to call another general election 
allowed Wilson to win that particular battle but his government was 
constrained. It implemented only some of the reforms it had won the 
election on while implementing many more policies which reflected 
the wishes of the capitalist class (for example, attempts to shackle 
the rank and file of the unions).
</p><p>
A similar process was at work against the 1974 to 1979 Labour government.
In January, 1974, the FT Index for the London Stock Exchange stood at 
500 points. In February, the Miner's went on strike, forcing Heath (the 
Tory Prime Minister) to hold (and lose) a general election. The new 
Labour government (which included some left-wingers in its cabinet) 
talked about nationalising the banks and much heavy industry. In August, 
1974, Tony Benn announced plans to nationalise the ship building industry. 
By December, the FT index had fallen to 150 points. [John Casey, <i>"The 
Seventies"</i>, <b>The Heavy Stuff</b>, no. 3, p. 21] By 1976 the Treasury 
was <i>"spending $100 million a day buying back its own money on the 
markets to support the pound."</i> [<b>The Times</b>, 10/6/76]
</p><p>
<b>The Times</b> [27/5/76] noted that <i>"the further decline in the value of the 
pound has occurred despite the high level of interest rates. . . . [D]ealers 
said that selling pressure against the pound was not heavy or persistent, but
there was an almost total lack of interest amongst buyers. The drop in the
pound is extremely surprising in view of the unanimous opinion of bankers,
politicians and officials that the currency is undervalued."</i> While there 
was much talk of private armies and military intervention, this was not
needed. As anarchist John Casey argues, the ruling class <i>"chose to play 
the economic card . . . They decided to subdue the rogue Labour 
administration by pulling the financial plugs out of the economy . . . 
This resulted in the stock market and the pound plummeting . . . This
was a much neater solution than bullets and forced the Wilson government
to clean up the mess by screwing the working class with public spending 
cuts and a freeze on wage claims . . . The whole process of economic 
sabotage was neatly engineering through third parties like dealers in
the currency markets."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 23]
</p><p>
The Labour government, faced with the power of international capital,
ended up having to receive a temporary "bailing out" by the IMF, which
imposed a package of cuts and controls, to which Labour's response was, in
effect, <i>"We'll do anything you say,"</i> as one economist described it. The 
social costs of these policies were disastrous, with unemployment rising 
to the then unheard-of-height of one million. And let's not forget that 
they <i>"cut expenditure by twice the amount the IMF were promised"</i> in an 
attempt to appear business-friendly. [Peter Donaldson, <b>A Question of 
Economics</b>, p. 89] By capital flight, a slightly radical Labour government
was brought to heel. 
</p><p>
Capital will not invest in a country that does not meet its approval. In
1977, the Bank of England failed to get the Labour government to abolish
its exchange controls. Between 1979 and 1982 the Tories abolished them and
ended restrictions on lending for banks and building societies: 
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"The result of the abolition of exchange controls was visible almost
immediately: capital hitherto invested in the U.K. began going abroad. In
the <b>Guardian</b> of 21 September, 1981, Victor Keegan noted that 'Figures
published last week by the Bank of England show that pension funds are now
investing 25% of their money abroad (compared with almost nothing a few
years ago) and there has been no investment at all (net) by unit trusts in
the UK since exchange controls were abolished.'"</i> [Robin Ramsay, 
<i>"Mrs Thatcher, North Sea and the Hegemony of the City"</i>, pp. 2-9,
<b>Lobster</b>, no. 27, p. 3]
</blockquote></p><p>
This contributed to the general mismanagement of the economy by Thatcher's
Monetarist government. While Milton Friedman had predicted <i>"only a modest 
reduction in output and employment will be a side effect of reducing 
inflation to single figures by 1982,"</i> the actual results of applying his 
ideas were drastically different. [quoted by Michael Stewart, <b>Keynes and 
After</b>, p. 179] Britain experienced its deepest recession since the 1930s, 
with unemployment nearly tripling between 1979 and 1985 (officially, from 
around 5% to 13% but the real figure was even higher as the government 
changed the method of measuring it to reduce the figures!). Total output 
fell by 2.5% in 1980 and another 1.5% in 1981. By 1984 manufacturing 
investment was still 30% lower in 1979. [Steward, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 180] 
Poverty and inequality soared as unemployment and state repression 
broke the back of the labour movement and working class resistance.
</p><p>
Eventually, capital returned to the UK as Thatcher's government had
subdued a militant working class, shackled the trade unions by law 
and made the welfare state difficult to live on. It reversed many of
the partial gains from previous struggles and ended a situation where
people had enough dignity not to accept any job offered or put up with 
an employer's authoritarian practices. These factors created "inflexibility"
in the labour market, so that the working class had to be taught a lesson
in "good" economics (in part, ironically, by mismanaging the economy by 
applying neoclassical dogmas in their Monetarist form!). 
</p><p>
Needless to say, the situation in the 21st century has become worse. There has 
been a <i>"huge rise in international borrowing . . . in international capital 
markets since the liberalisation moves of the 1970s, and [a] significant 
increase in foreign penetration of national central government bond markets."</i>
This means that it is <i>"obvious that no central government today may follow 
economic policies that are disapproved of by the capital markets, which have
the power to create an intolerable economic pressure on the respective 
country's borrowing ability, currency value and investment flows."</i> [Takis 
Fotopoulos, <b>Toward an Inclusive Democracy</b>, p. 42] We discuss globalisation 
in more detail in <a href="secD5.html">section D.5</a>.
</p><p>
Unsurprisingly, when left-wing governments have been elected into office
after the 1980s, they have spent a lot of time during the election showing 
how moderate they are to the capitalist class ("the markets"). This 
moderation continued once in office and any reforms implemented have been
of a minor nature and placed within a general neo-liberal context. This was
the fate of the British Labour government of Tony Blair, while in Brazil the
government of Lula (a former lathe operator, labour union leader and 
Brazil's first working-class president) was termed "Tropical Blairism" by 
left-wing critics. Rather than use popular mandate to pursue social justice, 
they have governed for the rich. Given the role of the state and the pressures
governments experience from capital, anarchists were not surprised. 
</p><p>
Of course, exceptions can occur, with popular governments implementing 
significant reforms when economic and political circumstances are favourable.
However, these generally need popular movements at the same time to be
really effective and these, at some stage, come into conflict with the
reformist politicians who hold them back. Given the need for such 
extra-parliamentary movements to ensure reforms anarchists consider their
time better spent building these than encouraging illusions about voting
for radical politicians to act for us (see <a href="secJ2.html">section J.2</a> 
for details).
</p>

<h2><a name="secd22">D.2.2 How extensive is business propaganda?</a></h2>

<p>
Business spends a lot of money to ensure that people accept the status
quo. Referring again to the US as an example (where such techniques are
common), various means are used to get people to identify "free
enterprise" (meaning state-subsidised private power with no infringement
of managerial prerogatives) as "the American way." The success of these
campaigns is clear, since many American working people (for example) now 
object to unions ing too much power or irrationally rejecting all radical 
ideas as "Communism" (i.e. Stalinism) regardless of their content. By the
1990s, it had even made "liberal" (i.e. mildly reformist centre-left 
policies) into a swear word in some parts of the country.
</p><p>
This is unsurprising and its roots can be found in the success of sort of 
popular movements business propaganda was created to combat. As Chomsky
argues, due to popular struggles, <i>"the state has limited capacity to 
coerce"</i> in the advanced capitalist countries (although it is always there, 
to be used when required). This meant that <i>"elite groups -- the business 
world, state managers and so on -- recognised early on that they are going 
to have to develop massive methods of control of attitude and opinion, 
because you cannot control people by force anymore and therefore you have 
to modify their consciousness so that they don't perceive that they are
living under conditions of alienation, oppression, subordination and
so on. In fact, that's what probably a couple trillion dollars are
spent on each year in the US, very self-consciously, from the framing
of television advertisements for two-year olds to what you are taught
in graduate school economics programs. It's designed to create a
consciousness of subordination and it's also intended specifically
and pretty consciously to suppress normal human emotions."</i> [<b>Chomsky
on Anarchism</b>, p. 223]
</p><p>
This process became apparent in the 1960s. In the words of Edward Herman:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"The business community of the United States was deeply concerned over 
the excesses of democracy in the United States in the 1960s, and it has
tried hard to rectify this problem by means of investments in both 
politicians and informing public opinion. The latter effort has included 
massive institutional advertising and other direct and indirect propaganda
campaigns, but it has extended to attempts to influence the content of
academic ideas . . . [With] a significant portion of academic research 
coming from foundations based on business fortunes . . . [and money]
intended to allow people with preferred viewpoints to be aided financially
in obtaining academic status and influence and in producing and
disseminating books."</i> [<i>"The Selling of Market Economics,"</i> pp. 173-199, 
<b>New Ways of Knowing</b>, Marcus G. Raskin and Herbert J. Bernstein (eds.),
p. 182]
</blockquote></p><p>
Wealth, in other words, is employed to shape the public mind and ensure
that challenges to that wealth (and its source) are reduced. These include
funding private foundations and institutes ("think-tanks") which can 
study, promote and protect ways to advance the interests of the few. It
can also include the private funding of university chairs as well as the
employment of PR companies to attack opponents and sell to the public 
the benefits not only of specific companies their activities but also the
whole socio-economic system. In the words of Australian Social Scientist
Alex Carey the <i>"twentieth century has been characterised by three 
developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, 
the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda 
as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy."</i> [quoted
by Noam Chomsky, <b>World Orders, Old and New</b>, p. 89]
</p><p>
By 1978, American business was spending $1 billion a year on grassroots
propaganda. [Chomsky, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 93] This is known as <i>"Astroturf"</i> 
by PR insiders, to reflect the appearance of popular support, without 
the substance, and <i>"grasstops"</i> whereby influential citizens are 
hired to serve as spokespersons for business interests. In 1983, 
there existed 26 general purpose foundations for this purpose with 
endowments of $100 million or more, as well as dozens of corporate 
foundations. One extremely wealth conservative, Richard Mellon Scaife,
was giving $10 million a year through four foundations and trusts. [G. 
William Domhoff, <b>Who Rules America Now?</b>, p. 92 and p. 94] These, along 
with media power, ensure that force -- always an inefficient means of 
control -- is replaced by (to use a term associated with Noam Chomsky) 
the <i>"manufacture of consent"</i>: the process whereby the limits of acceptable 
expression are defined by the wealthy. 
</p><p>
Various institutions are used to get Big Business's message across, for
example, the Joint Council on Economic Education, ostensibly a charitable
organisation, funds economic education for teachers and provides books,
pamphlets and films as teaching aids. In 1974, 20,000 teachers
participated in its workshops. The aim is to induce teachers to present
corporations in an uncritical light to their students. Funding for this
propaganda machine comes from the American Bankers Association, AT&T, the
Sears Roebuck Foundation and the Ford Foundation. As Domhoff points out, 
<i>"[a]lthough it [and other bodies like it] has not been able to bring about 
active acceptance of all power elite policies and perspectives, on economic 
or other domestic issues, it has been able to ensure that opposing opinions 
have remained isolated, suspect and only partially developed."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, 
pp. 103-4] 
</p><p>
In other words, "unacceptable" ideas are marginalised, the limits of 
expression defined, and all within a society apparently based on "the 
free marketplace of ideas." 
</p><p>
This process has been going on for some time. For example <i>"[i]n April 1947,
the Advertising Council announced a $100 million campaign to use all media
to 'sell' the American economic system -- as they conceived it -- to the
American people; the program was officially described as a 'major 
project of educating the American people about the economic facts of life.' 
Corporations 'started extensive programs to indoctrinate employees,' the
leading business journal <b>Fortune</b> reported, subjected their captive
audiences to 'Courses in Economic Education' and testing them for
commitment to the 'free enterprise system -- that is, Americanism.' A
survey conducted by the American Management Association (AMA) found that
many corporate leaders regarded 'propaganda' and 'economic education' as
synonymous, holding that 'we want our people to think right'. . . [and
that] 'some employers view. . . [it] as a sort of 'battle of loyalties'
with the unions' -- a rather unequal battle, given the resources available."</i>
These huge PR campaigns <i>"employed the media, cinema, and other devices
to identify 'free enterprise' -- meaning state-subsidised private power 
with no infringement on managerial prerogatives -- as 'the American way,'
threatened by dangerous subversives."</i> [Noam Chomsky, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 89-90
and p. 89]
</p><p>
By 1995, $10 billion was considered a <i>"conservative estimate"</i> on how
much money was spent on public relations. The actual amount is unknown,
as PR industry (and their clients, of course) <i>"carefully conceals most
of its activities from public view. This invisibility is part of a
deliberate strategy for manipulating public opinion and government 
policy."</i> The net effect is that the wealth of <i>"large corporations,
business associations and governments"</i> is used to <i>"out-manoeuvre, 
overpower and outlast true citizen reformers."</i> In other words:
<i>"Making the World Safe from Democracy."</i> [John Stauber and Sheldon
Rampton, <b>Toxic Sludge is Good for You!</b>, p. 13, p. 14 and p. 13]
The public relations industry, as Chomsky notes, is a means by
which <i>"the oppressors . . . instil their assumptions as the
perspective from which you [should] look at the world"</i> and is
<i>"done extremely consciously."</i> [<b>Propaganda and the Public Mind</b>,
p. 166] 
</p><p>
The effects of this business propaganda are felt in all other aspects 
of life, ensuring that while the US business class is extremely class
conscious, the rest of the American population considers "class" a swear
word! It does have an impact. The rise of, say, "supply-side" economics 
in the late 1970s can be attributed to the sheer power of its backers 
rather than its intellectual or scientific merit (which, even in terms 
of mainstream economics, were slim). Much the same can be said for 
Monetarism and other discredited free-market dogmas. Hence the usual 
targets for these campaigns: taxes, regulation of business, welfare 
(for the poor, not for business), union corruption (when facing 
organising drives), and so on. All, of course, wrapped up in populist
rhetoric which hides the real beneficiaries of the policies (for
example, tax cut campaigns which strangely fail to mention that the
elite will benefit most, or entirely, from the proposed legislation).
</p><p>
Ironically, the apparent success of this propaganda machine shows the inherent 
contradiction in the process. Spin and propaganda, while influential, cannot
stop people experiencing the grim consequences when the business agenda is
applied. While corporate propaganda has shaped the American political scene
significantly to the right since the 1970s, it cannot combat the direct 
experience of stagnating wages, autocratic bosses, environmental degradation, 
economic insecurity and wealth polarisation indefinitely. The actual 
objective reality of neo-liberal capitalism will always come into glaring
contrast with the propaganda used to justify and extend it. Hence the rising
budgets for these activities cannot counteract the rising unease the 
American people feel about the direction their country is taking. The
task of anarchists is to help the struggle, in America and across the 
globe, by which they can take their country and lives back from the elite.
</p>

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