In the Soviet Union, capitalism triumphed over communism. In this country [United States], capitalism triumphed over democracy.
Fran Lebowitz, author
A friend of mine sent me this line the other day, heading the e-mail: 'Sad truth. She's American but 'this' could be many countries.'
Sad truth indeed, if true, but I don't think it is, not of any country.
Let's disregard that bit about the Soviet Union. Communism killed itself. It was always a form of economic suicide. Let's note instead that, with three months still to go to a presidential election, the hustings in the US resound to the usual bellowing political rant. Triumph over democracy in the US? I'd like to see someone try.
But there is indeed an insidious threat to it, one that the founding fathers foresaw when they created a political system so full of checks and balances against tyranny that they left little room for initiative.
It started to unravel in the Civil War, when a union of states became the unified state and was steadily further frayed by presidential administrations grabbing power for themselves. A key transition was the infamous Gulf of Tonkin Resolution whereby the executive branch usurped the right of Congress to declare war. The monster is fully grown now. It is a huge bureaucracy nominally under the control of the president but so unwieldy that nothing really controls it, certainly not the Congressmen who supposedly have the legislative oversight of it. A good portion of it is officially independent. All of it has its own glory and majesty at heart.