If I control the press, then I control what information you have access to. Not in the crude sense that I can send a goon squad to prevent you from googling "contras nicaragua" (at least I usually can't) - but in the far more insidious sense that I can prevent you from even knowing that there is something called the contras. In point of fact, I can prevent you from even knowing that there is a country called Nicaragua.
OK, maybe not you, and maybe not with the Contras. You have an internet connection and enough time and interest to use it politically. But even so - even though you are probably among the most politically active and informed 10 % of the population - I will still make a wager: That while you have an easy time recalling five major terrorist attacks against Europeans and Americans in the past ten years, you will be completely unable to recall five civil wars in sub-Saharan Africa from the past ten years (without researching it first). Despite the fact that atrocities take place in sub-Saharan Africa that make - say - Saddam Hussein look like a boy scout in comparison.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
Zaire/Congo (could probably count as several, but hey - one) Angola Rwanda (with side ordre of genocide) Algeria (I think it counts as civil war) Mozambique Sierra Leone Cote d'Ivoire Nigeria (low level, but permanent)
sigh... maybe it would be simpler to list the countries with no civil war there... In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Does Sudan count?
Somalia?
Eritrea? When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes
I would argue that Eritrea does not count as the Eritrean-Ethiopian civil war ended in 1993, and later violent conflict within Eritrea has not risen to the level of war. The uncivil Eritrean-Ethiopian post-1993 conflict escalated to war, but with both states widely recognised it is not civil war. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
What if a party or party associates try to get the whole press market. That is similar dangerous and would not be stopped by a wealth tax.
And there is not necessarily of such big wealth. From a stern.de articel of 2007 with an elite researcher: "Mighty is as well someone like Manfred Schneider, the former Beyer CEO, still on the control board of 6 DAX enterprises. When he says some time ago 'We seriously have to think about reducing the social standards significantly. Why aren't 25 holidays enough instead of the current 30?', then this is not just said like that. It changes the social climate." Other CEOs like Ackermann can't make the public opinion. But they can put out what is on the public agenda - even with a widely diversified press.
Even with a wealth tax one would need other press protection measures. Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den MenschenVolker Pispers
As Bill Gates famously quibbed when asked why Microsoft managed to kill IBM's technologically far superior OS2 operating system "They had better coders, but we had better lawyers."[2]
It is far easier and less vulnerable to manipulation and subversion to simply make sure that there is no vast concentration of wealth in the first place. Hard to bribe lawyers and legislators when you don't have anything to bribe them with.
As for your example of partisan control of the press, I fail to see how a single party could acquire control of a controlling share of the media without the kind of capital concentration that a steeply progressive wealth tax would render impossible. There is nothing magical about a political party that enables it to buy media without paying for them.
And as to your CEO example, I would argue that the worship of biznizmen as prophets and demi-gods would be markedly less pronounced in a media picture where the press wasn't run by conglomerates that employ more bizniz school graduates than reporters. Besides, a more heterogeneous media picture would itself serve to limit the herd mentality and routine plagiarism that makes it so easy for spin doctors and other blackhat activists to manipulate the press.[3]
- Jake
[1] If I recall correctly, the anti-trust case against Microsoft fizzled largely because the pieces it was broken into were aligned neatly with market niches, which meant that the individual bits could still exercise monopoly power, just over a smaller sphere of electronic commodities.
[2] Actually, I can't find a place where he is cited as saying that, so it may be an urban legend. But it captures M$'s attitude well enough.
[3] In fact "manipulate" is understating things by some orders of magnitude. It is my impression that we have simply ceased to have a functioning press in many parts of the nominally democratic world. If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
United States Microsoft antitrust case - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Judge Jackson issued his findings of fact[11] on November 5, 1999, which stated that Microsoft's dominance of the personal computer operating systems market constituted a monopoly, and that Microsoft had taken actions to crush threats to the monopoly, including Apple, Java, Netscape, Lotus Notes, Real Networks, Linux, and others. Then on April 3, 2000, he issued a two-part ruling: his conclusions of law were that Microsoft had committed monopolization, attempted monopolization, and tying in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, and his remedy was that Microsoft must be broken into two separate units, one to produce the operating system, and one to produce other software components.
The DOJ announced on September 6, 2001 that it was no longer seeking to break up Microsoft and would instead seek a lesser antitrust penalty.
The DoJ won the case and then dropped it as a wet towel. But the drop came after an election changed the power in the white house. I have always assumed Microsoft to be a big donor to the Bush campaign. A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
I would argue that even the first ruling didn't go far enough. M$ would still have the next best thing to a monopoly with their OS (at the time). Which means that they were for all intents and purposes able to control what the users could do with their computers, because there wasn't (and isn't) any effective enforcement of open software standards. That's too much power in the hands of a private company.
But we are getting rather far afield, methinks.
So the horse is already bolted, which's door locking we were discussing. Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den MenschenVolker Pispers
Divestiture is the only thing which could help, in both cases. Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den MenschenVolker Pispers
However, I think you underestimate the impact that a wealth tax would have solely by making sure that even the richest person in society is dependent on the same police, fire service, hospitals and universities as everyone else. If the rich have to live next door to the poor, they have a vested interest in making sure that the poor don't live in a slum.
