Dollar Voting

In the days of the big corporate trusts, such as John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, men were concentrating so much power in their own hands that they were rivaling the power of the federal government. They could make decisions that affected the lives of so many people that they were the equivalent of elected representatives. Even to the point of influencing the laws of the land, whether through straight lobbying or through bribery and other illegal means.

The men who controlled those trusts were voted in by America by virtue of what products and services we bought. Those men were also very aggressive individuals who pushed hard to get the money and power that they wanted, but Americans were complicit in the whole affair. Innocently so, but we were part of it all.

These days, we still have problems with large corporations that hold immense power. We keep buying their products and services, and they keep getting more and more money. That money is used to impact society. Given that a company's claimed first responsibility is towards its shareholders, that suggests that being a financially successful company is the top priority. Therefore, the impact on society is going to be colored by that priority.

In contrast, companies that are dominated by a single individual tend to operate along the lines of the ethics of that individual. Ted Turner is liberally-minded, so his media company is liberally-minded. Warren Buffett is mid-western straightforward, so his conglomerate is straightforward.

No matter the formation of the company or its reason for its behavior, all companies have an agenda that they are pursuing, and that agenda will have an impact on the society in which they operate. As shown by the years of the corporate trusts, that impact can rival or exceed the impact of the elected officials. This is where dollar voting comes in.

Each time we spend money, we are empowering someone to pursue their agenda. In fact, when you get your paycheck, you are being empowered to pursue your agenda. The issue comes in when individuals hold so much power that their agenda can be realized. Yet nobody ever voted for that agenda. Except through their purchases.

Consider J.K. Rowling's wealth. She has around a billion dollars as a result of writing the extraordinarily successful Harry Potter series. She possesses enough personal power to effect significant change in society. She can give massive amounts of money to any number of companies, charities and organizations that can accomplish any number of things. But nobody voted for her. Except when they bought the books, saw the movies, etc. Her ability to write books has endowed her with the power to affect social change.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are taking the money that they accumulated from their businesses and they're starting social programs for education and the treatment of Aids. This isn't a couple million dollars of social programs. This is tens of billions of dollars of social programs. And we voted for those programs when we bought our toothpaste and our PCs. We voted in Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.