Opinion Sur
How is it that so few manage to subdue so many, how concentrated power can block the actions of majority social forces, why does it not finish forging a democratic power capable of sustaining the wellbeing of all humanity and zealously caring for Mother Earth.
Today, there is a tremendous process of concentration of wealth and main decisions that conditions the general wellbeing and the planet’s care. This global process subdues and punishes all social strata while the 1% of the world’s population profits at the expense of those who suffer from such greed and selfishness.
Much research and documentation has been done explaining how the concentration of wealth and decisions is generated and reproduced rapidly. The engines that sustain this appropriation and who are the perpetrators are known.
Meanwhile, proposals to change the course are advancing on several fronts. They recognize the interests, needs, and desires of popular sectors and shrinking middle sectors. However, they find it difficult to consolidate. How so few manage to subdue so many, how concentrated power can block the actions of majority social forces, so that they do not end up forging a democratic power capable of sustaining the wellbeing of all humanity and zealously caring for Mother Earth.
Fragmented societies
Since remote times there are various types of submission with some features that are repeated. Dominators promote social fragmentation in order to weaken resistance to impose their interests. Disunity weakens society, creates misgivings, tensions, leads to confrontation against others. Fragmented society becomes easy prey.
The social turbulence promoted by the dominators is a breeding ground for pettiness, selfishness, breaks of solidarity and, of extreme gravity, errors of appreciation about what really happens. Blinded in clarification, social forces lose focus on the main challenge: to get rid of subjugation by strengthening a unity based on integrating the diversity of interests that exists in every society. Aligning interests is a critical collective work, it requires skill, transparency, and knowing how to stand up above one’s pettiness.
In front, dominators and their accomplices operate, groups and individuals who are not part of power, but are co-opted with economic perks and social figuration. They betray the rest and, in doing so, are subject to the control of the dominators; once they get into corruption and deception, they fall into a trap from which it is difficult to get out.
Dominators know how to bend, twist, or disorient wills. They appropriate strategic nodules of social functioning such as the hegemonic media, selected levels of the judiciary, sectors of politics that finance at their discretion and certain strategic think-tanks that provide them with ideological coverage. With these supports, they impose values, attitudes, and common sense functional to their interests. It is a devilish work that never ceases; they capture and alienate minds away from defending their interests.
This process of domination is orchestrated at the international level by establishing coalitions that are difficult to dismantle. It is, however, a main challenge that we have to face today.
Clarification and organization
In any attempt to transform reality, clarification and organization of majorities play a critical role. While it is worth affirming that union is strength, nevertheless the union that endures is made up of enlightened and organized groups and individuals who accept the diversity of identities aligning their legitimate interests. Because they face a power that spares no effort to undermine the understanding of the dominated and, with it, their freewill.
A contemporary example worths more than a thousand words. It is clear that it is necessary to curb concentration and resolve inequalities. This implies, in the first instance, redistributing assets and income from the richest, the billionaires who uncontrollably accumulated wealth. In this edition, we reproduce a proposal from OXFAM to materialize this redistribution. That is, we know how to do it, although progress is very difficult.
Any transformative attempt is resisted with deception, lies, and/or repression. As it is not possible to openly defend their enormous fortunes, the richest point out that any redistributive tax on patrimonies is an attack on the private property of all social sectors. They hide the fact that these taxes affect only the great fortunes, barely the richest 1% of the country, making people believe that it is aimed at expropriating the house and other assets of middle and popular sectors. The purpose is to frighten with misinformation and deception repeated a thousand times by the hegemonic media who are part of the apparatus of domination. They impose the idea that it is “communism” coming for more, trying to silence free expression. In short, instead of celebrating a fair redistribution of assets and income, the wealthiest finance an infamous campaign claiming that progressive policies are going against institutions and democracy. Nothing could be further from the truth, but with their power and resources, dominators block measures that affect their interests.
Like this campaign, others are assembled against education and public health, against immigrants, vilifying opponents and electorally chosen reformist leaders, smearing others with acts of corruption while no immense fortune can prove that it was achieved without having abused its power and, in more than one case, using indefensible spurious procedures.
To defend against an oppressive power, one can only form another power supported by a firm coalition of social and political organizations. A democratic coalition that cares for everyone and the environment. A broad coalition of middle and popular sectors. A coalition capable of demonopolizing the media and cleansing the judiciary of judges and prosecutors associated with the dominators. A coalition that ensures a sovereign political march that actively defends equity, peaceful social coexistence.
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