Bill Moyer's "Journal" is no longer on the air.  He retired from broadcast, much to the relief of those on whom he shined a bright light of accountability through journalism. 

Much of the content of his last few programs concerned the financial disaster that we have experienced in the past couple years.  He has interviewed authors, regulators, commentators, analysts, politicians, etc. for the purpose of explaining what happened, how it happened, who was (and is) responsible and steps needed moving forward.  Moyer is an excellent interviewer and commentator that has the gift of presenting an issue from multiple perspectives and leaves the viewer with a greater understanding of the issue without dumbing it down.

Two concepts came up in recent interviews regarding the financial crisis that really piqued my interest.  In separate interviews, the terms "oligarchy" and "plutocracy" were used to describe the conditions that have evolved to allow the financial institutions to get away with what they have that has created the circumstances that we are struggling with today. 

Authors Simon Johnson (economist) and  James Kwak (lawyer) come to the conclusion that an oligarchy exists today that not only allowed the financial institutions to play fast and loose with the economy, but continue to ensure that regulations will not be passed to keep them in check.

SIMON JOHNSON: Absolutely correct, Bill. The big banks became stronger as a result of the bailout. That may seem extraordinary, but it's really true. They're turning that increased economic clout into more political power. And they're using that political power to go out and take the same sort of risks that got us into disaster in September 2008.

BILL MOYERS: And your definition of oligarchy is?

SIMON JOHNSON: Oligarchy is just- it's a very simple, straightforward idea from Aristotle. It's political power based on economic power. And it's the rise of the banks in economic terms, which we document at length, that it'd turn into political power. And they then feed that back into more deregulation, more opportunities to go out and take reckless risks and-- and capture huge amounts of money.

BILL MOYERS: And you say that these this oligarchy consists of six megabanks. What are the six banks?

JAMES KWAK: They are Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo.

BILL MOYERS: And you write that they control 60 percent of our gross national product?

JAMES KWAK: They have assets equivalent to 60 percent of our gross national product. And to put this in perspective, in the mid-1990s, these six banks or their predecessors, since there have been a lot of mergers, had less than 20 percent. Their assets were less than 20 percent of the gross national product.

BILL MOYERS: And what's the threat from an oligarchy of this size and scale?

SIMON JOHNSON: They can distort the system, Bill. They can change the rules of the game to favor themselves. And unfortunately, the way it works in modern finance is when the rules favor you, you go out and you take a lot of risk. And you blow up from time to time, because it's not your problem. When it blows up, it's the taxpayer and it's the government that has to sort it out.

BILL MOYERS: So, you're not kidding when you say it's an oligarchy?

JAMES KWAK: Exactly. I think that in particular, we can see how the oligarchy has actually become more powerful in the last since the financial crisis. If we look at the way they've behaved in Washington. For example, they've been spending more than $1 million per day lobbying Congress and fighting financial reform. I think that's for some time, the financial sector got its way in Washington through the power of ideology, through the power of persuasion. And in the last year and a half, we've seen the gloves come off. They are fighting as hard as they can to stop reform.

SIMON JOHNSON: I know people react a little negatively when you use this term for the United States. But it means political power derived from economic power. That's what we're looking at here. It's disproportionate, it's unfair, it is very unproductive, by the way. Undermines business in this society. And it's an oligarchy like we see in other countries.

The entire interview can be found at http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04162010/profile.html

In his April 30 program, Bill Moyers closed the program with the following statement regarding the unholy influence of money in government and the undemocratic influence that we have allowed to occur.

BILL MOYERS: You've no doubt figured out my bias by now. I've hardly kept it a secret. In this regard, I take my cue from the late Edward R. Murrow, the Moses of broadcast news.

Ed Murrow told his generation of journalists bias is okay as long as you don't try to hide it. So here, one more time, is mine: plutocracy and democracy don't mix. Plutocracy, the rule of the rich, political power controlled by the wealthy.

Plutocracy is not an American word but it's become an American phenomenon. Back in the fall of 2005, the Wall Street giant Citigroup even coined a variation on it, plutonomy, an economic system where the privileged few make sure the rich get richer with government on their side. By the next spring, Citigroup decided the time had come to publicly "bang the drum on plutonomy."

And bang they did, with an "equity strategy" for their investors, entitled, "Revisiting Plutonomy: The Rich Getting Richer." Here are some excerpts:

"Asset booms, a rising profit share and favorable treatment by market-friendly governments have allowed the rich to prosper...[and] take an increasing share of income and wealth over the last 20 years..."

"...the top 10%, particularly the top 1% of the US-- the plutonomists in our parlance-- have benefited disproportionately from the recent productivity surge in the US...[and] from globalization and the productivity boom, at the relative expense of labor."

"...[and they] are likely to get even wealthier in the coming years. [Because] the dynamics of plutonomy are still intact."

And so they were, before the great collapse of 2008. And so they are, today, after the fall. While millions of people have lost their jobs, their homes, and their savings, the plutonomists are doing just fine. In some cases, even better, thanks to our bailout of the big banks which meant record profits and record bonuses for Wall Street.

Now why is this? Because over the past 30 years the plutocrats, or plutonomists — choose your poison — have used their vastly increased wealth to capture the flag and assure the government does their bidding. Remember that Citigroup reference to "market-friendly governments" on their side? It hasn't mattered which party has been in power — government has done Wall Street's bidding.

Don't blame the lobbyists, by the way; they are simply the mules of politics, delivering the drug of choice to a political class addicted to cash — what polite circles call "campaign contributions" and Tony Soprano would call "protection."

This marriage of money and politics has produced an America of gross inequality at the top and low social mobility at the bottom, with little but anxiety and dread in between, as middle class Americans feel the ground falling out from under their feet. According to a study from the Pew Research Center last month, nine out of ten Americans give our national economy a negative rating. Eight out of ten report difficulty finding jobs in their communities, and seven out of ten say they experienced job-related or financial problems over the past year.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04302010/profile2.html

These descriptions of the manipulation of power ring true for me and cause me a great deal of head scratching when I try to understand those that are up in arms about government control and regulations.  Have we not been presented with exactly the outcome of deregulation and policy by industry?  The Bush administration gutted regulation agencies and neutered regulatory power.  The result is what we are left to deal with today. 

And yet there are those that oppose government intervention under some misconception that left to their own devices these industries will somehow do what is right for the nation.  They are not interested in what is best for the nation.  They are interested in what is best for their company, their industry, and their shareholders.  These are not compatable interests and should not be treated as though they are. 

Adam Smith and Ayn Rand's portrayal of the magic of the freemarket not only places a lot of faith in the goodness, restraint, and selflessness of people, it has proven (in front of our own eyes) time and time again to be a dangerous leap of faith capable of ruining national economies.  It is also contrary to the ideal of democracy. 

A Plutocracy or an Oligarchy is indeed what we have in some form or another.  How do we regain our power?