Content area
Full Text
ABSTRACT: American history and its contemporary social and political nature have been heavily influenced by American oligarchs and will continue to be for decades to come. These influences, many of which are detrimental, are not fully recognized or appreciated because the oligarchs use their extraordinary wealth to control and dominate liberal democratic societies by exploiting the inherent weakness of the freedoms that they provide their citizens. These influences are self-serving in terms of acquiring and protecting the extraordinary wealth of the oligarchs. Their exploitation of America to serve their interests includes controlling the narrative by owning mass media in service to owning politicians, political parties, and the judicial system. Under appreciated as well is that these ultra-wealthy oligarchs may have personal traits that enable them to ruthlessly pursue their aims feeling little concern for the damage that they do to their countries and the global community. Better understanding American and global oligarchy and the underlying psychosocial pathologies is essential if democracy and liberal values are not to be turned against themselves creating compromised democracies.
Oligarchy offers an insightful window to look upon American sociopolitical fragmentation that is expressed in the rural-urban split, the red and blue state split, the gun versus antigun split, and the pro-life versus the pro-choice split in the United States during the first half of the twenty-first century. Oligarchy also offers insight into an equally powerful and profound societal split, a split between those who possess little wealth and power to influence the political policies that govern their lives and those who, sometimes in full view but more often not, have great wealth, power, and influence that they wield for self-serving purposes in the political and judicial realms as well as in the business world, including the media. These oligarchs do not often support the larger society, preferring to focus on amassing and protecting their fortunes. Oligarchy is, therefore, important to consider but it is also often overlooked and not covered by the media that is controlled by oligarchs. The Murdock familys Fox News is an example as is now Elon Musks X formerly Twitter. Why would the oligarchs, the ultimate puppet masters of civilization, want to have their power and control and global influences revealed for public inspection? A...