Beyond Plutocracy - True Democracy for America

Capitalism, the market economy, is our best form of economic relationship. But capitalism has a very deep flaw. It tends toward monopoly. It concentrates excessive power, wealth and advantage into the hands of all too often ruthless, greedy elites who exploit the rest of the populace, corrupt our government and override the common good. Capitalism is redeemable. A sound, balanced, equitable market economy can be achieved by the wise management of an honest government. But we don't have an honest government that truly includes and represents the entire electorate. Our government's principal dishonesty is its electoral system. Elections are left to a marketplace, mass media, two political parties and state electoral district systems that are mostly owned, operated and dominated by the wealthy. Elections, offices and the favors of our government are bought and sold just like any other commodity. The result is that wealthy and wealth-serving elites hold a permanent hegemony of seats, offices and power in our government and we get stuck with the best government that money can buy. Direct democracy—in which the electorate votes directly on issues—is the correct way to overcome the tyranny of plutocracy. But as the phrases "the tyranny of democracy" and "the rule of the mob" suggest, democracy also has some profound problems and can become a tyranny in its own way. It is by adding to our government (or to any government) just the right kind and amount of direct democracy that its representative branches are rendered truly representative of the entire electorate; the tyranny of plutocracy is overcome; the democracy itself does not become a tyranny; and the responsible personal freedom of the individual is maximized in a just, equitable society. Our government will never become OUR government, the government of "we the people," all of the people, until we add to it an honest electoral system and true democracy. That is exactly what is achieved in this book. The result is the honest government, equitable market economy and good society we all seek.

About Me and the Writing of Beyond Plutocracy
I am a lifelong reader of several fields of study at a casual, layperson level: Metaphysics, religion, philosophy, history, particle physics, cosmology, biology, genetics, primatology, psychology... Surprisingly, given the subject of this book, economics and political science are not prominent among them. While far from best in show, I could be best described as a self-directed generalist who always seeks his highest purchase, largest view, and a grand synthesis. I am now sixty-eight years old. As I've aged, much, if not most, of what I've read and pondered has slipped beneath the waters. What is left is either essence or dregs, or perhaps a bit of both.
I have long treasured my favorite questions: What is reality? What are we? Since we are here together on this Earth, you and I, how do, might, and should we arrange our often conflicting ways that we may live in peace and intelligently husband our world? Beyond Plutocracy is my attempt to answer the question how we should be ... at the level of nations.
I am not a writer, that is, I do not earn my living by writing. For me, spelling, punctuation, and grammar are mysteries of the universe. Please forgive my shortcomings. It is my hope that you will find my message of sufficient value to bear them.
Nor am I a scholar. Beyond Plutocracy, the only book I've written and present here, is not a heavily footnoted or referenced work. It is a body of carefully considered opinion. I am an expert on only one thing: the content of my own mind.
I have been writing this book within my mind for most of my life. While not failing to also see our light, love, and good, as a child I could not help but see and be angered and saddened by the injustice, inequity, and dysfunction in our nation and in the world. Over the years my thoughts became more constructive and I turned to the questions: What is "the good society"? And what kind of government would best produce it? For decades I created, attacked, and destroyed political-economic systems in my mind. So frequently and fiercely did I focus on the problem of governance that it even became the content of my dreams.
Finally, in my early fifties, I had a series of major breakthroughs in my thinking. All that was obscure and complex suddenly became clear and surprisingly simple. Most of the breakthroughs came while I slept. I kept pen and paper at my bedside. Night after n...