On Reading Ralph Nader's "Only the Super-rich Can Save Us"

I am reading Ralph Nader's new book, a novel, titled "Only the Super-rich Can Save Us." I have not yet finished it, but I believe I am far enough along to discuss Nader's view of the state of the union and its desperate need for radical change, albeit within the constraints of capitalism. Nader's shift to dependence upon the super rich may well reflect his sense of the depth of trouble, both current and immanent, this nation faces. It may even be his non-violent antidote to a plight for which the violence of revolution has so frequently been the result.

Reviewers have drawn attention to the disparity between Nader's decades-long opposition to the role of wealth, especially corporate wealth, in our society and a book with the title Only the Super-rich Can Save Us. What happened? My thought is that Nader has determined that there can be no successful social or political movement in this country without sufficient access to the media. Our society is too big, too complex, and too disparate to do it the way it was done in the 1930s. Then, thousands of people worked in the same plant, where communication and organization were facilitated by that simple fact. Today, technology has scattered workers for the same corporation all over the planet. Because we never required a substantial support for public discourse when we licensed the publicly owned electromagnetic spectrum, todays privately controlled media can trump any public policy it dislikes with a media barrage. For purposes of national discourse we have thus made ourselves hostage to wealth and privilege and the power that goes with it. Nader has fought long and hard for forty years. It is a dire warning for progressives when a person of his dedication, intelligence and knowledge finds no other way to initiate the changes we need without the cooperation of the wealthy. This is an indicator of how bad it really is.

Not only has Nader decided access to wealth is absolutely necessary to a progressive overhaul of government, he has also apparently decided that that Tom DeLay's FreedomWorks approach to generating political clout is desirable. In this book his billionaires group repeatedly undertakes "stunts" ala FreedomWork's Tea Party program to stimulate public involvement on the group's progressive goals. Whereas FredomWorks is funded by the likes of the Mellon fortune's Richard Scaife, Nader's group is dependent upon billionaires and multimillionaires of a progressive persuasion, e.g. Warren Buffet and Ted Turner. In these money terms alone it would seem progressives are bound to lose because most of these kinds of people are very conservative. However, it appears that Nader believes that once the gross injustices and wealth disparity of our society are laid bare and made manifest to the public the desired changes will take place.

One of the questionable premises of the book is that government needs to be brought much more proximate to people's daily lives. While I agree, I have yet to find a way, given our large population, the impact of modern technology and what history and the social sciences tell us about human behavior, that government can be downsized to the community level Nader supposes. One of Nader's fictional groups, which sets itself this downsizing goal, winds up admitting that such functions as national security and dealing with major disasters will require a sufficiently strong national government. My question of this supposed arrangement is what makes Nader think that, over time, wealth and hence power will not gravitate to a national government that controls the military?

All in all, this book, by a very intelligent, beltway knowledgeable and profoundly concerned progressive is well worth reading. Of the 40,000 first edition print run, thirty five thousand sold in the first week. If, after finishing the book, changes in the above perceptions or significant other approaches to creating a just democracy become apparent, I will update this assessment.

Lest I appear too dour and serious about the book I should say it is something of a rollicking romp as the billionaires plot their strategies to initially disrupt the corporate world while employing strategies and tactics to replace it with a citizen-driven economy and politics. It is anything but a boring read and it is focused on initiating and installing a progressive agenda.

One final observation: We now have two giants of the progressive movement Nader and Michael Moore in his "Capitalism: a Love Story"; pleading with progressives to deal with the horrors that corporate capitalism has produced. One of the great civic questions of our time is why so little outrage has been demonstrated. Nader, I believe, thinks it is due to a want of effective communication. Moore has communicated his heart out in his films to the point that if his latest film does not generate something of an uprising, he may give up the effort. What has been done to the American people that when they know they were lied into a war that has killed hundreds of thousands, seen a major city destroyed by hurricane and left destitute and seen how the wealthy and their greed have pillaged their economy to the point of a major depression, remain either cowed or indifferent except for a lunatic fringe that attributes all these calamities to God's will and man's sin. Are we looking at the psychological consequences of almost sixty years of unmitigated prosperity that through technologies such as television have produced a citizenry so given to delusion that they no longer believe there is a reality for which political leaders can be held accountable? If so, the rich have found a way to demoralize a society without the exhaustion of war.

Bob Newhard