With $100 billion, nearly anything can be bought -- not just land and resources but media and journalists, political influence and legislation, regulators, university research departments and laboratories. Jeff Bezos now owns The Washington Post. Bill Gates is not only the largest funder of the World Health Organization and the Imperial College London but the largest owner of agricultural land in the US. And Elon Musk's aerospace manufacturer SpaceX has effectively privatized the sky. Astronomers and stargazers complain that the thousands of satellites it has already launched, with many more in the works, are blocking their ability to see the stars. Astronomy professor Samantha Lawler writes in a piece for The Conversation:"Essentially, what we are witnessing is the transfer of responsibility for public goods and services from democratic institutions to the wealthy, to be administered by an executive class. In the CEO society, the exercise of social responsibilities is no longer debated in terms of whether corporations should or shouldn't be responsible for more than their own business interests. Instead, it is about how philanthropy can be used to reinforce a politico-economic system that enables such a small number of people to accumulate obscene amounts of wealth."
"SpaceX has already received approval for 12,000 Starlink satellites and is seeking approval for 30,000 more. Other companies are not far behind ["] The point of the Starlink mega-constellation is to provide global internet access. It is often stated by Starlink supporters that this will provide internet access to places on the globe not currently served by other communication technologies. But currently available information shows the cost of access will be too high in nearly every location that needs internet access. Thus, Starlink will likely only provide an alternate for residents of wealthy countries who already have other ways of accessing the internet ["] With tens of thousands of new satellites approved for launch, and no laws about orbit crowding, right-of-way or space cleanup, the stage is set for the disastrous possibility of Kessler Syndrome, a runaway cascade of debris that could destroy most satellites in orbit and prevent launches for decades". Large corporations like SpaceX and Amazon will only respond to legislation which is slow, especially for international legislation and consumer pressure ["] Our species has been stargazing for thousands of years, do we really want to lose access now for the profit of a few large corporations?"
Public advocacy groups, such as the Cellular Phone Task Force, have also objected due to health concerns over increased electromagnetic radiation. But the people have little say over public policy these days. So concluded a study summarized in a January 2021 article in Foreign Affairs. Princeton professor and study co-author Martin Gilens wrote:
"[O]rdinary citizens have virtually no influence over what their government does in the United States. " Government policy-making over the last few decades reflects the preferences " of economic elites and of organized interests."
"A wealth tax would reverse more than a half-century of tax cuts for the wealthiest households. Billionaires have seen their taxes decline roughly 79 percent as a percentage of their wealth since 1980. The "effective rate" on the billionaire class -- the actual percentage paid was 23 percent in 2018, lower than for most middle-income taxpayers."
"The tax, which would apply to fewer than 100,000 U.S. residents, would raise an estimated $3 trillion over the next decade. It would be paid entirely by multi-"millionaires and billionaires who have reaped the lion's share of wealth gains over the last four decades, including during the pandemic."
Varoufakis contends, however, that taxing wealth won't be enough. The corporate model itself needs an overhaul. To create a "humanist" capitalism, he says, democracy needs to be brought to the marketplace.
"There is one Achilles heel in the globalists' strategy, an option that remains open to governments. This option is a tax on the rental income -- the 'unearned income' -- of land, natural resources and monopoly takings."
Reforming the banking system is another critical tool. Banks operated as a public utility could allocate credit for productive purposes serving the public interest. Other possibilities include enforcement of anti-monopoly legislation and patent law reform\. Perhaps, however, the flaw is in the competitive capitalist model itself. The winners will inevitably capture and exploit the losers, creating an ever-growing gap in wealth and power.
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