Is Capital going to Overwhelm American Democracy?

A few weeks ago a news story broke about Russian President Vladimir Putin refusing to meet with new Secretary of State John Kerry over the Russian leader's "extreme outrage" over the Obama Administration's perceived protection of global seed and plant bio-genetic corporations Monsanto and Syngenta in the face of what President Putin called a growing "bee apocalypse" that Putin warns "will most certainly" lead to a world war.   Apparently, the United States had refused to even discuss this issue with the Russian government.   At the heart of the dispute is what some scientists have called "undisputed evidence" that a class of insecticides manufactured by Monsanto, Syngenta, and other companies are quickly destroying Earth's bee population.   As most people know, bees perform a vital function in the environment by spreading pollen and promoting plant growth.   Scientists have expressed the fear that such continued destruction of the worldwide bee population will eventually destroy the world's ability to grow enough food to feed the world's population.   Numerous countries have taken steps to ban the sale and use of bee-killing insecticides.   The American response was for Congress to pass, and President Obama to sign, what has been derided by many as the "Monsanto Protection Act," which protects manufactures of genetically-modified seeds and controversial insecticides from litigation.   Current reports have said that significant percentages of wild bees and domesticated bees have already died out in the United States.

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/declining_bee_populations_pose_a_threat_to_global_agriculture/2645/

A valid question is arising as to whether our form of American democracy can or will control corporate interests and other forms of capital.   With the Supreme Court's decision in the Citizens United case, as we all know, corporations were considered to be "persons" with the right under the First Amendment to spend unlimited amounts of money in state and national elections based of their perceived right of Free Speech under the First Amendment.   Of course, corporations, persons or not, cannot vote.   It is difficult to see how a corporation could rationally have a right of Free Speech in an election in which such "person" is not permitted to vote.   It is obvious by now that money interests are in effect bribing members of Congress to vote their way on matters that pertain to their own economic interests.   The recent failure of Congress to pass some mild restrictions on gun sales, particularly by way of mandating background checks for all gun sales, which was backed by no less than 90% of American citizens, demonstrated the clout held by industry over our elected representatives.

It is becoming increasingly clear that corporations, becoming ever larger and more powerful, respond only to the incentive of increasing the bottom line of profit.   The public interest clearly carries little weight in corporate decision making.   Energy companies seem determined to sell coal and oil, even in the face of virtually uncontested evidence that ever-building levels of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere are causing a drastic rise in the Earth's temperature that is beginning to cause drastic changes in our environment.  Apparently, agri-business and chemical companies are indifferent to the side effects of their products causing frightening changes to animal and plant life.   It is government that is charged with regulating corporations in the public interest.

The United States government needs to control American corporations in their headlong drive for profit by any means.   If we cannot control the corporations, sooner or later, the rest of the world is going to step in and do so.   This tension between the drive of American corporations for profit by any means whatever and the American government's ability to enforce some reasonable standard of behavior on those corporations may eventually determine our national fate.