Is our (USA) political system...

[SHRED]

...getting more or less corporatist?

In other words do you see a shift, especially at local levels, of candidates winning and moving up who have the people's interest at heart more than the wealthy few?

Is there any way to measure this?

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[Echo In Light]

1. Nothing new under the sun

[Ozymanithrax]

2. I am not sure there is a way to measure the malice in a man's heart...

Here are some ideas.

First, you can look at public donations. Don't think this is a perfect one to one ratio. Running for any office is expensive, and the cost has only gone up over time. But look at public records to see the ratio of small contributions to large. Then, look at the large contributors. While I worked for BAE some years back, the CEO and all his officers and managers would hold a private party and invite Duncun Hunter and Randy Cunningham. At those parties, every corporate officer donated the maximum. Now, that money technically wasn't from BAE, but they knew where those men worked and who held the party. Hunter and Cunningham both had a big part to play in who received Defense Contracts. Things like this give you an indication.

Now, look at legislation; local, regional, and national. Try to make a best guess as to how friendly that legislation is to corporate interests. Now very few pieces of legislations are ever blatant give aways. Health Care, which I see as a great piece of progressive legislation, is at least 60% corporate friendly. It does expand health care but did not address many of the problems with the system we have. It attemped to harness corporations to a kinder gentler private health care system. I think it will get better, but it is still more friendly to corporate interests than to individual interests.

Look at the influence on elected officials by Corporations. The Health Care companies were involved in writing the legislation, though not nearly as much as they would have liked. Under Bush, energy legislation was written almost exclusively by big energy producers. There are individual interest groups that, when you can find them, do have some effect on legislation. Overall, most legislation shows a larger corporate footprint than individuals.

In my opinion, under the Reagan Administration the U.S. finished its conversion to a corporatist government. Though we have been an empire at least since Truman, he was the first to really embrace that status. By Corporatist, I mean a form of fascism championed (if that is the right word) by Mussolini. Under Obama, and any Democrat, Corporatism will be a little friendlier to the individual. Legislation under Clinton and Obama did serve individuals a little more. However, a lump of shit in your plate is still shit, even if it is only 2/3rds the size. As long as we remain an empire with an imperial presence across the globe this will not change. It doesn't matter who is President or which party is in power.

[lovely]

3. Measure profits? Gap between the rich and the poor?

[TheKentuckian]

4. More every day, without exception.

Look at the income gap, stagnation of wages, reduction in economic mobility, megacorps and banks with their own keys to the treasury, "stakeholders" with not only a seat at the table but writing their own ticket through lobbyist and pols, and it goes on and on.