Economic Democracy

To speak of economic democracy is to preach democracy for the poor as well as the rich. Economic democracy is the transfer of economic decision making from the few to the many. Democratic worker-controlled production would extend democratic choices to work, employment, income, and technology.

The distribution of wealth and income in the United States has changed little in the direction of greater equality since the turn of the last century, and hardly at all since World War II. Corporate wealth and its distribution become the issue, and it is the control of the corporations, not of personal capital, that carries implications for employment, growth, income distribution, and the structure of the economy. When corporate power cares more for their shareholders than the ones that the labor that produces the profit, something has gone terribly wrong. Ninety percent of the wealth is in the hands of about ten percent of the people. Government at every level is controlled by money interests, not public interests. That makes America an oligarchy and not even close to a true democracy.

Human rights and economic rights are inseparable but a capitalistic society precludes both. Most reform or revolutionary movements in capitalist economies have viewed public ownership - usually the nationalization of entire industries - as an essential goal and if realized, would lead to a more equitable society. The public must take political control over the economy and guide it in a way that benefits working people, rather than a handful of moneybags. A planned economy is forbidden in America because it suggests a socialistic nature which is effectively acted against as heresy. When we speak of economic justice, it is meant that everyone should meet their proportional responsibility to the national welfare but as long as greed and the license to exploit is disguised as freedom, it won't happen. Any country that tries is met by economic sanctions, embargoes and political subterfuge by the United States and multi-national corporate interference.

If we are to flesh out the kingdom, we should embrace the aspirations of a better life and a greater society of all men in which human misery and discrimination will one day be banished, not from our self interest but out of our common humanity. Capitalist democracy does not guarantee universal rights to decent food, housing, employment, child-care, education, or health care. There are no rights guaranteeing control over the fruits of one's labor and control over the work process itself. Why? Because these rights contradict the unequal distribution of wealth and power and the desire to get rich. Formal political democracy helps legitimize corporate capitalism, it is a fraud and doomed to fall with Babylon. True political democracy cannot exist without economic democracy and economic democracy cannot exist under capitalism. The dream of a righteous democracy has become perverted into the nightmare of bourgeois democracy. Is this getting through?
[156, 166, 167, 239, 296]



The Lord has given Christians the grace to reconcile the children to their Fathers

As One Body

  • We prepare for the Marriage Supper of the Lamb
  • Harvest the Fruit of the Latter Rain
  • Follow Him as the Army of the Lord into His Glory

Help To Prepare A Holy Bride!

Issue Oriented Discussion Newsletter

Index | Search This Site | Aristide.Org | The Latter Rain | Babylon the Great | The Kingdom | The Nicolaitans | Jezebel
The Baptism With the Holy Ghost | The Grand Delusion | World Trade Org | Liberation Theology | Jay Atkinson | Alphabetical Index



jay@latter-rain.com