This is an academic exercise, but I think worth doing. It is a contrast between our perceived system of governance, and the real one. Here’s perceptions:
The people are all-powerful. We elect representatives who write and execute laws, and who appoint judges who interpret those laws. We have three branches of government, each held in check by the other two.
Obama recently said that in approaching Iran, it is important to know that “Iran is a very complicated country with a lot of different power centers.”
True about Iran and true about our country as well, as Obama well knows. What I am trying to do here is to recognize various power centers that exist in our country, and put them in order of the amount of power they exercise. It’s a useful thought exercise.
The corporations – these are a wide variety of entities that operate in different sectors (finance, oil, communications, etc. ) but who often enough support one another. Their power extends far beyond our borders, and our military often does their bidding under the guise of humanitarian interventions.
The mainstream media Since it is owned by the corporations, it is a merely subset.
Military and intelligence agencies – these are vast, mostly secretive, and are largely funded in secret.
The president, or the executive branch. It is powerful, but submits to the will of the corporations and the military. Mainstream media, owned by the corporations, ‘vets’ presidential candidates and determines who is “viable” and who is not.
Wealthy families and individuals these are people with massive fortunes who exercise great sway over tax policy and are usually virtually in control of the localities where they live. Most people do not recognize their names, for instance, ask any Montanan who Denny Washington is.
Think tanks These are intellectuals who are funded by and serve corporations and wealthy families. They are a safe harbor for government officials while they are out of power. They also have large sway over favored opinions of government officials, providing pseudo-science to support public policies that favor their funding sources.
The Senate – more powerful than the House because its members have longer terms, and because a minority there can usually thwart a majority in the lower house. Cannot be ‘gerrymandered’.
The House of Representatives Our most democratic body, and most susceptible to swings in public temperament. Gerrymandered.
Large land owners This is odd, as they could also be called a subset of “wealthy families”. Ownership of land conveys power, as in Montana, where though ranchers are a minority, and not our wealthiest citizens, they usually hold a large share of seats in the state legislature, often the governorship, US Senate and House seats as well. They are, in Montana, also known as the “Department of Livestock”, an unelected organization the elected governor never trifles with. Interesting.
The “courts” Oddly, ordinary citizens still have the ability to challenge power centers through the courts, and often do so. Corporations are trying to bring this source of power under control with their campaign to demonize “trail lawyers”, that is, people who sue corporations.
State Governments Powerful, but no power beyond their jurisdictions, and little sway over federal officials.
Municipalities Mini-fiefdoms having locally focused power, but little beyond city limits. These tend to be very democratic.
Public opinion As of this moment, public opinion means virtually nothing in our democracy, as it is easily swayed and manipulated by the other powers. But if it is focused and enraged, it can thwart every other power center. Witness: The USSR. Not the USA, however. Odd that the USSR was more democratic than us.
Other communication sources This would include the “alternative media”, the Internet, town halls and public meeting forums. Note that the Internet was once seen as a great source of organizing power, as when protesters used it to upset the corporate apple cart in Seattle in 1999. But it has largely been neutralized, and corporations are hard at work to bring it under their control.
That’s all I can think of right now. I expect that others would add others, such as state and local police, labor unions, and the NFL? You tell me. Also, I expect everyone would re-order and re-word what I wrote.
Add: Organized crime -not sure where it fits, but it exists everywhere. As noted in comments below, I overlooked religious institutions, academia, lobbying groups. Academia is largely subordinate to other power groups, as it is merely training the next generation of managers of the existing institutions. (There is constant pressure exerted on colleges to avoid dabbling in freedom of expression – i.e. – Horowitz.) Non-corporate lobbying groups exert their power on Congress, but Congress itself is subordinated to other more powerful forces. But they are very good at getting money out of the treasury. Religious institutions don’t appear to me to have much power over government, though fundamentalists that vote en masse to exert more influence than those that merely attend to spiritual needs of followers.
Piece of Mindful 
For the record, you might be surprised how many Montanans know who Dennis Washington is.
That’s a pretty terrific exposition, for what it is. But, somewhere, and I’m not terribly certain where, you have to put so-called independent lobbying groups (the NRA, AARP, NFIB – vastly more powerful than is ever reported, and groups like AIPAC, NAACP, et. al.) It would be easy, but deceptive, to position those under Corporate control (the NRA being the most likely candidate for such). But the AARP and NFIB are conglomerate entities of like-minded persons that have monitary clout establishing themselves as ‘wealthy families’. That’s a toughy.
The only problem I have with this charting or power is that it is a snapshot in time, a static system. Since so many have finally woken up to what a second derivative is and means, I would suggest that this would be more useful to look at where the deceleration or acceleration of power is. For instance, some groups are vastly more volatile than others, and I think you discount some groups over much (‘other communication sources’ being the obvious example.)
LikeLike
Yeah – that’s good – AIPAC and AARP are powerful. AIPAC represents a wealthy and influential minority, but I tend to agree with Chomsky that its power comes from the fact that Israel is useful to the U.S., and not the opposite. AARP is powerful because its members tend to vote en masse, a lesson for all of us.
Also left out: Religions, especially those that have a rigorous control of the minds of followers, like Mormons and fundamentalists.
And, entertainment – how much of what young people think and ideate about is supplied them by movies and music and TV? (Why just young people – all of us!)
I can see I’ve a long way to go before this is comprehensive. And I agree it is not static. Public opinion, for instance, is now a gelding, but is what made FDR into the powerful reformer that he became.
LikeLike
Mark, that is excellent. I’m going to give it some more thought before tearing into it. I would add schools to the list. Perhaps the corollary questions of “what is power?” and “what enables power?” need exploration in conjunction with your question. Perhaps the intersection of all 3 is in the mind and compliant acceptance of those that yield to it.
I suggest this topic for Gregg’s retreat.
LikeLike
How about large law firms? Are they included in the Corporation category?
And if a president has them at their beck and call wouldn’t that jump the POTUS up a notch?
>>In a report filed Wednesday, April 15, Obama for America, the group that collected over $850 million in campaign contributions for Obama, spent nearly $9.5 million in the first three months of this year, including included $688,000 in legal fees to the firm of Robert J Bauer. Bauer is the same attorney who send a letter to attorney John Hemenway threatening him with sanctions, including costs, expenses, and attorney’s fees, if he did not withdraw his appeal on Hollister v. Soetoro, No. 08-2254. citing the disgusting comments made by Judge Robertson that Obama’s eligibility had been “blogged, texted, twittered, and otherwise massaged by America’s vigilant citizenry.”<<
In the last hundred days Barry has assumed control of banks and Automobile manufactures. These are some of the largest, most powerful corporations in the world. Yet they yield to his power.
LikeLike
Your comments only make sense if the president sits atop the power totem pole.
But what if he doesn’t? As a thought experiment, go through your comment and reword it as if corporations had more power than the presidency. Then try to figure out the game. If nothing else, it stretches your perceptions a bit.
LikeLike
I think you’d be better served in figuring out how power becomes concentrated,what enables that concentration, and to what effect and level there is collusion in its use.
LikeLike
Concentration of wealth breeds concentration of power. It’s that simple. If one suspects that government is at the heart of the problem, I would beg to differ, but only to a degree. Once wealth is heavily concentrated, government comes under its influence becomes its servant. This is why huge disparities in wealth are incompatible with democratic rule.
The natural order of things is for wealth to become heavily concentrated, and for power to follow. If we took all the wealth of this country and divided it up evenly, I suspect it wouldn’t take a year for it to become concentrated again. It is a proper role of government to break up these concentrations via trust busting, progressive and estate taxation.
is there collusion? Of course. If the objectives of power were popular, it could operate in the open.
LikeLike
Typically, you don’t offer one whit of facts to prove your assertion. What good are you?
LikeLike
I would add educational institutions, music industry, and the movie/entertainment industry. Young people for age 2 are bombarded by messages from schools and pop culture media. By the time they are eligible to vote and begin life on their own, they have been trained. By being trained, they give power to those that hold the conch. In my opinion, the left has patiently invested in this outcome. Most of the items on your list spring from this process.
LikeLike
What good am I? Jeez Dave, don’t know. What good are you? I haven’t taken much of value from your posturing.
Whit of fact? Look around – count the military bases, see how foreign policy doesn’t change as we switch from one party to the other, how our political campaigns are feathery and meaningless, how the supposed alternative party can’t bring itself to challenge the assertive one. See how health care reform is being perverted into another corporate subsidy, by Democrats.
Give me a narrative that makes sense, otherwise STFU.
LikeLike
Look around, all you’ve done is shown outcomes rather than causes. You’re the king of the circular argument. So, OK, I’ll STFU after I tell you again that I think you’re an empty suit who couldn’t argue his way out of public toilet.
LikeLike
Thanks for the STFU. No one needs to do so more than you. In the conservative world I encounter stupidity at every turn. Most conservatives are stupid. But you are something different – something one of my daughter’s teachers referred to as “supremely stupid” – that is, gifted with a vocabulary and a strong set of beliefs, and blind to everything that follows those beliefs. You are supremely stupid.
Regarding my outcome versus cause scenario, I gave you the cause, but it runs counter to your supreme belief system, so you dismissed it.
LikeLike
I’ll admit to being a simple Montana boy, but I’m havin’ a damned hard time trying to figure out what Dave went off about here.
Yup. That seems ’bout right. Though I think that the vice-versa works just as well. Though … maybe Dave’s snit was about this:
Now that there seems like it might need a bit of justification, maybe. It is always a touch forward to say that something is “natural order”. Now it do seem that natural order is right, in this case. Wealth always has become heavily concentrated, and it take a person a whole lots smarter than m’self to show me when it hasn’t, even under the Reds.
But here’s the deal. It’s no mystery as money buys power. Didn’t Monsanto just buy a committee of the Montana legislature? ‘Bout seven some year back, didn’t Haliburten buy themselves a war? And it’s no conundrum that Power attracts money. How much did that Obama feller raise? Don’t we have corporations as is “too big to fail”?
Now, I’m shootin’ off the cuff here, but I’m just surmising … if power attracts money, then money concentrates around power, because money buys power. It seems pretty simple that that ole Mark T feller got it right. The natural (and obvious) order of things is that wealth concentrates around power. Money and power is opposite sides of a magnet. They’ll come together rain or shine. It’s just the way things is.
Dave, a stupid redneck like myself knows that Mark is right. I’d seriously like to know what niggling little point you’re going wack about here. The “cause” of money and power concentrating are pretty fracking obvious. What “facts” are you looking for, and more to the point, what contra facts are you willing to offer? Oh wait, what’s that? None? Oh well. I guess we’re done here.
LikeLike
There are different types of people, and a certain type, a small minority of us, is totally focused on accumulating wealth. They live for that, brood on it, work 31 trying to devise ways to make more money. If you encounter them in the business world, they will force a separation of you and your money in short order. They are probalby psychopaths.
Once wealth is concentrated, it goes into protective mode – preservation of wealth becomes the overriding goal. Politicians are bought, lawyers hired, offshore bank accounts opened.
Wealth is always in search of larger returns … 3% + inflation becomes 6%, 12% – pretty soon it is in Madoff country. Greed knows no bounds.
That’s what Dave wants to protect – wealth accumulation.
Anyway, my power tree is what results when wealth accumulates without hindrance … maybe I’m wrong about the order of things, maybe the presidency has more power than I credit it with, maybe the whole thing is nonsense.
But my bottom line is that I believe in progressive taxation, estate taxes, public financed pensions and education and health care – it screws up the natural order – it prevents concentration of wealth, and promotes democratic rule.
Dave sees only one freedom from which all others flow – wealth accumulation. I drive him crazy. He thinks I ought to be committed, so wrong am I …
LikeLike