Senator Sanders: A World for All of Us, Not Just the Billionaires

To fight today’s extreme inequality, we must strengthen the coalition of progressive democrats and challenge the global oligarchy.

By Bernie Sanders

TODAY 6:00 AM

Excerpts:

Quite simply, in the United States today, a handful of billionaires and the corporations they run exercise extraordinary power over our economic, political, and social life. Yet this is not just a domestic issue. It is a global issue, one that reaches across oceans and continents as oligarchy, authoritarianism, and kleptocracy spread from country to country, and democratic institutions fight for their survival.

In Russia, Vladimir Putin—who stands at the center of a tight circle of oligarchs and is believed by many to have great personal wealth—is not only undermining democracy at home but destabilizing countries abroad. In Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern monarchies, a handful of multibillionaire despots exerts enormous influence over global energy policy and, under Trump, over American foreign and military policy. In China, President Xi Jinping has steadily consolidated power around himself and his inner circle as his government clamps down on political freedom and aggressively promotes China’s version of authoritarian capitalism abroad. And Eastern Europe, which suffered horribly from the scourge of fascism, is once again seeing the rise of demagogues like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Germany’s Alexander Gauland, one of the heads of the far-right Alternative for Germany party.

Donald Trump, therefore, should not be seen in isolation. He is part of a global trend, and the oligarchic, authoritarian, kleptocratic tendency he represents should be understood as a symptom of a much broader problem: a small number of extraordinarily wealthy people, motivated by greed and power, who see the global community as their plaything.

In order to fight this trend, we need to strengthen the global coalition of progressive democrats. While authoritarians promote division and hatred, we will promote unity, inclusion, and an agenda based on economic, social, racial, and environmental justice. But the first step in winning this fight is to correctly identify the challenge. Internationally, we must have the courage to take on the global oligarchy and bring power to the many, not the few. This world belongs to all of us, not just a handful of billionaires.

https://www.thenation.com/article/world-us-not-just-billionaires/