Lux Lucet

Pat McCrory, embattled governor of North Carolina.

Oligarchy:  Government by the few; a form of government in which the power is confined to a few persons or families; also, the body of persons composing such a government.

American oligarchy. What a strange term it is. In the years immediately following the cold war, it was common to hear about the Russian oligarchs. These were unscrupulous men who were alleged to have acquired great power and wealth after the breakdown of the Soviet Union, and to have done so in a dishonest fashion. But back then, no one ever spoke of an American oligarchy.

But now, more and more it is common to hear people speak of about an American oligarchy. And it would seem they are onto something. Consider:

• Gay Marriage: In June 2015, a body of nine lawyers on the Supreme Court found that the US Constitution guarantees homosexual couples the right to marry. And this in spite of the fact that 1) the Constitution says nothing about marriage, that 2) large numbers of the American people oppose gay marriage and that 3) many states, including Ohio where I live, had laws prohibiting gay marriage that were put there as a reflection of the will of the people. In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, any attempt by states to offer some measure of protection to those who oppose the encroachments of the aggressive, unbiblical homosexual lobby are met with the strictest denunciations from oligarchs in both business and culture.
  
• Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid: Some politicians come with baggage. Hillary comes with a whole baggage train. That Mrs. Clinton is a felon is almost a certain. For her guilt has nothing to do with the content of the emails she had on her private server. As former CIA officer Scott Uehlinger put it, “The fact that she set up a private server, in and of itself, means she is guilty of a felony right there. Obviously, by having a private server, she was conspiring to evade her signed sworn statements that she would uphold secrecy agreements. The fact that simply established that (private server) regardless of what was on it, she intended to go around and circumvent the law.” Any ordinary American would long ago have found himself rotting in a cell in Leavenworth for committing just a fraction of the violations Hillary almost certainly has committed, and yet not only does she not suffer the legal consequences for her actions, but she is allowed to run for the nation’s highest office with nary a peep from the national press.
  

• Trans-Pacific Partnership: The secretive trade deal put before Congress last year was difficult even for members of Congress to access. According to NPR, viewing the text of the agreement required senators to go to the basement of the Capitol, enter a secured, soundproof room and surrender their mobile devices. And even though it has the potential to affect the lives of every single person in this country, It goes without saying that the public would never, ever have access to the agreement. Secret deals of this sort are the very essence of oligarchy.
  
• The peoples’ choice vs. the party’s choice: Whatever one may think of the politics of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, the vicious campaign waged by Republican and Democratic party elders against both outsider candidates makes it clear that the kingmakers have no respect for the will of the voters. In an extraordinary interview on CNBC, unbound GOP delegate Curly Haugland emphatically explained to a clearly shocked panel of interviewers that it is the party, not the voters, who choose the presidential nominee, and openly wondered why the Republican party even bothers with holding primary elections.
  
• Federal Reserve Secret Meetings: Rightly the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) – a twelve member group consisting of the seven members of the Fed’s Board of Governors, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and four of the remaining eleven Reserve Bank Presidents – has been called a monetary politburo. These individuals working for a private corporation – the Federal Reserve is privately owned by the member banks – have enormous power over the lives of even single American, yet are subject to almost no public oversight. Even the very slightest hint that the FOMC may be subject to minimal Congressional oversight is immediately met with opposition from the Fed. All the while, Janet Yellen, president of the Federal Reserve, is able to meet in secret with the President and Vice President to discuss…who knows what? “Trust us” is their motto.
  
• Business down, CEO pay up, workers laid off: It takes the tone deafness of a modern day Marie Antoinette for a Board of Directors to offer, and for a CEO to accept, a huge pay raise at the same time a company’s fortunes are tanking,. But that’s just what happened recently at BP. As
  Bloomberg reports, “BP Plc shareholders voted in protest at the company’s decision to award Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley a 20 percent pay increase after the company reported a record net loss and announced thousands of job cuts following oil’s slump.” Granted, this is not, strictly speaking, a wholly American example, as the company in question is domiciled in Great Britain. But CEO Bob Dudley is an American. And apparently neither he nor the other lofty denizens of BP’s C-suite ever believed Jesus injunction that those in positions of authority have the responsibility to serve others, not just themselves and their own appetites. Time was when a captain would go down with his ship.  Not these guys.  Today’s captains of industry are the first ones to hop in the lifeboats, while their employees and shareholders sink beneath the waves.    
  

One could multiply examples, but it should be clear to the reader by now that more and more America is coming to resemble, not the land of the free and the home of the brave, but the sort of crass top-down oligarchy that that has characterized most nations throughout most of history. From the arrogance of secretive trade agreements to the smash and grab tactics of out-of-touch CEOs, those at the top call the shots, while the rest of us are just along for the ride.

So, just how did we get here? How did we transition from republic to oligarchy? Simply put, we turned out back on God and on his Word. Government as a servant to the people, the CEO as servant to his company, these are Christian notions. The preaching of the Gospel of justification by faith alone at the time of the Reformation laid the groundwork for a new civilization, one that respected justice set humane and just standards for both those in authority and those who report to them.

As our society has become less Christian, so too has it become more oligarchic. This should come as no surprise. But it nevertheless is not pleasant to watch.