Bye Bye Labor Unions?

The great American economist John Kenneth Galbraith once remarked about what seems to be a dual motivation system used in conventional economics, one for the rich and one for the poor. The rich will not work if not sufficiently compensated, while the poor will not work if compensated too much.  This duality is echoed in the popular views of corporations and labor unions.  A successful corporation that maximizes its bottom line and shareholders' profits is regarded as a great public good and often awarded tax "incentives".  By contrast, a successful labor union that gets good salaries and benefits for its members is often regarded as public bad and needs to have its rights limited and gains reduced.  Such views are not limited to the professional-managerial class but are shared by the American population at large, including segments of the de-facto working class.

Such sentiments go back to Max Weber's analysis of pre-modern and modern rationality.  Pre-modern rationality, Weber argued, represented among others by the backward Eastern European peasantry, requires that a person works only as much as to accumulate adequate means for survival and then rest.  The modern rationality, by contrast, requires that one works to maximize return whether he/she personally needs these returns or not.  This accumulation and maximization of returns is indeed a divine mission embedded in the “spirit of capitalism.”

The Weber connection suggests that this curious double standard for management and labor is not simply hypocrisy or even brainwashing with business propaganda.  It has something to do with the Weberian notion of legitimacy, more specifically, a general belief who can make a bona fide claim to representing public interests, or for that matter, propose bona fide rational solutions.  It seems that corporate management is seen as a legitimate agent of both, while labor (organized or otherwise) lack this legitimacy - it can only represent their own "special interests" and their own point of view (rather than universally recognized rationality.)

The real question is, however, why is it the case?  If the study of the professions and the role of legitimacy in constructing professional status (see for example Andrew Abbott book, "The System of Professions" or) is any indicator, the key to legitimacy is the association with knowledge, or at least with what passes for knowledge at a given historical time.  Doctors are generally seen as legitimate medical professionals while healers are not.  It is so, because the former claim to posses what is widely recognized as objective knowledge on which their practice is based, whereas the latter do not.  The outcome of the practice does not matter that much, as both can be ineffective or only accidentally effective.  What matters is the believable claim of possessing legitimate knowledge, which is considered a "public good" in itself.  Likewise, the management practice is supposed to be based on the application of "objective knowledge" (economics, psychology, business management studies, etc.) whereas labor does not.

Of course this connection to knowledge is not self-evident.  It is carefully constructed and cultivated to the point of becoming what sociologists call "stock knowledge" i.e. a belief taken for granted without the need of any proof.  The professions, especially in the US,  carefully engaged in that construction and cultivation - the process known as "professional projects".  Such projects have been carefully described by Magali Sarfatti Larson “The Rise of Professionalism”).  Andrew Abott (“The System of Professions”) describes how many different professional groups collaborate on creating mutually supportive systems of professions that supports the professions' special claim knowledge, while my paper “The DiscreetCharm of the Nonprofit Form” focuses on professional projects in situations where the "system of professions" does not work.

In contrast to the professions, labor did not cultivate any claim to knowledge, at least in the US.  In fact, it often took the opposite path, that of anti-intellectualism and derision of formal knowledge, schooling, and its agents contemptuously dubbed "egg-heads.”   A recent example may be “blue collar” unionsjoining forces with business to launch an assault on teacher and public sector unions.

By so doing, the labor shot itself in the foot.  It undermined its own claim to legitimate representation of public interests and consequently it is seen only as a "special interest group" that needs to be held in check by those who legitimately represent "public interests."  In the era of austerity measures forced down on society by the professional-managerial class, this perception further erodes the standing of labor unions and may even lead to its final demise. 

Auf Wiedersehen Tegel

Tegel is a funny airport - quite minimalist for the capital of a major European power.  In that respect, it it reminiscent of Bonn - a sleepy provincial town that used to be the the capital of the Federal Republic (prior to the unification.)  Both Tegel and Bonn create an illusion of visiting Disneyland - where structures are scaled down to create a sense of gemuetlichkeit - yet they are fully functional real-life places, not hyper-reality theme parks created for entertainment.

Tegel is actually quite functional - my only complaint is the absence of rail connection to the city, which is rather unusual for Europe.  However, its small size is bad for long distance travel.  I once missed a Continental flight to Newark due to a late arrival of my connecting Lufthansa flight.  It turned out that it was the only flight to the US from Tegel - as a courtesy, Continental offered me place on their next day flight without a surcharge (sic!) which I politely declined.  Lufthansa, otoh, had plenty of transatlantic flights, but all of them from Frankfurt or Munich.

After the transfer of the capital to Berlin, Bonn reinvented itself as a "UN - city"  to retain some of its previous stately splendor.  The end result, however, is the retention of the Disneyland character of the city where the international rubs elbows with the provincial.

It is too bad that Tegel has to go to create room for a more modern airport. The new Berlin architecture is absolutely dreadful, just as most modern architecture in general and airport buildings in particular are.  So in that respect, Tegel will share the fate of Penn Station in NYC, an interesting but not quite functional building replaced with architectural monstrosity in the name of efficiency.  The French converted d'Orsay terminal into an art museum.  The Germans could do something similar with Tegel.  Do not raze it. Convert it to, say, a cultural center similar to the Smithsonian combining museums of transportation, natural history, art from all over the world, international cinematheque - in a word a place offering a virtually connection to the world in the way that the old airport never could.

On Activist Cultural Identity

The role of aesthetic and cultural tastes in class distinctions is equal if not greater than that of economic factors, as Bourdieu had argued in his book "Distinctions".  This creates an almost impossible situation for many radical activists - they claim to fight for the interests of the subordinate classes, yet the subordinate classes reject them as "upper class brats" based on their cultural appearances.  But if they give up their activist culture to gain acceptance, they basically sell out their souls to the devil of the mainstream society.  Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

FROM AMRITSAR TO DERRY: BLOODY SUNDAYS AND BEYOND

Today is the 40^th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday, an event in which the British Army opened fire on unarmed civil rights protesters in the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland, killing fourteen.  Although the recent debate in the UK focuses on culpability of the army and the authorities, this event also gives us an opportunity for a more general reflection on the usefulness of the civil disobedience tactic today. 

A good point to start is to quote what Orwell had to say on the subject in 1949:

"[Gandhi] believed in "arousing the world," which is only possible if the world gets a chance to hear what you are doing. It is difficult to see how Gandhi's methods could be applied in a country where opponents of the regime disappear in the middle of the night and are never heard of again. Without a free press and the right of assembly, it is impossible not merely to appeal to outside opinion, but to bring a mass movement into being, or even to make your intentions known to your adversary. Is there a Gandhi in Russia at this moment? And if there is, what is he accomplishing? The Russian masses could only practise civil disobedience if the same idea happened to occur to all of them simultaneously, and even then, to judge by the history of the Ukraine famine, it would make no difference. "

It thus appears that Orwell was skeptical about the civil disobedience tactic because it would work only in a democratic state where, one may add, it is one of many ways of voicing political dissent.  However, it is pretty much ineffective in a totalitarian regime. 

I like Orwell as a writer, his writing is very engaging and clear, qualities that not that many European writers possess.  I wonder, however, to what extent, if any, Orwell’s view on the effectiveness, or rather lack thereof, of civil disobedience had been influenced by the memory of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, in which the British war criminal in the rank of Brigadier General Reginald E.H. Dyer ordered his troops to open fire on unarmed civilians in the Indian city of Amritsar in 1919, which incidentally also took place on a Sunday (has Her Majesty secretly proclaimed Sunday the “Shoot a Protester Day” ?), killing as many as 1,000.  

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre offers a compelling case against civil disobedience – it reinforces Orwell’s point that such a tactic amounts to a mass suicide, if the protesters face an enemy who is determined to shoot to kill.  It goes even further than that, it illustrates that bourgeois democracies are not much better than totalitarian regimes in its willingness to shoot civil rights protesters, a point further reinforced by similar events in other democracies, such as the Adalen massacre in 1931, the Kent State massacre in 1970, in addition to the Amritsar deja vu  in Derry in 1972.    

What these events demonstrate is that opening fire on unarmed civil rights protesters is actually less damaging to the political system in a democracy than in an authoritarian regime.  If such an event occurs in a totalitarian state, two things are likely to follow.  First, the regime tries to cover it up as if it did not occur and censor the news of the shooting.  Second, the foreign press gives this event as much publicity as possible, especially if the authoritarian regime in question is labeled “communist.”  So the more the regime tries to censor the reports of the shooting, the more credible and more in demand the foreign reports appear.  So at the end, while the protest itself had minimal, if any at all, impact on the regime, the massacre of the protesters undermined the credibility of the regime and contributed to its subsequent demise (c.f. in Poland after 1970 rebellion in Gdansk, which I witnessed, and after the martial law in 1981.)

However, no such thing happens in a bourgeois democracy.  To be sure, bourgeois democracies do not shoot protesters very often, but when they do – two things occur.  First, the event is covered by all media outlets from every imaginable angle, which immediately removes any suspicion of a cover-up.  Second, a special government commission is appointed to investigate the event, and after many years of deliberation it issues a report that invariably exonerates the people who did or ordered the shooting, but opens the door for civil litigation against the government, i.e. the taxpayers.  In other words, bourgeois democracies are very efficient in protecting their functionaries while socializing the cost of the massacre, just as they are very efficient in protecting the interests of well-connected businessmen, while socializing the cost of their business practices.

Thus, Orwell’s critique of the effectiveness of civil disobedience stands, especially in bourgeois democracies.  First, a civil disobedience protest poses very little risk to the powers that be, even if it is violently suppressed.  Such suppression fails to delegitimate a bourgeois democracy that, unlike authoritarian regimes, mastered the art and science of manufacturing of consent and legitimation.  Instead of censoring the news of violent suppression of protest, bourgeois democracies drown them in noise and spin manufactured in endless quantities by the media and government bureaucracy, which introduces enough moral ambiguity to effectively neutralize the delegitimizing potential of the attack on protestors.

Second, far from undermining this consent and legitimation manufacturing, acts of civil disobedience actually reinforce  a bourgeois democracy.  The fundamental assumption of any civil disobedience protest is the existence of the so-called “civil society,” or a public sphere where citizens can pursue their interests and voice their concerns.  The very existence of a protest action is a manifestation of the existence of this civil sphere, which in turn legitimates the political system that “guarantees” its existence.  This connection between protest and legitimation of the political system can be illustrated by a visiting NGO activist from Kenya whom I met and who was greatly impressed by the fact that people could freely protest against the current administration in the National Mall in Washington DC.  In his native Kenya, any anti-government demonstration would likely be dispersed by the police.

In sum, civil disobedience actions are more likely to legitimate the status quo in a bourgeois democracy than undermine it, even in an unlikely event of state violence against the protestors. Thus, such actions are not only ineffective as Orwell claimed, but they are counter-effective.  It is so, because bourgeois democracy has mastered the art of privatizing the profits and socializing the cost, both in business and in politics.  They protect the businessmen and functionaries while dissipating their responsibilities, and socializing the cost of their actions.

To be effective, a protest action must reverse this privatization of profits and socialization of costs tendency of  bourgeois democracy.  Street demonstrations cannot do it because they cannot inflict enough damage to corporate and government functionaries who hide behind the curtain of “the system” – even if they blink and abuse their power.  They only expose protestors to personal risk.  An effective protest action must do the opposite: threaten or inflict damage to corporate and government functionaries while minimizing the personal risk of the protestors.

A good example of such an action was a recent protest campaign against proposed anti-piracy legislation (SOPA and PIPA.)  This campaign demonstrated that a great number of libertarian minded “netizens” – who typically are “swing” voters – are willing to take politicians responsible on an issue that is dear to them.  This was a serious threat, especially in an election year, and the political support behind this legislation folded like a house of card.  Although pundits interpreted it as “democracy at work” – this was in fact a successful protest action at work.  What made it successful is a credible threat it posed to the political functionaries (aka “elected representatives.”)

So instead of stomping their feet in the streets and risking being tear gassed and arrested, if not shot at, which threatens no one but the protesters themselves, a successive protest action must devise a strategy that poses a credible political risk to specific corporate and government functionaries responsible for the state of affairs targeted by the protest.  Of course, specific strategies of protest will vary depending on the circumstances, who is involved, and what credible threat can be posed, but protest organizers should plan their strategy based on the political cost/benefit considerations, instead of ritualistically engaging in tradition-honored forms of protest that simply ceased to be effective, if they ever have been.

ARBEIT MACHT FREI?

I like Graeber's writing, it is very thoughtful, even though I feel uneasy about some of his conclusions. 

In the last essay of his volume “Revolutions in Reverse” titled “Against Kamikaze Capitalism” he tackles the issue of work from an anarchist point of view - i.e. something to be avoided.  What is missing from this analysis is that different kinds of work have not been created equal, and that while some kinds of works are indeed drudgery to be avoided, other kinds of work are creative and satisfying pursuits that he elsewhere raves about.  What is furthermore missing is the explicit recognition that work is not some quasi -objective process defined by technical requirements of production, but a socially constructed process of breaking human activity into separate tasks and then organizing these tasks into "bundles" or "lumps" called jobs.  Finally, and most importantly perhaps, what is missing from this essay is acknowledgment that jobs are socially constructed based on the principle of social status inasmuch, if not more than on the principle of technical expediency. 

This unveils what I perceive as a significant weakness of anarchist thinking - it cedes vast stretches of social territory to its enemies and withdraws, or rather is being routed, to idealized if not utopian enclaves in which it feels comfortable.  It does not treat these territories as contested, something worth fighting for, but rather as something worthless and thus to be abandoned to the enemy without a fight.  It does this with the state, and it does this with work. 

Job satisfaction studies consistently show that non-pecuniary attributes of work, such as degree of autonomy, flexible schedule, co-worker respect, friendly atmosphere, amenities and the like are as important in defining what constitutes a “good job” as the wages.  There is no technical reason, why all jobs cannot have these attributes.  In fact, many capitalist firms recognize this and offer sometimes real, more often token, attributes of respect, autonomy, flexibility, collegiality and the like.  A visit to a local IKEA store staffed by "co-workers" is but one example.  Another example is a visit to a supermarket outside the US.  The first thing one notices is that their cashiers sit rather than stand at their counters.  Why cannot they in the US?

What is more, there is no reason why certain undesirable tasks, such as cleaning one’s workspace, have to be “bundled” into menial jobs instead of being spread out across all jobs.  I see no reason why at the end of the day a CEO cannot pick up the waste basket in his office and empty it into a dumpster on his way out, other than that such a “menial work” is somehow “unbecoming” of his status. 

But if the status of job incumbents is what it is in a large part about, then work is a contested territory.  The “status grab” by the managerial types by hogging the most desirable, creative and enjoyable task to themselves while relegating the menial tasks to those of a lesser status, can be effectively contested by a demand for a democratic process in defining jobs, their desirable/menial task composition, and the degree of amenities, such as autonomy, flexibility and the like. 

However, by declaring all productive work as a form of capitalist drudgery that cannot be reformed, rearranged and transformed into a festive and joyous human activity, the anarchists seem to cede this territory and  capitulate to the managerial claim that the organization of work they created is based on objective, technical and meritocratic criteria to which there is no rational alternative.  It fails to recognize that productive work, if democratically reorganized, can entail a significant amount of creativity, fun, joy, and sense of accomplishment.  The same can be said about the state, but that is subject to another discussion.

ANARCHISTS VS. VEBLEN

Graber’s book “Direct Action” does an outstanding job describing the values and mindsets of the anarchist types.  The impression that I get from his book, however, is that these guys are, in a way, like boy scouts.  The boy scouts do not simply want to travel from point A to point B.  Instead, they use travel as the justification for engaging in an elaborate process, or ritual if you will, that is the embodiment of survivalist ideology that renounces modern conveniences that make travel easy.  Likewise, the anarchist types use politics as the justification for engaging in the ritualistic practice of direct democracy that renounces every form of formal organizational structure.

This is not a critique of the anarchist movement.  Both boy scouts and anarchists can be very useful in modern society that has a hard time living without modern conveniences and formal organizational structures.  While it is not reasonable to expect them to be actual alternatives to these modern conveniences or formal organizational structures, they provide mechanism of socialization into a certain value system that can be instrumental in developing such alternatives.  And for that reason, I give the anarchists an unqualified moral support.

What rubs me the wrong way in the anarchist way of thinking is their utopian, ritualistic and unrealistic notion of democracy that makes it look almost impossible to attain in real life, save for small tightly knit groups of aficionados.  They are likeZeno’s paradoxes of motion that make any movement look like a sensory illusion.  Yet, a simple act of jumping out of a moving train can demonstrate that it is the other way around – it is the theory that is an illusion, not the perception of reality.  Likewise, the problem of democratic governance is over-theorized to death by the anarchist types.

In real life, democratic i.e. egalitarian and undemocratic i.e. hierarchical interactions coexist rather well without any apparent contradiction.  When I take a train or a flight, or have a surgery, I do not expect democratic governance.  I abdicate my control of the situation to others.  In fact, I would avoid a railroad, an airline or a hospital in which every decision must be vetted by collective rituals of democratic consensus building.  In such circumstances the abdication of responsibility to some technical authority and well defined chains of command are not only seen as a problem but it is a necessary requirement of effective performance.

Most people have no problems abdicating their responsibility and control of situation to others if the following two conditions are met.  First, there is a certain level of expertise, skill and coordination required to achieve a safe operation or a successful outcome.  Second, the abdication of responsibility and control is conditional and reciprocal.  That is, today I abdicate my responsibility and control to you because I defer to your judgment on X, but I expect you to abdicate your responsibility and control to me when it comes to deciding Y, which is my forte.

The pre-occupation with the hyper-democratic process among the anarchist types seems to be grounded in two sources. First is the influence of bourgeois concept of democracy as a formal process rather than substantive guarantees.  In this conception democracy means simply guarantee of opportunities and due process to achieve a good life rather than substantive guarantees of resources that make a good life.  This concept of democracy is basically a set of laws that, as Anatole France aptly observed, “forbids the rich and the poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”

The second source of insistence on hyper-democratic interaction is the lack of reciprocity in most current institutional arrangements.  That is, institutional arrangements of modern societies permanently deprived certain classes of people of voice and control of the situation. These arrangements are justifiably resent it by anyone with a sense of human decency, but some go further by demanding a process that abolishes all formal institutional arrangements, since these can undermine direct democracy.  It is like being upset by potholes in the roadway, and demanding that the roadway be eliminated to correct this problem.

In reality the problems of democracy can be easily solved by employing principles of reciprocity.  Workers' councils making strategic decisions or deciding salaries and tenure of management would be an example.  This is not that difficult to implement in an institution. And this micro-institutional level is what that matters the most - democracy at a national level is an abstraction and empty word most of time.  In other words, reforming the dysfunctional bourgeois demo is not as difficult as the anarchist rituals seem to suggest.  We do not need to abolish the state, the “wage system” and any formal organization, and turn anyone into a political boy scout each time finding his path without any organizational props anew.  We do not need to abolish the road of policy and organization to fix the potholes in it. 

Of course anarchists and many Marxists would counter that the solution is not as easy as it seems, mainly because the state and the bosses always collude to wrestle democratic control from workers on the factory floor as well as in the national politics.  And they have a valid point – government supported neoliberalism created social inequalities on an unprecedented scale, and seriously undermined any victories that the labor achieved in the 20^th century.  Clearly, fixing the potholes in the road of democracy seems far more difficult than my narrative suggests.

However, while I agree with this assessment of the current situation, I disagree with Marxist and anarchist diagnosis of the causes.  For the anarchists and many Marxists, “the people” are like Christian god, they can do no wrong, so if evil exists in the world, it must be caused by something else.  For the Christians that something else is the Satan, for anarchists and many Marxists – it is the state.  The power of state is what imposes the evil of capitalism on the people and prevents them from progressing to socialism.  While I recognize that anti-statism is well entrenched on this side of the pond, not just among anarchists and Marxists, and arguing against it is an uphill battle, I will nonetheless counter this view with two arguments.  

First, the view of the state as monolithic juggernaut crushing the power of labor is inaccurate.  Amore realistic view of the state is that of multiple centers of bureaucratic power connected to various social interest groups and shifting alliances among them.  This means that the "state" is not a monolith - some elements of it are more likely to side with the bosses while other - with workers and for various reasons that constantly change.  What is more, the oppressive power of the state is far more limited than anarchists and Marxists believe, as the history of the downfall of ‘state socialism” in Eastern Europe demonstrates.  In these supposedly monolithic socialist states there were in fact different alignments between different parts of the technostructure and different factions of the political structure and the opposition.  The factional alignments constantly shifted, sometimes resulting in a thaw and sometimes in tightening the screw, but at the end the control of the state was handed on a silver plate to the opposition, in which labor unions played a prominent role.  The main points here are that one cannot automatically assume that the state is always anti-worker for it really depends on historical circumstances, but even when it is anti-worker, its power of oppression are limited.

My second argument provides an alternative to anarchism and Marxism explanation of the existence of “evil,” that is, capitalism.  My argument follows, in a way, that of ThomasAquinas, who believed that evil is caused not by some dark force, but by the defect of human agents who fail to achieve good embedded in their nature.  Likewise, capitalism is not caused by the evil force of the state colluding with the bosses, but a certain defect of the human agents, including the working class and the “downtrodden masses” to act rationally and responsibly.

This defect is social status attainment.  As Veblen aptly observed, social status attainment is a major force that determines not only the division of labor, but also consumption patterns.  Jobs are defined to accommodate social statuses of the incumbents, menial jobs for low status incumbents, honorific jobs for high status incumbents.  Likewise, goods are purchased because they are associated with high social status, even though their utilitarian value is limited if any.   So while Western social commentator attributed to “downfall of Communism” to exotic political causes, such as unquenched thirst for liberty or the supposed economic inefficiency of socialism, they miss the importance of social status in popular dislike of Eastern European socialism.

The flattening of social hierarchies by the socialist states in Eastern Europe was initially cheered by the "downtrodden masses" but it soon became resented by the same masses.  The sons of workers and peasants who -thanks to the socialist education system - became members of the technostructure quickly started resenting being on a more or less equal footing with the proles.  But even the proles themselves resented the relative absence of what Veblen called "conspicuous consumption" - i.e. purchase of goods that are associated with high social status regardless of their utilitarian value.  A good example is popularity of US made blue jeans that could fetch a month salary (or more) in Eastern Europe.  The US made blue jeans had no more utility than locally produced trousers, but they had a brand name tag that signified the high social status of the ass on which it was displayed. 

The relative scarcity of social status consumer products and the relative absence of social status distinctions were among the most frequently voiced grievances against the socialist system in Eastern Europe, especially in informal conversation.  On the record, however, it was about "freedom" and kindred lofty sounding abstractions.

Social status attainment and the role of conspicuous consumption in this attainment is the most powerful weapon of capitalism against socialism.  This weapon operates independently of formal power structures, although it often receives backing of the latter.  It acts as the "fifth column" that undermines the solidarity of the working class and "downtrodden masses" in general.  The competition for status in the workplace was among the mechanisms of labor control in both socialism and capitalism.  Michael Burawoy describes the labor process  as a "game" (instigated by the bosses, to be sure) that the workers play against each other.

The role of social status in the workplace has been extensively studied by feminists and labor market sociologists as well.  Their arguments boil down to the proposition that contrary to meritocratic pretenses, the division of labor is based to a significant extent on social status of the incumbents.  The close fusion of division of labor and social status is the main mechanism that legitimates that division of labor, even among those who receive the short end of this bargain.  Reskin & Roos provide case studies of deskilling of certain, mostly male dominated, occupations through "feminization."  One of the most important observations they make is that this work because female job applicants tend to be more accepting of lower social status of the newly redesigned (and Taylorized) jobs than male applicants.

Social status distinctions, which are deeply embedded in our culture, are the main mechanism that undermines not just workplace democracy, but socialism as well.  Social status attainment makes people responsive to commercialism and conspicuous consumption demands that the capitalists are more than willing to satisfy.  And if an attempt is made to curb this through rational planning of the economy and abolition of social hierarchies, this will only increase popular receptiveness to capitalist commercialism and conspicuous consumption.  

This - not the supposed "state repression" or some other external coercive force- is the main reason why democracy  and socialism- both at the micro-structural and the national levels - is rather difficult to implement, but it can be rather easily derailed by commercial interests.  This is the “fifth column” that must be neutralized to mend bourgeois democracy, or for that matter, build socialism.  Ironically, the rituals of the anarchist sects may be useful to achieve this goal – not by being a substitute for formal organization, of course, but by socializing people into a value system that shuns conspicuous consumption as the means of social status attainment.

ONE NATION UNDER GOP

Here is a modest proposal for reforming the US electoral system.

Why wasting money on gerrymandering, electoral campaigns that look more farcical than professional wresting games, bribing politicians with "campaign contributions," stacking the so-called "Supreme" Court with corporate stooges who can appoint the president of the "republic" when needed, and the like?  The goal of One Nation under GOP (or is it under God?) can be achieved through much simpler and cost-efficient means.  Just change the ballot design.  Here is an idea.