Letter on Anti-Partisan Principles for Candidates and Elected Officials

Two problems inspired the aspiration to generate systemic change in my country: gerrymandering and economic exploitation. My interests are to make the gerrymandering of political districts less effective in subverting the wishes of voters, and in figuring out how to permanently bar the exploitation of the majority of people for the unbridled greediness of the wealthiest. Four principles have emerged that can help remedy the two problems (Individualized Equity, Human Rights, Citizens overcoming corporate interests, and Ending Exploitation) and they can be reached by a few unconventional methods. 

The four principles begin with scrapping the concept of equality and replacing it with Individualized Equity. My thinking behind this principle is further detailed in a blogpost, but can be summarized by a few concepts. Equality can never be achieved. Seeking equality is a lie. The pursuit of equality has for centuries been a point of contention between groups, If these groups were not competing to gain status and access over each other, they might not recent each other, and could be more successfully living in harmony. Through democracy, we should be striving for individualized equity, where each person identifies one’s own potential and multi-year goals, and society (with and partially through government) sets up the environment and supports to uplift each person, in their “relational lives.” We have the technology and the intellect to set up systems that serve towards the improvement of each individual, such as big data, programs of equity, and focusing first on serving people who live behind socially-created barriers. The concept of Intersectionality is edifying in this. If we can devise (as an example) housing policies that first aim to serve people living behind the intersections of multiple barriers (such as survivors of domestic violence, those experiencing food insecurity, those who were offered poor educational options, those facing racial discrimination). When successful in serving people at those intersections, then people facing fewer barriers or no barriers could benefit from the same policies. We are not aiming to serve the majority first and later dealing with the outliers. Instead, we validate the outliers’ experiences in devising comprehensive policies at the outset. What is key is that governments and public officials stop viewing citizens through identity groups, and instead see all people as unique individuals.

Second, Human Rights are only advanced by bringing more people to conscientiously express their Civil Liberties in a Civil Society. People can not stand on a street corner and simply cry out for their human rights, and expect to receive that respect and endowment. A Civil Society must exist first between members of a community or a province or a nation. Within such a Civil Society, the citizens must take responsibility for their actions and for their neglect of issues. “Personal responsibility cannot exist without liberty, and liberty will not endure without responsibility.” Their enhanced expression of Civil Liberties will then allow them to advance and nurture the Human Rights of their society.

At this moment in the history of democracies, there is such a fractious nature to our communities and political discourse, that partisans are constantly suspicious of the advances of opposing groups. If the LGBTQ+ community claims a victory, then the Evangelicals see it as a loss in their status and in their political ambitions. If women see gains in proportional income relative to men, the men wonder if their income potentials are relatively diminished. If the Right advances, then the Left is set back, like feet attempting the steps of walking while on a pogo stick. That pogo stick is partisanship. Civil Liberties can not be fully expressed if the opposing partisans decry those who are expressing their Civil Liberties. What is needed is an abandonment of the partisan thinking, and the abandonment of identity politics. If candidates and public officials came forward demonstrating Anti-Partisan Principles, then we could see Individualized Equity and Human Rights both advanced. Anti-Partisan officials would work to advance the individuals within their political districts and nations, and would commit to not shore up the power-seeking efforts of political parties, nor of identity groups.

In line with these first two anti-partisan principles would be a third: the dismantling of corporate efforts to influence ballot measures, elections and voting. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that corporations have the rights to free speech as people, but this does not mean the corporations are citizens. Our views and laws on campaigning and on donating to election campaigns and to offering a voice on political matters specifically excludes non-citizens. Corporations are non-citizens. Anti-partisan officials would work to end the influence of internationally-owned corporations, end their influence in having any voice in the decisions of the nation’s citizens who are to carry out their elections and vote on ballot measures and candidates for public offices.

This seems quite obvious. Internationally owned corporations aim to increase world profits for themselves, and are not primarily concerned for the best outcomes of our nation. Their intentions are more than slightly suspect. Corporations are fictions, popularized in the 1400's as a way of spreading out the financial risks when the merchant classes wanted to profit from colonization. The owner(s) of a ship could sell shares in the potential profits from exploiting expeditions to the colonies. If the ship was lost, the owners had the money from the sale of shares to better secure their finances. If the ship returned with riches, the ship owners profited the most. How does this origin in colonization suffice in raising the fiction of a corporation to any level of personhood??

Plus, their foreign stockholders may sway a corporation against the best interests of the nation. Such business ventures are not so risky as in the 1400’s sailing expeditions. Corporate profitability is now largely without doubt. Instead of mitigating risks, their efforts in the halls of governments are to ensure greater and growing abilities to exploit the economy and market places and the consumers/citizens, and the systems that are supposed to be enhancing the lives of citizens.  As non-citizens, corporations should be excluded from influencing our voting.  As a second moral conflict, if one corporate officer holds board membership in three other corporations, then that one person potentially may amplify one opinion five times more than other citizens. The interests of these non-citizen corporations is drowning out the opinions of citizens.

One of the bedrock principles of democracy is that citizens can not and should not be alienated from their rights. When the courts provided for corporations to speak on a plain equal to citizens, this did literally alienate citizens from our rights. When legislators at the city, county, state, and federal levels all concede to the opinions of corporate interests over the needs of citizens, they too capitulate to the this alienation of our rights, of the rights of citizens. The only way to reverse this degradation of democracy is to bring in new legislators who will work to reclaim those rights as exclusively owned and exercised by the citizens. Such candidates and such public officials can not be working to shore up the power of parties, parties that benefit from the patronage of corporations, parties that seek out the lobbying efforts and funding of corporate interests and foreign actors. The candidates we need to stand up with these first three principles must be Anti-Partisan.

My fourth principle is the one I have been studying the longest, to end economic exploitation. Again, we must recognize the workings of corporations and smaller businesses as providing the engines, the settings for the creation of value in our economies. They are highly efficient, in locating the inputs, innovations, organizing principles, suppliers, real and financial capital, and THE employees with the talents, skills, work ethic and time to create value within their business enterprises. Please note, that all the inputs, innovations, organizing principles, real and financial capital are inert without the employees who create the value. Even as robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) take larger roles within business enterprises, still the employees are the ones creating the value as they work within the settings, settings that may include robotics and AI.

Our economies work primarily because of mutual benefit between the employer and the employee (or between the buyer and the seller). The employee benefits from every “transaction” with the employer by receiving paychecks and other benefits (health insurance, financial backing for retirement and/or disability, price discounts, camaraderie in the workplace, prestige and a sense of contributing, etc.). Within the setting of a business enterprise, each employee can generate value to a greater degree than by working alone, outside such an enterprise. Within that same “transaction,” an employer receives the created value which can be part of a composition of merchandise and/or services that can be exchanged on the market for money. In a successful business, the money generated ought to be enough to pay the employee, and pay for the inputs, innovations, organizing principles, suppliers, real and financial capital, but must also be seen as generating a profit over the expenses. Any business that does not eventually generate a profit will fail to exist, ending the mutual benefit between employee and employer.

The employee is taking advantage of the employer in every transaction, and the employer is taking advantage of the employee in every transaction. There can be mutuality in this relationship.

There can develop points of exploitation in this relationship too. When the profits grow to be so immense, and the employees do not realize proportional gains, there could be exploitation. Where the dividing line is, between take advantage and exploitation, I can not be sure. Owing to individualized equity, defining the point of exploitation may be too difficult. I do believe there is an obvious point at which exploitation can be understood by every citizen.

The manufacture of a pickup truck is highly complex and full of created value. By created value, I mean that employees (working within the businesses of the suppliers) fashion all the parts that arrive at an assembly line, and there is great value in all of those parts. All those parts enter the final assembly line, and after 22 to 25 hours of work, hard and intense labor, has been provided to each truck by a large team of employees on the assembly line, then a completed pickup truck comes out at an average cost of $50,000 (valued in 2024 U.S. dollars). (The selling price will be higher since profits need to yet be claimed by the manufacturing company and the dealership and possibly other businesses). That $50,000 pickup truck represents a great deal of and varied contributions of created value by legions of employees, up and down corporate organizations from around the world.

Wide majorities of citizens might understand that if there is any one person in the economy that claims to deserve a paycheck, claims to deserve a full income package of more than $50,000 per day, that person must be exploiting in some way. How can one person honestly claim to have created enough value from a day’s efforts that would surpass the value of a new pickup truck and provide profit margins for one’s employing business? And even more incredulously, how could such a person claim that same level of income for every day of the year?

Multiplying $50,000 times 300 workdays a year (take two weeks off for vacation and one day off each weekend), an annual income of $15 million per year could be a cap for everyone in the economy. If an individual income cap were instituted for the entire economy, then there would be less reason to exploit the employees, less reason to exploit the customers, less reason to exploit the financial systems that are created to serve the whole nation, less reason to send resources to off-short tax havens, less reason to exploit deficit spending (taxation of future generations without representation – violating another bedrock of democracy), less reason to exploit the halls of government, less reason to exploit the planet and third-world nations and their people. If we change the incentives of the wealthiest classes, then their behavior will change.

Anti-partisan candidates and officials can back multi-faceted efforts to institute an individual income cap. If we moderate the power of Property Rights, then Civil Liberties and Human Rights can gain in their expressions and prominence. The ideal here is not to depend upon philanthropy nor on taxation to reach this income cap. If economic exploitation is the basis for gathering enough money to pay the taxes or to make the donations, then we are not ending the exploitation. Instead, we need to rely upon John Munkirs’ and others’ understanding of how corporate boards have interlocked with each other in the decisions they make. Once a critical mass of corporate boards institute an income cap, then their influence with more and more boards can popularize the income cap. After that acceptance, then governments can codify the standards on an income cap and encourage broader implementations. 

For these principles to come into practice, candidates need to be elected. Seen among other independent candidates, the anti-partisan candidates need to stand out and be supportive of each other without forming a third party. Again, the emphasis is not to empower any party or identity group, but instead to empower the voters (Individualized Equity, Human Rights, Citizens overcoming corporate interests, and Ending Exploitation). Also, anti-partisan candidates cannot be the spoilers in any district elections -- they must be intent on winning! 

In view of that charge to never be a spoiler, anti-partisan candidates will do best in districts that are considered safe for a majority party due to the gerrymandering of that district. Where for years, only one party has been able to win, there the opportunities are richest! Voters who have traditionally supported the minority party candidates will be able leave behind the party that can never win due to gerrymandering, and cast ballots for the anti-partisan candidate with the systemic change promised. Disaffected voters and some independent voters too will support the anti-partisan candidate. And some who have traditionally voted for a majority party can be persuaded by policy stands of the anti-partisan candidate. The majority of votes are within reach for well managed, anti-partisan campaigns. 

In districts where two traditional parties are truly battling it out, let them spend resources on those hard fought districts. That habits of concentrating on a few battlegrounds will allow the anti-partisan candidate to build up support and surprise the most comfortable of office holders, those who are most complacent and expect to give little effort to recapturing their seats. 

You may know of individuals who would like to see and even play a part in systemic change and in truly advancing the ongoing "experiment in self-governance" which was pioneered by 13 colonies that declared independence from the United Kingdom. Please offer input and criticism to the ideas formulated here. Then you might offer the matured ideas to potential candidates for office, in Democrat dominated districts and in Republican dominated districts. I will be exploring these ideas with two groups in particular: The Good Party and the Indivisible. May you have the best of fortune!