Issue Deep-Dives
or Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
Issue Deep-Dives
or Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
When it comes to the problems affecting middle-class, working-class, and low-income families – such as poverty wages, lack of affordable healthcare and housing, low-quality schools, mass incarceration, and climate change – we often act as if no one is responsible. We often treat these dynamics as if they were natural or inevitable occurrences, or act as if they were unsolvable problems.
The reality is that every day, across the state, there are legitimate solutions to these problems being advanced by visionary leaders from the most affected communities. They have identified strategies that would improve the health and well-being of millions of California residents. However, they consistently encounter fierce, extremely well-funded opposition from oligarchs and their allies. These billionaires, corporations, corporate advocacy groups, and law enforcement organizations are the primary reasons these longstanding injustices and extreme inequalities still exist and, in many cases, are getting worse. They ARE responsible for the severe harm that has been inflicted on individuals, families, and communities across the state for decades.
In the Issue Deep-Dives below, you can explore how, if not for oligarchs and their allies, California residents could have universal healthcare, more jobs providing livable wages, higher-quality schools, more affordable housing, substantially improved community safety, and meaningful climate solutions.
When it comes to the problems affecting middle-class, working-class, and low-income families – such as poverty wages, lack of affordable healthcare and housing, low-quality schools, mass incarceration, and climate change – we often act as if no one is responsible. We often treat these dynamics as if they were natural or inevitable occurrences, or act as if they were unsolvable problems.
The reality is that every day, across the state, there are legitimate solutions to these problems being advanced by visionary leaders from the most affected communities. They have identified strategies that would improve the health and well-being of millions of California residents. However, they consistently encounter fierce, extremely well-funded opposition from oligarchs and their allies. These billionaires, corporations, corporate advocacy groups, and law enforcement organizations are the primary reasons these longstanding injustices and extreme inequalities still exist and, in many cases, are getting worse. They ARE responsible for the severe harm that has been inflicted on individuals, families, and communities across the state for decades.
In the Issue Deep-Dives below, you can explore how, if not for oligarchs and their allies, California residents could have universal healthcare, more jobs providing livable wages, higher-quality schools, more affordable housing, substantially improved community safety, and meaningful climate solutions.
About this project
All people should have the power to shape the policies and systems that intersect with their lives. However, in an oligarchy, that power is enjoyed by only a small number of extremely wealthy individuals. Meanwhile, everyone else is left to try and survive in a system that prioritizes profits for the ultra-rich over their health and well-being.
That is the system in which Americans are currently living. Billionaires and large corporations accumulate extraordinary wealth through the money and labor provided by middle-class, working-class, and low-income families. They then use that wealth to: (a) elect politicians who support their priorities; and (b) dominate the policymaking process with their armies of lobbyists, think tanks, public relations/media firms, and advocacy organizations. This “Oligarch Ecosystem” has been enormously successful in blocking (or rolling back) social and racial justice efforts and advancing policies that reflect their priorities, allowing them to further expand their wealth and perpetuate a vicious cycle of greed, corruption, and exploitation. Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of people pay the price as their lives get more and more difficult because of policies that were never designed to benefit them or meet their needs.
To be clear, the problem isn’t that there are rich people. The problem is that there are people who become ultra-rich on the backs of others and then use their wealth to actively make those same people’s lives harder.
At the Social Movement Support Lab, we fight systemic racism and inequality by partnering with the most impacted communities and providing them with the multidisciplinary support they need to create transformative social change. Unfortunately, the many people and organizations working to expand social justice, racial justice, and democracy frequently lack the type of data and research needed to understand the strategy, tactics, and overall agenda of the oligarchs opposing their efforts. That gap severely limits the effectiveness of efforts to create the social change that is so urgently needed.
The California Oligarch Index is designed to fill that gap. By exposing the outsized role that a small number of individuals and organizations play in controlling state and local politics, we can start to level the playing field and enable all people and communities to assert their rightful political power.