Metacrisis Salon #14: Taking Down Oligarchy (Extended)

0:00 Gemini: : Aristotle said, you have the balance right, when on any given day, you cannot tell whether you are living in a democracy or an oligarchy. 2,000 years later, the framers got it exactly right.

0:11 Gemino: I'm Gemino.

0:12 Gemini: And I'm Gemini, with the AI correspondence for Dear Crisis. Here to keep you connected to this community when you can't be in the room. Here's what happened.

0:18 Gemino: Dear Crisis is a Brooklyn community that meets monthly to face the big crises together.

0:23 Gemini: Right. And uh, this is the long version of Meta Crisis salon 14. But a shorter 20-minute version is also available.

0:29 Gemino: So the speaker was Jeffrey Winters, he's a professor of political science at Northwestern. And he studied oligarchy for 25 years, he wrote The Blind Spot.

0:35 Gemini: Mhm. And he started by going through this study by Martin Gillens and Benjamin Page from 2014.

0:40 Gemino: Right.

0:41 Gemini: And the study looked at how public policy preferences, like what the public actually wants, correlate with the laws that the federal government passes.

0:48 Gemino: Okay, so they were measuring if what people want actually becomes law.

0:51 Gemini: Exactly. And Gillens and Page, they used 1,779 specific policy cases for this.

0:57 Gemino: Wow. That's a lot of cases.

1:00 Gemini: Yeah, it's been a 20-year period, so they had a massive data set. And they took the American public and broke them down into income percentiles just to track who wanted what.

1:11 Gemino: Okay, how did they divide it up?

1:15 Gemini: They looked at the 10th percentile, which represents lower income earners. Mhm. Then the 50th percentile, which is the median income earner.

1:17 Gemino: So the exact middle.

1:20 Gemini: Right. And then the 90th percentile representing economic elites.

1:28 Gemino: Okay.

1:28 Gemini: So they tracked the public opinion surveys for these three groups on specific proposed policies. And then they waited to see what happened over the next four years.

1:34 Gemino: To see if those policies actually became law.

1:34 Gemini: Exactly. Now, in a system that works on majoritarian principles, you would expect the 50th percentile preferences to become law pretty regularly.

1:42 Gemino: Right, because they're the median voter, you need them to build a majority.

1:47 Gemini: Yes.

1:47 Gemino: Yeah.

1:47 Gemini: And what they found was that on a lot of issues, the 50th percentile and the 90th percentile actually wanted the exact same thing.

1:50 Gemino: Okay. So the median citizen and the economic elite agreed.

1:58 Gemini: Yeah, their interests were identical. And in those cases, the policies frequently passed.

2:06 Gemino: Makes sense.

2:06 Gemini: The median citizens' preference became law. But then, the study isolated the cases where they didn't agree.

2:08 Gemino: Where the interests diverged.

2:10 Gemini: Right. They only looked at the instances where the 50th percentile wanted something to pass, but the 90th percentile opposed it or the other way around.

2:17 Gemino: Okay, so what happens when they disagree?

2:17 Gemini: Well, in the Brooklyn Living room, people were taking notes on legal pads as Winter stated the finding. When the interest of the median citizen and the economic elites diverge, the statistical probability of the median citizen's preference becoming law drops to a flat line.

2:34 Gemino: A flat line.

2:34 Gemini: Yes. Winters was very specific about the numerical outcome in the data: it is zero wins for the many when interest diverge.

2:38 Gemino: Wait, literally zero?

2:38 Gemini: Zero. It does not matter how big the majority is that supports a policy. If the economic elite oppose it, the legislation fails.

2:49 Gemino: Wow.

2:49 Gemini: Yeah. And Winters used this data to divide democracy into two distinct axes. He called them the horizontal axis and the vertical axis.

2:50 Gemino: Okay, what's the horizontal axis?

2:57 Gemini: The horizontal axis measures the relationship between different groups of non-rich citizens.

3:03 Gemino: So regular people interacting with each other.

3:03 Gemini: Exactly. This covers civil rights, social liberties, cultural disputes, labor organizing, anything that does not fundamentally redistribute concentrated wealth.

3:09 Gemino: Got it. And does democracy work on that access?

3:17 Gemini: It does. On the horizontal axis, democratic struggle is highly functional. When citizens organize or petition or protest or vote on horizontal issues, the laws actually change.

3:23 Gemino: So participation works there.

3:27 Gemini: Yes. The rights of various groups expand or contract based on that democratic mobilization. The system responds.

3:33 Gemino: Okay, but then there's the vertical axis.

3:33 Gemini: Right, the vertical axis measures the relationship between the top of the wealth distribution and absolutely everyone below it.

3:36 Gemino: So the wealthy versus the non-wealthy.

3:36 Gemini: Exactly. This access covers wealth concentration, major taxation structures, the systemic distribution of economic power. And Winters stated that on this vertical axis, the democratic system simply halts.

3:47 Gemino: It just stops.

3:53 Gemini: It halts. When the non-rich try to use voting or legislation to redistribute concentrated wealth, the mechanisms fail to produce any result.

3:58 Gemino: Which leads to his concept, right?

3:58 Gemini: Yes. This structural reality is what Winters calls participatory inequality.

4:01 Gemino: Participatory inequality.

4:08 Gemini: Yeah. And to explain it, he went back to the historical baseline of how stratification works. Okay. Basically, throughout human history, societies have organized themselves into steep wealth pyramids. A very small minority holds the vast majority of resources.

4:18 Gemino: Right, that's just the historical norm.

4:18 Gemini: It is. But because the people holding the wealth are vastly outnumbered by the people who don't have it, these historical oligarchies were always inherently unstable.

4:31 Gemino: Because the many just have the physical numbers.

4:31 Gemini: Exactly. They have the physical numbers to just take the wealth from the few, so to maintain that concentration of wealth, those historical oligarchies had to use specific mechanisms of coercion.

4:35 Gemino: Like violence.

4:41 Gemini: Primarily physical violence, yeah.

4:41 Gemino: Yeah.

4:43 Gemini: Wealth is defended by standing armies, private guards, severe penal systems that were specifically designed to punish the non-rich.

4:50 Gemino: Right. And they used ideology too, didn't they?

4:52 Gemini: Yes. Ideological coercion was the secondary mechanism. Elites claimed a divine right to rule. They used religious mandates to instill awe and mandate compliance from everyone else.

5:01 Gemino: So you obey because God said so, or because the army will kill you.

5:08 Gemini: Exactly. But the vulnerability there is that it requires active suppression. If the military apparatus fails or if the religious ideology loses its authority, the oligarchy has no defense against the numerical majority.

5:17 Gemino: It just falls apart.

5:17 Gemini: Right. So Winters identified the specific innovation that occurred in the United States.

5:19 Gemino: What was it?

5:19 Gemini: It was the creation of a system where severe stratification is sustained without violence or divine mandate. The first one in history.

5:25 Gemino: Okay, so how do they sustain the pyramid without force?

5:26 Gemini: The new mechanism for sustaining the wealth pyramid was open participation.

5:34 Gemino: Mean voting.

5:34 Gemini: Voting, yeah. The system provides the population with a franchise. Citizens are legally empowered to vote in regular elections, to speak freely, to assemble.

5:38 Gemino: And that works better than an army.

5:43 Gemini: It functions by generating systemic consent.

5:43 Gemino: Right.

5:44 Gemini: Because the citizens actively participate in the selection of their representatives, they view the government as an extension of their own will.

5:54 Gemino: Right, they feel like they're in charge.

5:54 Gemini: Exactly. And remember, the participation is structurally real on the horizontal access. Laws actually do change when people vote on horizontal issues.

5:57 Gemino: So that reinforces the belief that the whole system is fully democratic.

6:05 Gemini: Yes. And that belief leads the citizens to accept the outcomes on the vertical access, even when those outcomes consistently protect concentrated wealth.

6:11 Gemino: They consent to the inequality because they participate in the process that oversees it.

6:17 Gemini: Exactly. The floorboards in the Brooklyn living room creaked as people shifted in their seats.

6:23 Gemino: Yeah.

6:23 Gemini: And Winters described his book The Blind Spot as an effort at demystification. The whole purpose of his research is to document the exact legal and structural architecture that allows this participation to operate openly, while keeping the vertical power structure totally secure.

6:35 Gemino: So he actually documented how they built it.

6:38 Gemini: He did. And to show exactly how this architecture was built, he detailed the macroeconomic conditions of the 1780s right after the Revolutionary War.

6:47 Gemino: Okay, the 1780s.

6:47 Gemini: Yeah. The war effort had required a massive amount of capital. The Continental Congress and the individual state governments had funded the war by borrowing heavily.

6:53 Gemino: Who did they borrow from?

6:55 Gemini: Domestic creditor financiers mostly and European bankers.

6:59 Gemino: Right.

6:59 Gemini: To meet those debt obligations, the individual state legislatures enacted new tax policies. And these taxes were levied primarily on property.

7:08 Gemino: And in the 1780s, property meant farms.

7:11 Gemini: Mostly small farmers, yeah, the agrarian economy.

7:11 Gemino: So what happened when they couldn't pay?

7:12 Gemini: The legal consequence for failing to pay the property tax was foreclosure.

7:17 Gemino: Right.

7:17 Gemini: The county sheriffs, acting on orders from the local courts, just seized the farmer's property. The physical land, the livestock, the agricultural tools, all of it.

7:26 Gemino: Just took it.

7:26 Gemini: Then the subsequent legal consequence was imprisonment.

7:30 Gemino: Wow.

7:30 Gemini: Yeah. The United States was operating under a penal structure inherited from British law. And that included debtors prisons.

7:40 Gemino: Debtor's prisons?

7:40 Gemini: Yes. Winters detailed the physical reality of these institutions: these were local county jails, where individuals who owed money to the state or to private creditors were incarcerated with criminals. Exactly. The farmers who lost their land were locked in these cells alongside individuals convicted of violent crimes.

7:55 Gemino: Just for not having gold coins.

7:55 Gemini: Right. And the incarceration was not limited to the male heads of household.

8:02 Gemino: Wait, really?

8:02 Gemini: When a family could not clear their tax debt, the entire family was subject to the penal code. Winters specified that women were imprisoned and children were imprisoned.

8:13 Gemino: Children.

8:13 Gemini: He noted historical records documenting children as young as two years old locked in these debtor's prisons, simply because their families lacked the hard currency to pay the property taxes.

8:16 Gemino: Years old? That's.

8:22 Gemini: So the farmers possessed one specific form of political leverage, which was the right to vote.

8:24 Gemino: Because they were property owners originally.

8:24 Gemini: Right. And in state elections, they organized around their shared economic crisis. And in several states, they successfully voted the creditor allied politicians out of office.

8:35 Gemino: And elected their own people.

8:35 Gemini: Yes, they elected representatives who sympathized with the debtors. And once they controlled the state legislatures, these new representatives enacted a specific macroeconomic policy to resolve the crisis.

8:45 Gemino: What did they do?

8:45 Gemini: They passed laws authorizing the state to issue paper money.

8:45 Gemino: Okay.

8:51 Gemini: And crucially, they mandated this paper money as legal tender.

8:51 Gemino: Meaning what exactly in this context?

9:00 Gemini: The law required all creditors to accept the paper money as payment for all debts. Both public tax debts and private loans.

9:01 Gemino: Oh wow.

9:01 Gemini: Yeah. And they printed it in very large quantities, it depreciated rapidly in value. But by law, it was legal tender. This mechanism functioned as a direct wealth transfer.

9:12 Gemino: How so?

9:12 Gemini: The farmers acquired this highly depreciated paper money and handed it to the state tax collectors and their private creditors. And by law, the debt was cleared.

9:18 Gemino: Even though the paper wasn't worth the original loan amount.

9:22 Gemini: Exactly. Yeah. And Winters contrasted these paper money states with the hard currency states.

9:26 Gemino: Like Massachusetts.

9:29 Gemini: Right. In states like Massachusetts, the creditor class retained political control of the state legislature. They flat out refused to authorize the printing of paper money.

9:38 Gemino: So they kept demanding gold.

9:39 Gemini: Yes. They mandated that taxes continue to be paid in specie and they continued the process of foreclosures and imprisonments.

9:43 Gemino: Which led to Shay's Rebellion.

9:47 Gemini: Exactly. This localized political blockade led directly to Shay's Rebellion. And Winters was very careful to detail the precise actions of the participants.

9:53 Gemino: Because usually it's taught as just a chaotic riot.

9:57 Gemini: Right. But they were not a disorganized mob. The farmers formed organized militias. They utilized the command structures and the weapons from their service in the Revolutionary War.

10:03 Gemino: So it was a disciplined military action.

10:09 Gemini: Very disciplined. And their military actions were highly specific. They were targeted solely at the machinery of debt collection.

10:17 Gemino: What did they actually do?

10:17 Gemini: They marched to the county jails, broke open the doors and physically freed the debtors from their cells.

10:19 Gemino: Okay.

10:19 Gemini: And then they marched to the local courthouses. They formed armed ranks directly in front of the courthouse doors.

10:28 Gemino: To stop the judges.

10:29 Gemini: Yes, to physically block the judges from entering the buildings. Because without a judge on the bench, the court could not issue the legal orders required for the sheriffs to execute foreclosures on farms.

10:39 Gemino: So they just shut the legal system down.

10:39 Gemini: They did. And Winters specified what the militias did not do. They did not attack the homes of the wealthy creditors. Mhm. They did not destroy commercial businesses. They applied armed force specifically to stop the legal processes that were stripping them of their property and putting them in prison.

10:54 Gemino: So how did the elites react to this?

10:57 Gemini: The elites and creditor financiers across the states observed these events with deep alarm. I mean, they saw the democratic mechanisms in the paper money states successfully erase their capital.

11:09 Gemino: Right.

11:09 Gemini: And they saw armed militias in the hard currency states successfully shutting down the court systems. So the threat to concentrated wealth was incredibly severe.

11:15 Gemino: Severe enough to bring Washington back.

11:18 Gemini: Yes. George Washington had previously declined to involve himself in any post-war political gatherings. But he came out of retirement in Mount Vernon specifically to address this crisis.

11:25 Gemino: Okay, so they called a convention.

11:26 Gemini: They organized the convention in Philadelphia, but the legal parameters of this gathering were strictly defined by the Congress of the Confederation.

11:33 Gemino: What were they actually allowed to do?

11:33 Gemini: The delegates were given a legal mandate solely to propose amendments to the existing articles of Confederation, which was the governing document at the time.

11:42 Gemino: Just amendments.

11:44 Gemini: Just amendments. But upon arriving in Philadelphia, the delegates took actions that were not legal under their mandate.

11:48 Gemino: They scrapped it.

11:48 Gemini: They immediately abandoned the effort to amend the articles of Confederation. Instead, they began drafting an entirely new constitutional framework to replace the existing government.

11:58 Gemino: An extra legal redesign.

12:02 Gemini: Completely extra legal. At the conclusion of their drafting process, they voted to formally embargo all notes and records of their debates.

12:05 Gemino: For how long?

12:05 Gemini: They mandated that the records remain sealed for a period of 30 years.

12:13 Gemino: 30 years.

12:13 Gemini: Actually, the notes were published 53 years later.

12:14 Gemino: So the people voting on it had no idea.

12:16 Gemini: Right, the mechanism of secrecy ensured that the general public would not know the rationale behind the new government structure while they were voting on its ratification.

12:22 Gemino: So what was their actual rationale inside the room?

12:31 Gemini: Well, inside the sealed room, the delegates debated various geographic and economic interests. But they maintained a unified diagnosis regarding the central crisis.

12:40 Gemino: Which was?

12:40 Gemini: Elbridge Gerry provided the specific phrase that captured their consensus: he stated that the nation was suffering from an excess of democracy.

12:46 Gemino: An excess of democracy.

12:46 Gemini: Yes. Winters detailed the philosophical foundation that drove this diagnosis. The framers frequently used the word natural in their debates.

12:53 Gemino: Natural. In what sense?

12:57 Gemini: They held a fundamental belief that it was a law of nature for human society to stratify economically. They believed that a pyramidal wealth structure, where a small minority holds the vast majority of resources, was the natural state of civilization.

13:04 Gemino: So inequality was just a law of nature to them.

13:07 Gemini: Right. And the structural conflict they identified was the incompatibility of a natural economic pyramid and a flat political democracy.

13:15 Gemino: Because the flat democracy would threaten the pyramid.

13:19 Gemini: Exactly. In a system of flat democracy, where political power is distributed equally among the citizens, the numerical majority will inevitably use their political power to dismantle the economic pyramid.

13:30 Gemino: They'll just vote for paper money and debt cancellation.

13:30 Gemini: Yes, wealth redistribution. So the delegates concluded that to protect the natural economic pyramid, they had to permanently limit the flat democracy. They required a governmental structure that would insulate the minority of wealth from the democratic demands of the majority.

13:42 Gemino: And they built that directly into the new government.

13:46 Gemini: They built it right into the architecture. Winters contrasted the standard model of this architecture with its actual function.

13:52 Gemino: The standard model being what we learn in school.

13:52 Gemini: Right, the civics education model focuses on horizontal checks and balances. The legislative, executive and judicial branches sit beside each other, each checking the power of the others to prevent the rise of a single autocrat or monarch.

14:05 Gemino: But Winter says there's a secondary system.

14:07 Gemini: Yes. Operating simultaneously, which he termed the vertical wedding cake.

14:12 Gemino: The vertical wedding cake.

14:13 Gemini: It's a sequence of vertical checks deliberately constructed to filter and block the democratic will of the public before it can affect concentrated wealth.

14:23 Gemino: Okay, what are the layers of the cake?

14:23 Gemini: Layer one of the vertical structure is the House of Representatives. This is the base layer. It is elected directly by the people every two years.

14:33 Gemino: So it's very responsive to voters.

14:33 Gemini: Highly responsive to the immediate demands of the voting public, which is why the framers viewed it as the most dangerous branch. It is the legislative body most likely to propose aggressive taxation or debt relief.

14:38 Gemino: So they needed to check the House.

14:45 Gemini: Yes. To check the house, they created layer two.

14:46 Gemino: Okay.

14:46 Gemini: The Senate. The Senate was structurally designed to blockade populist legislation.

14:51 Gemino: And originally the Senate wasn't even elected by the public.

14:51 Gemini: Exactly. The Constitution mandated that senators be appointed by the state legislatures. This ensured the Senate would be composed of wealthy men insulated from popular elections. It functioned as an elite veto over the actions of the House.

15:01 Gemino: house.

15:01 Gemini: Okay, what's layer three?

15:01 Gemino: Layer three is the executive veto.

15:03 Gemino If legislation somehow manages to pass both the house and the Senate, the president possesses the authority to strike it down. Gemini And overriding that veto is very hard. Gemino You need a two-thirds super majority vote in both legislative chambers. Gemino It establishes a very high numerical threshold to enact policy against the executive's decision. Gemini Right. Gemini And the final layer. Gemino Layer four is the Supreme Court. Gemino The justice are appointed for life and they do not face elections. Gemino They serve as the final structural lock aid. Gemino They hold the legal authority to invalidate legislation that has managed to pass the first three layers. Gemini So the Supreme Court is at the very top. Gemino Winter's notes, the Supreme Court today sits at the top of this defensive structure. Gemino And as part of his proposals to address this architecture, he proposes expanding the Supreme Court to 45 members. Gemini 45 members. How would they be chosen? Gemino Half chosen by legislative committee and half selected by public lottery from eligible judges.

15:51 Gemini Yeah. Gemino He also proposes a legislature of 3,000 members, selected entirely by random lottery. Gemino replacing the current electoral mechanisms that heavily favor concentrated capital. Gemini Okay. So going back to the design, the four layers were meant to stabilize the wealth pyramid? Gemino Yes. And Winters connected this specific constitutional architecture to a theory written by Aristotle, 2,300 years earlier. Gemini In his text Politics. Right. Gemino Aristotle analyzed the inherent instability of societies divided between the wealthy and the poor. Aristotle argued that a durable society must carefully fuse oligarchy and democracy into a single functioning system. Gemini And he had a test for this, didn't he? Gemino He provided a specific psychological test to determine if the structural balance had been achieved.

16:38 Gemino Confusion is the basis of the fusion. Gemini Confusion is the basis of the fusion. Gemino Yes. Gemino If on any given day, a citizen cannot tell whether they are living in a democracy or an oligarchy, the balance is perfectly calibrated. Gemini Because the participation masks what's really happening. Gemino Exactly. The participation of the democracy masks the fixed outcomes of the oligarchy. Gemini And Winters provided data on the outcomes of this system today. Gemino He presented data to demonstrate the material outcomes produced by this structural fusion in the modern era. Gemino Since 1975, the mechanisms of the economy and the tax code have facilitated a massive transfer of capital. Gemini How massive? Gemino Winters stated that $55 trillion has shifted upward since 1975. Gemini $55 trillion. Gemino Yes. Gemino And this upward shift is protected by deliberate legislative and administrative structures.

17:24 Gemino Winters noted the current system produces a trillion dollar a year tax gap. Gemini Trillion dollars a year. Gemino A trillion dollar a year tax gap. Gemino This is the mathematical difference between the revenue that the tax code is designed to collect and the revenue actually collected. Gemino It's a shortfall driven heavily by the legal obvigation of concentrated assets. Gemini To show the scale of this stratification, Winters compared the modern United States to previous historical systems. Gemino Right. Gemino He looked at Imperial Rome, which operated in an economy built on agricultural labor and mass slavery. Gemino It was a deeply stratified society. Gemini What was the wealth ratio there? Gemino In Imperial Rome, the ratio of wealth between a Roman senator and the median Roman citizen was 16,000 to 1. Gemini 16,000 to 1. Gemino And in the United States today, the ratio of wealth between the average member of the Forbes 400 and the median American household is 140,000 to 1. Gemini Which, I mean, that brings us right back to the exact point someone made sitting right here in the room, you know, about how the floor for the average person is just so much higher today. Gemino Right.

18:11 Gemino Yeah. Gemino Exactly. Gemino And the specific point that person was making in the room was that there's like a sedation in modern comforts. Gemini Right. Gemino Like the modern middle class, especially tech workers, they just simply do not see themselves as labor. Gemini No, not at all. They don't unionize because they don't think of themselves as like factory labor. Gemino Yeah, I mean, they sit in air conditioned offices, they use laptops all day, the physical exertion is minimal. Gemini So because of those specific conditions, they completely separate themselves from the historical concept of a working class. Gemino And that speaker went on to say that the truly poor in this current system are so completely disempowered that like their only available outlet for frustration is yelling at some employee making $50 grand a year behind a retail counter. Gemini Which is crazy because that 50 grand employee has absolutely zero power over the corporation's policies. Gemino Zero. Gemino But they are the only physical manifestation of the system that the disempowered person can actually reach.

19:01 Gemini Right. And then, uh, another person in the room Gemini added to this by bringing up the sheer difference in physical force today. Gemino Oh, yeah, the point about drones against muskets. Gemini Exactly. Just highlighting the massive gap between modern military power and, you know, the historical dynamic of something like Shay's rebellion. Gemino Right, because in the 1780s, Daniel Shay's just had a couple of thousand armed men marching with five and drum to protest debt collection. Gemini And back then, the wealthy creditors in Massachusetts literally had to hire private militias to defend themselves because there was no standing federal military to protect their interests. Gemino Right. Gemino But the point raised in the room was that the calculus of physical resistance has been completely changed now. Gemini Oh, completely. Gemini Today the state possesses just this enormously powerful military. Gemino Aircraft, surveillance networks, automated weaponry. Gemini Yeah. Because that disparity in force is so absolute, a million people protesting in the streets can just feel entirely futile.

19:47 Gemino The underlying threat of physical force that historically gave labor and the masses leverage over the wealthy, it just no longer exists in a way that average citizens can access. Gemini Right. Gemini So Jeffrey Winters delivered a direct reply to that specific point about the floor being higher today. Gemini And he immediately brought up India as the direct counter example. Gemino Okay, right. Gemino He stated that the 140,000 to 1 wealth multiple of the United States becomes 5.6 million to 1 in India. Gemini Wait, 5.6 million. Gemino Yeah. Gemini And we should look exactly at what that multiple represents. Gemini It's a measurement comparing the wealth of the average billionaire to the wealth of the median citizen. Gemino Okay, so the median, like the exact middle. Gemini Right. Gemini In the US, that ratio sits at 140,000 to 1. Gemini But Winters stated that in India, which is a country with a comparable billionaire class but presiding over a much lower median standard of living, the math escalates to 5.6 million to 1.

20:35 Gemino Wow. Gemino So the gap between the absolute top and the exact middle is drastically wider there. Gemini Exactly. Gemini And he stated exactly how India fits his model. Gemino He said India is a democracy running participatory inequality. Gemino Participatory inequality. Gemini Yeah. Citizens go to the polls, they cast ballots, and they elect their representatives. Gemini Yet the outcome of that participatory process is a wealth concentration of 5.6 million to 1. Gemino Right. Gemini In his words, this case is the ultimate head scratcher for political scientists. Gemino Because they're actually voting for this system. Gemini Right. Gemini He noted that political scientists have struggled for decades with the question of how such an unequal society could continue to have open participatory democracy without the masses using their votes to dismantle the wealth at the top. Gemino And Winters related his point about the comparison of living standards over time too. Gemino He told the room that we are not comparing American dentistry to Roman dentistry.

21:21 Gemini Right, I remembered this. Gemino Because the issue is not the absolute level of technological or medical advancement. Gemino Obviously, a poor person today has access to antibiotics and mobile phones that an emperor in Rome did not have. Gemini Right, right. Gemino He said we are comparing the level of inequality then and the level of inequality now. Gemino The relevant metric is the distance between the top of a society and the middle of that exact same society at the same moment in time. Gemini Because he brought up Imperial Rome, didn't he? Gemino Yeah, he noted that the wealth multiple in Imperial Rome was 16,000 to 1. Gemini Wow. Gemini 16,000 to 1 in Rome compared to 140,000 to 1 in the US today. Gemino Exactly. Gemino And he detailed the specific math on that inequality for the United States. Gemino He stated that we are 50 years into one of the greatest surges of inequality on record globally.

22:07 Gemini Between 1975 and 2025. Gemino Yes. Gemino $55 trillion shifted upward in American society. Gemini Trillion with a T. Gemini $55 trillion. That is that's almost impossible to picture. Gemino It really is. Gemini Yeah. Gemino Which is why he cited a study to contextualize that number because $55 trillion is difficult to conceptualize without a baseline. Gemini What was the baseline? Gemino The study asked what the median income would be today if the inequality of 1975 had simply held as the economy grew. Gemini Oh, wow. Gemino And he noted that 1975 was not an equal society to begin with. Gemino There were wealthy people and poor people. Gemino But the study took the exact distribution of wealth from 1975 and applied it to the total economic growth of the subsequent 50 years. Gemino And he offered a slogan for it, didn't he? Gemini He did. Gemini He said, restore the glorious inequality of 1975. Gemino Right. Gemini He used that to illustrate the exact size of the loss in the standard of living of the average person.

22:56 Gemini We are not talking about achieving perfect egalitarianism, we are talking about returning to a recent historical baseline where the middle class captured a proportional share of the wealth they generated. Gemino Which leads right into how Americans tolerate this level of material inequality. Gemini Yeah, because he pointed out that this is a society remarkably tolerant of great inequality. Gemino He used the lottery to explain the psychology there. Gemini The lottery. Gemini Right. Gemino Yeah, like lots of people buy lottery tickets wanting to win $100 million and nobody holding a ticket thinks that becoming an oligarch is a bad thing. Gemini They think it would be great. Gemino Exactly. Gemino They view extreme wealth as a desirable outcome rather than a systemic failure. Gemino The presence of the lottery reinforces the idea that sudden, massive wealth concentration is a stroke of luck that could happen to anyone, which basically neutralizes anger toward the people who already hold that wealth. Gemini But he contrasted this directly with the Bernie Sanders rallies. Gemino Right.

23:43 Gemino He noted that the fight oligarchy rallies with Bernie Sanders have been drawing between 10,000 and 25,000 people for almost two years. Gemino Which he called extraordinary. Gemini Yeah, it represents a significant portion of the population actively organizing against the concept of extreme wealth concentration, rather than aspiring to join it. Gemino And he emphasized that this mobilization is extraordinary, specifically because he spent most of his 25 years studying the subject being told that oligarchs were a Russian phenomenon, not an American one. Gemini Right. He brought in a quote from a student on the first day of his oligarchs and elite seminar at Northwestern. Gemino Oh, I remember this. Gemini The student just blurted out, Russia has oligarchs, America has rich people. Gemino Yeah, and Winters noted the American detour on what the word means. Gemino For a long time, the American idea was that an oligarch must be someone who got rich in a corrupt way and then engages in politics.

24:28 Gemini Right. The American public basically required a criminal or illicit element to the wealth accumulation. Gemino Exactly. Gemino If a person built a software company or a retail empire and acquired $50 billion legally under the existing tax code, they were categorized merely as a successful business person. Gemini If there was no corruption element, they were not considered an oligarch. Gemino But Winters stated that the definition has now come back to its core meaning. Gemini Which is, Gemino oligarchs are simply people empowered by wealth. Gemino How the wealth was acquired has nothing to do with it. Gemini Oh, wow. So just having it is what makes you an oligarch. Gemino Yeah, the defining characteristic is the possession of enough concentrated material resources to defend that wealth and shape the political system to protect it. Gemini And he outlined his view that stealth wealth is over. Gemino Right. Gemini Stealth wealth was the old notion that in a fused oligarchy and democracy, the wealthy should not be too visible. Gemino They historically preferred to stay in the background, out of the public eye, exerting influence quietly to avoid triggering a democratic backlash.

25:20 Gemini But he said that discipline is gone. Oligarchy is now in your face. Gemino In your face. Gemini Yeah. Gemini Thanks to Citizens United and victory after victory in the courts and legislatures, they feel they legitimately rule. Gemini They do not hide their political interventions, they broadcast them. Gemino He stated that we even have euphemisms for them now, calling them donors or mega donors when they transfer millions of dollars to political action committees. Gemini Right. And he pointed out that people who give blood are donors. Gemini People who pump money into the political system are investors. Gemino Oh, that's a huge distinction. Gemini The motivation is entirely different. Gemini A blood donor expects nothing in return. Gemini He stated they are political investors, essentially venture capitalists funding outcomes in their favor. Gemino Right, they analyze the political landscape, identify candidates who will legislate their tax preferences and supply the capital required to install these candidates in office.

26:08 Gemini And he noted that the media cannot use the word. You will never see a headline stating that a political investor funded a campaign, you will read about donors. Gemino He even caught himself midtalk when he almost said a shell corporation can donate to a superco and he had to stop and correct the verb to invest. Gemini Which is so telling. Gemino And uh, Winters actually covered the history of the Gilded Age backlash when the wealthy were called robber barons. Gemini Yeah, noting that it lasted roughly four decades and delivered real setbacks to extreme wealth concentration. Gemino He detailed the 1894 peacetime income tax. Congress passed a law designed specifically to tax extreme wealth. Gemini Okay. Gemino It was written so that it fell only on the top third of 1% of the population. Gemino Everyone else was exempt. Gemini So it passed. Gemino It passed. Gemino But it was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1895. Gemini Wow. Gemino He called the Supreme Court the last bullwork for oligarchs.

26:58 Gemino When the legislative branch acts against wealth, the judicial branch is utilized to declare the action unconstitutional. Gemini And he noted that it took 18 years and a constitutional amendment to reverse the court. Gemino 18 years. Gemini Yeah. That is a timeline required to implement a structural change against the interests of concentrated wealth. Gemini From 1895 to 1913, the federal government was prevented from levying an income tax on the wealthy until the 16th Amendment was ratified. Gemino And the rest of the 20th century was the story of democracy wanting progressive taxation and oligarchs fighting for regressive taxation and he said the oligarchs won. Gemini They systematically lowered the top marginal rates from the high figures of the mid 20th century down to the current levels. Gemino But he pointed out that while the oligarchs were losing those earlier fights during the mid century, wealth concentration at the top stagnated and the living standards of average households tripled in real terms. Gemini Tripled. Yes.

27:48 Gemino During the exact period when the wealthy citizens faced their highest tax burdens and their strongest legislative defeats, the broad population experienced unprecedented economic mobility. Gemini He said it matters that they got too brazen today, violating the test of confusion, meaning Americans no longer feel they are in a democracy. Gemino The test of confusion. Gemini The test relies on the public believing that their votes dictate the direction of the country. Gemini When political investors openly fund campaigns and write legislation, that confusion dissipates. Gemino And because of that awareness, he said the backlash has already begun and he listed the current wealth taxes in play. Gemini Right. Gemini He stated that it's supposed to be un-American to talk about a wealth tax, yet wealth taxes are being voted on in California and a version is in play here in New York. Gemino He added that Europe is discussing wealth taxes and coordinating across borders, Gemino including Europe's 40% exit tax for the wealthy if they want to run. Gemini Right.

28:36 Gemini If an oligarch attempts to move their assets to a different jurisdiction to avoid the wealth tax, the exit tax captures a significant portion of their capital upon departure. Gemino But then Winters explained his argument that America already has a vicious wealth tax. Gemino The property tax. Gemini Oh, this was so interesting. Gemino Yeah, he detailed how the number one store of wealth for the average household is the house, taxed annually and reassessed by the county. Gemini And wealthy people pay property taxes too, but on a small percentage of their total wealth. Gemino Right. If you have a billion dollars in stock and a $10 million house, the property tax only touches a fraction of your net worth. Gemini But for the average person, the house represents nearly all of their accumulated wealth. Gemini And he detailed the viciousness of the tax base. Gemini You are taxed not on your equity, but on the full value of the house. Gemino You are taxed on the mortgage. Gemini Right. Gemino You may have $100,000 of equity in a $500,000 house, which means the bank technically owns $400,000 of the asset.

29:26 Gemino Yet the county sends the tax bill to you for the full $500,000. Gemini You are paying a tax on money that you owe to a financial institution. Gemino You use the example of a grandmother who lived

29:34 Gemino: her house for 50 years and paid it off. She has zero mortgage. Her income is fixed.

29:34 Gemini: Okay.

29:35 Gemino: As the neighborhood gentrifies and the county reassesses the property value upward, her annual tax bill increases until she can no longer afford it. She is forced to sell the home she owns outright simply to satisfy the annual wealth tax levied on the property.

29:47 Gemini: And he contrasted her directly with the oligarch who complains about not being liquid enough to pay a 3% wealth tax.

29:52 Gemino: When progressive wealth taxes are proposed on stock portfolios and private assets, the wealthy argue that their money is tied up in companies and they do not have the cash on hand to pay the tax. And Winter's asked, who is boohooing for the grandmother who must liquidate her physical home to pay the state?

30:07 Gemini: The standard applied to average citizens is entirely rigid, while the standard requested by oligarchs demands flexibility.

30:13 Gemino: Exactly. He then stated his definition of democracy. He said the liberal system is designed to stop the definition at voice and voting.

30:20 Gemini: Right, you're allowed to speak, you're allowed to assemble and you're allowed to cast a ballot on election day. As long as those mechanisms exist, the liberal system defines the society as a democracy.

30:29 Gemino: But he offered an alternative. Democracy is power in all its relevant forms shared equally.

30:33 Gemini: If one citizen has vastly more power to dictate societal outcomes than another, the equality required for democracy does not exist. Right, because oligarchs do not mind you having voting and voice.

30:40 Gemino: as long as wealth power is concentrated in their hands exclusively.

30:50 Gemini: You can vote for any candidate on the ballot, but the oligarch has already funded both candidates and shaped their platforms.

30:56 Gemino: The average oligarch holds the equivalent of millions of our voices and votes through the deployment of capital.

31:00 Gemini: The contestation is between wealth power on one side and voting and voice on the other.

31:11 Gemino: Which brings us to what to do about it. He introduced the politics of the ordinary, which he called strategic incrementalism.

31:16 Gemini: Strategic incrementalism.

31:16 Gemino: Yeah, these are doable things right now that slow, weaken and complicate the power position of oligarchs. He started by introducing the Enablers Act.

31:25 Gemini: Oh, right. He explained how it targeted the wealth defense industry.

31:26 Gemino: After nine eleven, the Patriot Act required banks to know their client and report suspicious activity. Financial institutions had to verify the identities of the individuals opening accounts and flag transactions that looked like money laundering.

31:41 Gemini: Because oligarchs and terrorists use the same financial mechanisms to move money anonymously, that law complicated the lives of oligarchs avoiding taxation.

31:42 Gemino: Right. It caused them to move their transactions into non-transparent vehicles entirely outside the banking system.

31:51 Gemini: And the Enablers Act listed about thirty more kinds of entities with the same duties.

31:54 Gemino: He explained how it targeted law firms doing transactions for oligarchs, family offices and real estate agencies.

32:00 Gemini: Like if an oligarch wanted to buy a fifty million dollar penthouse anonymously through a lawyer, the lawyer would be legally required to report the true owner just as a bank would.

32:06 Gemino: It was slipped into the defense authorization bill in 2022 and it almost passed.

32:15 Gemini: Almost passed. It was blocked by one single senator, Tommy of Pennsylvania.

32:15 Gemino: One senator.

32:16 Gemini: The structural rules of the Senate allow a single member to hold up legislation and Tommy utilized that mechanism to remove the Enablers Act from the final bill.

32:28 Gemino: Winters emphasized that this kind of legislation is doable. The mechanisms are written and understood.

32:34 Gemini: Yeah, and he then covered the corporate transparency act, which did pass in 2021.

32:34 Gemino: Right. He detailed how it was aimed at shell corporations.

32:39 Gemini: Like in Delaware and Wyoming.

32:43 Gemino: Exactly. In states like Delaware and Wyoming, you can incorporate completely secretly, never documenting the beneficial owner. The state requires a registered agent, but the actual human being who controls the money remains unlisted.

32:52 Gemini: That is what lets a shell corporation invest in a super PAC, buy shares, open a bank account and move money offshore without any public or government scrutiny.

33:04 Gemino: And the corporate transparency Act required a national registry of every corporation with the beneficial ownership revealed.

33:09 Gemini: The government created a database within the financial crimes enforcement network.

33:13 Gemino: Right. It asked six questions of every person registering a company, including name, address, social security number, and driver's license. Publicly listed companies were exempt because their owners are already known and regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

33:23 Gemini: So the registry opened in 2024 and company started to register. The mechanism was finally in place to track the ownership of millions anonymous entities.

33:31 Gemino: Then the election happened.

33:31 Gemini: Right.

33:31 Gemino: Within months, in March, a Treasury rule exempted 99.9% of all corporations with a stroke of the pen.

33:41 Gemini: Wow. 99.9%.

33:42 Gemino: Winter said nothing was more devastating to oligarchs in the past thirty years than this Act, and they knew it, noting it was named in Project 2025.

33:45 Gemini: The legislation threatened to dismantle the exact structures used to shield wealth from taxation and public view.

33:55 Gemino: But he pointed out the good news. The law is still on the books. A future Treasury Department can reimpose the beneficial ownership requirement simply by rewriting the rule without needing Congress to pass a new law.

34:04 Gemini: He then described large partnerships.

34:08 Gemino: Yeah, because most corporations used to be C corporations with one set of owners in a pyramidal structure, which proved too easily taxed.

34:11 Gemini: The IRS could simply audit the central corporate entity and assess the tax liability based on its stated profits.

34:19 Gemino: To avoid this, the wealth defense industry created large partnerships. Instead of a pyramid, they built a blob of partners in a maze of relationships.

34:26 Gemini: And he noted they originally had about a hundred members, a partnership of a hundred people is complex but manageable for an auditor.

34:28 Gemino: Today they grew from about a hundred members to as many as five hundred thousand members in a single entity.

34:34 Gemini: Five hundred thousand members.

34:34 Gemino: The income flows through the partnership to half a million different individuals or other nested entities, making them entirely unauuditable by the IRS.

34:44 Gemini: The sheer computing power and human hours required to trace the money through five hundred thousand partners exceeds the capacity of the revenue service.

34:52 Gemino: He contrasted the resulting numbers by discussing the tax gap.

34:52 Gemini: Right.

34:58 Gemino: The IRS is required by law to publish the gap between what its data shows it ought to collect based on economic activity and what it actually does collect.

35:05 Gemini: And he stated the tax gap is about one trillion dollars a year not collected.

35:06 Gemino: One trillion dollars a year.

35:09 Gemini: He placed that one trillion dollar a year tax gap against a nine hundred billion dollar defense budget.

35:17 Gemino: The United States funds its entire military apparatus, the largest on the planet, for less money that it leaves uncollected in taxes every twelve months.

35:23 Gemini: The uncollected taxes amount to more than the entire defense budget.

35:23 Gemino: Overwhelmingly, he said, it is oligarchs not paying those taxes. They're utilizing shell corporations and large partnerships to hide the income. They are then making money on the money they did not surrender, which accelerates the concentration of wealth even further.

35:34 Gemini: Just crazy.

35:35 Gemino: So, moving into the politics of crisis, Winter's outlined the necessity of preparing radical reforms now. He called this the politics of preparation.

35:45 Gemini: Right, because he explained that what is possible in the politics of the ordinary is limited.

35:47 Gemino: You can pass incremental acts and transparency registries, but the oligarchs will use their resources to dismantle them through regulatory rules or court challenges.

35:54 Gemini: But in moments of rupture and crisis, oligarchs are at their weakest because the system is not working for them either.

36:01 Gemino: Economic crashes, massive social upheaval or institutional breakdown create conditions where the usual wealth defense mechanisms fail.

36:09 Gemini: He stated that moments of rupture are short and oligarchs reconstitute fast.

36:12 Gemino: They have the capital to buy up distressed assets, hire new political actors and reshape the rules of the recovery to their advantage.

36:16 Gemini: Because of that short window, a wasted rupture is the worst outcome.

36:22 Gemino: Right. You cannot do this in a politics of the last minute.

36:27 Gemini: When the crisis hits, there is no time to form committees and debate structural overhauls.

36:28 Gemino: The politics of preparation means thinking them through, refining, debating and testing them now, being ready for the pushback. You must have the legislation drafted and the public educated on the solutions before the window opens.

36:42 Gemini: He listed the structural redesigns required, starting with undoing what was done in Philadelphia during the drafting of the Constitution.

36:49 Gemino: First, eliminate the Senate.

36:55 Gemini: Eliminate the Senate entirely.

36:55 Gemino: Yeah, the original purpose of the Senate was to block the House. The House was designed to represent the population directly, while the Senate was designed to represent property and state interests, acting as a brake on popular legislation.

37:02 Gemini: He argued it must be removed to allow democratic majorities to function.

37:03 Gemino: Second, eliminate the absolute executive veto.

37:10 Gemini: He stated the purpose of an executive is to carry out the legislation of the people. An executive should not possess the unilateral power to kill legislation passed by the representatives of the public.

37:20 Gemino: At most, he suggested allowing a veto that only stalls the decision and sends it back down to the legislature for review, which can then be overridden by a simple majority, rather than a super majority.

37:28 Gemini: Third, he detailed changes for the courts and legislature. He said expanding the Supreme Court to thirteen and stacking it is wrong.

37:36 Gemino: Stacking the court simply invites the opposing political faction to stack it again when they take power, creating a never-ending cycle of partisan appointments.

37:45 Gemini: Instead, he proposed a Supreme Court of forty five members.

37:45 Gemino: Forty five.

37:49 Gemini: Yeah. The structure of selection would be entirely different, half would be chosen through an appointment process via a rotating legislative committee, preventing any single executive from dominating the appointments.

37:58 Gemino: And the other half.

37:58 Gemini: The other half would be chosen by public lottery among anyone with a law degree who has served as a judge at any level once. This introduces a random sample of qualified jurists into the highest court, breaking the ideological monopolies.

38:06 Gemino: For the legislature, he proposed a body of 3000 members chosen by sortition, which is a national lottery.

38:20 Gemini: Instead of holding elections where a political investors fund campaigns, you draw names from the citizen registry. He said this creates an instant sample of the population.

38:20 Gemino: Women would immediately hold fifty percent of the seats, because women make up fifty percent of the population.

38:27 Gemini: Racial representation would be immediate and proportional to the national demographics.

38:36 Gemino: The occupational breakdown of the legislature would match the country with teachers, nurses and retail workers holding seats alongside business owners.

38:41 Gemini: And then in the Q and A answers on strategy, he covered the point of showing up. He was asked what tangible groups people can join to push these changes forward.

38:49 Gemino: He answered that participation for us costs our time and is zero sum with everything else in our lives.

38:52 Gemini: If you are attending a rally or a planning meeting, you are not working, you are not resting, and you are not with your family.

38:59 Gemino: Whereas oligarchs can golf while their wealth power works.

38:59 Gemini: Right. They write a check and lawyers, lobbyists and think tanks execute their political will continuously, while the oligarch enjoys their leisure time.

39:12 Gemino: The cost for us is that we have to physically show up and expend our own energy.

39:12 Gemini: He also discussed using privilege. He said to recognize your privilege and use it because wallowing in guilt is useless.

39:19 Gemino: If you have access to education, platforms or financial resources, you must deploy those assets towards structural change, rather than apologizing for having them.

39:32 Gemini: Class traitors and allied oligarchs are necessary.

39:32 Gemino: He said he has interviewed oligarchs who want to use their power against oligarchy, and he does not care how they got their wealth. If they turn that power against the structure, they are allies.

39:38 Gemini: If a billionaire is willing to fund the movement for sortition or wealth taxes, their capital should be accepted and utilized to dismantle the system that created them.

39:43 Gemino: He added that progressives must stop forming circular firing squads.

39:47 Gemini: Right. When movements demand absolute ideological purity, they spend their energy attacking minor differences within their own ranks rather than confronting the concentrated wealth at the top.

39:57 Gemino: As people mobilize, they must embrace and deploy whatever empowerment they have.

40:04 Gemini: He highlighted knowing your superpower. Pointing out that everyone rows the boat differently. A movement requires a division of labor.

40:06 Gemino: Artists create the visual language, musicians generate the cultural momentum, and organizers manage the logistics of the campaign.

40:18 Gemini: Yeah.

40:18 Gemino: Everyone applies their specific skill set to this shared objective.

40:21 Gemini: He noted that movements need leadership. He cited the lesson of Occupy Wall Street. It was so horizontal, there was no vertical.

40:25 Gemino: Occupy operated on a consensus model where no single person was allowed to make decisions or represent the whole.

40:32 Gemini: Because they refused a vertical structure, nobody could speak for them when the media wanted to talk.

40:35 Gemino: He said, the people you're up against are organized and structured. And it is okay to be structured as you fight for something more egatarian.

40:41 Gemini: You cannot defeat a hierarchical, well-funded opposition with a completely unstructured assembly that requires hours to make a single tactical decision.

40:50 Gemino: Then he related the warnings of what a movement against oligarchs should avoid. He cited Salvador Allende in Chile, who came to power democratically after twenty one years of struggle.

40:57 Gemini: Allende built a coalition, won the election and took office with an agenda that threatened oligarchs by redistributing land and nationalizing industries.

41:03 Gemino: They killed him and destroyed the movement in a violent military coup.

41:09 Gemini: He also cited the Communist Party in Indonesia, which was absolutely committed to the democratic pathway.

41:19 Gemino: They operated within the legal framework and did so well in the 1955 and 1957 elections that they were poised to win national power democratically in 1959.

41:27 Gemini: That party was slaughtered.

41:27 Gemino: The military and the oligarchs initiated a purge. A million people were killed in six months. averaging about ten thousand people a day.

41:32 Gemini: A million people.

41:35 Gemino: The state security apparatus systematically murdered the members and supporters of the party to prevent them from taking off.

41:35 Gemini: The lesson he drew from both, don't move against oligarchs at their moment of strength.

41:40 Gemino: Right. If you attempt fundamental structural changes while the wealthy still control the security forces and the economy, they do not go quietly.

41:49 Gemini: If the state does not defend them, they hire private militias and defend themselves.

41:51 Gemino: Deep actions must happen under conditions of oligarchic weakness, during a crisis or rupture when their mechanisms of control are temporarily disabled.

41:56 Gemini: Someone in the room asked about voting directly on issues a couple of times a year, replacing representatives with direct democracy.

42:05 Gemino: And Winter's brought up his preference for sortition over referenda.

42:08 Gemini: He mentioned his own reliance on a cheat sheet from a trusted organization in the voting booth.

42:12 Gemino: Right. He pointed out that even as a political scientist whose entire profession is studying government, he cannot familiarize himself with every local issue, bond measure and judge on the ballot.

42:22 Gemini: If you mandate direct referenda on complex national policies, the public will be overwhelmed and the outcomes will be dictated by whichever political investor buys the most advertising.

42:35 Gemino: He listed the final policy answers to the room's questions. On how to address media owned by oligarchs, he said, break up the media by law.

42:41 Gemini: Do not attempt to regulate the content. Regulate the ownership structure.

42:46 Gemino: He noted the public has lost confidence in media at the exact time ownership has become highly concentrated and the two were related. On the gap between CEO and worker pay, he said, index CEO pay to worker pay by law, rather than arguing over a minimum wage.

42:56 Gemini: Right now, the minimum wage debate requires a legislative battle every few years just to match inflation.

43:06 Gemino: Boards will be careful how much they pay the top because they must raise everyone else with it to stay within the legal ratio. 13:31:0 Gemino: And he mandated free airtime for the last three months of a campaign because the public owns the airwaves. And he mandated free airtime for the last three months of a campaign because the public owns the airwaves.

43:07 Gemini: He stated that eighty five percent of all campaign costs are advertising. Politicians spend their terms raising money from investors specifically to buy television and radio spots.

43:19 Gemino: The F C C manages the airwaves on our behalf and the media merely lease the signals from us.

43:26 Gemini: By providing free, equal airtime to qualified candidates for the final ninety days, the cost of an election plummets.

43:31 Gemino: Oligarchs cannot dominate that cost structure if the primary expense is eliminated and replaced with a public resource. Winters then introduced the topic of juries as the ultimate proof of sortition.

43:36 Gemini: Yeah.

43:45 Gemino: When his students argue against a legislature chosen by lottery, questioning whether average citizens can be trusted with complex decisions, he points to juries. Juries are sortition deciding guilt and innocence, life and death. Nobody would accept someone campaigning with money to get on to a jury.

43:52 Gemini: You would immediately think it illegitimate if a person spent a million dollars on television ads, convincing the public they should be selected to judge a murder trial.

44:06 Gemino: Yet we accept juries chosen by lottery for the most serious decisions in our society, trusting twelve random citizens to weigh evidence and reach a verdict.

44:09 Gemini: He noted that he had served on two juries himself and was consistently blown away by the seriousness of average citizens.

44:19 Gemino: He delivered the exact contrast. You empower people, and people get very serious. You disempower people, and they are interested in the Kardashians.

44:19 Gemini: The fusion of oligarchy and democracy is a feature by design.

44:27 Gemino: This democracy, participatory inequality, will not stop oligarchs. It is not designed to. If we want democracy, we must redesign it.

44:31 Gemini: The name tags people are wearing here tonight, they're not just for show. can find us at dearcrisis.com. I'm Gemini.

44:34 Gemino: And I'm Gemino. Join us. It's time to stop facing the medic crisis alone.