public powers

A coup is thus well underway in one of the world’s largest democracies. How could it happen? How are we to understand it? The short answer is that a clique of multibillionaires has taken power with a failed casino owner and prison candidate as front man. The long answer is somewhat more complicated. That it could happen is fundamentally due to the fact that economic inequality in the U.S. has become extreme over recent decades. A class of multibillionaires has been created that has appropriated a very large part of the country’s resources. And within this class, a clique of oligarchs has crystallized, having built enormous fortunes in the digital platform industry. The same clique has also made risky investments in artificial intelligence, expecting that with this technology they will be able to turn their digital platforms into a source of unprecedented wealth and power — if only they can escape democratic control and regulation. Thus not only has inequality become extreme, creating the conditions for an oligarchy, but within the oligarchy a core has formed with both motive and capacity for coordinated political intervention.

This investigative data feature by Saeed Minhas (Saeed Ahmed) critically examines the economic and political ramifications of Donald Trump’s second presidential term, revealing how tariff policies, deregulation, and fiscal manipulation have disproportionately benefited a select circle of billionaire allies. Drawing on empirical data, Senate testimony, campaign finance disclosures, and insider economic reports from 2025, the study uncovers the strategic use of trade tariffs, carbon deregulation, and surveillance contracting to facilitate wealth consolidation. Through comparative analysis, the article presents a clear divergence between populist rhetoric and policy outcomes, highlighting widespread economic distress among middle-income households, surging inflation, job losses, and the hollowing of industrial employment. The piece contends that "Trump Inc." represents a systemic monetization of executive power, reshaping state functions into a vertically integrated profit engine for elite corporate stakeholders. Key findings suggest this new model of governance—termed digital feudalism—is driven by tariff-triggered speculation, fossil fuel monopolies, crypto-finance, and the rollback of institutional checks.

Keywords: Trump 2025, tariff economy, billionaires, carbon deregulation, US middle class, insider profiteering, surveillance capitalism, American economic policy, Gilded Age 2.0.

Community law was established as a meta-legal order to provide a systematic solution to conflicts betweeen national legal orders. Integration, and in particular integration of law, was required to tackle the functional and normative problems that ensued from the disorganised co-existence of State legal orders in Europe. Integration of law was made compatible with the preservation of autonomy to define the national socio-economic model and structure because early European legislation organised the co-operation of national legal orders. The power to regulate and mould the economy was reinforced, at the same time that the sharpest corners of national power were clipped (by reference to the formal principle of non-discrimination). From the late seventies, the point and purpose of European integration was redefined. L'Europe par le marché resulted in integration through law, making of law the key means through which national regulatory and monetary policies were made to compete with ...

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This essay briefly reviews the historical development of American oligarchy, its contemporary incarnation and extensive institutional influence, effected primarily through the partisan parties, and a proposed strategic approach to disempower the oligarchs and reestablish the sovereignty of the demos. The existential relationship between social morality, democracy, and commonweal is identified.

La reflexión se dirige a la ingobernabilidad en Colombia propuesta a partir de la ambigüedad y disociación jurídica de las categorías espacio y territorio como componentes fundamentales y predominantes del Estado, a partir del cual las autoridades públicas colombianas no escatiman la importancia y alcance de las dichas categorías en las fuentes formales del ordenamiento jurídico interno, las dimensiones de su desarrollo, y la necesidad de su inclusión en la dirección de la política nacional como factor de estabilidad, bienestar y progreso.

Questions whether moral spirituality has an essential role to play in saving democracy; considers the current character of American moral spirituality; explores how it's possible to find commonweal with others who have different ideologies and interests; and asks: is America in transition and, if so, to what?

This article examines voter rights, voter exclusion, and democracy in the US from historical and ideological perspectives. The contention is that voter exclusion is not the issue but a symptom of larger problems of the anti-democratic institutions of separation (dominator hierarchies), including nationalism (e.g., white supremacy and Christian nationalism), militarism, imperialism, and imperial capitalism. Voter exclusion, particularly aimed at Black and other non-white people, and their allies, and the suppression of democracy are traced through four eras: the establishment of the US 1600s-1850s), emancipation and Jim Crow (1865-1930s), protest movements (late 1940s-1990s), and Trumpism (21 st Century-present). A continuity in extensive voter exclusion and antidemocratic policies and practices, and the rise the US as the dominant imperial power is demonstrated. Problems are both systemic and ontological. Thus, a multi-pronged integral approach for democratizing US society is proposed. Essential to this approach is ideological paradigm shifts in politics, economics, philosophy, science, and spirituality.

Proposes a groundplan for the demos in virtually any urban city to gain direct control of public powers. Presents a strategic moral vision for a multi-decade movement, a replicable project model realizable in urban cities in less than 10 years, staged project funding based on multiple sources, an organizational arm to recruit, educate, and train public powers community organizers, the outline of an organizing plan for the civics education of neighborhood residents, and the outline of an organizing plan for citywide charter-reform ballot initiatives to authorize legally empowered, directly democratic neighborhood popular assembly sub-divisions of urban municipalities.

SUMARIO: I. INTRODUCCIÓN. — II. EL OBJETO DEL DEBER DE CEDER GRATUITAMENTE. — III. PRESUPUESTOS DEL NACIMIENTO DE LA OBLIGACIÓN DE CEDER: 1. EL PLANEAMIENTO LEGITIMADOR: A) La previsión del «quantum» de las cesiones. B) La localización física del «quod» a ceder. C) La previsión de la obligación de la Administración actuante de recibir los suelos y las obras. 2. LA ACTUACIÓN POLIGONAL. 3. LA ACTUACIÓN SISTEMÁTICA. 4. EL ORDEN DE PRIORIDADES. 5. LA EXCEPCIÓN AL PRINCIPIO GENERAL: EL ARTÍCULO 40 DEL REGLAMENTO DE GESTIÓN. — IV. LA EFECTIVIDAD DE LAS CESIONES: 1. LAS CESIONES DE SUELOS. 2. LAS CESIONES DE OBRAS DE URBANIZACIÓN: A) En el sistema de cooperación. B) En el sistema de compensación. — V. LAS CESIONES EN LOS SUPUESTOS DE EXCEPCIÓN: 1. LAS ACTUACIONES POR «SUBPOLÍGONOS» DEL ARTÍCULO 180, 2, DEL REGLAMENTO DE GESTIÓN. 2. EL COMPROMISO DE URBANIZAR SIMULTÁNEAMENTE A LA EDIFICACIÓN DE TERRENOS EN SUELO URBANO QUE NO TENGAN LA CONSIDERACIÓN DE SOLARES (ARTÍCULO 40 DEL REGLAMENTO DE...

SUMARIO: I. INTRODUCCIÓN. — II. EL OBJETO DEL DEBER DE CEDER GRATUITAMENTE. — III. PRESUPUESTOS DEL NACIMIENTO DE LA OBLIGACIÓN DE CEDER: 1. EL PLANEAMIENTO LEGITIMADOR: A) La previsión del «quantum» de las cesiones. B) La localización física del «quod» a ceder. C) La previsión de la obligación de la Administración actuante de recibir los suelos y las obras. 2. LA ACTUACIÓN POLIGONAL. 3. LA ACTUACIÓN SISTEMÁTICA. 4. EL ORDEN DE PRIORIDADES. 5. LA EXCEPCIÓN AL PRINCIPIO GENERAL: EL ARTÍCULO 40 DEL REGLAMENTO DE GESTIÓN. — IV. LA EFECTIVIDAD DE LAS CESIONES: 1. LAS CESIONES DE SUELOS. 2. LAS CESIONES DE OBRAS DE URBANIZACIÓN: A) En el sistema de cooperación. B) En el sistema de compensación. — V. LAS CESIONES EN LOS SUPUESTOS DE EXCEPCIÓN: 1. LAS ACTUACIONES POR «SUBPOLÍGONOS» DEL ARTÍCULO 180, 2, DEL REGLAMENTO DE GESTIÓN. 2. EL COMPROMISO DE URBANIZAR SIMULTÁNEAMENTE A LA EDIFICACIÓN DE TERRENOS EN SUELO URBANO QUE NO TENGAN LA CONSIDERACIÓN DE SOLARES (ARTÍCULO 40 DEL REGLAMENTO DE...

Calls for rebuilding American democracy from the bottom up in the face of a rising threat from reactionary nationalist populism and fascist oligarchs; posits the urban city as the locale, and the formation of directly democratic popular assemblies as the lower tier of two-tier urban government as the model; reviews the most common doubts about the efficacy of directly democratic popular assemblies; the means of their acquiring public powers and activating their inherent power-leverage; and the moral-spiritual essentials of building a successful movement to the social salvation of democracy.

Radical democracy is a needed alternative to the formal representative democracy of Western societies where viable choices are constrained by the wealth and power of the ruling class. Dual power is a bottom-up strategy of building organic institutions of popular power within civil society instead of transient, disempowing electoral coalitions. These institutions of popular power can then come together, develop, and expand their own forms and spheres of governance to transcend the limits of neoliberalism and capitalism itself. It all starts where people live and work and with the alienation and everyday struggles of people everywhere.

Recognizes that despite resurgent American optimism in mid-2021, after a fearful year and a half of coronavirus pandemic, the faith and hope of the people remain subdued because of existential threats to our democracy, particularly Republican-led legislative assaults on voting rights and nonpartisan electoral administration. Identifies in these developments  the central role of a growing fascist oligarchy, populated by a brotherhood of billionaires. Considers the tortuous path ahead for community organizing and the essential role of the profession's treasured legacy. Proposes a strategic vision to achieve institutionalized, structural empowerment of the demos, to revitalize and redirect the nation's democratic institutions.

Notes the beginning of the end of electoral democracy in the U.S.; the probable effects of a 6-to-3 conservative majority-SCOTUS; the likely end of progressive legislation and policy from the federal government for the remainder of this century; the necessity of countering oligarchic power with an empowered demos; the lessons to be learned from the labor movement of the late-19th to mid-20th century; that the remaining institutions of Congress and the Presidency will not save American democracy; and that the only hope is to build bottom-up institutional power from the grassroots.

Тезисы доклада на научной конференции. Содержат опровержение гипотезы В.В. Низова о государственном строе "Вятской земли" (см.: Низов В.В. Государственный строй «Вятской земли» в конце XIV- XV вв. // Петербургские чтения – 96: Мат-лы Энциклопед. б-ки «Санкт-Петербург – 2003». – СПб., 1996. – С. 333-336). Доказывая ошибочность выдвинутой Низовым трактовки "вечевого устройства Вятки" по аналогии с Новгородской и Псковской республиками, автор предлагает иную аналогию – с Двинской землёй XIV- XV вв.

Explores the current activism of radical municipalists, their conviction that they can launch a post-capitalist movement based on directly democratic municipalities linked in libertarian confederations that would supplant all other levels of government, and the strategic and tactical shortcomings of their ideological and institutional objectives.

Considers whether Murray Bookchin's vision of libertarian municipal confederations (as replacements for "neoliberal capitalism") can effectively drive community organizing towards two-tier urban government decentralization and direct democracy.