Political musing

This, courtesy of Shelby LaPre at RadioPower.org:

From "Why Socialism?" by Albert Einstein.
Published in 1949 by the Monthly Review, New York.

"Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because technology development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production and distribution at the expense of the smaller ones. The results of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital, the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked, even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed and otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence of this is the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control directly or indirectly the main sources of information (press, radio, education). Thus it is extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and intelligent use of his rights."

Almost 60 years ago. Genius, indeed.


[See the Monthly Review for the original article in its entirety.]