Is democracy more susceptible to being run by large corporations or to mob-rule? I contend that the police and military power of the U.S. eviscerates the risk of a mob of people making much headway against a government. That same power can be used by American governments to enforce policies that are in the financial interests of companies. In fact, some retail companies hire weaponized police employees to enforce not only municipal law (against shoplifting), but also company policies, as if they constituted law and therefore legitimate a police response rather than action by a security guard. To be sure, even security guards act sometimes as if they were police officers, and too many consumers fall for the presumptive ploy to intimidate. Security-guard companies even uniform their respective employees to look like police, even SWAT, officers, as if impersonating a police officer were not a crime. In terms of the American political economy, elected representatives of the American governments looked the other way in whether to invoke anti-trust law to break up large American companies even as gasoline and food prices soared—in the case of food, from 2020 when the pandemic enabled grocery stores to price-gouge, and in the case of gasoline, especially in 2026 when Iran was choking off the Strait of Hormuz. Those representatives as well as the media companies were silent on not only the need for market competition in consolidated industries, but also the excessive power of large corporations—even multi-national corporations, which are not loyal to any country—over elected representatives and their respective appointees. In too many cases, the companies being regulated actually write the law for Congressional committees—an obvious conflict of interest. Meanwhile, the American voters are typically titillated by superficial matters, essentially tricked, as if being oriented to symptoms were crucial to voting. The tricks can include ploys even by a sitting U.S. president to make the economy look better just before an election.
For example, on October 2, 2026, countries in the G7 “agreed to release up to 100 barrels of oil from strategic reserves over four months in a coordinated effort to bring down soaring energy prices, with a particular focus on diesel.”[1] The E.U.’s executive branch “pushed back against what it described as US ‘threats’ to force [the G7] to act.”[2] In particular, the E.U. objected to President Trump’s threat of “a possible US diesel export ban.”[3] That threat worked. As of the following day, G7 countries “had so far released 325 million barrels of oil and oil-derivative products from strategic reserves, from the 400 million barrels promised in March.”[4] Why the apparent urgency? I contend that the upcoming U.S. Congressional elections in early November had a lot to do with President Trump’s motivation, for poll after poll showed that many voters were upset about the cost-push price increases in gasoline and food. Voters with such angst would doubtlessly vote for candidates in the Democratic group, rather than in Trump’s Republican group. So, the president had strong political motive to get gas prices down as soon as possible.
Although the rapid release of 325 million barrels so suggests both urgency and the G7’s compliance in line with Trump’s political interests, the G7 countries had discretion as to when to release both the 325 million barrels and the 100 barrels agreed to on October 2nd. This means that Trump’s political objective could to some extent be scuttled from abroad by G7 countries holding off as many barrels as possible until after the Congressional elections. That such a strategy is laudable can be grasped by analyzing the ethics of the Trump’s ploy.
It would certainly be no compliment to voters in America were they to change their minds in voting simply by a last-minute drop in gas prices. The ploy itself disrespects voters because it is premised on the assumption that they can easily be tricked into voting for the status quo simply because of a brief (and probably temporary) increase in the purchasing power of American consumers from lower gasoline prices. I submit that at least voters who are college-educated are capable of ignoring such expedient political ploys.
It is less probable that even an educated electorate would vote at least in part from having conducted an analysis of structural political-economic factors, such as the price-setting power of monopolies and even oligopolies. A monopolistic company has overwhelming market-share in an industry, whereas oligopolistic industries are characterized by having a few large producers. Both Trump administrations consistently refused to apply anti-trust law to break up the mega-sized American oil companies, the two large companies dominating the agricultural seed market, and the large grocery-store chains (companies). The consolidation of both the agriculture, grocery, and oil industries in the U.S. is at the expense of market competition, and thus possibly lower prices. Whereas in the Gilded Age, Americans were well aware of anti-trust law, such as was used to break up Standard Oil, such law was seemingly non-existent after the Coronavirus epidemic when grocers felt no downward market pressure to lower prices. Similarly, when Iran was squeezing the Strait of Hormuz, the American media was silent on what effects the application of anti-trust law to the few, large American oil companies could have in diversifying supply chains so the U.S. could be less reliant on the Strait, and perhaps then less motivated to bomb Iran. A person looking just past one’s nose rather than farther is more likely to fall while walking.
After the Coronavirus pandemic, American media companies, elected representatives, and even their respective appointees were obsessed with the superficial symptom labeled “inflation,” as if monetary policy were the only thing that could be applied. Price-setting by an oligopoly of a few large companies, and cost-push inflation whether from the price-setting or issues with supply chains, are not due to excessive (relative to GNP) monetary supply. “Inflation” does not distinguish these very different things.
To the extent that large corporations, whether monopolies or in an oligopolistic industry, have too much financial and therefore political power over members of Congress and the U.S. president, the refusal of the U.S. Justice Department to enforce anti-trust law so as to render as many industries as competitive markets is no surprise because corporations are financially oriented to maximizing their market-share. Being able set prices so as to gain what is called monopoly rents is the dream of any CEO, especially if the bonus component of compensation increases with higher profit. So even beyond there being too few competitive markets in the U.S. due to the failure of the U.S. Government to apply anti-trust laws is the even more intractable problem of there being a plutocracy (i.e., rule by private wealth) usurping the democracy. If a representative democracy is not strong enough to counter these tendencies that operate at the expense of the American consumer, then it may be that democracy is more susceptible to plutocracy than to mob-rule; both Plato and Aristotle contend that mob-rule is the bad side of democracy. Trump’s expedient ploy, based on the premise that a short-term, last-minute, drop in the price of gasoline, is two degrees of separation from a policy that goes after the more endemic, structural, problems in the U.S. political economy.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Simon Ormiston, “IEA Says 325 Million Barrels of Emergency Oil Release, with 75 Million Still to Come,” Euronews.com, 3 October 2026.
