Dark money1, shell corporations2, 501(c)(4) funding (U.S. nonprofit groups that don’t have to disclose donors), Super PAC money, and many more terms describe the tsunami of money that drives American politics. That is not the only place you find secrecy and anonymity in our society. For example, private equity firms like Blackstone take their acquisitions private. This means that they provide no public reporting on their activities and financial performance.
“The publicly traded company is disappearing. In 1996, about 8,000 firms were listed in the U.S. stock market. Since then, the national economy has grown by nearly $20 trillion. The population has increased by 70 million people. And yet, today, the number of American public companies stands at fewer than 4,000.”3
The rich and corporations hide their financial assets in secret bank accounts.4 The Internet is awash in anonymous information, fake information, and simple disinformation. The major social media platforms have no controls or even knowledge of who is posting in their spaces, but, then, they only care about the advertising revenue generated.
Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) are commonplace. This is a tool to enforce secrecy. Hard data is hard to come by, but estimates range from 45% to 57% of employees are subject to the agreements.5
The rich and corporations are the chief beneficiaries of all this secrecy. This is a critical policy issue for any society that wants to achieve and maintain a semblance of fairness. And, since I cannot pass up an opportunity to point out the outrageous logical and moral flaws of orthodox (neoclassical university) economics, the rich and corporations regularly employ secrecy and anonymity to further their control of capitalism. They know that capitalism is not the idealized mathematical models of that false universe.
See earlier posts on this topic:
Anonymity revisited – AI (1.3.2024)
Whose Opinion (Advice) Is This? (12.18.2023)
End Anonymity (6.15.20200
Footnotes
- see Mayer, Jane. Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires behind the Rise of the Radical Right, 2016.
- “Primarily shell companies are used to move or hold assets in a manner where it is not immediately obvious who the ultimate beneficiary is. To further obscure this, shell companies are often set up by a third party, be it a lawyer, accountant or a private citizen.” from https://www.redflagalert.com/articles/risk/a-guide-to-shell-companies
- https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/private-equity-publicly-traded-companies/675788/
- See for an introduction to this topic: Zucman, Gabriel. The hidden wealth of nations: the scourge of tax havens, 2015.
- https://fas.org/publication/supporting-market-accountability-workplace-equity-and-fair-competition-by-reining-in-non-disclosure-agreements/#reference-item-15
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