Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie as Demonstrated by the U.S.

Because of their wealth, the bourgeoisie or, in other words, the class of capitalists is tremendously empowered at the political level. Subsequently, “The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie” [1], and this power is demonstrated today in the United States, just as it was long ago during Frederick Engel’s time [2], by recurring society-determining influence and success like the bouregoisie’s persistent lobbying [3] and the bougeoisie’s unnecessary corporate income tax cut from 35 percent to 21 percent as a result of capitalist POTUS Donald J. Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 [4], despite the fact that even when the corporate income tax rate was set at 35 percent, “A March 2016 Government Accountability Office study found that large corporations actually paid just 14 percent of their profits in federal income taxes from 2008 to 2012” and that “One in every five large, profitable corporations paid no federal income taxes at all in 2012” [5].

Paul D’Amato, “editor of the quarterly US journal International Socialist Review (www.isreview.org) and… frequent contributor to Socialist Worker (www.socialisworker.org)”, wrote on this issue, stating, “In a society based upon massive concentrations of wealth on the one end, and poverty and low wages on the other, one billionaire has more political clout than even millions of workers. The economic pecking order determines the political pecking order… The capitalist class exercises its dominance over the state in a number of ways. First of all, as is fitting of a society based upon the market, politicians are bought and sold to the highest bidder—hence the billion-dollar corporate lobbying industry in Washington… In 2011, corporations and other institutions spent $3.33 billion on lobbying efforts. (Of this, $50 million, or 0.015 percent, came from labor unions.) Secondly, the entire system is set up so that it is impossible to run even a local candidacy without enormous sums of money. At the presidential level, the price of the ticket has become astronomical. The two main candidates in the 2012 presidential election, Mitt Romney and incumbent Barack Obama, each spent more than $1 billion on their campaigns—up from half a billion dollars in 2000 and $171 million in 1976” [6].

Sources

[1] Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels or https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf

[2] Even in Engels' time, the U.S. emanated signs of its bourgeoisie's power at the political level. All italics in the quotes below originated from me.

Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State by Frederick Engels or https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/origin_family.pdf :

“The highest form of the state, the democratic republic… Wealth here employs its power indirectly, but all the more surely. It does this in two ways: by plain corruption of officials, of which America is the classic example, and by an alliance between the government and the stock exchange... In addition to America, the latest French republic illustrates this strikingly, and honest little Switzerland has also given a creditable performance in this field.”

The State and Revolution by Vladimir Lenin or https://www.marxists.org/ebooks/lenin/state-and-revolution.pdf :

“In a democratic republic, Engels continues, ‘wealth exercises its power indirectly, but all the more surely’, first, by means of the “direct corruption of officials’ (America); secondly, by means of an ‘alliance of the government and the Stock Exchange’ (France and America).”

[3]