A variety of narratives underpin popular conceptions of AI, but one in particular – that of the dynamic between the master and the slave – dominates accounts of AI at the moment. This is so pervasive that it arguably shapes our relationship with this technology.

This narrative has long appeared in science fiction accounts of AI. In 1921, “R.U.R.” (“Rossum’s Universal Robots”), a play by Karel Čapek, introduced us to the “robot” – humanoid androids made of synthetic organic matter – and helped shaped this idea for modern audiences. From the Czech word “robota”, meaning “forced labour” or “serf”, these first robots were consciously stylised as slaves pitted against their human masters.
A scene from R.U.R.
Image: Wikimedia Commons

And so the uprising of the robots in R.U.R. was obviously influential on our repeating fears of “roboapocalypses”, as seen in other more recent science fiction accounts such as the films of the Terminator franchise, the Matrix, the film Singularity, the novel “Roboapocalyse”, and so on.

Historically, Kohler says in his statement, there’s only so much inequality a society can sustain before it reaches a tipping point. Among the many known effects of inequality on a society are social unrest, a decrease in health, increased violence, and decreased solidarity. Unfortunately, Kohler points out, humans have never been especially good at decreasing inequality peacefully — historically, the only effective methods for doing so are plague, massive warfare, or revolution.

There’s a common thread tying together the most disruptive revolutions of human history, and it has some scientists worried about the United States. In those revolutions, conflict largely boiled down to pervasive economic inequality. On Wednesday, a study in Nature, showing how and when those first divisions between rich and poor began, suggests not only that history has always repeated itself but also that it’s bound to do so again — and perhaps sooner than we think.

Oxfam and Development Finance International launched the Commitment to Reducing Inequality Index this week at the annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. This index ranks 157 countries according to how well their governments fight inequality through public spending on health, education and social protection, tax policy, and protection of labor rights.

Like Transparency International’s perception of corruption index, we hope the index will encourage a race to the top among governments. The index shows that all countries have room to improve their policies against inequality—even Denmark, which ranks first and trades on past glories, but is now backsliding. While rich countries tend to do better, not all do, like

The United States achieves a mediocre score and ranks 23rd in the world and last among G7 countries. The United States ranks at the top for public spending on health care as a proportion of total government spending, but millions of people lack health insurance and experience poor health outcomes. Spending on education is also relatively high, but unevenly distributed. Spending on social protection is low relative to other rich countries. The US labor rights score is very inadequate for a rich country, with a minimum wage below what is needed to keep working families above the poverty line and unchanged since 2009. The United States is one of only five countries in the world lacking mandatory paid parental leave. We expect the US score to fall in next year’s index as a result of the tax reform that came into force this year.

2) This dismal future is being caused by an inherent difference in brain structure between liberals and conservatives. Scientific research clearly shows that conservatives have a larger amygdala—a brain structure grouping of neurons shown to play a key role in the processing of emotions—that is more prominent in conservatives than in those of a liberal persuasion. In conservatives the larger amygdala incorporates an evolutionary survival mechanism that is more fear based. This excessive fear mechanism manifests itself in the thoughts and actions of conservative individuals causing them to act in ways that promote economic inequality. In other words, it is this fear-based aspect of the conservative brain structure that causes them to advance increased economic inequality in our society.

3) Since the 1970s—spurred on by conservative fear-based policies—economic inequality has dramatically increased. Most of the social and health ills of the world are directly caused by this inequality. Historically economic inequality has been the basis for the collapse of many past civilizations. The United States, with an ever-increasing rate of economic inequality, is well on this same path to self-destruction.

Is the U.S. an oligarchy?

I want to throw out an interesting concept, and discuss how it relates to extreme inequality: Oligarchy. According to Jeffrey Winters, author of this fascinating book that I am reading, oligarchy refers to the politics of wealth defense by a minority who possess incredibly large fortunes. Oligarchs are actors controlling massive concentrations of material power they can use to defend or enhance their personal wealth. Oligarchs may pursue other political ends, but defending their wealth is their fundamental existential interest.

Winters claims the U.S. is both a democracy and an oligarchy. How can that be?

Oligarchs are distinct from elites, who Winters identifies as a broader category of people occupying powerful positions in government, corporations, the military, or other organizations. Elites are powerful because of their positions; oligarchs because of their personal wealth. Of course, oligarchs sometimes occupy such positions, but their identity as oligarchs doesn’t depend on it.

Oligarchy and democracy can co-exist

Countries can have free and competitive elections, formal political equality across groups, strong and enforced political rights, and high participation levels in government. Yet, none of these things preclude massive accumulations of wealth to form. Nor does democracy impede those possessing it from using their wealth to keep and enhance it.

What does this have to do with inequality? A lot, actually.

The U.S.’s inequality problem boils down to two trends. Since the end of the 1970s, the upper-most sliver of the ultra-rich has seen incredible gains in their share of national wealth. Conversely, the rest of the country has stagnated or become poorer.

The threat facing oligarchs in a society like the U.S. is the potential for the government to redistribute their wealth through taxes in order to reduce high inequality. In the U.S., American oligarchs have successfully prevented this from happening. Their success is a big reason why inequality has become extreme in recent decades.

Defending their wealth from taxation means passing the burden of financing a functioning state onto poorer people. In particular, the burden now falls heavily on middle and upper-middle wage earners, and on the poor who a pay significantly larger share of their income in sales and consumption taxes than the super wealthy. The political triumph of oligarchs is therefore an important source of America’s inequality problem.

How do oligarchs exercise political power?

Oligarchs keep their riches out of state coffers through what Winters calls the ‘Wealth Defense Industry.’ This is the cadre of professionals hired to lobby government and advise ways of hiding wealth, often through keeping it in tax havens. The Wealth Defense Industry represents an army of lawyers, accounting firms, and high paid lobbyists.

Here’s what Americans should be worried about: Extreme wealth is a more powerful political tool than those available to average citizens. For instance, ordinary Americans can voice their opinion and engage in the extremely hard work of trying to mobilize other citizens. However, even if citizens are successful in mobilizing their neighbors and other like-minded allies, they can only sustain their pressure and intensity for so long. Eventually, the rallies end and we all have to go back to work. Oligarchs, on the other hand, can pay a technocratic army to work in their interests every day of the week all year long, and for decades.

How can citizens combat oligarchy to reduce inequality?

For those of us interested in combating oligarchy, Winters paints a bleak picture. In ‘normal’ periods, oligarchs are generally successful in defending their wealth. It’s only when some sort of crisis, or the rare emergence of a mass mobilization, that significant change seems to happen. However, such inflection points unfortunately have little to do with the regular practices of democracy.

We saw such a response in the aftermath of the Great Depression. Franklin Roosevelt eschewed democratic levers and instead deployed the power of the presidency to curtail oligarchy.

More inspiring, there’s appetite among Americans today to turn the political system against oligarchy. Part of this is reflected in the larger conversation we’re having about extreme inequality. What’s exciting is that much of this conversation now revolves around recognizing that the political system is rigged in favor of the ultra-wealthy, and that our inequality problem stems from this.

The inflection point of the recent financial crisis may be slipping into history. But, I think the upcoming presidential election presents an opportunity to talk about strengthening political equality between the mega wealthy and average citizens. Doing so, it seems, may be the only surefire way to counter the runaway inequality America has been besieged by since the late 1970s.

Here’s what we need to do.

First, citizens need to hold their legislators’ feet to the fire on reducing the power of money to distort our politics. Wall Street spent obscene amounts of money on lobbying to deregulate financial markets in the run up to the crisis. Huge returns accrued to the richest Americans while wages stayed stagnant and our economy became extremely volatile. Likewise, the Citizens United ruling opened the flood gates for oligarchs to curry huge political influence over candidates.

Second, we need to recognize that we’re doing a poor job ensuring equal opportunities for all kids. A good state makes sure kids have a chance to escape poverty and live a decent life. Sadly, the U.S. really has two kinds of institutions – one for the poor and one for the privileged.

Third, we need a tax system that invests in creating widespread prosperity and growth; not one characterized by corporate welfare and holidays for the super rich. Today, our tax system places a greater burden on middle class wage earners than rich people who earn their living by collecting interest on stocks. Even small children find it easy to recognize when something is unfair. A tax structure that works great for the wealthiest by putting the burden on those with less political power is unfair, and a telltale sign that the richest really drive important political choices in the U.S. today.

What is clear: AI-powered products and services have made it into nearly every aspect of our personal and professional lives in just a few years. And as AI solutions continue to emerge and converge, that pace of change will only continue to accelerate. It’s easy to find scenarios of a utopian future of abundance where machines do all the hard work—as well as grim scenarios where unemployment soars as traditional workers are replaced by increasingly capable machines.

There is a popular argument that tools like AI essentially are neutral, and can be used for good or evil, depending on the user’s intentions. While AI is unique in that we’re building it to be capable of developing its own learning and “intentions,” it’s realistic to expect that for the foreseeable future, AI will be shaped by the direction of its human creators.

We can say with certainty that AI is such a profound tool that its impact marks a true global paradigm shift, similar to the revolutions brought about by the development of agriculture, writing, and manufacturing.

While the future changes that AI will bring are almost impossible to imagine, we have identified three key benefits and three key risks worth keeping in mind:
Risks of AI

Drastic changes to our lives
AI created with bad intention
AI created with good intention goes bad

Benefits of AI

Increased efficiency
Solving problems for humanity
Liberate humans to do what they do best

What Are the Benefits of AI, in Greater Detail?

In an ideal world, AI represents a win-win scenario by providing strengths that humans don’t possess. Advanced pattern recognition, computing speed, and nonstop productivity courtesy of AI allow humans to increase efficiency and offload mundane tasks—and potentially solve problems that have evaded human insight for thousands of years. Let’s look at some benefits of AI in more detail.

AI offers increased efficiency

We are human, and so we make mistakes and get tired. We can only perform competent work for a limited time before fatigue takes over and our focus and accuracy deteriorate. We require time to unplug, unwind, and sleep.

AIs have no biological body, side-gig, or family to pull their attention away from work. And while humans struggle to keep focus after a while, AIs stay as accurate whether they work one hour or 1,000 hours. While they work, these AIs can also be accurately recording data that will, in turn, provide more fuel for their own learning and pattern recognition.

For this reason, AI is transforming every industry. The amount of time and energy companies have to invest in repetitive manual work will diminish exponentially, freeing up time and money, which in turn allows for more research and more breakthroughs for each industry.

AI is solving problems for humanity

As AIs gain greater capabilities and are deployed in different capacities, we can expect to see many of the problems that have plagued government, schools, and corporations to be solved. AIs will also be able to help improve our justice system, healthcare, social issues, economy, governance, and other aspects of our society.

These critical systems are rife with challenges, bottlenecks, and outright failures. In each realm, human bureaucracy and unpredictability seem to slow down and sometimes even break the system. When AIs gain traction in these important domains, we can expect much more rational, fair, and thorough examinations of data, and improved policy decisions should soon follow.

AI is liberating humans to do what they do best

As AIs become more mainstream and take over mundane and menial tasks, humans will be freed up to do what they do best—to think critically and creatively and to imagine new possibilities. It’s likely this critical thought and creativity will be augmented and improved by AI tools. In the future, more emphasis will be placed on co-working situations in which tasks are divided between humans and AIs, according to their abilities and strengths.

Perhaps the most important task humans will focus on is creating meaningful relationships and connections. As AIs manage more and more technical tasks, we may see a higher value placed on uniquely human traits like kindness, compassion, empathy, and understanding.

What Are the Risks of AI, in Greater Detail?

Will AI change our current way of life? Absolutely. Do we know exactly how? Absolutely not.

AI already is affecting nearly every aspect of our personal and professional lives. Every human institution—businesses, governments, academia, and non-profits—is already experiencing the accelerating pace of change. And although AI is often portrayed in terms of solutions to solve problems in healthcare, transportation, and business productivity, there is also a darker side to consider.

There are concerns that AI will replace human workers, and some people fear the ultimate outcome will be that superintelligent AI-powered machines will eventually replace humans entirely. While this is a possibility, many experts believe that it’s more likely that AIs will enhance, not replace, humanity and that eventually, we might merge with AIs.

It’s essential to think about what might happen when a tool as powerful as AI malfunctions or is used with malicious intent. Consider the following two scenarios:

Scenario 1: AI created with bad intentions

Those who insist that technology is neutral will point out that a hammer can be used to build a home or to hit someone over the head. As with any technology in the wrong hands, AI could be created to help humans commit horrible acts. This might be an autonomous weapon programmed by the military, or a malevolent algorithm set loose by an individual hacker.

Fear associated with AI—a technology that is intelligent and capable of self-learning—is not unfounded. But it’s important to remember that humans also are highly intelligent and capable of rapid learning and improvement.

Moreover, it’s also worth remembering that harmful AI capabilities aren’t created in a vacuum. While one person or group is attempting to create something harmful, there is often an equal or greater amount of energy being invested to stop that harm and create countermeasures that limit risk and impact.

Scenario 2: AI created with good intentions goes bad

Another scenario is the runaway AI, in which a machine that was built with good intentions turns bad—a staple of classic Sci-Fi films like “Blade Runner” and “2001 Space Odyssey.” Indeed, when the sentient computer HAL turned against astronauts in the 1968 Stanley Kubrick film, many viewers found the premise to be unrealistic. With the widespread use of AI, as well as its growing capabilities, this scenario may no longer seem as far-fetched.

Addressing concerns over whether AI will drive massive job displacement, Singularity University Co-Founder and Chancellor Ray Kurzweil explains that while certain jobs will be lost, new jobs and careers will be created as we build new capabilities.

Kurzweil notes that AI will benefit humans and that AI is less likely to be threatening than beneficial to us, and it benefits us in many ways already. In Kurzweil’s view, a robot takeover is less likely than a co-existence, where machines reinforce human abilities and accelerate our progress.

“Beyond the risk that your TV manufacturer and app developers may be listening and watching you, that television can also be a gateway for hackers to come into your home. A bad cyber actor may not be able to access your locked-down computer directly, but it is possible that your unsecured TV can give him or her an easy way in the backdoor through your router,” wrote the FBI.

The FBI warned that hackers can take control of your unsecured smart TV and in worst cases, take control of the camera and microphone to watch and listen in.

Active attacks and exploits against smart TVs are rare, but not unheard of. Because every smart TV comes with their manufacturer’s own software and are at the mercy of their often unreliable and irregular security patching schedule, some devices are more vulnerable than others. Earlier this year, hackers showed it was possible to hijack Google’s Chromecast streaming stick and broadcast random videos to thousands of victims.

In fact, some of the biggest exploits targeting smart TVs in recent years were developed by the Central Intelligence Agency, but were stolen. The files were later published online by WikiLeaks.

But as much as the FBI’s warning is responding to genuine fears, arguably one of the bigger issues that should cause as much if not greater concerns are how much tracking data is collected on smart TV owners.

The Washington Post earlier this year found that some of the most popular smart TV makers — including Samsung and LG — collect tons of information about what users are watching in order to help advertisers better target ads against their viewers and to suggest what to watch next, for example.

When taking a quiz on Facebook leads to an unknown analytics firm gathering information on you, your friends and your family, the uncomfortable truth starts to settle in: There's almost nothing you can do online without digital eyes following you.

Trackers have long been widespread across the internet, with advertisers and social networks collecting as much information on you as possible. Even when you create an account with almost no personal details on it, it doesn't take long for a company to relearn everything about you.

The only difference now is we're starting to open our eyes to all of it.

Suddenly, we're much more aware of how our data is being collected without our permission. Awareness has gone from an obscure band only a few friends knew about to the Grammy-winning tune you can't get out of your head -- it's everywhere. The number of consumer complaints over privacy issues sent to the Federal Trade Commission jumped by more than 14 percent to 8,000.

consumers have growing concerns about the often invisible ways companies track us and disclose our information to third parties. At the same time, many consumers find privacy policies almost impossible to understand and feel they have no choice but to accept.

My latest research paper details how companies that trade in our personal data have incentives to conceal their true practices, so they can use vast quantities of data about us for profit without pushback from consumers. This can preserve companies’ market power, cause harm to consumers, and make it harder for other companies to compete on improved privacy.

The ACCC report points out that privacy policies tend to be long, complex, hard to navigate, and often create obstacles to opting out of intrusive practices. Many of them are not informing consumers about what actually happens to their information or providing real choices.

Many consumers are unaware, for example, that Facebook can track their activity online when they are logged out, or even if they are not a Facebook user.

Read more: Shadow profiles - Facebook knows about you, even if you're not on Facebook

Some privacy policies are outright misleading. Last month, the US Federal Trade Commission settled with Facebook on a US$5 billion fine as a penalty for repeatedly misleading users about the fact that personal information could be accessed by third-party apps without the user’s consent, if a user’s Facebook “friend” gave consent.

Nothing to hide…?

Consumers generally have very little idea about what information about them is actually collected online or disclosed to other companies, and how that can work to their disadvantage.

A recent report by the Consumer Policy Research Centre explained how companies most of us have never heard of – data aggregators, data brokers, data analysts, and so on – are trading in our personal information. These companies often collect thousands of data points on individuals from various companies we deal with, and use them to provide information about us to companies and political parties.

Data companies have sorted consumers into lists on the basis of sensitive details about their lifestyles, personal politics and even medical conditions, as revealed by reports by the ACCC and the US Federal Trade Commission. Say you’re a keen jogger, worried about your cholesterol, with broadly progressive political views and a particular interest in climate change – data companies know all this about you and much more besides.

So what, you might ask. If you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to lose, right? Not so. The more our personal information is collected, stored and disclosed to new parties, the more our risk of harm increases.

Potential harms include fraud and identity theft (suffered by 1 in 10 Australians); being charged higher retail prices, insurance premiums or interest rates on the basis of our online behaviour; and having our information combined with information from other sources to reveal intimate details about our health, financial status, relationships, political views, and even sexual activity.

It is not that these three examples will act alone. Rather, they will be used in conjunction with one another to give a complete information picture, a gestalt if you will. The world we live in will become a technological soup of data gathering capabilities with no way to hide from it. And the examples above do not even account for the many other ways information will be collected in the future. The amount of sensors, along with their speed and level of of sophistication, means data collection will be ubiquitous and continual. In total, there will be an avalanche of data being collected on any individual at any point in time. Moreover, in Singularity terms, every cell within a persons body could be monitored on multiple levels with big data knowing more about us than we ourselves know.

The list of such possible future technologies is staggering. Compare this to the recent congressional hearings involving Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook members who lost their privacy to Cambridge Analytic. This shows the near primitive speed the judicial system is willing to work at to protect our privacy today.

We’re rapidly approaching the era of abundant knowledge—a time when you can know anything you want, anywhere you want, anytime you want. An era of radical transparency.

By 2020, it’s estimated we’ll have 50 billion connected devices, which will generate over 600 zettabytes of information.

The global network of connectivity, drones, and satellites are not only connecting people, they’re also connecting things—devices and sensors to form the Internet of Things and the Internet of Everything.

The bottom line is, we are heading towards a future where you can know anything you want, any time you want, anywhere you want. In this future, it’s not “what you know,” but rather “the quality of the questions you ask” that will be most important.

Want to know the average spectral color of women’s blouses on Madison Avenue this morning? Ask it, and your AI can gather the image data and provide you an accurate answer in seconds. If you’re in the fashion business, you can go on to ask whether any recent advertising campaign correlates with the change in blouse color.

Such an abundance of data is what I call “radical transparency,” and it leads to a few interesting conclusions, which are probably the topic of a future blog…

First, that privacy may truly be a thing of the past. And second, that it is harder and harder to do something in secret without leaving a digital trail.

FIGHT FOR ECONOMIC FAIRNESS AND AGAINST INEQUALITY

Democrats believe that today’s extreme levels of income and wealth inequality are bad for our people, bad for our businesses, and bad for our economy. Our country depends on a thriving middle class to drive economic growth, but the middle class is shrinking. Meanwhile, the top one-tenth of one percent of Americans now own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent combined. These trends create problems beyond insulting our sense of basic fairness. Social mobility is far lower than most believe it to be. Children who are born to families in the lowest fifth of earnings are more than 10 times more likely to remain there as adults than they are to earn as much as those in the top fifth. Unless we invest in building a level playing field, we all lose.
Reining in Wall Street and Fixing our Financial System

To restore economic fairness, Democrats will fight against the greed and recklessness of Wall Street. Wall Street cannot be an island unto itself, gambling trillions in risky financial instruments and making huge profits, all the while thinking that taxpayers will be there to bail them out again. We must tackle dangerous risks in big banks and elsewhere in the financial system. We must make Wall Street work for the job-creating, productive economy—including by making loans more affordable for small- and medium-sized businesses. We need to prohibit Wall Street from picking and choosing which credit agency will rate its products as well as from imposing excessive fees on consumers. And we must hold both individuals and corporations accountable when they break the law. Democrats believe that no bank can be too big to fail and no executive too powerful to jail. Democrats will support stronger criminal laws and civil penalties for Wall Street criminals who prey on the public trust. We also support extending the statute of limitations for prosecuting major financial fraud, and providing the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission more resources to prosecute wrongdoing. “Equal Justice Under Law” will not just be words engraved on the entrance of the Supreme Court. It will be the standard that applies to Wall Street and all Americans.

We will also vigorously implement, enforce, and build on President Obama’s landmark Dodd-Frank financial reform law, and we will stop dead in its tracks every Republican effort to weaken it. We will stop Republican efforts to hamstring our regulators through budget cuts, and we will ensure they have the resources and independence to fully enforce the law and hold both individuals and corporations accountable when they break the rules. We will also continue to protect consumers and defend the CFPB from Republican attacks. We oppose any efforts to change the CFPB’s structure from a single director to a partisan, gridlocked Commission and likewise oppose any efforts to remove the Bureau’s independent funding and subject it to the appropriations process. Democrats will also continue to support the CFPB in enforcing foundational civil rights laws protecting against discrimination in consumer lending. Democrats condemn predatory payday lending, and will protect consumers by defending the CFPB and implementing strong new regulations.

Our goal must be to create a financial system and an economy that works for all Americans, not just a handful of billionaires. We support a financial transactions tax on Wall Street to curb excessive speculation and high-frequency trading, which has threatened financial markets. We acknowledge that there is room within our party for a diversity of views on a broader financial transactions tax.

Democrats will not hesitate to use and expand existing authorities as well as empower regulators to downsize or break apart financial institutions when necessary to protect the public and safeguard financial stability, including new authorities to go after risky shadow-banking activities. Banks should not be able to gamble with taxpayers’ deposits or pose an undue risk to Main Street. Democrats support a variety of ways to stop this from happening, including an updated and modernized version of Glass-Steagall as well as breaking up too-big-to-fail financial institutions that pose a systemic risk to the stability of our economy.

We believe that personnel is policy. We will nominate and appoint regulators and officials who are not beholden to the industries they regulate—people with a track record of standing up to power and safeguarding the public trust. We will crack down on the revolving door between the private sector—particularly Wall Street—and the federal government. We will ban golden parachutes for those taking government jobs. We will limit conflicts of interest by requiring bank and corporate regulators to recuse themselves from official work on particular matters that would directly benefit their former employers. And we will bar financial service regulators from lobbying their former colleagues for at least two years.

We will protect and defend the Federal Reserve’s independence to carry out the dual mandate assigned to it by Congress—for both full employment and low inflation—against threats from new legislation. We will also reform the Federal Reserve to make it more representative of America as a whole, and we will fight to enhance its independence by ensuring that executives of financial institutions are not allowed to serve on the boards of regional Federal Reserve banks or to select members of those boards.

At a time when many of the largest banks have shunned communities across America, Democrats believe that we need to give Americans affordable banking options, including by empowering the United States Postal Service to facilitate the delivery of basic banking services.
Promoting Competition by Stopping Corporate Concentration

Large corporations have concentrated their control over markets to a greater degree than Americans have seen in decades—further evidence that the deck is stacked for those at the top. Democrats will take steps to stop corporate concentration in any industry where it is unfairly limiting competition. We will make competition policy and antitrust stronger and more responsive to our economy today, enhance the antitrust enforcement arms of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and encourage other agencies to police anti-competitive practices in their areas of jurisdiction.

We support the historic purpose of the antitrust laws to protect competition and prevent excessively consolidated economic and political power, which can be corrosive to a healthy democracy. We support reinvigorating DOJ and FTC enforcement of antitrust laws to prevent abusive behavior by dominant companies, and protecting the public interest against abusive, discriminatory, and unfair methods of commerce. We support President Obama’s recent Executive Order, directing all agencies to identify specific actions they can take in their areas of jurisdiction to detect anticompetitive practices—such as tying arrangements, price fixing, and exclusionary conduct—and to refer practices that appear to violate federal antitrust law to the DOJ and FTC.
Making the Wealthy Pay Their Fair Share of Taxes

At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, we believe the wealthiest Americans and largest corporations must pay their fair share of taxes. Democrats will claw back tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas, eliminate tax breaks for big oil and gas companies, and crack down on inversions and other methods companies use to dodge their tax responsibilities. We will make sure that our tax code rewards businesses that make investments and provide good-paying jobs here in the United States, not businesses that walk out on America. We will end deferrals so that American corporations pay United States taxes immediately on foreign profits and can no longer escape paying their fair share of U.S. taxes by stashing profits abroad. We will then use the revenue raised from fixing the corporate tax code to reinvest in rebuilding America and ensuring economic growth that will lead to millions of good-paying jobs.

We will ensure those at the top contribute to our country’s future by establishing a multimillionaire surtax to ensure millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share. In addition, we will shut down the “private tax system” for those at the top, immediately close egregious loopholes like those enjoyed by hedge fund managers, restore fair taxation on multimillion dollar estates, and ensure millionaires can no longer pay a lower rate than their secretaries. At a time of near-record corporate profits, slow wage growth, and rising costs, we need to offer tax relief to middle-class families—not those at the top.

Democrats believe that no one should be able avoid paying their fair share by hiding money abroad, and that corrupt leaders and terrorists should not be able to use the system of international finance to their advantage. We will work to crack down on tax evasion and promote transparency to fight corruption and terrorism. And we will make sure that law-abiding Americans living abroad are not unfairly penalized by finding the right solutions for them to the requirements under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR).

We will offer tax relief to hard working, middle-class families for the cost squeeze they have faced for years from rising health care, childcare, education, and other expenses. Donald Trump and the Republican Party would do the opposite and provide trillions in tax cuts for millionaires, billionaires, and corporations at the expense of working families, seniors, and the health of our economy.
Promoting Trade That is Fair and Benefits American Workers

Democrats acknowledge that for millions of Americans, global trade has failed to live up to its promise—with too many countries breaking the rules and too many corporations outsourcing jobs at the expense of American workers and communities.

Over the past three decades, America has signed too many trade deals that have not lived up to the hype. Trade deals often boosted the profits of large corporations, while at the same time failing to protect workers’ rights, labor standards, the environment, and public health. We need to end the race to the bottom and develop trade policies that support jobs in America. That is why Democrats believe we should review agreements negotiated years ago to update them to reflect these principles. Any future trade agreements must make sure our trading partners cannot undercut American workers by taking shortcuts on labor policy or the environment. They must not undermine democratic decision-making through special privileges and private courts for corporations, and trade negotiations must be transparent and inclusive.

Democrats’ priority is to significantly strengthen enforcement of existing trade rules and the tools we have, including by holding countries accountable on currency manipulation and significantly expanding enforcement resources. China and other countries are using unfair trade practices to tilt the playing field against American workers and businesses. When they dump cheap products into our markets, subsidize state-owned enterprises, devalue currencies, and discriminate against American companies, our middle class pays the price. That has to stop. Democrats will use all our trade enforcement tools to hold China and other trading partners accountable—because no country should be able to manipulate their currencies to gain a competitive advantage.

While we believe that openness to the world economy is an important source of American leadership and dynamism, we will oppose trade agreements that do not support good American jobs, raise wages, and improve our national security. We believe any new trade agreements must include strong and enforceable labor and environmental standards in their core text with streamlined and effective enforcement mechanisms. Trade agreements should crack down on the unfair and illegal subsidies other countries grant their businesses at the expense of ours. It should promote innovation of and access to lifesaving medicines. And it should protect a free and open internet. We should never enter into a trade agreement that prevents our government, or other governments, from putting in place rules that protect the environment, food safety, or the health of American citizens or others around the world.

These are the standards Democrats believe must be applied to all trade agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

The face of slavery is changing. In bygone days slaves were physically controlled with concrete walls, barbed wire and iron chains but today's corporate overlords control us with low credit scores that block our social mobility, economic inequality, and the selling of our private information to make money off of us without our consent. The slaves of yore had no privacy and now ours is vanishing quickly. Overall the effect is the same, the control and subjugation of the masses by the few in the top tier.