Some people cringe when they hear about a conspiracy theory (CT) because some are way crazy. But most political crimes that have been revealed (e.g., Iran-Contra, Savings and Loan debacle), were first just CT.
But in the case of the corporations conspiring to steal the wealth of the middle class, there is a smoking gun known as the Lewis Powell Memo.
In 1971, before becoming an associate justice of the Supreme Court, Lewis Powell penned a memo to the director of the US Chamber of Commerce advocating a comprehensive strategy to strengthen corporate power in America. (See more at "Assault on Democracy", The Nation Magazine, April 28, 2014)
The greatest middle class and greatest democratic government in the history of the world occurred from about 1945 until 1970 when the capitalists started systematically eliminating the laws that were put in place to fix the rampant capitalistic chaos that brought us the Great Depression. The younger generations, having not had to endure the lessons of the Depression were either ambivalent or bought the bill of goods (trickle down) sold by the capitalists and didn't fight the dismantling of The New Deal restrictions on capitalism.
In 1976 the Supreme Court ruled with Buckley v. Valeo that essentially money equaled speech. Then in 2010 the Supremes struck again with Citizens United, where they struck down restrictions on independent campaign spending by corporations, non-profits and unions. And recently the "McCutcheon v. FEC ruling overturned limits on the total contributions that an individual can make. These ruling have given the wealthy corporations and individuals unlimited power to buy elections at all levels of government.
Back to the Powell Memo.
Powell emphasized the importance of strengthening institutions like the U.S. Chamber -- which represented the interests of the broader business community, and therefore key to creating a united front. While individual corporations could represent their interests more aggressively, the responsibility of conducting an enduring campaign would necessarily fall upon the Chamber and allied foundations. Since business executives had “little stomach for hard-nosed contest with their critics” and “little skill in effective intellectual and philosophical debate,” it was important to create new think tanks, legal foundations, front groups and other organizations. The ability to align such groups into a united front would only come about through “careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and united organizations.”
Powell’s Memo is widely credited for having helped catalyze a new business activist movement, with numerous conservative family and corporate foundations (e.g. Coors, Olin, Bradley, Scaife, Koch and others) thereafter creating and sustaining powerful new voices to help push the corporate agenda, including the Business Roundtable (1972), the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC - 1973), Heritage Foundation (1973), the Cato Institute (1977), the Manhattan Institute (1978), Citizens for a Sound Economy (1984 - now Americans for Prosperity), Accuracy in Academe (1985), and others.
See the Greenpeace article: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/the-lewis-powell-memo-corporate-blueprint-to-/blog/36466/
The bottom line is that it appears that Americans are no longer living in a "Constitutionally controlled democratic republic," but a plutocratic-oligarchy run by wealthy individuals and corporations.
It will be an uphill battle to reverse this trend toward total oligarchy, but the movement "Move to Amend" (https://movetoamend.org/) is a start. This movement is taking on the Supreme Courts power head on with a Constitutional Amendment to restrict money in politics. This movement is bipartisan and may well be the start of a bigger populous movement.
