It can be argued that everything in politics, as in life, is about power. In American politics, that power has historically been shared by four estates: the president, Congress, the judiciary and the press (often called the fourth estate). The beauty of this arrangement is that each estate helps to restrain the other from attaining absolute power.

But all of this is changing with the advent of the “fifth estate,” an emerging force throughout America and the world. This estate — comprised of mammoth corporations — is so wealthy and so hungry for influence that it is slowly and methodically eating up the other four estates. It started with the press. In 1983, the American media was owned by 50 diverse corporations. It is now controlled by five mega-corporations who wield enough power to change politics and define our social agenda.

With the Supreme Court ruling in 2010, corporations have an almost unlimited ability to spend money and influence the outcome of elections. This could eventually give them control of the presidency, Congress and finally the judiciary. If this seems extreme, we need only to examine the recent events related to the federal budget fights in Congress. The tea-party movement, which began as a grass-roots movement to reduce taxes, has been hijacked by the wealthy, advocating a corporate agenda, rather than policies that are beneficial to most of its own members.

Now, Wisconsin tea-party Congressman Paul Ryan, who is chairman of the House Budget Committee, wants to reduce taxes for the wealthy by 28 percent and turn Medicare into a voucher system, thus shifting even more of the tax burden to the lowest income group.

Many of my conservative friends were concerned that President (Barack) Obama would focus his efforts on the redistribution of wealth in this country. What they apparently failed to see was that this redistribution has been occurring since the 1980s with more and more of the public wealth moving to the upper 1 percent of our population. If Paul Ryan has his way, this transfer will occur at an even faster rate.

Brinley Varchol

Oxford