Countervailing Power is a direct result from the years of corruption in politics, the decline of democracy both at home and abroad, and because true countervailing power has all but vanished in America.

I want to give a nod to Robert Reich, and all the important work he's done as a professor in the fields of economics and politics.

Although he does not endorse Countervailing Power as a movement or community, his work was one of many to influence the writings and ideas found within.

The term countervailing power was first used by the famous American economist John Kenneth Galbraith, in his 1952 book American Capitalism, to refer to the political regulation of markets.

Reich uses it in a similar way to describe a balancing, or counter balance, to the otherwise unchecked influence of wealthy individuals and corporations on our political system.

In other words, most of us don't have $54 million dollars to pay lobbyists to get a law passed we want. Most of us can't come close to matching the influence that donating $10 million to a candidate we want to help win an election.

Because we cannot individually match that kind of wealth and power, we must use our power in numbers, and create unions to balance power in the corporate world. We must create movements, like Countervailing Power, where we can come together, form groups, and through our groups and unions, affect the change we desire. 

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