Greenberg (1990) finds that the American system of government is based on several myths related to equality of opportunity and treatment and on a concept of democracy that is at odds with the reality. What Greenberg sees in this system is a structure that responds to business interests first and foremost. He describes a litany of instances in which occupational issues are decided in favor of business and against workers and cases in which worker safety is compromised because it would be onerous to business interests to comply with the law regarding safety and health. He says that this list of ills in the workplace allows us to
discern the reality of business control of the workplace and of the conditions of daily existence of most Americans; the treatment of citizens of a democratic county as mere factors of production; the vast extent of the economic, political, and social role of concentrated private economic power; the close collaboration of business and governments at all levels in the United States. . . and the unequal distribution of political power. (p. 11)
Greenberg utilizes the concepts of justice and democracy to evaluate the American system and finds the system wanting in these areas.
Greenberg does not find this to be a recent development by any means and challenges the assumption that the Founding Fathers sought to create a system that would embody certain democratic principles of equality under the law. Instead, Greenberg finds that the men who created the Constitution and who debated its provisions were people of wealth and property who wanted "a strong, property-respecting, centralized government" (p. 56). Safeguards were put in place to prevent majority rule: "Believing that tyranny results when a majority imposes its will on a minority (property holders), the Founders formulated a series of provisions to ensure that no such majority could easily capture the policy-making machinery of the various branch...