Although the U.S. doesn�t come close to meeting the criteria of a failed state, there are many things about which citizens should be concerned.

The Fund for Peace put out a set of criteria several years ago and has published a �failed states index� for five years, and probably the primary criterion is that a failed state has lost physical control of its territory.

America certainly has not lost control of its territory.� In fact, it appears that it is gathering more territory to itself, seeing itself as the governing force in both Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as having its way with parts of Pakistan.

But that�s not the immediate problem.� There are a few other criteria for failed states and they include:� ��erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions, an inability to provide reasonable public services, and an inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community��� (Recall that scores of nations opposed the invasion of Iraq, but that didn�t stop the Bush-Cheney Administration.)

Other concerns include a central government weak enough that it can not provide necessary public services and that exhibits a sharp economic decline.�

The British Department for International Development provides this broad description of a failed state:� �Governments that cannot or will not deliver core functions to the majority of its people, including the poor.���

The DID adds: �The most important functions of the state for poverty reduction are territorial control, safety and security, capacity to manage public resources, delivery of basic services, and the ability to protect and support the ways in which the poorest people sustain themselves.�

Mostly, the developed countries determine which countries can be described as failed states, so the criteria are developed to describe nations or states that do not possess what the �first world� nations describe.� And that starts with wealth.� If a nation has great wealth and most of its people have a high standard of living, it�s not likely that it would ever be considered a failed state, no matter how many other criteria it meets.�

Corruption of both the political and economic systems (often�and rightly so�considered as part of one another) could be the core problems in a rich and militarily mighty nation.� This is especially true if the nation is considered a democratic republic.� That is, a country that belongs to the people and is governed by the people through democratic processes.

The U.S. is as likely to be considered a failed state as Bernie Madoff is likely to be called the world�s greatest philanthropist, but there are danger signs that the country is losing sight of its ideals and goals, as those goals have been repeated in history classes over the generations, not necessarily as they have actually been served in the real world of aggressive national, now global, capitalism.

Here are a few things that we should know and that we should keep in mind as we address our problems in the New Year:

MONSANTO � The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating this company�s contracts and licensing practices with farmers and others.� In a short dozen years, it has become the owner of patented seed genes found in 95 percent of soybeans and 80 percent of the corn planted in the country.� That�s monopolistic and, because the company�s contracts and licensing agreements are largely secret (farmers and smaller seed dealers can�t talk about them), the people have no clue about how their food is grown and processed.

That a chemical-pharmaceutical-seed giant can have such profound control over much of the �food� we eat is dangerous to the body politic.� Fact is, Americans don�t know much, if anything, about the food they give their children every day.� Control of the food system is most anti-democratic�and this is just one corporation that functions out of sight and control of the people and their representatives.� In most cases the latter know as little�or even less�than their constituents about the food system.

HEALTH CARE �REFORM� � The U.S. has one of the most technologically advanced medical care systems in the world, but it serves a percentage at the top and is largely dysfunctional for a sizable minority of Americans.� In other words, if you�re not among the 47 million who have no access to health care, you think you have coverage for most things�until you try to use it for a serious illness or malady.� Then, as many as another 50 million, or so, may find too late that they have inadequate health insurance.

There was an opportunity to fix the broken system in this first year of the new administration, but it appears largely to have missed the mark.� It may not be possible to even improve it in the near future.

While the �health care industry� has spread millions of dollars among the members of Congress during this time (and long before), there are just a few lawmakers who have been given the power to, effectively, stop �reform� in its tracks.

This has been possible because the lack of will on the part of the majority has allowed the few�Republicans and some Blue Dog Democrats�to protect their benefactors among health insurance companies and some other players.

This is corruption of money and corruption of principle.� Senator Joe Lieberman is one of the more outstanding examples of a representative of the people who is willing to say that he is protecting insurance companies against any government system that would provide competition for them.� Hardly surprising, since, as an �independent� candidate for senate, his party name said it all:� �Connecticut for Lieberman,� not the other way around.��

CLIMATE CHANGE� -- Representatives and senators have come out of the woodwork during the debate on climate change, to protect some of the most powerful and most polluting interests in the U.S.�the coal and �energy� corporations, which are used to riding roughshod over the will of the people and the people, themselves.

Even as weather patterns have changed and brought some of the most destructive storms, floods, hurricanes, and other disasters, even as glaciers are melting, even as mountains are losing their permanent cover of snow and ice, even as the permafrost is melting under Inuit villages, those who are in thrall or in the pay of the powerful companies are making it difficult, if not impossible, to have a rational discussion of the issue and seek solutions as rational people.

It is all about protecting the profits of those who do not want to see those profits diminish, no matter what happens to the earth and the creatures on it.� This is corruption over which the people have little or no control.

DISPARITY IN WEALTH � At this time, the U.S. has the greatest disparity between the rich and the rest of us, since the Great Depression.� This has happened through the relentless battering of wage workers over the past 75 years, to keep their pay and benefits down and their productivity up.� It has happened through the manipulation of money, the banking system, the scam (legal ) investment system, Congress� hands-off policy regarding the Federal Reserve, the disappearance of laws against usury, and the de facto, if not actual, reappearance of monopolies and trusts that have operated with impunity over decades.

This is corruption at the most basic level.� If the people do not share in the wealth that they created over generations, there will be no sharing of the control of the government or the economy.� We�re fast approaching that status.� The presidential election of 2008 may have been an anomaly and the electorate may well return to staying home in future elections, allowing a quarter of the people to elect governments.

THE �GLOBAL ECONOMY� � When Corporate America could not wring any more from its wage-earning manufacturing workers, by driving down wages and benefits, they began moving their operations to other countries, where, even today, some workers earn as little as 50 cents an hour.

Nothing was done about it, except that the government provided some incentives for corporations that took their business elsewhere.� The effect was to empty America of its manufacturing and industrial base and to create a �service economy,� which itself is a low-paying, no-benefit, low-job-security culture.� In large part, this is why there are states that are in default, including California, our largest state.� New York isn�t far behind, and there�s a growing number of others.� The economic crisis has been caused by greed, but greed was enabled by corruption at the highest levels of government.

The turn-around is not going to be easy, because profound and sweeping changes need to be made and they will not be made by governments or Corporate America.� If the people do not take charge of their own country, we�ll have more of the status quo, in which secrecy and corruption are rampant and the people suffer.�

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, John Funiciello, is a labor organizer and former union organizer. His union work started when he became a local president of The Newspaper Guild in the early 1970s. He was a reporter for 14 years for newspapers in New York State. In addition to labor work, he is organizing family farmers as they struggle to stay on the land under enormous pressure from factory food producers and land developers. Click here to contact Mr. Funiciello.