We are in late-stage capitalism. It works so that corporations not only control the government, but most aspects of our lives and careers, so that as workers and consumers we get shafted as much as possible. Capitalism requires infinite growth and obviously doesn't work as a long term model for civilization. These corporations literally have a duty to make more money year after year forever. This inevitably includes gaining enough political power to completely control the legislative process (you think it's bad now...) for the sake of consuming all public goods.

The first thing is to completely halt all movement and progress to a more just and fair (in terms of class) society.

The next step is to lower wages across the board, this has been completed through legislation that kills unions and dismantles worker protections (remember when you used to get paid overtime for working more than 8 hours in a day? I do.) This increases profits.

Then you make sure that the country is in a never ending armed conflict (or multiple.) This increases profits.

Then you dismantle anti-monopoly laws and enforcement of laws, then form monopolies. This increases profits.

The next step involves dismantling the public education system. This isn't to save taxpayer money under the guise of "school choice." The same amount of taxpayer money will be spent, it will just now be allowed to move into profit-making educational businesses including religious schools (I know these people they are rich as fuck.)

While you work on this you also work towards getting access to public land (national and state parks ect.) for resource extraction. You don't do it in a fair way, because you don't have to any more. You get the politicians, who owe their careers to your money, to sell you the public lands for a fraction of what they are worth, even giving them for free. This works well with a dismantled EPA and general environmental deregulation to greatly increase profits while stripping the land for resources.

All the while you are quietly waging a war on the progress of alternatives to fossil fuels. This will inevitably fail as the green energy corporations gain power over time, but nonetheless sets back this progress by about 30 years.

I could go on.