Small Business Administration: Banality of Evil Redux

SYNOPSIS Billions of dollars of federal set asides for Small Business are being gobbled up by multinational corporations.

DIANE ALDEN COMMENTARY Was no one paying attention while the US fell apart? Or is it that it was falling apart in so many varied places, we all went into information overload which provided cover for the worst of the crooks and liars to tear the nation apart?

At times I am forced to wonder if such corruption and collusion is so wide and deep and constant - that no one pays attention any more. Are we, in fact, becoming like Mexico or some Asian nations where buying influence and protection is routine?

Does no one involved in government and business think they will ever be found out and prosecuted? Is the twisted misuse of taxpayer dollars, and perversion of a federal agency, par for the course in modern US history?

Thanks to the miscreants at the helm of government and financial/business sectors, in 2008, the United States is on the brink of a bankruptcy that could have been avoided. Meantime, we, the people, have been repeatedly mistreated and abused - far worse than the train of abuses that led up to the first American Revolution.

First of all, any time I hear the word “fascist” in connection with corporations, my eyes glaze over and I stop reading. This article is a complete waste of time, as it offers no specifics and no insight — just a tirade about how we’re bankrupt.

Don’t get me wrong, I agree that we are bankrupt. But complaining that the fascist corporations are grabbing the SBA money that should go to small business is a ridiculous analysis.

The problem is not that the large corporations are getting SBA money. I don’t doubt that they are. But the problem is that the government ought not be subsidizing ANY business, large or small, in the first place. Government is inherently unable to manage commerce in a productive, economic and sustainable manner.

Using government as the instrument to manage commerce is like using a sledge hammer to perform gum surgery. Or like hiring the Hell’s Angels to keep order at a rock concert.

There’s only one way to end corruption in the SBA, and that is to close it down.

That is generally the best solution for most government agencies. The problem is not that they have become corrupt. The problem is that government power to disburse taxpayers funds is inherently going to be corrupt. It’s called human nature, and it is what America’s founders tried to protect us from.

Corporations cannot be fascist in a free society. Only governments can be fascist, and when it starts handing out subsidies and favors to corporations, it should not surprise anyone that it spreads its natural tendency to act corruptly throughout the entire system.

There is, of course, a great deal of truth to that. On the other hand, the people who are alert and attempting to do something about it are starved, underfed, and thus unheard thanks to the stranglehold the BIG MONEY still has on the media, in spite of the miracle of the Internet.

If more of the sheeple actually heard what was going on, or for that matter, knew where to look for accurate information, I think we’d see a dramatic shift in attitudes accompanied by a political and economic revolution that would raise an eye brow or two in the good old boys club, if not inspire a few one way ticket purchases to Brazil.

We are to blame, some of us, but as to whether or not we “all” deserve it, or even most of us deserve it, I can’t say.

I know Diane is of the opinion that they’ve so arranged things that both husband and wife are working night and day to maintain the standard of living their parents had that there is no time for serious investigation and discussion beyond the soundbite variety on Fox News and CNN.

This, I know, even Alexis de Tocqueville warned is the natural by-product of a democratic society. Specialization (a terrific tool to spawn a generation or two or three of narrow-minded fanatics), a pulling apart of the family (thanks to the mobility of a democratic society), a growing disrespect for religion, morality, and law (thanks to a combination of true equality before the law being replaced with a socialistic version of equality of ends; and an individualism that finally makes its way to that extreme of every man being his own God - humanism, that is).

I’m saying, in effect, it is a natural by-product of a system that can only be held in check by a strong religious/moral pull in the community. Democratic systems (and I know, the founders gave us something more appropriately called a constitutional republic, or democratic republic) have a momentum of their own that can be quite destructive.

That’s why de Tocqueville observed that the more democratic a nation became, the more it needed religion as a counterbalance to the self-centeredness that would evolve.

Reason enough for revolutionaries of the left to make religion and the family (the transmission belts of the old values) primary targets. Their success could be blamed on earlier generations, I suppose, though their rational was always packaged in moral, pro-liberty terms, that only the more educated could easily see through.

I think what frustrates Diane the most is that many of these men in power DO know what’s going on, and COULD turn the tide IF ONLY. That one frustration.

The other frustration is the total lack of loyalty to anything other than self-interest we find in many of the leading capitalists. Capitalism without a conscience if you will. Again ... maybe that’s part of the failure that began in 1961 when God was kicked out of the classroom.

Do that ... and yet let capitalism rule the day ... and you finally get the sort of capitalists Marx said we had. A sort of self-fulling prophecy. And the class warfare begins. The animosity of the less economically blessed for those who are taking them to the cleaners.

I agree completely with your analysis, and so would Diane, but with the one exception wherein you say only government does this, that there are no corporate fascists, just a pack of ‘victims’ of a system that shouldn’t be.

Again, Diane and I agree on the shouldn’t be part.

But go all the way back to 1876 and the whole railroad monopoly issue, this being the first effort by government to step in and regulate the big bad monopolists ... and I say go back in the way Milton Friedman did in Free to Choose (other economists have as well) and you see a different picture. Not just government unwisely interfering in the economy to defend the people and the small people, but the monopolists themselves putting them up to it, buying and controlling politicians to do just the opposite of the supposed intent of the law, that is, to put their competitors out of business.

According to Friedman, again, there were hundreds and hundreds of small railroad companies all over the country, springing up lines at cutthroat rates everywhere, and the big guys didn’t like them getting a cut of the pie, sometimes, a very nice cut.

The result is what we have today, only a few railroad companies left, and oh yeah, a national railway passenger service that fails to make a profit ... every single year.

I know fascism is not a nice word, maybe next time I’ll use “state monopoly capitalism” instead.

Call it a kinder, gentler, sort of fascism.

Honestly, when Jefferson and Adams said that men weren’t angels, they weren’t just referring to men in government. Power plays go on everywhere. It just so happens that men in business suits are just as tempted as the next guy to win the money and power struggle, and insure that victory stands forever, by the best means possible, a few powerful legislators, regulators, governors, and presidents in their pocket.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts ... businessmen too.

We’re fundamentally in agreement here. It’s just a matter of which came first the power hungry politician or the power hungry businessman.

I think there were hungry men in both camps, and always will be.

But back to “corporate fascism,” or if you prefer, “state monopoly capitalism,” it is interesting to note that NAFTA gave corporations legal bargaining status at the lawmaking table ... that is, out in the open state monopoly capitalism. This, interestingly enough is why left wing unions, who traditionally have been in favor of internationalism along socialistic lines opposed NAFTA. Not because it wasn’t what they were always clamoring for, but because the corporations got this power, and they were pushed out of the process.

Without paying attention to the real issues here, many a right winger, for instance Rush Limbaugh, led the charge in favor of NAFTA because the Unions were opposed, and of course, if the Unions were opposed then “it must be right.”

But the Unions were not trying to get rid of NAFTA, but only trying to get “in” on NAFTA - thus MANY Republicans stood by the Newt Gingrich led Republican right to give us this little piece of “state monopoly capitalism.” (kinder, gentler)

Again, consider the recent Republican push (also prevalent among new Democrats - that is, Third Wayers) in favor of government private partnerships. This is a Keynesian idea dating back to his two part “Death of Laissez-faire” essay.

Gingrich was Third Way/Wave (also called himself a “Conservative Futurist”) - just another name change for Progressivism, and Bush II is a Compassionate Conservative (yet another name change for the same thing).

Their own literature on this subject reveals the definition as a “safe” middle ground between the compassion of socialism/communism and the efficiency of capitalism. There is no such safe middle ground, but this whole idea is closer to fascism than pure economic socialism (if there is such a thing).

It’s also what Gorbachev was preaching in Perestroika, claiming he was rejecting Stalinism and going back to Lenin’s NEP, which was this more fascist styled economy. State ownership of the major industries, heavy regulation of the middle industries, and pretty much free enterprise for farms and mama and papa businesses. This is what was in place until 1928 when Stalin collectivized everything ... well, most things.

It in interesting to note that Lenin predicted the International Government that would arise would be along fascist lines ... and then one day turn communist at the snap of the finger.

I’m just saying it is a reality, and it is just as natural as the Capitalist to turn to it as the power hungry politician.

I do believe the solution is that we all need to get it into our heads that we can’t cross that line. That the state’s job is to create an atmosphere where competitive capitalism may thrive, a level playing field, a strong legal system where men may appeal for abuses, but a government that works negatively enforcing justice, not playing favorites, not forcing businesses to do this or that, not undermining the U.S. economy in the name of free trade, when the truth is that it is managed trade with some predictable winners and losers ... artificially arrived at, but nearly guaranteed.

In my home state Bill Gates came in here a couple of years ago and tried to sneak in a scam where the U.N. would run our state school’s curriculum and teacher certification standards and programs. Bill Gates, partners with the U.N.. In Idaho. It almost sneaked through. Got through my own school district without a soul suspecting anything. Somebody on the Internet exposed it, it went the talk radio circuits, and then it quietly disappeared.

But the man wasn’t working for the government, like Ted Turner, he was working for his own agenda, for in behalf of a radically empowering agenda of the international over the local with a corporation providing much of the funding.

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