Posted on 01/01/2010 3:11:31 AM PST by The Raven
On the last day of 2009, that awful year, I was listening to a report on National Public Radio (yes, I’m a listener). Reporter Tamara Keith presented a by-now-familiar recap of the worst financial and corporate scandals of the decade, from Enron and Martha Stewart to Tyco and Bernie Madoff. It was a depressing slog of greed, venality, and theft. When the report was over, Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep summarized the report with a tart: “The decade in capitalism.”
I don’t want to single out Inskeep, since he was doing what pretty much the entire media establishment has done, particularly of late: reducing “capitalism” to its alleged sins.
And that’s the point. There are few areas of life where a thing responsible for so much good gets so little credit for it.
Imagine if I were to collect the most infamous deeds of African Americans over the last decade — say, Michael Vick’s dog-fighting scandal and O. J. Simpson’s most recent criminal exploit — and then put a bow on it with the phrase “the decade in black America.” What if I did the same thing with Jews? Bernie Madoff, the face of Jewish America! Do the scandals of Rod Blagojevich, Charlie Rangel, and John Edwards define the Democratic party from 2000 to 2010? Do Abu Ghraib and the balloon boy sum up America?
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at article.nationalreview.com ...
Where else but in a capitalist country could a grade school dropout who was raised up in poverty be as good as anyone else, run thier own business, run thier own life?
I have never licked the boots of the rich, and the public servants have had trouble making me lick thier boots.
The fact that we are yamering about it in public is proof
that freedom under our constitution is the only way to go
and capitalism is only the natural process of a free people, it is not a goverment system.
Lets protect our free system.
They put enough restrictions on the free-market that it cannot function successfully. Then, when there is a break-down, they blame it on the free-market and demand greater control over the free-market.
“...fascism is a species of socialism.”
That is a very good point. In one context it is. Unfortunately “fascism” does not have as clear a definition as “socialism” and “communism,” and the term has been misapplied so frequently (to demonize) that it’s lost a single, solid meaning. But I agree, that they two are entangled.
My primary point is that the left (anti-capitalists) have been waging a many-pronged war against capitalism and the free-market (not one-and-the-same) for over a century. Part of that war is to accuse the free-markets of all ills that befall a nation. One of the ways they do that (according to David Horowitz in The Art of Political War) is to control the language.
As “fascism” has morphed into a vague, catch-all term, the left is trying to take many terms that have always had a free-market/capitalist connotation and trying to redefine them in a way that demonizes the free-market and capitalism.
There is no acceptance of which term best applies to the collusion of State & Business. And we can split hairs over what degree of collusion finally abandons the principles of free markets and capitalism. Corporatism is a fairly new term that has been invented to mischaracterize the collusion of State/Business. As you said, fascism and socialism are entangled. Likewise, this collusion is a form of Socialism/Fascism. So, my comment was to suggest that whenever people (especially leftists/anti-capitalists) discuss the collusion of the state and business that we not allow them to stigmatize the capitalist side of that relation, because it is fallacious and because it demonizes capitalism.
I believe the most accurate term (and one that serves our purpose better) is “corporate socialist.” Those who enter such a relationship are socialists/fascists first-and-foremost. They “incorporate” with the state in order to crush competition and establish a monopoly.
NPR is 5% right. Of course there is greed. Some of the financial companies’ doings with credit swaps were begging for calamity.
But the calamity was unquestionably enabled, brought on, and carried out by the forceful, confiscatory, government meddling in the mortgage market. The Fannies, Freddies, Obamas and Barneys of this world (with GWB not fully absolved either) were causally at fault. Rahm and Jamie and Chris Dodd were active agents as well.
And the government solutions to date have only enlarged the too-big-too-fail and Freddie/Fannie risks in the system.
I acknowledge that any human system has its bright side and its dark side. Capitalism is no different. The dark side of capitalism is that it often sees nothing but the bottom line.
That said, you’ve left out one very important element of the free-market system and capitalism: competition. Competition is the often unacknowledged (or acknowledged and resented) “soul” or “conscience” of the free-market system and capitalism.
IF there is competition, then a corporation, if it loses its “collective soul/conscience” and if it does so to the detriment or disapproval of its market, will lose its customer base and be driven out-of-business. Case in point, the recent Tiger Woods scandal.
The act of incorporating does not cast immorality on the people who run a business anymore than a man of strong moral foundation is necessarily converted into a rioter with the anonymity of a massive crowd.
If a type of business is wrong, pass a law against it. But whatever is legal should be allowed to stand. If the people do not support the business, it will fail. If the people are immoral, then they will support a legal, immoral business.
All of this changes, however, when an enterprise destroys its competition. In such a scenario, they CAN and often DO proceed illegally and immorally.
But I would point to politicians and governments as the greatest example of such monopolistic immorality, not corporations. Thus, I don’t consider it primarily a fault of the free-market system or of capitalism, but of collectivism, which is why I urge the use of the term “corporate socialist” rather than “corporatist,” which is another invented term that was invented to shift focus from the true, underlying cause to a straw man.
Well, yeah.
Democrats seem to view political corruption as their birthright, because they "care" about "the children" and "working families." Yes, plenty of Republicans are corrupt, but the media hold Republicans accountable, while Charlie Rangel gets to pay no taxes on millions of dollars in income with no apparent consequences.
And Democrats violently oppose term limits. If Democrats ever begin to support term limits, I'll believe that they are no more corrupt than Republicans.
In discussing this issue, please don’t allow the socialists/communists to control the language.
So i do not think we need to worry about the corporations, as they can not collude with goverment unless they have some one in goverment to collude with.
Our problem is with the the people in our goverment
” There are few areas of life where a thing responsible for so much good gets so little credit for it.”
Yeah. As I said, Capitalism was Karl Marx’ derogatory term for Free Enterprise, any nation’s generator of wealth. And we’re all of us using Marx’ term!
The government can’t generate wealth - all it can do is print (valid or invalid) dollar bills and multiple denominations thereof.
Private enterprise is the heart of the economy. Stop that and the nation stops breathing.
Accepting the construct of “greed” as only being possible in the private sector, is the game NPR was playing, and that the left in general always plays.
Tell me that politicians lining their pockets, quasi-governmental agencies padding their budgets and awarding record bonuses even after trillion dollar bailouts, and even your garden variety career bureaucrat looking to expand his turf, isn’t greedy.
They are greedy. Greed in government, on a criminal level, enabled greed in the private sector on a criminal level, here. Neither gets off the hook, as far as precipitating what you’ve correctly termed a calamity.
You’re absolutely correct, and we’re saying the same thing.
The fault is with the collectivist mindset.
The collectivist mindset leads to many horrors: communism, socialism, fascism, monopoly, and corporate socialism.
“BIG GOVERNMENT IS NOT THE SOLUTION TO OUR PROBLEMS. IT IS THE CAUSE OF OUR PROBLEMS.”
Indeed it is. Who will save us from big government? Who will solve Obama’s “solutions”?
This is what it’s not often mentioned that we’re dealing with:
“Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
and
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Jer. 17:9
Until we face these two truths, we cannot solve anything in government.
The more charitable among us could term the larger cause of the financial collapse to be the ‘good intentions’ of the government forcing funders to provide and process mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them. With the regulatory club that the federal government was holding over the banks, I don’t count it as greed that they made the loans that they made. Sure, late in the process there were guys burying what they knew to be bad loans into what as a result were bad securitizations, but that was an attempted cleanup and burial of what was coming out of the assembly line. It was at the front of the line that the government was forcing it all in.
Still, you’re right. Greed in government, greed and envy throughout. Sloth, gluttony, pride, lust and anger, too, while we’re at it. Ever it’s been so, and ever it will be such. Which is why failure and consequences—in business, elections, and government hiring—remain so very important.
As I said above, it is the fault of colluding with government, which is fascist/socialist.”
The issue you raise was discussed in the 1939 book titled “The Vampire Economy.”
It told of businesses ruled by idiot bureaucrats who would write new rules from day to day. Business owners had no control of their affairs and everything was run for the good of the collective, whatever that meant.
That range has 11 years in it. 2000-2009 would be a decade.
The folks at NPR have grown up with Marxist myths. Little wonder, particularly with a fellow “socialist” in the White House, that they blame “capitalism” for the woes of the World. Everybody needs a boogeyman.
Incidentally, “capitalism” is a term that originated with Karl Marx. It’s inadequate as a descriptor of an economic system, in my view.
re: We need to shout this down
Amen!
We, despite the better judgment of conservatives in our Party, have tried the other route for far too long. When a lie is told, a double standard is employed, etc. it has to be shouted down. The response from the Left will be to call us crybabies and whiners but that’s just their tried and proved first response to the truth. Let ‘em say whatever they want, just keep calling them out for the slugs they are.
Well said! Great summary of how well off we are and the fact our privileged position in the history of the world is a direct benefit of capitalism.
There’s nothing wrong with Capitalism
There’s nothing wrong with free enterprise
Don’t try to make me feel guilty
I’m so tired of hearing you cry
There’s nothing wrong with making some profit
If you ask me I’ll say it’s just fine
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live nice
I’m so tired of hearing you whine
About the revolution...
Bringin’ down the rich...
When was the last time you dug a ditch, baby?
If it ain’t one thing
Then it’s the other
Any cause that crosses your path
Your heart bleeds for anyone’s brother
I’ve got to tell you you’re a pain in the ass
You criticize with plenty of vigor
You rationalize everything that you do
With catchy phrases and heavy quotations
And everybody is crazy but you
You’re just a middle-class socialist brat
From a suburban family and you never really had to work
And you tell me that we’ve got to get back
To the struggling masses (whoever they are)
You talk, talk, talk about suffering and pain
Your mouth is bigger than your entire brain
What the hell do you know about suffering and pain, you dumb f...?
There’s nothing wrong with Capitalism
There’s nothing wrong with free enterprise
Don’t try to make me feel guilty
I’m so tired of hearing you cry
You’re just a middle-class socialist brat
From a suburban family and you never really had to work
And you tell me that we’ve got to get back
To the struggling masses (whoever they are)
You talk, talk, talk about suffering and pain
Your mouth is bigger than your entire brain
Ohhhhhhhhhh...
There’s nothing wrong with Capitalism
There’s nothing wrong with Capitalism
There’s nothing wrong with Capitalism
There’s nothing wrong with Capitalism
—Danny Elfman
Beck recently spent time with a man of strong moral conviction, who is diligently working to die broke. He’s a wonderful exception, roughly three standard deviations above the average modern character.
All too much more typical are the Husseins (WH variety) and the Tigers who, striding boldly across the land, come to believe they are entitled to everything: not just some of everything, but all they want of anything they choose. Too many corporate leaders come to see power and more power as their right, and their bottom line as the gauge of their power. Yes, they then collude, bribe, intimidate, and monopolize — yech!
It won’t happen, but we’d be better off with partnerships, but no corporations. Empire builders would overextend, lose control of their empires, and collapse much more readily than they do now. Humbler men would choose to work within their abilities.
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