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Government is an abject failure at making people equal.
But no corporation is as wealthy or powerful as government.
From William Greider's "The End of New Deal Liberalism":
"Society faces dreadful prospects and profound transformation. When both parties are aligned with corporate power, who will stand up for the people?
"Who will protect them from the insatiable appetites of capitalist enterprise and help them get through the hard passage ahead?
"One thing we know for sure from history: there is no natural limit to what capitalism will seek in terms of power and profit.
"If government does not stand up and apply the brakes, society is defenseless.
"Strangely enough, this new reality brings us back to the future, posing fundamental questions about the relationship between capitalism and democracy that citizens and reformers asked 100 years ago.
"Only this time, the nation is no longer an ascendant economic power.
"It faces hard adjustments as general prosperity recedes and the broad middle class that labor and liberalism helped create is breaking apart...
"One key dynamic of the twentieth century was the long- running contest for dominance between democracy and capitalism.
"The balance of power shifted back and forth several times, driven by two basic forces that neither corporate lobbyists nor timid politicians could control: the calamitous events that disrupted the social order, such as war and depression, and the power of citizens mobilized in reaction to those events.
"In those terms, both political parties are still highly vulnerable-as twentieth-century history repeatedly demonstrated, society cannot survive the burdens of an unfettered corporate order."
ZCommunications...
I think Jefferson and Greider would agree on many things concerning the "aristocracy of our moneyed corporations", in particular the Federal Reserves role in inflicting shareholder values on all Americans.From William Greider's "The End of New Deal Liberalism":
"Society faces dreadful prospects and profound transformation. When both parties are aligned with corporate power, who will stand up for the people?
"Who will protect them from the insatiable appetites of capitalist enterprise and help them get through the hard passage ahead?
"One thing we know for sure from history: there is no natural limit to what capitalism will seek in terms of power and profit.
"If government does not stand up and apply the brakes, society is defenseless.
"Strangely enough, this new reality brings us back to the future, posing fundamental questions about the relationship between capitalism and democracy that citizens and reformers asked 100 years ago.
"Only this time, the nation is no longer an ascendant economic power.
"It faces hard adjustments as general prosperity recedes and the broad middle class that labor and liberalism helped create is breaking apart...
"One key dynamic of the twentieth century was the long- running contest for dominance between democracy and capitalism.
"The balance of power shifted back and forth several times, driven by two basic forces that neither corporate lobbyists nor timid politicians could control: the calamitous events that disrupted the social order, such as war and depression, and the power of citizens mobilized in reaction to those events.
"In those terms, both political parties are still highly vulnerable-as twentieth-century history repeatedly demonstrated, society cannot survive the burdens of an unfettered corporate order."
ZCommunications...
A most excellent article about an issue Americans don't want to talk about.
We have morphed into a full-blown plutocracy where corporations control the levers of governemnet .. and Americans applaud. It isn't just the republicans anymore. both major parties are controlled by the corporate will .. and Obama is part of their plan.
"I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
---- Thomas Jefferson
We can all see how swimingly well that going. I.E. Greece, Ireland and soon Spain and Portugal.
Claudette:Well George. Capitalism obviously doesn't suite you.
What kind of system would you like??
One like Cuba or Venzuela??
Perhaps Europe where regulations so strangle the economy that it can't grow. Eveyone pays high taxes and sucks off the Govt teat??
We can all see how swimingly well that going. I.E. Greece, Ireland and soon Spain and Portugal.
Tell me George. Which system works for you??
I think Jefferson and Greider would agree on many things concerning the "aristocracy of our moneyed corporations", in particular the Federal Reserves role in inflicting shareholder values on all Americans.From William Greider's "The End of New Deal Liberalism":
"Society faces dreadful prospects and profound transformation. When both parties are aligned with corporate power, who will stand up for the people?
"Who will protect them from the insatiable appetites of capitalist enterprise and help them get through the hard passage ahead?
"One thing we know for sure from history: there is no natural limit to what capitalism will seek in terms of power and profit.
"If government does not stand up and apply the brakes, society is defenseless.
"Strangely enough, this new reality brings us back to the future, posing fundamental questions about the relationship between capitalism and democracy that citizens and reformers asked 100 years ago.
"Only this time, the nation is no longer an ascendant economic power.
"It faces hard adjustments as general prosperity recedes and the broad middle class that labor and liberalism helped create is breaking apart...
"One key dynamic of the twentieth century was the long- running contest for dominance between democracy and capitalism.
"The balance of power shifted back and forth several times, driven by two basic forces that neither corporate lobbyists nor timid politicians could control: the calamitous events that disrupted the social order, such as war and depression, and the power of citizens mobilized in reaction to those events.
"In those terms, both political parties are still highly vulnerable-as twentieth-century history repeatedly demonstrated, society cannot survive the burdens of an unfettered corporate order."
ZCommunications...
A most excellent article about an issue Americans don't want to talk about.
We have morphed into a full-blown plutocracy where corporations control the levers of governemnet .. and Americans applaud. It isn't just the republicans anymore. both major parties are controlled by the corporate will .. and Obama is part of their plan.
"I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
---- Thomas Jefferson
Greider spoke to that in October of 2008 when he discussed the impending passage of the "Wall Street Bailout" in the face of widespread public opposition:
"(T)his is a very revealing moment in American democracy. Were seeing the real deformities and power alignments that govern issues like this, particularly the financial system.
"(A)ll of the power centers in politics and finance and business are discredited by these events.
"(W)e had this moment Monday (September 29, 2008) when, for complicated political reasons, a majority in the House rose up and said no.
"(O)f course...the broad public...regards this bailout as a swindle and backwards.
"(The public wonders 'w)hy are you giving all this money to the people who caused this crisis and taking the money from the public assets of the victims?
Personally, I'm wondering what will happen in the Fall of 2012 if Round Two of our Great Financial Crisis appears during Obama's reelection effort?
So far he's left little doubt about which side of the class war he's on.
William Greider - Wiki
What's wrong with profit?
Lets say it's true. And that the rich guy wins no matter what. Is that because he has money or does he have money because he has learned how to profit even from his setbacks?
And it's probably coming here soon.We can all see how swimingly well that going. I.E. Greece, Ireland and soon Spain and Portugal.
You cannot blame Ireland's woes on the government. That was purely banker corruption driven. Read up on the death of the Celtic Tiger. Once again, like here, these guys escape with millions while the innocent taxpayers suffer. We absolutely need to reign the corporatists in and regulate the shit out of them. They have WAY too much power.
Mr. H.
GEorge is talking about the economic system.
Your inspiring stories about how heroically you might or might not have done are entirely irrelevant to this discussion.
And your ad hominen attacks on George are likewise unwarranted and pointless.
Maybe you ought to limit your thoughts to addressing the issues, rather than taking it upon yourself to insult people.
Let me try try to sum the above up for you.
GROW THE FUCK UP.
Thank you in advance for sticking to the topic.
During the postwar era there was a very powerful compact between government and labor, which itself was part of a broader compact between government and the middle class. Out of this compact grew a myriad of programs designed to promote broadly shared prosperity, e.g., middle class compensation was tied to productivity gains: when business did well, so too did the workers. The government also tried to give the middle class an affordable cost of living, which included access to great public universities; access to affordable health care, as well as controlling the price of necessary staples, e.g., speculators were not allowed to drive up the cost of oil; housing bubbles were prevented; Wall Street was not allowed to expose our savings to excessive risk.
And... the middle class had plenty o' spendin' money. Remember: the New Deal gave them higher wages, a low cost of living, social safety nets, and retirement security. This translated into economic security > massive consumer demand. Guess what happens when demand goes up? The capitalist must innovate and add more jobs to capture all dat extra money.
Point is: during the postwar years, the American government invested in the middle class and it paid off, leading to the golden era of mass consumption. Henry Ford's dream was finally realized: the workers could afford to buy what they produced. Leave It To Beaver nation was born -- suburban expansion exploded: new homes, televisions, ski trips, refrigerators, shopping malls, patio furniture, and space-age gadgets trickled down like mana from heaven. Going to college was no longer a luxury. Everybody, it seemed, was in the middle class.
Which is why the 50s & 60s represented the most sustained economic growth in American history. Best of all, America's highly regulated postwar economy was a blessing to conservatism: the family could be sustained on 1 income, leaving the mother to tend to the children, i.e., the nuclear family was king (unlike today, where the mother must work and the children are raised by MTV).
But there was a catch to our postwar prosperity. High taxes. In order to fulfill the social contract with the middle class -- in order to pay for all the infrastructure projects and the high wages & benefits -- business and the wealthy paid higher taxes. And it worked: we put a man on the moon and built the most impressive tapestry of highways, public works, and suburbs known to man. More importantly, the tenuous compromise between capital and labor held steady because there was still a lot of money coming: America, unscathed by the two great wars, was manufacturer to the world.
Enter 1973. Japan and Germany re-industrialized, China and India were growing into industrial powers, OPEC choked energy supplies, and stagflation ended the postwar boom: less money was coming in.
What did capital do when their profit rates began to plummet? They went in search of a political party. Business took over the New Right quicker than Germany took over France. [The left was still too beholden to labor to enjoy the immense advantage of Lockheed] The new federation between the GOP and business resulted in a machine which seamlessly funneled money into politics. The machine also poured money into think tanks, publishing groups, PACs, and every manner of mass media. They would spend the next 30 years remaking government (destroying regulatory agencies, lowering taxes, gutting laws that benefited the middle class, and making it easier for business to craft their own legislation). On the media front, their plan was brilliant: use conservative social issues -- mostly centered around religion, tradition, and patriotism -- to recapture the south and heartland. Divide the country into two groups: good Americans (conservatives) versus evil anti-Americans (liberals). [This "divide and conquer" strategy by business was a brilliant way of balkanizing the cross-party coalitions that united under the New Deal] By the 90s, with the birth of talk radio, the GOP was in charge of an army of "identity Republicans" -- who were strategically agitated by wedge issues from abortion & gay marriage, to gun control & hollywood indecency. Men like Reagan successfully shifted populist ire from the cigar smoking fat cat to the incompetent bureaucrat. To top it off: the old Red Scare was reborn, only this time it was the liberals who had supposedly infiltrated American institutionally to the core.
The new Republican voter was now part of an epic holy war to save America from evil.
Having successfully branded half the country, the machine now began to reformat public opinion with ruthless efficiency. In short, business (aka capital) finally had the power to repeal all the gains given to labor during the postwar years. Everything done for the middle class would now be called socialism. Everything done for business would be called freedom. Profit would finally be unhinged from any obligation to the public good. It would buy all elections and, through a series of mass mergers made possible by Reagan's destruction of the Sherman Act, consolidate control over mass media.
Welcome to it.. Corporations are richer than ever and the country is bankrupt. This is the final phase of neoliberal capitalism: the pure concentration of wealth. Capital's victory over labor is complete. When money is made in this country, it goes overwhelmingly into fewer and fewer hands. Game over.
During the postwar era there was a very powerful compact between government and labor, which itself was part of a broader compact between government and the middle class. Out of this compact grew a myriad of programs designed to promote broadly shared prosperity, e.g., middle class compensation was tied to productivity gains: when business did well, so too did the workers. The government also tried to give the middle class an affordable cost of living, which included access to great public universities; access to affordable health care, as well as controlling the price of necessary staples, e.g., speculators were not allowed to drive up the cost of oil; housing bubbles were prevented; Wall Street was not allowed to expose our savings to excessive risk.
And... the middle class had plenty o' spendin' money. Remember: the New Deal gave them higher wages, a low cost of living, social safety nets, and retirement security. This translated into economic security > massive consumer demand. Guess what happens when demand goes up? The capitalist must innovate and add more jobs to capture all dat extra money.
Point is: during the postwar years, the American government invested in the middle class and it paid off, leading to the golden era of mass consumption. Henry Ford's dream was finally realized: the workers could afford to buy what they produced. Leave It To Beaver nation was born -- suburban expansion exploded: new homes, televisions, ski trips, refrigerators, shopping malls, patio furniture, and space-age gadgets trickled down like mana from heaven. Going to college was no longer a luxury. Everybody, it seemed, was in the middle class.
Which is why the 50s & 60s represented the most sustained economic growth in American history. Best of all, America's highly regulated postwar economy was a blessing to conservatism: the family could be sustained on 1 income, leaving the mother to tend to the children, i.e., the nuclear family was king (unlike today, where the mother must work and the children are raised by MTV).
But there was a catch to our postwar prosperity. High taxes. In order to fulfill the social contract with the middle class -- in order to pay for all the infrastructure projects and the high wages & benefits -- business and the wealthy paid higher taxes. And it worked: we put a man on the moon and built the most impressive tapestry of highways, public works, and suburbs known to man. More importantly, the tenuous compromise between capital and labor held steady because there was still a lot of money coming: America, unscathed by the two great wars, was manufacturer to the world.
Enter 1973. Japan and Germany re-industrialized, China and India were growing into industrial powers, OPEC choked energy supplies, and stagflation ended the postwar boom: less money was coming in.
What did capital do when their profit rates began to plummet? They went in search of a political party. Business took over the New Right quicker than Germany took over France. [The left was still too beholden to labor to enjoy the immense advantage of Lockheed] The new federation between the GOP and business resulted in a machine which seamlessly funneled money into politics. The machine also poured money into think tanks, publishing groups, PACs, and every manner of mass media. They would spend the next 30 years remaking government (destroying regulatory agencies, lowering taxes, gutting laws that benefited the middle class, and making it easier for business to craft their own legislation). On the media front, their plan was brilliant: use conservative social issues -- mostly centered around religion, tradition, and patriotism -- to recapture the south and heartland. Divide the country into two groups: good Americans (conservatives) versus evil anti-Americans (liberals). [This "divide and conquer" strategy by business was a brilliant way of balkanizing the cross-party coalitions that united under the New Deal] By the 90s, with the birth of talk radio, the GOP was in charge of an army of "identity Republicans" -- who were strategically agitated by wedge issues from abortion & gay marriage, to gun control & hollywood indecency. Men like Reagan successfully shifted populist ire from the cigar smoking fat cat to the incompetent bureaucrat. To top it off: the old Red Scare was reborn, only this time it was the liberals who had supposedly infiltrated American institutionally to the core.
The new Republican voter was now part of an epic holy war to save America from evil.
Having successfully branded half the country, the machine now began to reformat public opinion with ruthless efficiency. In short, business (aka capital) finally had the power to repeal all the gains given to labor during the postwar years. Everything done for the middle class would now be called socialism. Everything done for business would be called freedom. Profit would finally be unhinged from any obligation to the public good. It would buy all elections and, through a series of mass mergers made possible by Reagan's destruction of the Sherman Act, consolidate control over mass media.
Welcome to it.. Corporations are richer than ever and the country is bankrupt. This is the final phase of neoliberal capitalism: the pure concentration of wealth. Capital's victory over labor is complete. When money is made in this country, it goes overwhelmingly into fewer and fewer hands. Game over.
The record Wealth Gap that continues to grow, is an example.
A decade of basically stagnant wage growth despite good profits and excellent worker productivity also confirms the above statement.
During the postwar era there was a very powerful compact between government and labor, which itself was part of a broader compact between government and the middle class. Out of this compact grew a myriad of programs designed to promote broadly shared prosperity, e.g., middle class compensation was tied to productivity gains: when business did well, so too did the workers. The government also tried to give the middle class an affordable cost of living, which included access to great public universities; access to affordable health care, as well as controlling the price of necessary staples, e.g., speculators were not allowed to drive up the cost of oil; housing bubbles were prevented; Wall Street was not allowed to expose our savings to excessive risk.
And... the middle class had plenty o' spendin' money. Remember: the New Deal gave them higher wages, a low cost of living, social safety nets, and retirement security. This translated into economic security > massive consumer demand. Guess what happens when demand goes up? The capitalist must innovate and add more jobs to capture all dat extra money.
Point is: during the postwar years, the American government invested in the middle class and it paid off, leading to the golden era of mass consumption. Henry Ford's dream was finally realized: the workers could afford to buy what they produced. Leave It To Beaver nation was born -- suburban expansion exploded: new homes, televisions, ski trips, refrigerators, shopping malls, patio furniture, and space-age gadgets trickled down like mana from heaven. Going to college was no longer a luxury. Everybody, it seemed, was in the middle class.
Which is why the 50s & 60s represented the most sustained economic growth in American history. Best of all, America's highly regulated postwar economy was a blessing to conservatism: the family could be sustained on 1 income, leaving the mother to tend to the children, i.e., the nuclear family was king (unlike today, where the mother must work and the children are raised by MTV).
But there was a catch to our postwar prosperity. High taxes. In order to fulfill the social contract with the middle class -- in order to pay for all the infrastructure projects and the high wages & benefits -- business and the wealthy paid higher taxes. And it worked: we put a man on the moon and built the most impressive tapestry of highways, public works, and suburbs known to man. More importantly, the tenuous compromise between capital and labor held steady because there was still a lot of money coming: America, unscathed by the two great wars, was manufacturer to the world.
Enter 1973. Japan and Germany re-industrialized, China and India were growing into industrial powers, OPEC choked energy supplies, and stagflation ended the postwar boom: less money was coming in.
What did capital do when their profit rates began to plummet? They went in search of a political party. Business took over the New Right quicker than Germany took over France. [The left was still too beholden to labor to enjoy the immense advantage of Lockheed] The new federation between the GOP and business resulted in a machine which seamlessly funneled money into politics. The machine also poured money into think tanks, publishing groups, PACs, and every manner of mass media. They would spend the next 30 years remaking government (destroying regulatory agencies, lowering taxes, gutting laws that benefited the middle class, and making it easier for business to craft their own legislation). On the media front, their plan was brilliant: use conservative social issues -- mostly centered around religion, tradition, and patriotism -- to recapture the south and heartland. Divide the country into two groups: good Americans (conservatives) versus evil anti-Americans (liberals). [This "divide and conquer" strategy by business was a brilliant way of balkanizing the cross-party coalitions that united under the New Deal] By the 90s, with the birth of talk radio, the GOP was in charge of an army of "identity Republicans" -- who were strategically agitated by wedge issues from abortion & gay marriage, to gun control & hollywood indecency. Men like Reagan successfully shifted populist ire from the cigar smoking fat cat to the incompetent bureaucrat. To top it off: the old Red Scare was reborn, only this time it was the liberals who had supposedly infiltrated American institutionally to the core.
The new Republican voter was now part of an epic holy war to save America from evil.
Having successfully branded half the country, the machine now began to reformat public opinion with ruthless efficiency. In short, business (aka capital) finally had the power to repeal all the gains given to labor during the postwar years. Everything done for the middle class would now be called socialism. Everything done for business would be called freedom. Profit would finally be unhinged from any obligation to the public good. It would buy all elections and, through a series of mass mergers made possible by Reagan's destruction of the Sherman Act, consolidate control over mass media.
Welcome to it.. Corporations are richer than ever and the country is bankrupt. This is the final phase of neoliberal capitalism: the pure concentration of wealth. Capital's victory over labor is complete. When money is made in this country, it goes overwhelmingly into fewer and fewer hands. Game over.
The record Wealth Gap that continues to grow, is an example.
A decade of basically stagnant wage growth despite good profits and excellent worker productivity also confirms the above statement.
No, it's government's victory over prosperity.
What's wrong with profit?
Lets say it's true. And that the rich guy wins no matter what. Is that because he has money or does he have money because he has learned how to profit even from his setbacks?
Start your own corporation and show them how it's done.
