[MD] Capitalism

[david buchanan]

Platt:
Over the course of human history, profit-seeking business leaders, scorned as greedy capitalists, have done more to preserve human life and lift human beings out of poverty than all the churches, charities and government welfare programs combined.

John replied:
Perhaps true, Platt. I'm willing to grant you that.  But is the purpose of a pattern to keep us in that pattern, or to get us somewhere better? At this time, I don't think "what has worked in the past' is going to work in the present.  Or future.  The problem with conservatism is that it conserves static patterns past their usefulness.


dmb says:

Oh come on. Capitalism is the greatest life-saver in human history? If you're talking about the wealth and high living standards of the industrial West, then it should be fairly obvious that science, technology, and other forms of cultural development had as much to do with creating wealth as anything. And John, your defense of capitalism was just as bogus. You weren't defending a political-economics. You were just defending the ten commandments, or the ones about not stealing and telling lies anyway. You can take whatever grand attributes or heroic sentiments you like and hang them on capitalism like so many christmas ornaments (in my mind these would be really tacky, rockwellian ornaments), but that's really just a way to change the subject, which is about where the money and power flows in our society. What happens when we practice free-market capitalism as the conservatives like it and what happens when the liberals impose their restrictions on capitalism? In this country, both parties are in favor of capitalism, it's just a matter of degree. Some liberal programs like the New Deal, Medicare, The G.I. Bill and even the post office could rightly be called socialist programs. Whether or not you think such things are a good idea pretty much defines left and right.

The other day I learned that there was a fascist plot to raise an army of 500,000 men and take the white house from FDR in a coup d'etate. The General they tried to recruit to lead this army exposed the plot before a congressional committee in 1934. He told them that the backers were Wall Street big wigs and he named names. Familiar names like Du Pont, J.P.Morgan and other capitalist heros were included and Douglas MacArthur was their second choice to lead the fascist army. This was at a time when radio preachers and priests praised German fascism openly and when Pat Buchanan was a little boy, a portrait of Mussolini was lovingly hung in the family home. 

What's my point? Fascism has a certain feel, a certain attitude, a certain aesthetic and we can know what it is in our own culture. There are names and dates and events that go way back to when they invented fascism in the 1920's. I mean, it's not hard to document this history and it's a known quantity in that respect, but there is also a know-it-when-you-see-it thing that conservatives seem to lack. Or maybe it's a form of denial. But I think the proximity between big capital and fascism is something conservatives really, really ought to notice. Mussolini, the inventor of fascism, said that it really should be called "Corporatism" because it is essentially government by the corporations. 

What was that about there being five lobbyists for every representative in Washington? Who can deny that corporations run the US government?



What did the Supreme Court decide the other day about the free speech rights of corporations?


Okay, if this were the year 1710, I'd be a free-market guy and say boo! to the King. But to be a free-market purist in this world is kinda nuts.




 		 	   		  
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