OWS is missing the advantage of the Tea Party: combining disparate elements over the TARP and forgetting social issues. The TARP was a clear gift to the mercantilist elements of the financial sector. The social issues are there to divide us, but the mercantilists would like us to concentrate on distracting fights over unemployment benefits, taxes on earned income, illegal immigration and the deficit instead of private sector jobs.
MIDDLE CLASS MUST HAVE CAPITALISM
Mercantilism is the Enemy
Wayne Jett © October 17, 2011
Those protesting Wall Street oligarchs and those protesting Big Government spending have much more in common than even they think. They are all middle class who worry their prospects are suffering, although they propose conflicting political solutions and rhetorically attack each other. Each must awaken to this fact: their common oppressor is mercantilism – not capitalism.
Oligarchs and Mercantilism
Mercantilism is the historical name given to methods used by oligarchs to influence government and advance their agenda. First on the oligarch agenda is to increase their capital holdings by looting financial markets and by exploiting de facto monopolies in business. Greater capital brings them closer to complete control of government and, eventually, to full power without need for bending to the appearance of democratic process. Mercantilism effectively implemented builds this destructive cycle: greater capital builds greater government influence which brings greater capital, and on and on…Middle Class Grievances
Aligned interests of OWS and Tea Party are not obvious, largely because grievances are heavily camouflaged in political ideology. Essentially all activists in both groups are middle class, sprinkled with some who are poor. None is among the dominant elite, whose operatives watch, ready to spend or withhold money to determine the course of events.
Dig into Tea Party grievances and you quickly find distrust of financial sector influence in the events of 2008 which crippled the U. S. economy and brought unprecedented federal government intervention in private firms. Political outcry against widely perceived manipulation of crude oil prices to $147 per barrel in 2008 delivered many middle class voters to “change we can believe in.”
Distrust of financial sector influence over the Troubled Asset Recovery Program (TARP) $700 billion bailout of “too-big-to-fail” banks likewise produced 90%-plus popular opposition and initial defeat of TARP in the first House vote, despite bipartisan leadership touting passage. Such near-unanimous political activism is possible only when the middle class is united.
American liberals correctly believe oligarchs control U. S. policy and oppress the middle class and poor. Conservatives struggle valiantly to overcome “Eastern Establishment” influence which produces “Republican-in-name-only” elected officials and elitist-inspired government policies which heap regulatory and tax burdens ever higher on middle class producers.
These grievances from Left and Right are fundamentally the same. Conflict arises in designing solutions to the problem. The Left sees relief in bigger government called socialism. The Right wants smaller government, lower taxes and less regulation. Both Left and Right demand fairness, transparency and justice in the financial sector…
http://www.classicalcapital.com/Middle_Class_Must_Have.html
I’ve thought for a while that yes, I’m all for capitalism, but there was something about how capitalism is being applied that stunk.
The same writer speculates that OWS is turning into a stalking horse to discredit leftist populism with the general public.
as to why a lot of conservatives support the OWS movement. “too big to fail” are words that should live in infamy–especially when used by faux capitalists.
Fractious politics (and payoffs) have had the bad effect of making possible allies on right and left divide over the political process. Talkingpointsmemo.com, which I used to like, was overjoyed watching the Republicans become divided over the TARP vote. They thought that if it helped elect Obama, they might get a few crumbs from the table in the form of some kind of NEH grant, or a few banner ads from Chuck Shumer to fund an intern or something.
Even now the world is supposed to be panicked that the Greeks will stage their own Tea Party and reject a bailout of their financial class.
I think capitalism is great. But because I’ve advocated for any kind of regulation of it, I am called “anti-capitalist” or “socialist” by Republicans.
Sensible limits or regulations on capitalism are not anti-capitalist or socialist.
I think that to fight fire with fire, we should do the same right back, calling people “corporatist” if they talk about reducing taxes or regulation, or even keeping what we have, even sensible things. See how they like it.
any system comes with a set of costs and benefits. The question is do the costs outweigh the benefits. In the current state of affairs, we have an oligarchical capitalism that is killing the rest of us. The question isn’t capitalism or not capitalism; the question is what form of capitalism.
Tea Partiers and OWS may recognize the same problems and concerns, but the problem with the Tea Party, aside from their co-optation, is that their solutions would result in the increase of money and power in the hands of the 1%. Seventy to eighty percent of our problems are due to the Republicans; 100% of our problems are due to conservatism, an economically and morally bankrupt political philosophy.
Capitalism helped many more people survive childhood and live better lives as adults. There are other systems that can work, I grant that, but here in America we seem to want the one we have, with all its inequalities. I have met many Europeans who move here for the advantages you get by living in a society that allows achievers to achieve. They complain about healthcare etc, but they’re not moving back.
“…here in America we seem to want the one we have…”
I think you’re mistaken. Most of us want the system we had in 1980. Relentless deregulation and massive corporate welfare have degraded our quality of life, reduced social mobility, and punished the middle class.
Well said. Seventy sixes for you!
of knowing what we “seem” to want, we all know that the status quo isn’t sustainable.
Furthermore, “allowing achievers to achieve” means what exactly? Having exponentially more wealth than one ever needs? Achieving only for the sake of money? You’re mouthing capitalist ideology as if it were fact. How many more entrepreneurs would we have if they didn’t need to worry about health insurance?
I also know Europeans.
Here’s one anecdote: My friend from Denmark was the CEO of a bus company, a position that has a de facto term of 5 years. When he was making a lot as CEO, he complained about his taxes. His wife, who is a teacher, was more circumspect.
When he was eventually let go, he had a year and a half of automatic unemployment. He took a bike trip to Spain. The government would pay so he could go to school to train for another job. He never had to worry about health insurance. He didn’t have to worry about his kids education. He now regards the amount he paid in taxes as a benefit.
A few years ago, he thought about moving to America. Although his expertise in running a bus company that served Scandinavia and Eastern Europe was of little value here, he would have had to educate his children and pay for health care.
With that said,
The idea that achievers should be ‘allowed’ to achieve needs to be unpacked here: isn’t the ‘allowance’ an implicit admission that some limits obtain? Should achievers be ‘allowed’ to achieve monopoly? Should achievers be allowed to ‘achieve’ wholesale destruction of competition?
But the seamy underside of this argument, “allowing achievers to achieve”, is the utterly ridiculous notion that they amassed great wealth on the strength of their productivity and their productivity alone: as if by leaving them alone they would concoct, implement, build and protect their wealth without let or hindrance from any. I’m not simply implying government involvement here, though that is certainly germane, but even more the factory floor: 1% percent of the population owning 40% (or greater) of the wealth means that 100% of productivity gains aren’t shared by 100% of the workers.
Or, put another way, if the entire village farms but the 1% gets to eat 40% of the crops, can the 1% claim, with a straight face, that they are responsible for that much of the harvest? What have they ‘achieved’ that wasn’t in concert with the entire village?
… fuzzy logic.
Mercantalism is the control of markets by the government. OWS is concerned, and rightly so, about control of government by the markets, an entirely different kettle of fish. The problem here, being didactic, is ‘regulatory capture’: wherein market players don’t dispute the basic premise of regulation so long as they get to write them…
“capitalism” is a loosely defined catch-all term that, truly, has little cache amongst economists and can’t be compared with or contrasted to mercantilism.
I don’t know what you’re arguing about, if you reread your own comment can you come up with something that isn’t represented in the original snips I put up?
Obviously in mercantilism the guys who run the companies are buddies with the guys who run the government. Are you so naiive as to believe that one type of very good person will sit only on the government side of the revolving door while some very evil people will be on the business side? And the door never revolves?