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Published on Saturday, January 21, 2012 by Moyers & Company
Moyers & Company: Crony Capitalism
Bill Moyers and former White House budget director David Stockman on how politics and high finance have turned our economy into a members-only private club.
Moyers & Company Show 102: On Crony Capitalism from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.
© 2012 Public Affairs Television, Inc.
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Show AllStockman's distinction between free market capitalism and crony capitalism is bs. Capital will always be revolutionary in its form in seeking new markets for investment forms to create more capital in order to survive and must therefore always seek to legislate laws that benefit them, which is exactly what they did in order to establish capitalism in the first place, in re: britain's enclosure (property) laws of the 1800s to drive people off their land (deprive them of self subsistence) to force them into wage labor factory jobs. Remember, its always been about externalizing costs and internalizing profits from the exploitation of people and nature within a market society. And his argument that people are always greedy is only true in a social cullture which propagates it. But he did provide us with evidence of the corp/fin entitlement programs, excluding the mic, which need to be addressed rather than the ones for the common welfare of the population at large.
SocJustice4all: I love your code name. Thanks for your excellent post and a good warning about capitalism. As consumer Americans with even marginal financial success, we are so eager to see a foundational goodness of capitalism, and not its intrinsic injustices.
But I did indeed appreciate this video though. This video is part of a NEW and very powerful national conversation that is taking place throughout our nation about the greed of Wall Street and the rich that is long overdue. The Occupy Wall Street Movement is playing a vital part of this new national conversation as well. I think the OWS movement at this time is being greatly underestimated because it is vital factor in creating a new national conversation. What are the issues many are asking? The OWS movement does not want to be boxed in with a few issues. Lets be honest, where do you start with a dirty rotten system?
The 2012 election will be most interesting in that the many issues of the greed of unregulated capitalism and the absolute corporate control of American politics are being exposed with greater clarity than in any election since the great depression.
Thanks Bill Moyers for coming back, we need you to fight for American democracy as never before.
Great, though the future prognostications are not encouraging. BUT as in Moyers last or only interview with William L. Black, Black emphatically said that digging as deep as possible to uncover all the facts that will enable what must be done to stop these psychopaths from running rough shod and freely over the people of this country by crafting, drafting and passing into law regulations that provide a working free capitalist economy. As Stockman said it is the speculative bankers without regulations that are the problem, all of whom should be doing hard time and paying even harder fines for their crimes because is a properly functioning economy the real capitalists will adhere to the regulations and take their losses instead of bleeding the taxpayer dry in my eyes.
Truly indicative of what a psychopath can and will do. And what do the citizens have according to Mortenson, not the citizens united whom are the problem or good old boy club, but those of us who are being bled dry from citizens united, who are our lobbyists? No one at all. Especially when the congress, the president, the scotus(with its insidious citizens united decision) and the corporate world are all based on that citizens united that was dished out to us far to suddenly from behind closed doors. Another direct look into the treason of the supreme court, and its 5 ringwraiths that carried the decision.
And where is law enforcement? The AG of the u.s.? No where where they should be. Instead they are all off looking into 'extremist' rabbit holes ostensibly looking for what 'they' think are much more deleterious people more dangerous to this country than the real crooks whom still walk around free and rich.
Just another opportunity from Stockman to peddle the same old free market BS.
The big foundations sponsoring this program trouble me. Bill Mioyers is a good fellow, but this is a problem. What are the limites of what he can say. This isn't at all the way the BBC used to be with full public funding and no private funding required. If I'm not wrong even that's changed. All this is a problem.
Whenever private interests alone and no unions or others can fund such programs, that makes for problems, for limits on what such programs can cover or as one great jourrnalism prof of mine called thematic bias, certain topics being off limits. Off limits! That's a serious problem today and more so than ever before with the mass media concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer. Limits become tighter and tighter. Were it not for the internet being at all independent, we would really be in more trouble than we already are.
"Crony capitalism", "Corporatism" etc. are obfuscatory terms designed to rescue capitalism from its rightful place on the ash heap of history. Liberals like Moyers do a great disservice by insisting capitalism can be tamed. Any system premised on hierarchy and competition will destroy us sooner or later; our weapon systems do not afford the luxury of pretending otherwise.
Good points by Bill Moyers and his guests! But let's just say that the basic idea David Stockman puts forward that capitalists didn't get or expect speciall favors is just plain wrong. Even with classic British capitalism so defended by Adam Smith in his "Wealth of Nations" book we can see that the states, whether nation states such as Britain or citiy states created capitalism not the other way around. Without states, capitalism would never have been. Add to that the remark about people always being greedy. Wrong! Greed came after the creation of currencies by city and nation states not before, and that's was maybe a half dozen millennia ago out of at least 100 millennia of modern human existence. This doesn't take the least bit of Marxist analysis to come to such conclusions. The facts are there. The state came before capitalism, not the other way around. Why would Karl Marx look forward to the withering away of the state? "Surpirse!"
Now this! Why shouldn't a hugely successful and award winning British businessman such as David Erdal appear such a program. He could easily make the case for socialization of business, of all employee owned businesses which he has had a hand in making a solid success in Scotland in the north of the UK. But no way! Why not? Let's look at doing things differently which not only work well but provide tremendous benefits for all instead of short term huge gains for the one per cent? It not only can be done Erdal and others involved in his movement have shown it works. Read any of his work including his two books about business and how to do it, and all can learn and do better. Even those now profitting from their short term casino capitalist ventures will ultimately face the judgement of history and of others and forces beyond their control. If they won't learn in time, then we must learn and such folks as Erdal being on such programs as this is the way to address at least a big part of the problem. Other dimensions are likely involved as well. I have no quarell with those who say long term the aim may well be to nationalize or internationalize all industries for all the people. But we can take a step in the right direction at least by following the path blazed by Erdal and others in Scotland. We could do much worse and already have. Erdal unlike many Western business people is willing to learn from those in the Third World especially the IKung and others like them who have something to teach us in the West. We could all use such wise judgment. A different and better world is possible. But we must create it. Erdal and others in Scotland are on the job.
What Stockman calls a free market is not free. It's a regulated market that works with clear boundries. He's correct in saying that we do mave an entitlement system. But I think if you follow through on his definition of a free market you will still have an entitlement system.
Within that market certain players will begin do dominated and the crony facter will kick in again.
But Stockman did come right out and say, from an insider's vantage point, what I've been telling people for three decades: the large financial institutions are criminal conspiracies. What's her name, the lady reporter who followed Stockman, did a good job of explaining why it's worse having the large financial institutions -- colloquially known as Wall Street -- as corrupt and embedded in the government as they are.
The clueless rationalizations of well healed talking heads only serves the purposes of the elites. Yes Bill, we already know the sky is falling.
Obama protects, enables, hires and happily takes millions of dollars from the same corrupt sociopaths who engineered and destroyed our economy. The American people get nickel and dimed and hope to survive while the Ruling elite get billions and hope to get more. Thats not the "hope" and "change" we were looking for, Barry!
Crony capitalism is nothing but crime syndicates run by those that went to business schools teaching mafia business principles.
The distinction between ordinary capitalism and crony capitalism is--the stage of capitalism one is looking at. In its end pathological stages where monopoly is sought and attained in one way or another it is always "crony" monopolistic capitalism-- and it always brings about its own end-- usually in fomenting war. But, I forgot, America is exceptional. What has happened to others will never happen to us. We have the blessings of God on our side. In fact following the tenets of laissez faire is do here on earth the work of d the Diety we worship. Instead of waiting for our reward in the afterlife, Capitalism is our way of bringing Hell right now into the daily workings of the Earth here above.
Holey CHEESES!! Did ANYONE pay attention to the ads in the beginning? I thought it was Bill M. being SARCASTIC, and then it says "and our ONLY corporate sponsor.." BWAhahahaHAHA! What do you folks think all of those "non" profit organizations are? Where do you think they got their funding? Magicked in from another planet?
Oh, I'm sure someone is thinking of a witty comeback like "the ends justify the means" or "but they give back SO MUCH to the world". Read "America's 60 Families" by Ferdinand Lundberg.
The problem with the disparity between the wealthy and the poor is not that the poor don't get some of that unearned wealth: it is that the majority of that wealth is stolen from the future and should have been left in the ground in the first place. The machinery of civilization and humanity is (for the most part) running backward. Whether we choose capitalism or socialism or tribal jungleism doesn't matter. What matters is that we are taking more from our future selves than we give. "The opposite of consumption is not frugality: it is generosity." -Raj Patel
Capitalism has no form of responsibility. Humanism doesn't take responsibility for other species. Socialism (Robin Hoodies) are some kind of twisted form of both, but none are based on actual natural requirements of our future selves. The accumulation of wealth (see the ads for "foundations" again) is just a means of denying resources to some in order to keep those resources in the hands of a few. The accumulation itself needs to be moderated BEFORE it happens (consumption taxes), or else it does no good. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life. Teach a man to sell the fish and the oceans boil with propellers. That's capitalism. Crony capitalism is when Jesus and his followers are the only ones with boats, and they decide to let 80% of the people have 7% of the lake to fish in, while they tax them at 50% to pay for the government building piers on the Christian side of the lake.
What must End, What must Begin
War must end. Competition must end. Waste must end.
Peace must begin. Cooperation must begin. Bounty must begin.
Individual exploration must begin. Colonization of space must begin.
Capitalism must end. Poverty must end. Greed must end.
Selflessness must begin. Equality must begin. Compassion must begin.
Being rich must end. Being poor must end. Premature death must end.
Clean free energy must begin. Naturalism must begin.
Life must begin, again.
John Pontious 8/21/2011
www.johnpnts.wordpress.com
I caught part of this on television and appreciate the link here. Obviously Moyers is bought and paid for by the same moneyed interests that control the major news outlets, so anything on his program is suspect. However, I found Stockman very interesting (despite his inability to correctly say "2008"), especially in the perspective of his past association with Reagan. His views deserve to be considered -- I intend to study them more.
Really? I have yet to see M$M talk this out on their airwaves.
The first and most urgent GOAL, in my opinion, is to SEIZE ALL ASSETS of the CRIMINALS; THOROUGHLY INVESTIGATE, INDICT, PROSECUTE, FINE and IMPRISON...THE CRIMINALS!!!
If and only if THAT happens, can any of us go about restoring some semblance of law and order, basic civility, a measure of justice.
The fact of the matter is that, as it stands, the U.S. Department of Justice, along with any and all other law enforcement agencies, do absolutely NOTHING; In fact, the habitual, serial Felons, the criminals, get FULL Pardons, Full ASYLUM, right here in America; None are ever investigated, indicted, prosecuted or punished. In fact, each of them are ABOVE ALL LAWS.
And Just Remember: It was President Obama that clearly stated that he would not get involved in prosecutions of these (war crimes and financial terrorism) crimes; He said, "I want to look forward, not go backward."
Well, I say to him, I want to move forward by upholding both the U.S. laws and the world's laws. If we continue to totally ignore SERIOUS CONSTANT crimes and the criminals walk away scott-free every time, it only gives both the criminals and the would-be criminals license to behave as if they're above the law. And that is exactly how they conduct themselves.
Indeed this is a travesty...