EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- Corporate Win: Supreme Court Says Monsanto Has 'Control Over Product of Life'
- Cornel West: Obama 'Is a War Criminal'
- Ignoring Bee Crisis, EPA Greenlights New 'Highly Toxic' Pesticide
- In 'March Toward Disaster,' World Hits 400 PPM Milestone
- Revealed: How US State Department 'Twists Arms' on Monsanto's Behalf
Popular content
Today's Top News
Challenging the Self-Made Myth
Over the last thirty years, anti-government arguments by conservative pundits and politicians have gained prominence, and the rhetoric this 2012 campaign season seems more toxic than ever. Republicans are relentlessly pushing the notion that lower taxes, less regulation and small government (except for defense) will magically end the recession and create a better country, and “job creators” will lift all boats.
It’s BS. As Congressman Barney Frank recently said, “I’ve never seen a tax cut put out a fire. I’ve never seen a tax cut build a bridge.”
Americans benefit every day from government—from consumer protection to roads and bridges to food and safety regulation—even people who claim to hate an “activist government” are some of the prime beneficiaries of the safety net at a moment when there are still over four unemployed workers for every available job and nearly one in six Americans lives in poverty.
But the GOP has wagered its future on ruthlessly and relentlessly attacking government—it isn’t about to let reality get in the way of its crusade.
Republican presidential candidates are tripping all over one another trying to prove who will take the biggest axe to government the quickest. So Mitt Romney labels regulations “the invisible boot of government to bring us all down” and argues that “we need to get the federal government out of education.” Rick Santorum fearmongers about “the narcotic of government dependency,” and Gingrich plays to old myths and racial stereotypes as he spreads lies about food stamps—one of the bright spots of the safety net in terms of responding to the needs of the Great Recession.
Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy is spot on in writing of Republican presidential plans to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency and FEMA, “So what happens when disaster strikes? Who comes to the rescue—the local church, the Rotary Club? Who ensures that our food is safe, the air and water clean?”
Understanding that government has always been fundamental to the success of individuals, businesses, communities and this nation is becoming a key issue in the 2012 election. Even if it must also be reclaimed from Super PACs, lobbyists, and Washington insiders, the problem isn’t “Big Government,” it’s Big Money capturing government.
No one has homed in on the need to reset the narrative on government more effectively than Elizabeth Warren who laid out her cogent argument simply and powerfully in a gritty video clip that went viral: “There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. You built a factory? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”
President Obama, too, picked up on this theme in his State of the Union address when he said, “No one built this country on their own. This nation is great because we built it together. This nation is great because we worked as a team. This nation is great because we get each other’s backs.”
These ideas are reflected in a new book—The Self-Made Myth, by United for a Fair Economy’s Brian Miller and Mike Lapham. Former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich says, “This book challenges a central myth that underlies today’s anti-government rhetoric: that an individual’s success is the result of gumption and hard work alone. Miller and Lapham clearly show that personal success is closely tied to the supports society provides. Must reading for all who want to get our nation back on track.”
A central thesis of the book is that the greater an individual’s success, the greater his or her dependence on public infrastructure, public investment in research and innovation, and regulations and fair rules—all of which business leaders in the book cite as essential to their own accomplishments.
Indeed, the profiles of business people who recognize the important role government plays in their success are one of the great contributions of The Self-Made Myth. Kim Jordan, CEO of New Belgium Brewing, talks about the roads carrying Fat Tire beer around the nation. Glenn Lloyd of City Fresh Foods and Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream discuss the confidence provided by food safety regulations. Thelma Kid, co-founder of David-Kidd Booksellers in Tennessee, cites the importance of a Small Business Administration loan she received in helping her to break through the glass ceiling. The book also debunks the tiresome claims by the likes of Donald Trump, Ross Perot and the Koch Brothers that “self-made” means supporting a “you’re on your own” kind of politics and economy.
The 1 percenters profiled in this book are ready to stand with the 99 percent, and they aren’t alone. Co-author Lapham is founder of Responsible Wealth, a network of over 700 business leaders and wealthy individuals that advocate for more progressive taxation. There are also thousands of “high-road” businesses represented by the American Sustainable Business Council, devoted to a vibrant, just and sustainable economy. More than fifty local chambers of commerce have denounced or canceled memberships in the US Chamber because its hyper-corporatized ways fail to represent the values of small businesses and entrepreneurs who are connected and committed to their communities. What all of this means is there’s now a real and growing potential for new alliances between progressives and businesspeople who recognize that we are all in this together.
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
84 Comments so far
Show All"...there’s now a real and growing potential for new alliances between progressives and businesspeople..."
"Partnering" with corporations to overthrow the power of corporations?
LOL - by working within the system, we change it. hahahahaha! Participating in the political process will make a difference. Hohohoho! The tooth fairy will leave money under your pillow -- oh, wait a minute! I actually believe in the last one.
There I agree with where I think you are going, the combination of state and business power always leads to destructive cronyism.
There is no such thing as a capitalist country where business and government are not closely interwoven. That would also be the case in your small local community model, by the way. Your small local hardware store would represent the business interests in the community, and you would have some form of "state" or government, if only to coordinate the defensive militia you alluded to earlier. You had better believe that the hardware store owner and the governing body would be combined every bit as much - or more so - than Haliburton and the US federal government are now..
To the extent that people can be convinced that opening co-ops is in their interest then the interest of the local face to face unmediated governance and the people are the same.
I would also note that if some small communities do become corrupt then they wouldn't have the resources to make war on the world, or to imprison and enslave millions like the Bolshevik Communists did
And what was Bolshevik Communism? It was state capitalism on a large scale and as a a one party state with no citizen input into governance with no even weak checks and balances. Bolshevik Communism might be the one possibly worst alternative to U.S. imperial soft fascism, the fact that anyone would choose it deliberately is actually astonishing to me.
IMO we work best when we are neither fully self made, nor government made, but rather when we work together in our communities to engage in mutual aid and to set up cooperatives to serve our needs. Dim party shill Vanden Heuvel is wrong IMO that we need a big Federal nation state to coerce us to work together. A shame really the Nation USED to be very supportive of anti authoritarian leftists like Alexander Cockburn, but that is alas long ago, and now the Nation more often than not shills for the Dims and centralized statism.
Cooperatives are distinctly communistic.
Perhaps you are in favor of "good" communism and opposed to "bad" communism. What then makes you so sure that the people you are so viciously attacking on CD are the "bad" communists - especially since they agree with you on most issues?
What is the fundamental difference between "work(ing) together in our communities to engage in mutual aid and to set up cooperatives to serve our needs" on the one hand, and "centralized statism" on the other? Size? What is to prevent the small local community cooperative from becoming authoritarian? Are we to believe that small scale operations are less likely to become authoritarian than large ones?
I am in favor of co-ops controlled directly by workers ie non coercibly, as opposed to an inner party "dictatorship of the proletariat," controling the means of production that never "withers away." Lennin and Trotsky crushed worker self manged co-ops including "council Communists," anarchist trade Unions, and Menshevik organizations. Not to mention slaughtering people owning, owner operated "peasant" farms
Yes some small communities may be regressive, in a decentralized system at least the damage is contained, unlike a centralized system where regressive and aggressive statism leads to imperial aggression due to the concentrated resources at hand for the large power to utilize.
I, too, am "in favor of co-ops controlled directly by workers ie non coercibly,"
The fact that "in a decentralized system at least the damage is contained" is not necessarily a good thing. I would cite the example of slavery in this country.
Slavery was supported by the U.S. centrlized nation state up until the outbreak of the civil war, Dred Scott ring a bell?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford
When I say decentralized I mean REALLY decentralized, not states rights, but breaking up the the nation state into country/watershed sized units. I hope you are not going to tell me that some U.S. country is just hankering to reestablish slavery? Good luck with that one, African Americans would fight back with armed force and I would support them in that struggle. But of course we are not going to even see that, so your straw man, is just that a straw man.
I would also point out that the CURRENT state far from supporting the aspirations of the 99% most often employs brutal policing force against it, when we are talking about the present. We live in the present, remember?
Don't be absurd. Do you think that southern states - southern towns as far as that goes, little local communities - needed the US Supreme Court in order to maintain slavery?
You are making the same cause and effect errors that are the hallmark of Ron Paul supporters.
Of course I was not saying that "some U.S. country is just hankering to reestablish slavery" - whatever that means. It is an example as to how "local" is not always better. I can't help but notice, though, that you assume that if slavery were re-introduced that it would be African Americans who would be enslaved. Why are you making that assumption?
With your "watershed sized units" what prevents oppression? Nothing that I can see. What prevents one of these "watershed sized units" from conquering or dominating the other "watershed sized units?" Nothing that I can see.
If you are imagining some transformation where everyone - and it would have to be everyone - agrees with your ideas about idyllic life, I would say that is not going to happen. Certainly screaming at people that they are commies with blood on their hands, and saying that you are watching for "them" with your gun loaded and cocked is not a good approach to achieving that, in any case.
Oh really, if my watershed has an armed militia I would in fact say that's an excellent preventative from your watershed attempting to conquer me.
Are you denying BTW that Bolshevik's in Russia killed many millions of people? Why would I trust someone who proclaims that murderous ideology?
This civil war you are describing is entirely in your imagination. You are projecting. You are the one obsessed with armed conflict.
I am not talking about, nor have I talked about, these "murdering Bolsheviks" of your imagination.
Murder can be, and is, committed under all sorts of banners. It is not an "ideology" that does the killing, it is people who do the killing. If some murdering group of people calling themselves "Anarchists" - and there have been such groups in history - were responsible for massacres, would you then call Anarchism a "murdering ideology" and change your views? Would you feel that it was incumbent upon you to take responsibility for their actions and denounce your own views?
The libertarianism you are promoting has killed many people, by the way.
Yes lets please do a historical comparison, I will bet you a hundred dollars that anarchists of all varieties all over the globe for hundreds of years have killed quite literally 5 percent as many people as Bolshevik Communists in the Soviet Union alone. Don't be shy, lets bet! Or do you in fact realize I am right that Bolsheviks do have 20 TIMES as much blood on their hands in ONE country as all anarchists globally over human history? You might start to see why I am wary around people who are coy at best about whether or not they are a member of the Communist party and who are most definitely proud Marxists? It's the endless bloodshed stupid!
BTW I am not promoting "libertarianism," I am saying left anarchists and Libertaraians have some common cause in opposing crony capitalist "liberals", neo-cons, and Bolshevik Communists in the area of opposing endless war and police state for example. But I ought not be surprised you are lying about me, Communists have been lying about anarchists for a 150 years.
I know it's hard for indoctrinated "comrades" to understand but some of us read widely and are tolerant of a multiplicity of ideologies as long as they oppose corporatism, imperialist/mercantilist war, and coercive policing.
Sigh!
What does any of that have to do with our debate here? Nothing.
"Your team (according to me) is worse than my team (according to me)." What sort of argument is that?
I am not accepting your whole "team" view of reality. Stand on your own two feet, speak for yourself. You don't need a "team" of the good guys to associate yourself with, and assigning another person to some evil "team" and then deriding them upon that basis is not a serious argument. You are using these imaginary teams to buttress your own self-identity, and as an excuse to attack others and find an outlet for your anger and hostility. That makes the discussion all about you and your feelings, and that topic is not if particular interest to anyone else.
You are in fact promoting Team Paul here and not taking responsibility for that. It is tactical, conditional you say. You are not a "fundamentalist" Paul supporter, you say. But when it comes to others you attack them for allegedly supporting a team that they in fact have not promoted, that does not even exist except in your imagination. Can you not see the inconsistency and hypocrisy in that?
Can you not see that this is the exact same construction that the "lesser of two evils" people are using for their argument?
Can you not see that while you refuse to be identified with your team - the Ron Paul team - you hypocritically take the opposite stance when it comes to anyone who disagrees with you, and assign them to some evil team and then go about attacking that imaginary team and demanding that they defend it?
Those that worked their slaves to death relatively quickly did. Insofar as an escaped slave was stolen property, they did. If enough slaves escape, of whatever ethnic variety, and put up a defence, it would take a state to reenslave them.
The wealthy and powerful few will always create whatever organizations they need in order to enslave people. We call those organizations "states" when they are large. There is nothing magical about the state. It is merely the expression of power, not the source of power.
By that reasoning, there is no reason to struggle. Moreover, it ignores completely the motivations of those participating in the state. Gone is the petty nationalism of the soldier and police officer. Suddenly, money (I presume) / abstract power is sufficient. What power does Bill Gates have, without the US state protecting the value of his investments? Ditto Monsanto? Ditto Lockheed Martin? If any of these enterprises were to put their investments into armaments for their own use (primitive accumulation), they'd quickly run into a huge problem. All the mercenary outfits are at the mercy of their funders - one bit of funny business, and they get no more contracts, and probably not even the rest of the equipment they need to complete the contract in which the funny business started. And companies from which country are the main patrons of mercenaries? Has that really nothing to do with the US state's military power and resulting economic parasitism?
Bill Gates and those in his class can, and would, hire mercenary forces, probably through proxies, to protect his interests.
You are under the mistaken impression that capitalists make or produce something, and that this is their interest. They exploit whatever activity is happening. They would exploit the bow and arrow trade and sell to private plantation owners for use by the mercenary armies of the plantation owners if that were what was available to exploit.
The US military IS a mercenary force protecting private interests. It is delusional to think that there is something magical about calling it a "state" operation or a "government" and that the fact that it is a "government" or a "state" changes anything.
Ron Paul says that if we get government - the state - out of the way, Capitalism will flourish and all will be well. Some are promoting Paul with the bizarre argument that if we get rid of government or the state Capitalism will collapse.
You say:
You are under the mistaken impression that capitalists make or produce something, and that this is their interest. They exploit whatever activity is happening. They would exploit the bow and arrow trade and sell to private plantation owners for use by the mercenary armies of the plantation owners if that were what was available to exploit.
I say, sometimes they own companies that produce, sometimes not. I make no claim as to production being their interest.
Second, while the US military is a mercenary force, what you say doesn't follow. The soldier is generally not there out of a mercenary motivation, and the population (you in particular) support the US military (financially - taxes). Most of your fellow citizens support the US military out of nationalism; what purposes the military is put to does not change the nationalistic motivation of common support for the military. Moreover, the pay that mercenaries receive is only redeemable with a state (thus the foolishness of the 'anarcho-capitalist' schools of thought - without the state, people are far more willing to reject money).
But the same is true of the rest of the US state - it mostly acts out of mercenary motivations, and only where great struggles have generated healthy outcomes (and where those haven't been overturned) are socially beneficial results apparent. You are surely aware that the capitalist class pays minimal taxes, and that the state gets much of its funds from relatively poor individuals, i.e. through payroll taxes and sales taxes, are you not? What this means is that although the US military performs a mercenary task on behalf of the capitalist class, it is not mainly funded by that class.
As for Paul, you might find the argument bizarre (removing the state is a blow to capitalism), but to me it is sensible - without a highly subsidized (by the impoverished of the world - dollar/wallstreet regime) military, the world's capitalist class must suddenly pay the full cost of their violence to continue their predation on others. While capitalism as such won't necessarily collapse, it will be weakened, if Paul makes good on his promise.
You haven't shown how Paul supports the neo-mercantile postwar (actually, prewar, albeit not as US centric) system.
If, as I said and you agreed with, that capitalists are not primarily concerned with making or producing anything, then their system cannot be dependent upon oil.
Young men have always been attracted to the adventure and danger of war - "nationalism" is a relatively modern phenomenon and therefore not a necessary, or even important ingredient. Pay for mercenary soldiers has existed often throughout history without any need for 'redemption" by a "state."
The state does not get most of its funds from poor people. While poor people, and working class people in general, are taxed at higher rates and so the tax burden is disproportionately higher for us in relative terms, in terms of absolute dollars the wealthy pay more. Anyway, it is not about "funds" it is about power and control over others.
The capitalists are not voluntarily "subsidized" by the working class people through the government. The capitalists forcibly take what they want. They do not "pay" any share of expenses, through or by government or not, since whatever funds they have in the first place were taken from the labor of others.The government is not the source of their wealth. Labor is. The workplace is where they exploit the working class, not the government. Once having exploited the labor of the working class, they then - and only then - have the power to control governments.
Do you not think that Paul supports commercial private interests over public? Do you not think that Paul is a friend to management, to the owners, to the propertied?
While capitalists are not primarily concerned with production (to wit, finance capitalism), without production occurring, capitalists have nothing to parasitise on. Without mammals and birds to parasitise on, mosquitos are in an uncomfortable position - their populations cannot grow.
While young men may to various degrees have been attracted to war, they have of their own volition only supported winning sides when proto-nationalistic motives weren't available (proto-nationalistic includes e.g. support for empires, in the case of the Russian Tsarist wars).
While mercenaries have always existed, they have usually carried out more circumspect roles than those carried out by state armies. In the last 100 years, how many wars were won, or coup d'etats were carried out by mercenaries (in the sense of non-state armies that were not guerrilla forces)? I'm asking not about the mere presence of mercenaries, but about their significance as infantry, cavalry and similar units.
As to funds vs power and control, I'd say that it is all of them. Funds imply a certain degree of purchase of power and control, which arises of a state - otherwise you merely have clan leaders and warlords. And wars consume huge fortunes. I'd have to check as to whether the wealthy do pay more - the wealthiest 1.5% of households make more than 250k, so we are talking of about 0.5% or so - I don't think that they pay substantial taxes.
As to subsidization of the capitalists, it need not be voluntary - your argument is a strawman. The relevant question is the effort that the capitalists need to put in (money spent) versus what they gain - a million spent on a year's campaigns nets a return on the order of tens or hundreds of billions. That is subsidization, whatever you want to call it.
As for the workplace, if you want to claim labour theory of value, then the world is parasitizing off south, south-east, and east Asia and the Caribbean. Only to the limited extent that production occurs in North America is your argument viable. If you want to claim labour theory of value, then you have to buy the US definition libertarian argument that middle men add value. A serious interpretation of the labour theory of value suggests that the customer is stealing the labour in a tertiary industry, with some additional theft by the management. Watch what is is for which you are hoping.
Even to the extent that the labour theory of value is relevant to North America, the purpose of taxation of the wealthy (if you take your argument about the wealthy paying the most taxes seriously) is precisely to return the stolen labour value, so I'm frankly mystified as to why you'd object to the subsidization argument.
As to Paul's motives, I'd imagine he would like to support the capitalist classes, but his program is plainly against their interests, given their current configuration of power. But who in the politician class is not a friend to management, the owners and the propertied?
Excellent. You make many good points here. Thank you for this discussion.
Of course as a Dim Party shill she neglects in the article that Obama issued an executive order - while penning an Op-Ed in Rupert Murdoch's WSJ - essentially ordering federal agencies to ignore the law when it comes to regulating business.
Instead of that we get a rebuke of Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney, neither of whom actually hold political office at the moment.
The idea of "self-made" was also explored in the fabulous book "The Trouble with Billionaires" by Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks. Here's a sample: "Our society tends to regard large fortunes as evidence of great talent or accomplishment. Yet the vast new wealth isn't due to an increase in talent or effort at the top, but rather to changing social attitudes legitimizing greed and government policy changes that favour the new elite." Worth reading. Here are some reviews: http://www.lindamcquaig.com/Books.cfm?Review=Billionaires
Yes capitalists do their best to seize the reigns of government to write the rules in their favor. Therefore the answer is a bigger state while leaving capitalism is place, to give the crony capitalists even MORE leverage when they seize the reigns of power?
Fail!
Only by breaking both the power of the centralized state AND the corporate and finance sector in radical ways either though revolution or collapse will the viscous feedback loop between statism and big business be broken in America IMO. I don't see the American public being educated enough to do it on a voluntary basis, and what the Nation proposes is WORSE ie giving big business an even BIGGER state to use as it's toy.
Thanks for the cite to the Linda McQuaig book. Never heard of her before, but she has an impressive list of books on her website. Unfortunately, The Trouble with Billionaires is out of print, but I ordered it from the library.
This article is horrible:
"No one has homed in on the need to reset the narrative on government more effectively than Elizabeth Warren..." What "reset the narrative," to bombing Iran?
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/10/elizabeth-warrens-job-plan-war-with-iran.html
On her website for her senate bid under "issues" she has the obligatory suck to AIPAC and the Zionists.
The progressive world view contains a fundamental flaw that postulates that by increasing the size of the government that big business can be managed for the public good. But that is not what happens, what happens instead is big business captures the big state (corporate perso nhood ring a bell?) and uses that power to advantage large businesses that ally themselves with state power which is literal fascism.
Progressives also tend to support bailouts of too big to fail corporations like the auto industry which is another move out of Mussolini's playbook:
"Historian Gaetano Salvemini argued in 1936 that fascism makes taxpayers responsible to private enterprise, because "the State pays for the blunders of private enterprise... Profit is private and individual. Loss is public and social."[7] Fascist governments encouraged the pursuit of private profit and offered many benefits to large businesses, but they demanded in return that all economic activity should serve the national interest."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_fascism
You can see these quite literal fascist policies being supported by both "liberals," neo-cons in the American politcal system. The only people opposing this quite literal fascist combination of state and big business, and fianance power, are left wing anarchists and right wing Libertarians. That being the case we ought to keep the lines of communication open even if we don't agree on all particulars IMO.
In the spirit of your suggestion that "we ought to keep the lines of communication open even if we don't agree on all particulars," a few observations:
Many progressives think that business can be managed for the public good at the local level, and advocate for that.
What stops big business from capturing the small "state" - the small local cooperatives or communities?
"Left wing anarchists and right wing Libertarians" are not "the only people opposing at combination of state and big business." Libertarians do not oppose it at all. Ron Paul certainly does not, either. He opposes government - of any kind, big small, local, national - interfering with business. That is beyond fascism, that is corporate rule.
Actually that is not exactly true Ron Paul opposes corporate person-hood, bailouts, the private bank controlled Federal Reserve, and the government contracting to favored businesses, all factors that increase not reduce corporatism.
I put it this way on Facebook:
"Some of the worst corporatism arises from cronyism like the military industrial complex, remove that and Boeing, Raytheon, Blackwater, etc are gone. More cronyism arises from too big to fail bailouts of companies like Goldman Sachs, the auto industry, etc, Still more corporatism arises from intellectual property travesties like SOAPA that are actually more supported by Dims who who receive a lot of funding from the movie and music industry and do nothing but protect big software monopolies like Micro$oft, Apple, and big record companies at the expense of you being able to download new music and maybe go to a concnert to support an artist you have never heard before.
http://torrentfreak.com/presidential-candidate-ron-paul-slams-sopa-111229/
Corporate personhood is another statist protection of big business that Ron Paul and most Libertarians oppose:
http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/08/ron-paul-rebukes-romney-corporations-are-not-people/
Ron Paul opposes all those things. Ron Paul actual opposes crony state capitalism in general. So to say Paul is wholly supportive of big business as it stands is utterly simplistic when in fact Oily Bomber supports more cronyism than Paul. While I do share a concern that Paul may try to sell the parks, or remove the minimum wage or environmental and health and safety regulations, IMO the best long term strategy for people who care is to withdraw money from the capitalist economic system and support local co-ops, credit unions, community gardens, locally owned green power projects, roof top wind and solar, etc. THAT us what will produce real grass roots change towards a more local sustainable society. Although regulations may mediate some of the worst excesses of big business too often regulators are co-opted by the industries they regulate producing the appearance of better practices without the actual substance. I do not want to see mere surface reform of the current corporate capitalist society, I would like to see it ended, which I actually think in some ways is MORE likely if someone like Paul is in charge and we cut the military budget and have more to invest in local co-ops, community gardens, bike lanes, etc. If we fail to persuade people to live in healthier more humane sustainable way then I think we need to look in the mirror and ask WHY we aren't doing better at outreach rather than hoping some magic statist bullet is going to the fix the problem for us, without us having to lift a finger to make it work. Do YOU shop at your local co-op and buy organic? I do. Do YOU go to your local peace march regardless of which political party is in power overseeing empire? I do. Do YOU confront religious and spiritual idiocy when you see it? I do. It's all about punk anarchist do it yourself if a truly progressive social vision is going to win IMO.
As empire winds down and we run out of fossil fuels and global warming makes conditions more harsh we are going to have to work together in our communities to make it, and make it with style and communal spaces for art, libraries, health clinics, parks, etc. Are you ready to make that vision a reality? I am and from what I can see the Federal government has nothing to do with actually making it happen. I do think it's going to require a lot talking across artificial boundaries that may make people uncomfortable. Are YOU ready to talk to your local hardware store owner to see if they will sponsor a community garden after empire and agribusiness falls? I am."
Now I do agree with you that unregulated capitalism can lead to cartels and monopolies for the reasons I out line here:
"Lets assume there is no state at all and we have just a market say in oil. The initial player say Rockefeller perhaps owns land with lower production costs, thus getting to market early with lower prices. He grows doing that and other local oil production businesses fail, and thus he has a local monopoly which he expands by buying other oil production companies, thus expanding to a national and even global monopoly. What is to stop that in a 100% unregulated market other than wishful thinking? And again somewhere along the way this "Rockefeller" realizes coercion and safety and labor cost cutting maximizes his profits, again what is stop that in a wholly unregulated market?
I would say unregulated markets have sensitivity to initial conditions clumping around early actors or those who for sometimes random reasons have initial lower production cost as described by Ilya Prigogine in his work on self organizing systems only in this case the self organization is the bad outcome of monopoly. :("
The answer to that though IMO is NOT top down Bolshevik Communism, but rather face to face direct democracy leading to chartering local businesses to the local community, and educational outreach in favor of cooperatives. If we can not bring about cooperatives by non coercive means that means the flaw lies within us in terms of outreach and we need to try harder IMO.
Corporations do not need "corporate personhood" to have power. Corporate personhood is an expression of corporate power, not a cause of it. Nor do corporations depend upon government handouts. Given that some of the wealth produced by labor goes into the pubic treasury, and given that the Capitalists want it all, then, yes, under those circumstances corporations go for government handouts. Again, government corruption is an effect of corporate power, not the cause if it.
Paul cannot and will not rein in the empire. However, his campaign most definitely can give momentum to the privatization agenda. Do you really think that the end of Capitalism is more likely by promoting Ron Paul?
I still don't understand how big business would be less likely to dominate small local governments than big national governments. By "government" I mean the system by which a group of people manage their community, whatever size it may be.
How is an investment model a good thing at the local level, and a bad thing on a bigger scale? You say cut taxes, and then "we" will have "more to invest in local co-ops, community gardens, bike lanes, etc." By what mechanism?
I am not talking about any "magic statist bullet," by the way.
I do not think that the empire will just benignly wind down or fade away. Libraries, parks, health clinics and the other things you want to see have always been accomplished buy governments - local or national. Those public institutions have enjoyed a broad consensus of people for support, they have not depended upon coercion.
I don't agree that "the flaw is within us" nor that changing individual lifestyles or beliefs is the solution.
Wow you are wrong about almost literally everything you have posted here impressive.
Many of our major corporations ARE dependent either on direct state purchasing of their goods or services or statist laws for survival. The MIC companies rely directly on state patronage, and computer companies on state enacted intellectual property laws that for example prevent Linux coders from duplicating propitiatory software and giving it away as free open source software. Monsanto and other agribusiness companies rely on intellectual property laws to control the seed market, and the state to suppress raw milk producers and other competitors, and large agribusiness farms receive agriculture subsidies from the government that unfairly advantage them in relation to small local organic farms. The auto companies rely on bailouts to survive. The banks and financial services sector of the economy which is something like 40% of the economy in our leverage fraud driven economy gets bailouts and other state assistance such as private bank controlled Federal Reserve manipulating the economy, and government issued fiat money which encourages running the printing presses to fund wars. So we have the cartel computer, aerospace, arms, auto industry, agribusiness, and banks and financial services industries that rely DIRECTLY on statism to exist, ie they would not exist in a non statist economy. That right there is a substantial fraction of the economy.
As for stopping the wars Ron Paul as commander and chief could do so the very day he was elected, and would further likely do so as he has consistently voted against funding the wars, or starting or continuing new ones for over two decades. Ron Paul opposes imperialism ie wars to support corporate interests which he sees as a form of mercantilism and not as a true free market.
"Mercantilist oil dependency was reason for war."
http://www.issues2000.org/ron_paul.htm#War_+_Peace
Stopping wars is in fact one thing he DOES have real power over. What he would not have power over is the budget which is written by Congress so in fact he would face substantial resistance to cutting popular programs like Social Security.
Taking money away from the military industrial complex would leave more money to fund local parks, health clinics, community gardens, museums, libraries, bike trails, co-ops, local alternative power, and other local public goods. It would of course require local political will to do so, ie rather than relying on top down coercion we are going to have to up our game in getting a more humane, and sustainable point of view across in local politics. Will we always win? No of course not, I was disappointed to hear the NIMBY crowd defeated placing wind power towers in Benzie county in your neck of the woods for example. But I believe in the long run as the fossil fuel era winds down that people WILL support local agriculture and local alternative energy out of self interest.
While I would prefer a Green/Murray Bookchin type leadership to Ron Paul, I do believe Ron Paul by starting to dismantle the Federal government can actual put more resources in the hands of those communities that wisely choose to go in a Green direction.
You are just repeating your arguments over and over again. You are not addressing my rebuttals.
There is nothing about "local" that will prevent corporations from privatizing and exploiting public resources and research.
Again you say that Ron Paul will "dismantle the Federal government" - that is the agenda of the extreme right wing and corporations, by the way - and this would "put more resources in the hands of those communities that wisely choose to go in a Green direction." It would also put more resources and power into the hands of communities that would not wisely choose, and would not "go green." How could you make sure that these resources would go into the hands of those communities that "choose wisely" and "go in a Green direction?"
I really don't get this - you attack the Left whenever someone doesn't agree with you, making the same arguments that the extreme right wing makes, while promoting the extreme right wing candidate in some vague hope that this would somehow help the Left. These positions are illogical and self-contradictory.
You say "I would prefer a Green/Murray Bookchin type leadership to Ron Paul" and I think that is the problem. You are trying to create a political philosophy based on your personal preferences, your personal beliefs. I have to point out again that this is not "Anarchism" or any other sort of radical politics, but rather is pure "middle class" idealism.
The politics of personal preferences, personal beliefs, personal feelings, and personal ideals will always be reactionary. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with your personal preferences, personal beliefs, personal feelings, and personal ideals, rather it is to say that they do not make for a coherent political agenda and will never produce the results you say you are hoping to attain. Those politics also cause a tremendous amount of divisiveness and bitter feuding, because you are promoting a personal agenda and attacking other people for what you imagine to be their personal agendas - all based on invisible and intangible things such as beliefs and feelings. That never goes well, and it makes serious political discussion very difficult.
And when has the centralized nation state in power ever promoted this wondrous utopia you speak of? It hasn't, all nation states have brought us is energy intensive wars that draw down our stocks faster and police state. That is why yes I am interested in dialog between the anarchist left and Libertarian right to unify and bring down the coercive state, and liberate people to no longer feel they have to live on a grand and globalist scale which promote the fast consumption of resources but rather withdraw to their communities and liew within the ecological budget of the region they live in ala Wendell Berry.
I suspect you understand this in actually practice outside your monstrous Bolshevik theorizing, or you wouldn't choose to live in northern Michigan where there is no industrial proletariat at all, but rather a lot of petite bourgeoisie (in your terminology) independent artisans/small business people. If you REALLY believe your Commie crap how come you aren't in Detroit organizing auto workers who are some of the last industrial proletariat ACTUALLY left in America? Could it be your don't eat your own dog food, and in fact agree with me that local self rule in a rural context is preferable to urban industrialism? When push comes to shove I look at what people DO, not what they say, which 99 times out of 100 is some bullshit after the fact rationalization for behavior. Your ACTUAL lifestyle is not very Communist is it?
As I said, I don't think you want to go there with personal attacks and speculation about another poster's private life. "People who live on glass houses..." If you knew half as much about me as you think you do, you would know that I work in agriculture and not in the town you think I am in. I don't know you, and it is stalking to try to figure out, or expose the identity and location of a poster here.
Look, you have lost every debate here, and badly. Now you flail around with insults, personal attacks and red-bating McCarthyism. You are embarrassing yourself.
Live your "lifestyle." No one cares. As I said, and you are now admitting, that is all this debate is about - whose supposed "lifestyle" is better. That is childish and irrelevant.
The fact that you choose not to live your out your values yet would expect OTHERS to live under Communism speaks volumes as to how consistent YOU are to your own world view v.s. what you would expect of others if Bolshevism came to power. In other words you'd be just another petty commissar living in your northern retreat commanding the wondrous proletarian work brigades to labor for you to support your coordinator class lifestyle. How that is better than a capitalist boss is anyone's guess.
If you REALLY believe your bullshit the ACTUAL autoworkers are an easy 5 hours drive from your location dude, so get to organizing. Or are you ones of those hypocrites who talks mightily about the industrial proletariat but who doesn't actually know any?
Hmmmm...
This is nothing but speculative personal attacks and innuendo. Resorting to that suggests that you know you have lost the debate and are desperate.
Of course your personal lifestyle and personal preferences and individual desires are congruent with your political "philosophy." Your political "philosophy" is nothing but a justification for your own your personal lifestyle and personal preferences and individual desires, and an excuse to attack others.
I think this entire political "philosophy" you are espousing, with all of its contradictions and violent fantasies, is nothing more than self-justification and an excuse to vent your anger and hostility on others. If an idea justifies your personal life, then you are a believer. If another idea gives you an excuse to attack others, you use it. So you claim to be an Anarchist, then you turn into a rabid right wing McCarthyite, next you are praising organic gardens, then talking like a survivalist, then you are promoting Ron Paul and Libertarianism and extreme right wing ideas. The whole world is wrong and you are right, and if only everyone agreed with you things would be wonderful. Meanwhile, you see enemies everywhere and keep your gun loaded and cocked, you say. This is not coherent political thinking, it is the working out of some personal issues and merely projecting them onto a larger canvass to make them seem romantic and important and meaningful.
Way to avoid the issue of claiming to be a Marxist, but avoiding working with actual industrial proletariatarians in your very own state. I can take you to a bar in Ypsilanti if you like, so you can *meet some of these wondrous industrial proletarians you read about in a book, for from what I can see all ACTUALLY organizing working industrial workers is, is just a pretty thought you use to cudgel people YOU don't like, or else wise you'd be living in accord with your proclaimed Marxist philosophy that holds the industrial proletariat is the ONLY proper vessel for revolution. Do you even know ANY factory workers? Or maybe you don't believe your bullshit and it's just pretend to make you feel like a "revolutionary?" Do you have a closet of Che t-shirts from Urban Outfitters too?
Why am I guessing I have been to more demonstrations of poor and down trodden people, antiwar, and environmental protests than you, despite all your more radical than thou rhetoric? I have been arrested doing activism with Earth First! and Food Not Bombs, have you suffered ANY privations for your self proclaimed radicalism, or are you a professor, or cubicle dwelling office worker, or owner operator farmer, artist, or some other bourgeoisie blow hard?
*You might not want to tell them you are a Commie though, a depressingly high percentage of ACTUAL auto workers are Rush Limbaugh listening neo-con idiots
Sigh!
I am not and have never been "a professor, or cubicle dwelling office worker, or owner operator farmer." You are really reaching now. I am not an artist, but I don't know what you would find objectionable about artists. I have never owned a home or property, never owned stocks and bonds, never made a car payment, never had a credit card. I have never owned a TV.
Do I know any factory workers? LOL. I have worked in the factory, most recently a year ago.
I think it is quite obvious that you are projecting here when you attack others for being phony revolutionaries. You are the original poster bot for radical chic.
Clue - I don't claim to be a revolutionary, you are accusing me of being one. Can you see the difference between the two? You, on the other hand, are making outlandish claims about yourself.
Still hanging in that bar in Ypsi? LOL. What the hell is that supposed to prove? And you have the nerve to call others phony friends to the working class? This is just getting laughable and pathetic now.
Her is another clue - being a revolutionary has nothing to do with which bar you hang out in. You do probably find a lot of like-minded Ron Paul supporters there, I guess. You won't find courage at the bottom of the beer mug.
I do not agree that politics is a matter of "being" anything, and I don't claim to "be" this that or the other, nor should I be called upon to deny that I "am" this that or the other.
I happen to know with absolute certainty that I have been involved in more direct actions, more picket lines, more demonstrations and marches than you have by at least a factor of 10. That is in part because I am older than you are. But so what? That has nothing to do with the validity and soundness of the arguments a person makes here, and the CD membership has no way to know one way or the other. This is yet another desperation move on your part to discredit and malign your opponent because you are unable to counter their argument.
I have spoken about Socialism in front of hundreds and hundreds of rural, blue collar, and inner city audiences for decades. I am not afraid of any "Rush Limbaugh," nor have I ever found the people I talk to "idiots" nor gotten a bad reception. If your experience is different, then perhaps there is another explanation for your difficulties. Thinking of people as "idiots" is probably part of the reason you experience difficulties.
An arm chair parlor Marxist who is all talk and no action. How impressive! Yawn!
Here is a clue, do you think your ideology ie the ideas in your head that YOU yourself are constantly bitching about do any good if not acted on, or are they in fact YOUR very dreaded nothing but personalism and lifestyle? I at least have gotten arrested with Food Not Bombs and Earth First!, ie put my ideas into action, you apparently have not, and are nothing but a talktavist, so excuse me if I ignore your posts if they are not backed up by propaganda of the deed!
I would be interested in what capacity you spoke in front of people if not as collegiate lecturer, but I suppose you will be vague and evasive as per usual, forcing me to call your unbacked assertions into doubt.
You say "excuse me if I ignore your posts."
Please feel free to ignore my posts. That is a great idea. I will definitely excuse you.
Wow, mrcrow, you are Wrong about almost literally everything you have posted here. Not impressive. See how easy it is to simply assert that, and how easy it is for the Left to fall apart into bickering and impotence?
So you get digs in on THE NATION? And the word 'liberals'? How Rightwing of you. You inflate and champion the Uber-Rightwing Ron Paul instead? How Uber-Rightwing of you. Unleash the corporations, you imply, unfetter the powers of money from even any semblance of control. How completely-mad-Rightwing of you.
But OK, so let's look around the Earth and see the political experiments that have actually taken place in REALITY, as opposed to flights of fancy, and see the results (and all governments are only political experiments, and all people are similar and have similar flaws, desires, and imperfect understandings.)
Alright, 'small, powerless central governments' with 'local' control (warlords) get you Somalia, Afghanistan, and even, in a way, the United Nations. Good choices?
Alright, 'local control' in America gets you the current ongoing bullying and WalMarting of communities and 'right to work' laws... and the race to the bottom with 'communities' vying to sell out their own citizens for corporate favor and competing with those 'other' communities to get that juicy corporate contract... and in truth that is now happening all across America. Not a good sign for the ideal of 'local' control... control that would not fear, say, a President Eisenhower integrating local schools at Federal gunpoint. And of course, local control usually devolves to control by a few local bigshots. See Somalia and Afghanistan again. And there would be no appeals to a Federal, national,communal government.
Alright, as mrcrow states (and this is what some people don't know), one of the first things the Libertarians want to do is eliminate copyrights, trademarks and patents as these are "big government interferences" in the "market". OK, so then writers, artists, creators, inventors scientists will have absolutely NO protection against corporations simply usurping their works for NOTHING. Nor can people depend upon what labels mean. That is to say, a singer releases a recording, and that recording may be duplicated without compensation ad infinitum, earning the singer NOTHING AT ALL for the work. THAT is a bedrock Libertarian stance. Or someone produces a bottle that looks like a brand-name product, but is in fact merely a grossly-inferior product in a faux bottle. This would no longer be illegal, if the patents, copyrights and trademark laws were NOT in effect, laws that have been there from the beginning of the United States,even in the days of very real distances between communities, when no electronic communication even existed.
No, Ron Paul is unacceptable, as is Libertarianism. We talk about the inferior power against corporate interests of the Federal government, and the corporate-corrupted Federal government, but there would be NO CONTEST between corporate power and "local" government. Local governments would Absolutely Lose. Just look at the power even of NATIONS against corporate power.
And you think that unleashing corporations on local entities would 'fix things'? Ron Paul does, and he wants privatization of everything! Sure, there would be no government corruption to worry about, the corruption and extortion would be right there on the surface as corporations ruled outright. So I guess technically that would mean it is not corruption. And "the Churches" would take up the Slack when there is no help for those that need help, just like them olden-days Ron Paul dreams about. Riiight! Just like the churches do everywhere in the world now, which is why there is no need anywhere these days!
And no, the money that goes for war would not instead automatically go to the 'parks' if the wars ended. Money can go to the parks, et al, RIGHT NOW, but it doesn't simply because Libertarians and Rightwingers, including Ron Paul, do not want Public money to go there. And no, there would be no jobs for the returning soldiers or workers laid off from the MIC. Ron Paul would tell them to suck it in because they are on their own; don't ask for 'government handouts', after even what they felt they did was work for the nation.
And no, the Federal Reserve should NOT be disbanded, as Ron Paul would have it, but The Fed should be put to work for the people instead - that is, for one, it should fund all governments with the 0% interest that it gives to banksters now. The stupid Ron Paul ekonomiks of having a gold standard was disproved lifetimes ago, when FDR gathered all the gold in the country into Fort Knox and made it even illegal to own physical species gold (non-numismatic coins, bullion). This is because FDR knew the stupid hoarding of gold is Anti-Social in the worst degree. It is non-productive and cannot run a modern economy. And after this, the nation actually prospered, and the social contract expanded and expanded.... until Reagan the Corporate Tool. And the seemingly endless parade of right-wing corrupted politcal dimwits that he unleashed on the goverment of, by and for The People.
And the central, Communal Federal government right now sends out at least 77 million checks to its citizens A MONTH! This fact is what gets the Right's and Ron Paul's knickers in a twist. It is the deepest community Communalism that this nation tries at least to support all its citizens, and the Rightwingers can't stand it, they can't stand even SOCIAL-IST SECURITY. They can't stand that their beloved "free market" has absolutely failed, and that it is actually Socialism that is keeping them and this nation afloat. It is the greatest "job creator" on the planet, the greatest that ever existed! Ron Paul and presumably Mr Crow would have this end! Let those 77 million citizens, people, and families fend for themselves! Let them chop wood, chop it all down, and grow gardens as sharecroppers if they can. Let the wimmen fetch water!
And thus we will reach the no-big-gubmit Paradise of Somalia.
Nope, no thanks, eat crow mrcrow. I will stick with the NATION. And a social contract that hopefully expands, not contracts.
Somalia was, given its recent history, relatively pleasant prior to the Ethiopian invasion. What is your objection? The overfishing? Same thing in heavily governmentalized Pakistan. The dumping of nuclear waster? Have a look at Nigeria, and west Africa generally - quite controlled societies. Warlords? What do you call your politicians and military leaders, including your municipal leaders, again? FWIM, Somalia didn't privatise anything, and corporations are far more circumspect, as the police cannot come to their aid. Things like your social security setup almost always start as non-governmental socialism, i.e. mutual aid societies (typically based in trade unions), and the like. The reality, which you are avoiding, is that it takes someone with a bit of violence to stop the US social security system, and you will have nothing to fall back upon, thus your frightened defence of the US state.
As to local control, funny, but in precisely the small close-knit communities of North America, where people stand up for principles, the companies often lose - in how many large cities (as opposed to small towns and cities) has a union been formed at a Walmart? The strength of corporations rely on two things - government support (try funding your own police some time, for example), and breakdown of social cohesion - an attack against one is no longer an attack against all.
As to the 'social contract,' it was Carter who started the attack on the trade unions. Wages have been stagnant since the 70s. Carter also started the war on Afghanistan. What you have in USA is what Franz Fanon called the 'socialism of thieves,' i.e. not living off the value of your own labour, but of that taken from others. Or as a poor, blind Haitian put it, "We are poor people living honestly." And being attacked by the west.
Good post, it is indeed small communities like those miners in Harlan County that best resisted corporate predation, and corporate predation I would add that was often backed up by the state like the national guard and local police. Of course further knowledge of that would require reading labor history about such incidents the anarchist Haymarket martyrs, and IWW wildcat general strikes in in the early part of the 20th century, which is rather too radical, and too much work to engage in, for the center right apologists for corporate statatism who are the current readership of The Nation. A pity really, they might learn something if they left the comfort zone of the veal fattening pen of mega statist mercantalism, and read some anarchist and labor history literature.
The Nation used to be cool before Ms. Van Der Hooval took over, back when it published left anti authoritarians like Noam Chomsky, and Alexander Cockburn, but it has gone WAY downhill under Van er Hooval and become nothing but the Dim Parties own National Review. A pity really The Nation was a valuable resource for years, but as an Obama and DLC big war mongering government crony capitlism apologist rag it isn't fit to line a bird cage.
Here is a hint you don't need a big Federal Imperialist Nation state to have a social contract you can form one in your local co-op or community. But don't tell Ms. van Der Hooval that, for I am sure she is making 6 figures shilling for Oily Bomber and war of aggression against Libya.
"In his "Open Letter to the Left on Libya," Nation contributor and esteemed scholar of the Middle East and the Muslim world Juan Cole announced that he was "unabashedly cheering the liberation movement on, and glad that the UNSC-authorized intervention has saved them from being crushed."
As the international coalition continues their campaign against Muammar el-Qaddafi's forces, Cole joined The Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel via telephone for a discussion of the future for the Libyan rebellion, the constitutionality of America's involvement in the intervention and how our military action in the country differs from our disastrous experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"I am supporting the intervention," Cole says in this Nation Conversation, "because I think the civilian populations of these cities, which are in the moment in rebellion against the regime and which Qaddafi is attempting to reduce even under the current situation of international intervention, that that is something that should prick our conscience." Read Cole's letter for more on the ethics of our involvement in Libya, and visit the Nation Conversations page for more podcasts from Nation writers and contributors."
http://www.thenation.com/audio/159532/juan-cole-and-katrina-vanden-heuvel-do-we-belong-libya
Of course anti statists who are consistently against U.S. imperialist war for our mercantilist oligarchy are the bad guys aren't they?
I keep forgetting....
If mercantalist, and oligarchy are new terms for you as a center right new generation Nation reader, use google to find definitions of these terms.
The government expanding the money though the machinations of the PRIVATE BANK controlled Federal Reserve is how the empire funds it's endless wars of aggression against middle eastern countries for mercantlist oil companies and Israel. But I don't know why I am bothered with this final addendum, that would require you to read books outside your comfort zone like John T Flyn's As We Go Marching, better you didn't worry your pretty little head about high level socio economic theory and keep pecking at MSM chicken feed like the hype that the loss of free birth control being the biggest issue America faces now.
Sigh!
It is "van den Heuvel" - of the hill (middle Dutch).
The support for imperialism terrorism is always galling - Ed Herman called them the 'Cruise Missile Left'.
If you want to defeat them, be careful whom you accuse of being them, though. While Katrina van den Heuvel is one of them, it does not follow that your opponents here necessarily are. Many leninists, for all their failings, are not cruise missile leftists.
There is another matter that needs discussion. I'm speaking here both as an anarchist, and as someone interested in an honest look at history. Anarchists have long confronted the conflict between the leninist regimes (which later morphed into successor regimes, e.g. Yeltsin) and the imperial states with unease - on the one hand we have the crimes of Lenin and Trotsky against us and the more general crimes of the others (Stalin, Mao, etc.) and on the other hand we had the imperial states trying first to impoverish the world, the for a short period trying to outshine in the third world the leninists, then again trying (and succeeding) to impoverish the world again.
Let's be honest about the history - under Stalin and Mao, life expectancy more than doubled, from the thirties to the sixties. This does not justify their crimes, but it does give some basis for comparison. Amartya Sen has shown that most of the deaths under Mao resulted from the lack of an independent information system (e.g. press, or even secret police - Mao didn't even have a secret police) to give feedback on the initial consequences of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, i.e. Mao's achievement wrt life expectancy and poverty (China was still the poorest country in the world in 1957 - poorer than ethiopia, Malawi, etc.) are Mao's properly, while much of the failures of Mao (the deaths and abuses of the cadres, etc.) are failures of Leninism. This is so much more so wrt having local social safety nets - it is easier to have free and democratic socialism on a small scale - if we want to address the Leninists, we must acknowledge their achievements with brutal honesty.
Achievements of Leninism and Maoism? You mean like a hundred million dead in China and Russia? You are scarcely an "anarchist," if you are going to be making apologetics for Bolshevik totalitarian state capitalism. So tell me Mr. "anarchist," are you aware of the murder of anarchist sailors at Kronstadt under Lenin and Trotsky? Are you aware of how the Communists in Spain joined the fascists in crushing the anarchists labor Unions in Catalonia? Are you even aware Stalin allied with the Nazis in WWII?
State capitalism is never a bargain whether it is of the Bolshevik, fascist, no-conservative, or liberal corporatist variety advocated for by Ms. Van DER Hoovel:
"It hadn’t always been so. In the late 19th and very early 20th century, there was a much more widespread understanding among both leftists and free-marketers of the symbiotic relationship between state and corporate power. Just imagine telling William Graham Sumner, or Benjamin Tucker, or Emma Goldman, that the relationship between government and business is one of enmity!
But this insight seems to have gotten submerged in the triumphant advance of progressivism and social democracy. By the 1920s Sumner was dead, Tucker in voluntary exile, and Goldman deported; and former anarchists like Victor Yarros had forgotten everything they’d once known about class analysis. By the 1930s, it was possible for someone like FDR to cartelise the entire economy under a plutocratic elite and yet have his policies viewed (with admiration in some quarters, alarm in others) as an assault on the business class on behalf of workers and the downtrodden.
But in the 1960s things began to change, with the discovery, or rediscovery, of what came to be known as corporate liberalism. It’s no coincidence that this era saw the emergence of both the new left and modern libertarianism – and both movements differed from their predecessors precisely over this question. The research of new left historians like Gabriel Kolko, James Weinstein, and William Appleman Williams, and journals like Studies on the Left, revealed that the corporate elite had been both the chief beneficiaries of and the chief lobbyists for the supposedly anti-business regulations of the Progressive Era; and Murray Rothbard and his associates at the journal Left and Right and its successor Libertarian Forum eagerly brought the same message to the libertarian “right.” Free-marketers were discovering that their beloved business class, far from being Ayn Rand“s “persecuted minority,” had all along been in league with the hated state; while those on the left were simultaneously learning that their beloved liberal state, far from being the bulwark of the poor against the plutocracy, had all along been in league with the hated corporate elite.
In a famous 1965 speech, SDS president Carl Oglesby spoke for much of the new left in pointing out that the “menacing coalition of industrial and military power” and its “demand for acquiescence” against which he and his fellow radicals were organising were “creatures … of a Government that since 1932 has considered itself to be fundamentally liberal.”
The original commitment in Vietnam was made by President Truman, a mainstream liberal. It was seconded by President Eisenhower, a moderate liberal. It was intensified by the late President Kennedy, a flaming liberal. Think of the men who now engineer that war – those who study the maps, give the commands, push the buttons, and tally the dead: Bundy, McNamara, Rusk, Lodge, Goldberg, the President himself. … They are all liberals.
Oglesby concluded that “corporate liberalism …. performs for the corporate state a function quite like what the Church once performed for the feudal state. It seeks to justify its burdens and protect it from change.”
http://aaeblog.com/2007/02/06/remembering-corporate-liberalism/
I rest my case, the ball sir or madam, is in your court.
I have a point of contention. You are ignoring the extent to which the US used other countries to finance their deficit, and threaten to print money (thus making their debt less valuable) to get their creditors to pony up more cash (US treasuries).
I'd suggest you read Superimperialism by Michael Hudson.
Other than that, I think I agree broadly, albeit with the proviso that the running out of oil is what will break corporations more than state support - a gang, even if it was founded with state support, can last without it as long as other means exist. What has really happened (and here I think Paul is a side issue, albeit a principled one), is that the post-war mercantilist system that the US set up in Asia, Africa, and South America, has broken down - on paper you have 25% of the world economy, but in the real world, maybe not so much. I hope that the Paul government shuts it down without further violence, but that is hardly guaranteed. And recall that you had such a stupendous economy more because of massive resource extraction AND domestic manufacturing, with concomitant environmental destruction, and the military means to prevent others from doing the same.