"Off and on over the years, a few capitalists have done more to de-legitimize capitalism than America's impotent socialist critics ever did or today's moribund left could hope to. It is the Republicans' special responsibility to punish such capitalists," he wrote.

For Will, capitalism is a legitimate form of economic organization. The accumulation of wealth through the buying and selling of labor-power is fine.

Try and find an opposing view in the corporate news media. It successfully filters out such criticism, as Will ignored.

What he finds fault with is the financial shenanigans of Enron’s corporate crime, and not capitalism. In fact, such crime is more damaging than any criticism of capitalism by its “impotent” opponents, socialists and other flat-earth folk.

Well, one thing is clear. Will knows how to create a straw person. Its ease in construction follows its smooth destruction.

On a related note, Will has a simple cure for Enron’s lawbreaking. That’s punishment at the hands of the Republican Party. Supposedly, this will prevent big corruption from following big money in the future.

By contrast, capitalism’s daily crimes aren’t news for Will. And here lies the untold story.

For example, capitalism has the productive capacity to satisfy unmet human needs. Yet it can’t. Why?

Author and professor Ellen Meiksins Wood has part of the answer: “In a system where all production is for profit, the allocation of resources and labor will, of course, be determined not by their contribution to the well-being of as many people as possible but by their contribution to profitability. The society’s productive capacities are much more likely to be devoted to producing, say, new model cars every year for those who can afford them, or computers designed to be obsolete as soon as they hit the market, than to providing decent housing for all.”

For Wood, this mode of production and distribution constitutes a failure. Presumably, Will would call such a system a success.

If under capitalism the misuse of people’s work and natural resources isn’t criminal, perhaps we need a new definition of the term. After all, daily work is the lot of the world’s vast majority of people.

Enron is more than a business model that failed. The corporation and its accounting firm Arthur Andersen, which lied about Enron’s profits and debts, were doomed by the drive for profits by any means necessary. Choice wasn’t part of the equation, but secrecy was.

Corporations, with all the rights of people and none of the responsibilities, must increase shareholder profits and market share or be taken over by rivals. This holds whether it’s profits and markets from war or waste. Enron is representative of the crisis of capitalism.

For Enron’s owners, today’s growing income gap within and between nations was a success. But don’t hold your breath for such a view from the corporate news media. Instead, expect hidden assumptions such as Will’s that despite corporate failures capitalism is the best of all possible systems.

As he editorialized about the failures of Enron and “today's moribund left,” public protests in Argentina against the nation’s IMF-assisted bankruptcy moved forward. On U.S. soil after the September 11 attacks, popular dissent against capitalism’s ruling institutions such as the IMF and World Bank has continued.

Meanwhile corporate bankruptcies are throwing more Americans out of work. Kmart, which just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, will likely fire many of its quarter-million employees. They and society will suffer.

All things being equal, Kmart’s corporate restructuring won’t be the last. U.S. corporations doubled their debt during the 1990s. Moreover, America is now leading the global economic slowdown.

Under capitalism, investment spending creates employment. Investors will be less likely to part with their capital if future profits are in doubt. Weak profits lead to frail job growth, which, in turn, erodes people’s buying power.

At any rate, one thing is probable. The American public’s sentiment about alternatives to business as usual is up for grabs. Will’s post-mortem on capitalism’s critics is premature.

Seth Sandronsky is an editor with Because People Matter, Sacramento’s progressive newspaper ssandron@hotmail.com

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