I had always thought that we jumped to some wrong conclusions when the Soviet Union fell. The primary wrong conclusion was that somehow this proved that American style free market capitalism was the best economic concept ever conceived by man or woman. It seemed to me that perhaps, just perhaps, the Soviet Union fell because it trashed the civil liberties of its people, governed oppressively, got on the wrong side of a severe drop in oil prices, and ill advisedly got in an arms race with a world leader capable of drowning his country in ill advised red economic ink. It was a race to see which could tread water longer without going under. America won that contest, but then got caught up with this idea that it was capable of treading water indefinitely because its economic system was divinely inspired in some not terribly clear way.
So eight years into a re-run of Reaganomics which was basically defined as untax the rich, deny services to the unrich, and turn business loose to play wild west. Only this time...well it just went too long in too deep water and eventually had to lunge for the side of the pool.
Turns out that the price of deregulation is not just that badly run companies sometimes crash, but that questionably run companies are often very successful...at least for awhile. But more importantly if they are allowed to really run themselves questionably and do alot of running so they become very, very big questionably run companies ... when they crash, well they really crash.
Turns out that privatizing the benefits sometimes turns into socializing the risks. Turns out that the people who were bellowing how government needed to get out of the way and let the market do its thing almost brought down the market and with it well the country. Suddenly, we start wondering if we forgot the lessons learned by our grandparents -- the ones who lived through the Great Depression and figured out that banks ought not to be in the stock investment business and people in the stock investment business ought not to be in the banking business. And, that maybe there should be limitations on how big a bank can get like say keeping all its branches in one State or County.
My, my how the wheel turns.
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Comments: 9
I too am against the sort of neoliberalism, George W Bush-style, that got us into this mess. The deregulation efforts? Yes, that had tragic, untold costs.
Good work here.
America has never had a system of "free market capitalism." We've had interventionism, or "mixed economy," to varying degrees since the day the Declaration was signed. Our economy grew and prospered only to the relative degree that there has been some or any economic liberty at all. Things like tariffs and, of course, slavery, precluded the use of the description "free market" for over a century; and that is aside from the various forays into central banking that occurred during that same time period.
But the U.S. economic system lost any semblence whatsoever to "free market capitalism" in 1914 with the creation of the giant macroeconomic central planning bureaucracy called the Federal Reserve System. (Incidentally, a state-sanctioned and -enforced central bank just happens to be one of the ten "planks" of Marx's "Communist Manifesto.")
What has happened,with the most recent of a century-long train of bailing out the "Too Big to Fail's," is not the "end of free market capitalism." That happened a long, long time ago. What has been happening recently is just another example of the failures of interventionism.
"It seemed to me that perhaps, just perhaps, the Soviet Union fell because it trashed the civil liberties of its people, governed oppressively"
Could be that perhaps, just perhaps, that oppressive governing and trashing of civil liberties are just two inherent and inescapable aspects of the repudiation of private property rights and the crushing of economic freedom.
A "free market" is simply what happens naturally when people are free. Liberty and capitalism are two inextricably-linked, mutually-dependent institutions. One follows the other; where there is one, there must always be the other; and without either one, the other cannot exist.
If economic freedom (aka capitalism) is repudiated and disallowed; then freedom itself must necessarily be so too.
"Turns out that privatizing the benefits sometimes turns into socializing the risks. "
Yeah... this is typical of fascism. But please note that this is not "free-market capitalism."
And please direct me to where this alleged "deregulation" occurred. It certainly wasn't in the financial sector. Banking and finance have been the most heavily interfered-with sectors of the economy since 1914.
There was some reregulation, but no deregulation. Deregulating the financial sector would have to include, first and foremost, abolishing the socialist central-planning bureaucracy called the "Fed." Otherwise, it's all smoke and mirrors; anything called "deregulation" you can bet will be just another scam to plunder the public for the benefit of the privileged few, which is, and always has been, the primary purpose of the greatest engine of regressive wealth redistribution ever conceived; the state-sanctioned central banking cartel.
I agree America was not really built upon anything close to a "free market" as the worshippers of Wall Street have been asserting and vocalizing with a bipartisan chorus for some time. I felt kind of gipped when the middle class deferred a lot of potentially beneficial programs in order to help Clinton balance the budget with the hope they would get implemented once we had a surplus -- but instead Bush gave the surplus to the mega wealthy and we got...a lot of warmongering patriotic bs instead.
Now when I thought that maybe finally we will get a chance under Obama after Bush's neo-Reagan economic strategies had proven to turn out exactly the way they did under Reagan only worse, I have the feeling that once again the middle class is going to get sold out to protect the upper class corporate financiers. Am getting a little tired of continually being the last in line, and I think there are a few other Americans that feel perhaps similarly. The Dems better get some covenants against high salaries and golden parachutes for CEO's that should instead be pushed out of their planes without any chute but with a distinct bruise on their backside from the taxpayer's representatives boot.
-You mean that Bush allowed people, regardless of social status keep the product of their own labor, instead of plundering it and giving it to others who didnt earn it.
"covenants against high salaries and golden parachutes for CEO's that should instead be pushed out of their planes without any chute"
-That is a great incentive for business/economic growth and new business development.
"but with a distinct bruise on their backside from the taxpayer's representatives boot."
-Oh I see, the wealthy must not pay taxes so they dont get a representative.