peaccenicked
27th July 2002, 10:41
Can Liberals Save Capitalism (Again)?
Laissez-Faire Itself Is The Ultimate Corporate Fraud
In a few short weeks, America’s political economy has been stunningly transformed. The Bush administration, the Republican Party, and three decades of conservative ideology are facing a potential rout.
Yesterday’s conservative clichés are today’s political embarrassments. Americans are getting a vivid if painful education about the limits of the marketplace and the salutary role of government. It will be a very long time before anyone can say with a straight face that markets always work better than governments.
With investors gulled by stock touts and phony corporate reports –- themselves the fruit of the antiregulatory mania -– trillions of dollars of investment capital went to uses that will never recoup earnings. So the stock market plunge is more than a crisis of confidence. It is a belated appreciation of economic reality.
If this sounds familiar, it should. Much the same thing happened in the 1920s, and it was liberals who dragged a primitive, corrupted and vulnerable capitalist system, kicking and screaming, into the modern mixed economy. It is astonishing that we now have to do it again.
Though leading Democrats are maximizing the tactical opportunity, will the Democratic Party fully rise to the larger challenge or remain besotted by the free market? So far, they have skillfully gotten out in front of Bush with remedies that he cannot embrace because of who he is, what he represents, and who his friends are. But the Democrats have yet to reclaim a coherent alternative narrative about how the economy works, how the corporate scandals connect to the lives of ordinary people, and why laissez-faire itself is the ultimate corporate fraud.
In the Reagan-Bush era, when the market fundamentalism of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Heritage Foundation spread like an oil slick to the general media and to many New Democrats, markets got a free pass. When new scams were contrived, uncommonly courageous regulators like former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt were stymied by both parties.
Even today, market-worship still drives outrageous tax giveaways, and still deprives Americans of social investments that most of us want, like universal health insurance. That’s why the counter-offensive needs to be much broader than a mere crackdown on the current spate of frauds. The mixed economy itself needs to be rehabilitated, and market fundamentalism disgraced.
Adapted from Robert Kuttner’s essay in the current issue of The American Prospect. The full article is available at www.PROSPECT.org and at www.TomPaine.com.
TomPaine.com Independent, Commercial-free Public Affairs Reporting and Commentary
Published: Jul 24 2002 thomaspaine.com
Laissez-Faire Itself Is The Ultimate Corporate Fraud
In a few short weeks, America’s political economy has been stunningly transformed. The Bush administration, the Republican Party, and three decades of conservative ideology are facing a potential rout.
Yesterday’s conservative clichés are today’s political embarrassments. Americans are getting a vivid if painful education about the limits of the marketplace and the salutary role of government. It will be a very long time before anyone can say with a straight face that markets always work better than governments.
With investors gulled by stock touts and phony corporate reports –- themselves the fruit of the antiregulatory mania -– trillions of dollars of investment capital went to uses that will never recoup earnings. So the stock market plunge is more than a crisis of confidence. It is a belated appreciation of economic reality.
If this sounds familiar, it should. Much the same thing happened in the 1920s, and it was liberals who dragged a primitive, corrupted and vulnerable capitalist system, kicking and screaming, into the modern mixed economy. It is astonishing that we now have to do it again.
Though leading Democrats are maximizing the tactical opportunity, will the Democratic Party fully rise to the larger challenge or remain besotted by the free market? So far, they have skillfully gotten out in front of Bush with remedies that he cannot embrace because of who he is, what he represents, and who his friends are. But the Democrats have yet to reclaim a coherent alternative narrative about how the economy works, how the corporate scandals connect to the lives of ordinary people, and why laissez-faire itself is the ultimate corporate fraud.
In the Reagan-Bush era, when the market fundamentalism of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Heritage Foundation spread like an oil slick to the general media and to many New Democrats, markets got a free pass. When new scams were contrived, uncommonly courageous regulators like former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt were stymied by both parties.
Even today, market-worship still drives outrageous tax giveaways, and still deprives Americans of social investments that most of us want, like universal health insurance. That’s why the counter-offensive needs to be much broader than a mere crackdown on the current spate of frauds. The mixed economy itself needs to be rehabilitated, and market fundamentalism disgraced.
Adapted from Robert Kuttner’s essay in the current issue of The American Prospect. The full article is available at www.PROSPECT.org and at www.TomPaine.com.
TomPaine.com Independent, Commercial-free Public Affairs Reporting and Commentary
Published: Jul 24 2002 thomaspaine.com