Posted by entropyman
They are all tinkering around the edges of a very basic problem. Those middle income manufacturing and service industry jobs are gone and won't be coming back. The factories are closed and those business towers now half empty are connected electronically to their staff in faraway countries.
Milton Friedman, a disciple of Ayn Rand set loose on the World through his Chicago School the belief that an unregulated market would be self correcting and spread prosperity for all. Well it has created an explosion of wealth but it has also transferred power from the nation states and it's citizens to a wealthy oligarchy whose only loyalty is to the financial enterprises they control. Nation states with their taxation policies, regulations and social policies are perceived as barriers to their goals and must be influenced and controlled to do their bidding. Thus tolerated by the nation states, off-shore tax havens combined with privileged taxation policies keep their immense profits intact.
What's the outcome of all this? Well with middle class consumption stagnating, and with the oligarchy not paying their share, the governments revenues are no longer sufficient to meet their commitments. Budgets for education, social services and infrastructure must be either privatized for those who can afford it or cut. A tiered society with a large underclass.
Financed and propagandized by an oligarchy represented by the likes of the Koch brothers, Wall Street, Murdoch and others, their foot soldiers, namely Tea Party, evangelists, Libertarians and apparently most other Republicans, are naively intent on dismantling universal health care and 120 years of social and regulatory legislation. With a freeloading oligarchy calling the shots it's questionable whether any real democracy can survive because those leading it don't really give a damn as long as their money keeps piling up.
Is all of this inevitable?
Milton Friedman, a disciple of Ayn Rand set loose on the World through his Chicago School the belief that an unregulated market would be self correcting and spread prosperity for all. Well it has created an explosion of wealth but it has also transferred power from the nation states and it's citizens to a wealthy oligarchy whose only loyalty is to the financial enterprises they control. Nation states with their taxation policies, regulations and social policies are perceived as barriers to their goals and must be influenced and controlled to do their bidding. Thus tolerated by the nation states, off-shore tax havens combined with privileged taxation policies keep their immense profits intact.
What's the outcome of all this? Well with middle class consumption stagnating, and with the oligarchy not paying their share, the governments revenues are no longer sufficient to meet their commitments. Budgets for education, social services and infrastructure must be either privatized for those who can afford it or cut. A tiered society with a large underclass.
Financed and propagandized by an oligarchy represented by the likes of the Koch brothers, Wall Street, Murdoch and others, their foot soldiers, namely Tea Party, evangelists, Libertarians and apparently most other Republicans, are naively intent on dismantling universal health care and 120 years of social and regulatory legislation. With a freeloading oligarchy calling the shots it's questionable whether any real democracy can survive because those leading it don't really give a damn as long as their money keeps piling up.
Is all of this inevitable?
- Thanks. I am always heartened and relieved that you articulate my positions so eloquently. I have several friends that I love but who send me drivel from the right.
- The question is what can we do and I fall back on the old standbys of activism and ideas. All good things from the Red Cross to Greenpeace to recycling came about because of activism. Without the idea of democracy I don't think people would be taking on the tyrants in the Arab world.
- Sad to say, you've nailed it. And neatly. Thank you for including me. When we're not able to be
as articulate (not to mention as knowledgeable) as you are we frequently lose our audiences,
get frustrated and give up. My Republican friends are not evil....they are quite respectable, go to
church, kind to animals, etc. They just don't get it.
0 comments:
Post a Comment