Platt:
Over the course of human history, profit-seeking business leaders, scorned as
greedy capitalists, have done more to preserve human life and lift human beings
out of poverty than all the churches, charities and government welfare programs
combined.
John replied:
Perhaps true, Platt. I'm willing to grant you that. But is the purpose of a
pattern to keep us in that pattern, or to get us somewhere better? At this
time, I don't think "what has worked in the past' is going to work in the
present. Or future. The problem with conservatism is that it conserves static
patterns past their usefulness.
dmb says:
Oh come on. Capitalism is the greatest life-saver in human history? If you're
talking about the wealth and high living standards of the industrial West, then
it should be fairly obvious that science, technology, and other forms of
cultural development had as much to do with creating wealth as anything. And
John, your defense of capitalism was just as bogus. You weren't defending a
political-economics. You were just defending the ten commandments, or the ones
about not stealing and telling lies anyway. You can take whatever grand
attributes or heroic sentiments you like and hang them on capitalism like so
many christmas ornaments (in my mind these would be really tacky, rockwellian
ornaments), but that's really just a way to change the subject, which is about
where the money and power flows in our society. What happens when we practice
free-market capitalism as the conservatives like it and what happens when the
liberals impose their restrictions on capitalism? In this country
, both parties are in favor of capitalism, it's just a matter of degree. Some
liberal programs like the New Deal, Medicare, The G.I. Bill and even the post
office could rightly be called socialist programs. Whether or not you think
such things are a good idea pretty much defines left and right.
The other day I learned that there was a fascist plot to raise an army of
500,000 men and take the white house from FDR in a coup d'etate. The General
they tried to recruit to lead this army exposed the plot before a congressional
committee in 1934. He told them that the backers were Wall Street big wigs and
he named names. Familiar names like Du Pont, J.P.Morgan and other capitalist
heros were included and Douglas MacArthur was their second choice to lead the
fascist army. This was at a time when radio preachers and priests praised
German fascism openly and when Pat Buchanan was a little boy, a portrait of
Mussolini was lovingly hung in the family home.
What's my point? Fascism has a certain feel, a certain attitude, a certain
aesthetic and we can know what it is in our own culture. There are names and
dates and events that go way back to when they invented fascism in the 1920's.
I mean, it's not hard to document this history and it's a known quantity in
that respect, but there is also a know-it-when-you-see-it thing that
conservatives seem to lack. Or maybe it's a form of denial. But I think the
proximity between big capital and fascism is something conservatives really,
really ought to notice. Mussolini, the inventor of fascism, said that it really
should be called "Corporatism" because it is essentially government by the
corporations.
What was that about there being five lobbyists for every representative in
Washington? Who can deny that corporations run the US government?
What did the Supreme Court decide the other day about the free speech rights of
corporations?
Okay, if this were the year 1710, I'd be a free-market guy and say boo! to the
King. But to be a free-market purist in this world is kinda nuts.
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