Corporate Democracy: Taking “American Values” Back from the Capitalist Right
by Algernon
July.26.2003
http://www.corporations-suck.com/CKs/Guests/CDTAVBFCR.shtml Looking at the zeal with which the Bush II administration is advancing corporate interests, it is easy to see why their actions have the support of the wealthy and the corporate elite. After all, these groups stand to gain a great deal financially, at least in the short term, while people with few economic resources lose out. It is also easy to attribute the rise of corporate power their machinations and suppose that if only “the people” could bring them to heel a more equitable society would naturally result. However, in my view, the situation is not this simple. Nearly fifty million people voted for George Bush in the last election, and while is possible to assume that these people are wealthy, ignorant, apathetic or ethically deficient in some way, surely at least some millions of these people support Bush because, to some extent, they support the values that he claims to stand for, including laissez-faire policies and corporate welfare. Furthermore, a cursory look at history reveals that this ideology has its roots in American tradition just as much as its progressive opposition.
Am I saying that a tradition of capitalism makes corporate domination OK? Emphatically no. What I am saying is that a significant fraction of “the people” would rather have power in the hands of corporations than in the hands of a socialist government. It is vital that we ask ourselves, “Why do they hate Socialism?” and if we accept convenient answers like “because they are misled by evil people” or “because they hate the proletariat” we fall into the same blindness that afflicted the neocons when they asked, “Why did the WTC bombers hate America?” I have no faith in corporate America, but nor do I trust these easy answers, so I put a good deal of thought into the appeal of conservatism and capitalism to “ordinary" Americans.
One thing that set me thinking was a College Republican T-shirt that I happened to read last week. It read (quoting loosely), “There are no more frightening words in the English language than ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’” Putting aside the question of why the College Republicans did not join us in protesting the government’s efforts to “help” bring “democracy” Iraq, this sentiment captures an essential part of the American national character, namely a value of entrepreneurship and personal autonomy. Whether they are or not, many Americans like to think of themselves as the “rugged individualists” of old. The American colonies were in many cases capitalist ventures themselves, and since that time, many Americans have believed that, if they worked hard enough at it, they too could become fantastically wealthy (Like the commercial says, “Hey, you never know.”). Average Americans are often reluctant to surrender this dream even if it improves their quality of life in a material sense.
Perhaps more importantly, many Americans who do support a more equitable distribution of wealth do not (as the T-shirt said) trust the government to do it. Particularly since the Cold War, many Americans have been wary of people who seek power on the claim that they will distribute wealth equally because, historically, many of them take the lion’s share of the wealth for themselves once the old order has been abolished. The fear of a “dictatorship of the Party” is a pragmatic objection that cannot be refuted through theory or idealistic hypotheticals. If we are honest with ourselves, we have to accept that at least some of the people who dismiss socialists as naive or disingenuous legitimately question the ability or desire of socialists to deliver what they claim.
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