How Capitalism is Killing Democracy (Robert Reich, Foreign Policy magazine)

[swag]

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3934

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Free markets were supposed to lead to free societies. Instead, today’s supercharged global economy is eroding the power of the people in democracies around the globe. Welcome to a world where the bottom line trumps the common good and government takes a back seat to big business.


It was supposed to be a match made in heaven. Capitalism and democracy, we’ve long been told, are the twin ideological pillars capable of bringing unprecedented prosperity and freedom to the world. In recent decades, the duo has shared a common ascent. By almost any measure, global capitalism is triumphant. Most nations around the world are today part of a single, integrated, and turbocharged global market. Democracy has enjoyed a similar renaissance. Three decades ago, a third of the world’s nations held free elections; today, nearly two thirds do.

Conventional wisdom holds that where either capitalism or democracy flourishes, the other must soon follow. Yet today, their fortunes are beginning to diverge. Capitalism, long sold as the yin to democracy’s yang, is thriving, while democracy is struggling to keep up. China, poised to become the world’s third largest capitalist nation this year after the United States and Japan, has embraced market freedom, but not political freedom. Many economically successful nations—from Russia to Mexico—are democracies in name only. They are encumbered by the same problems that have hobbled American democracy in recent years, allowing corporations and elites buoyed by runaway economic success to undermine the government’s capacity to respond to citizens’ concerns.

Of course, democracy means much more than the process of free and fair elections. It is a system for accomplishing what can only be achieved by citizens joining together to further the common good. But though free markets have brought unprecedented prosperity to many, they have been accompanied by widening inequalities of income and wealth, heightened job insecurity, and environmental hazards such as global warming. Democracy is designed to allow citizens to address these very issues in constructive ways. And yet a sense of political powerlessness is on the rise among citizens in Europe, Japan, and the United States, even as consumers and investors feel more empowered. In short, no democratic nation is effectively coping with capitalism’s negative side effects.

This fact is not, however, a failing of capitalism. As these two forces have spread around the world, we have blurred their responsibilities, to the detriment of our democratic duties. Capitalism’s role is to increase the economic pie, nothing more. And while capitalism has become remarkably responsive to what people want as individual consumers, democracies have struggled to perform their own basic functions: to articulate and act upon the common good, and to help societies achieve both growth and equity. Democracy, at its best, enables citizens to debate collectively how the slices of the pie should be divided and to determine which rules apply to private goods and which to public goods. Today, those tasks are increasingly being left to the market. What is desperately needed is a clear delineation of the boundary between global capitalism and democracy—between the economic game, on the one hand, and how its rules are set, on the other. If the purpose of capitalism is to allow corporations to play the market as aggressively as possible, the challenge for citizens is to stop these economic entities from being the authors of the rules by which we live.

. . . more

[cosmik debris]

1. When the Supreme court ruled that money equals speech

They sounded the death knell for the rights of people over the rights of dollars.

[reprobate]

7. Ending 'corporate personhood' is what you mean, right?

Of course, that's the answer. The real question is "HOW"? When they courts have convinced themselves that the constitution somehow gives corporations the power of citizenship, you have to ask yourself just how are we to reverse this abomination?

Congress might pass legislation to change that, but the corporations would just take it to court and have it overturned.

I believe this is the biggest problem we have ever faced as a democracy. And I see no way to change it short of a popular uprising.

[ProudDad]

11. Actually, corporate "personhood" is a myth

perpetuated because it's not been directly challenged...

It was a "head note" written by a pro-corporate clerk to a SCOTUS decision that NEVER MENTIONED NOR RULED on corporate "personhood". In fact, the Justices explicitly said they were NOT ruling on that concept...

Easy pickins' for a sharp lawyer.

However, since most of Congress and the Executive are routinely from the corporate classes and buy into all of the corporate and "free market" myths, it's not likely to happen any time soon...


----------------------
THE PATHOLOGY OF COMMERCE: CASE HISTORIES

To assess the "personality" of the corporate "person," a checklist is employed, using diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization and the standard diagnostic tool of psychiatrists and psychologists. The operational principles of the corporation give it a highly anti-social "personality": it is self-interested, inherently amoral, callous and deceitful; it breaches social and legal standards to get its way; it does not suffer from guilt, yet it can mimic the human qualities of empathy, caring and altruism. Four case studies, drawn from a universe of corporate activity, clearly demonstrate harm to workers, human health, animals and the biosphere. Concluding this point-by-point analysis, a disturbing diagnosis is delivered: the institutional embodiment of laissez-faire capitalism fully meets the diagnostic criteria of a "psychopath."

http://www.thecorporation.com/index.cfm

[cosmicdot]

20. does anyone pay attention when this is mentioned?

It was a "head note" written by a pro-corporate clerk to a SCOTUS decision that NEVER MENTIONED NOR RULED on corporate "personhood". - ProudDad

Thom Hartmann (Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance
and the Theft of Human Rights) investigated this ...

This is why the title of my book refers to "the rise of corporate dominance and the theft of human rights." Make no mistake: This was a theft, since the Supreme Court never actually ruled that corporations have the same rights as persons. No legislature has passed such a law, no governor or president has signed such a policy into law, and the public has never voted on such a law. In other words, it is not the result of any democratic process whatsoever. And yet, corporations have cited this principle in every sphere imaginable.

http://www.bodhitree.com/lectures/hartmann2.html

[flashl]

27. I pay attention EACH time I hear it or read it

It was a "head note" written by a pro-corporate clerk to a SCOTUS decision that NEVER MENTIONED NOR RULED on corporate "personhood". - ProudDad

And, I wonder why folks keep ignoring it and are not outraged about it.

[FiveGoodMen]

15. Amen!

[bemildred]

2. End the immortality of corporations, and the situation will improve.

As it stands, a man's estate is divided when he dies, thus limiting the accumulation of power and wealth in few hands, but his corporation goes on forever, getting bigger, wealthier, and more powerful.

[Demeter]

3. Break UP the Monopoly

they keep forming, like dustballs. Gotta sweep them out every spring.

[Hydra]

4. Capitalism has never been a friend of the people

It has been a friend of the few...and our banking system, which allows money to be spun out of nothing by private individuals, is worse.

Oh, well. Maybe a really good crash and burn will keep people from thinking these things are good of at least a generation...before this all happens again.

[EVDebs]

14. Time for a 'Year of Jubilee' - Leviticus 25

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_%28Biblical%29

[Briar]

5. Great to hear people

admitting this.

Capitalism breed exploitation and inequality of every kind. Democracy starts from the assertion that everyone is equal and has an equal right to choose their government and influence.

It is very difficult to prevent these two things becoming mutually exclusive (and well nigh impossible if the getting of money is presented as an inalienable right and an unambiguous good, even virtue, in the narrative of a culture. As it is in ours).

Articles like this, breaking with the consensus, are a welcome start.

[AndyTiedye]

6. It Isn't Capitalism Anymore When Robber Barons Buy the Government

There is another word for that kind of government. It starts with an "F".

The essence of capitalism is free competition on a level playing-field.
How can it be a level playing-field when your competitor is the referee?

[harlinchi]

10. When 1 of the factors of production controls the supply of another (labor)...

...the situation cannot be called capitalism. My economics teachers said the supply of each was independent of the other. Whether there are 3 or 4, they should be as independent as possible.

[ProudDad]

12. I'm sorry, but you're wrong

"The essence of capitalism is free competition on a level playing-field" is not correct.

The essence of capitalism is unbridled growth in pursuit of profit. The ultimate perfect end in a capitalist society would be ONE corporation running all economic activity on Earth!!!

That's the built-in contradiction of capitalism that Marx and many others have pointed out.

[Hydra]

16. That would be what we are moving toward

Megacorps swallow other corps and even megacorps. Once they all reach a certain size, they realize the other megacorps are not their enemies...and when that happens, price fixing and other activities occur, including subversion of gov't.

At a certain point, the people on the boards of the megacorps are often on the boards of other megacorps, and they see reason to merge to one final company...

I hope I NEVER get to see that.

[ProudDad]

17. Just look toward Redmond, WA

micro$oft...

Made my working life a living hell for the last 15 years of my career with their 2nd rate software...

[Hydra]

18. Point

Bill's even gotten into the business of "philanthropy"...it's amazing what you can do with tax free dollars put toward social engineering.

[eppur_se_muova]

8. Capitalism is a powerful and useful tool, but it is not a policy or a philosophy.

We need to reach concensus on what we value first, then choose how (if) we can use capitalism (or communism, or something along the spectrum in between) to further those values. We have never really done this because capitalism originally evolved organically and unconsciously -- not by intelligent design. Its most recent progress has been neither organic or indirected, but deliberately manipulated and misdirected.

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. The problems is seeing corporatism as a subset of capitalism

when in reality it is the new feudalism. And feudalism is totally incompatible with democracy.

[Gregorian]

13. When you ask someone to do something for you, you must keep your eye on them.

That becomes much more significant when 6 billion people ask someone to do something for them.

We've given great power and great trust to enable companies to become monsters. And government too.

We have abandoned our role in this scheme. We got lazy. And the monsters grew larger and meaner.

And another thing- we are starting to bump up against limits. Size limits. When we had twenty people in a tribe, the forest was our limitless supply source. Not so any more. Now we outnumber the source. All hell is around the corner.

[Vidar]

19. American-style capitalism is simply corporate feudalism.

[GeneCosta]

21. Mercantilism, capitalism, corporatism...

They've all done wonders at creating growth, but each system has driven a wedge between the people and the top 1-2% of society. There is nothing inherently wrong with a market structure: in fact it's the most natural method of transaction where scarcity hasn't been isolated, but when the system leaves 50% of the world with 1% of the wealth even though they produce their fair share in products, and when wars are fought over resources when there could be alternatives produced so everyone has their WANTS met, one must ask -- what's natural?

I'm personally in favor of market socialism. Have the workers vote on their own wages. Give everyone the ability to vote. Democratize the economy once and for all. K&R. Let's become a real progressive force.

[yurbud]

22. free markets leading to democracy was never more than a sales pitch, and to degree it happened it

was means to an end or a side effect.

As Grover Norquist said, property rights are not to be interfered with by some election.

[bemildred]

23. Let's back up. We do not have free markets in the USA.

We have highly controlled markets that are regulated in the interest of big money and big corporations.

[GeneCosta]

24. Property rights are complex

No one person should own a mode of production unless s/he is the only one performing labor, and even then the community has a stake in the business it allows to operate within itself.

It has nothing to do with taking away someone's car, house... video games. What have you.

[bemildred]

25. Yes. Property is a social construct, not a mandate from the deity for eternal posession. nt

[camero]

26. The supposed "right" to unlimited anything is what's killing us

Wealth, cars, homes, land, etc. are all finite and the idea that anyone can have anything in unlimited quantities not only goes against the nature of the universe, it also leads to a host of intractable problems because in a finite world, what one takes for himself in vast quantities it means someone else has to do without.

Maybe one day we'll be able to wrap our heads around this truism, but I think more than likely, we'll destroy ourselves before we do come to that realization.