This faith in the markets is misplaced: only governments can save our living planet

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/22/faith-markets-misplaced-governments-save-planet


‘Why were too many permits issued? Because of the lobbying power of big business. Why did MEPs refuse to withdraw them? Because of the lobbying power of big business.' Photograph: Mick Tsikas/Reuters

In other ages, states sought to seize as much power as they could. Today, the self-hating state renounces its powers. Governments anathematise governance. They declare their role redundant and illegitimate. They launch furious assaults on their own branches, seeking wherever possible to lop them off.

This self-mutilation is a response to the fact that power has shifted. States now operate at the behest of others. Deregulation, privatisation, the shrinking of the scope, scale and spending of the state: these are now seen as the only legitimate policies. The corporations and billionaires to whom governments defer will have it no other way.

Just as taxation tends to redistribute wealth, regulation tends to redistribute power. A democratic state controls and contains powerful interests on behalf of the powerless. This is why billionaires and corporations hate regulation, and – through their newspapers, thinktanks and astroturf campaigns – mobilise people against it. State power is tyranny, state power is freedom.

But the interchangeable middle managers who call themselves ministers cannot wholly dismiss the wishes of the electorate. They must show that they are doing something to protect what people value. They resolve the contradiction between the demands of the electorate and the demands of big business by shifting their responsibilities to something they call "the market". This term is often used as a euphemism for corporations and the very rich.

[supernaut]

1. Woah, buddy. Just a minute.

"Today, the self-hating state renounces its powers. Governments anathematise governance. They declare their role redundant and illegitimate. They launch furious assaults on their own branches, seeking wherever possible to lop them off. "

What State are they referring to? Certainly not ours. If our government behaved this way we'd have a lot less problems.

[napoleon_in_rags]

2. The problem is with corporate personhood.

As far as the weakness with markets in dealing with things like long term environmental issues. Corporations are supposed to be entities like people, but they sure don't act like it. A successful person sets up their retirement even in young ages as they work. A corporation could live for centuries, but they certainly don't plan like it, they don't invest and fight for interests 50 or 100 years in the future. If they did environmental protections would be a no-brainer. Instead they fight for benefits just as far ahead as the lives of their CEOs/ shareholders at best.

[chervilant]

3. We now dance to the tune

of the corporate megalomaniacs who've usurped our media, our politics AND our global economy. These men (all men, mostly white, and most from the US) are less than 400 in number, yet own and/or control more than 45% of our planet's resources, including human resources.

Dovetailing with the power-mongering of these obscenely wealthy few is the rather patronizing perspective that these economic elites have the god-given responsibility to paternalistically lead our species--a perspective that both bolsters their supremacy, and helps the under-educated, functionally illiterate masses (granted, research pegs functional illiteracy in the US at 40-43%) to avoid cognitive dissonance.

Marx predicted that we would rise up and throw off the shackles of a global capitalism. Every time someone adjures "what other economic system is better?" I realize anew we are still too fearful to change.