Michael Parenti: Capitalism privatizes profits, socializes costs

[Karmadillo]

Redistribution of wealth is OK as long as it is redistributed to the wealthy.

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2005-12/31parenti.cfm

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A central function of the corporate capitalist state is to maintain and advance the capital accumulation process. This it does by (a) taxing the many to subsidize the few; and (b) privatizing the public wealth, specifically the land, airwaves, mineral deposits, and other natural resources that are nominally the property of the American people.

In the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration sought to undo what conservatives in those days called the "creeping socialism" of the New Deal. So they handed over to private corporations some $50 billion (or $200 billion in today's dollars) worth of offshore oil reserves, government owned synthetic rubber factories, public lands, public utilities, and atomic installations.

During that time, the federal government also built a multibillion dollar interstate highway system that provided the infrastructure----and an enormous indirect subsidy---for the trucking and automotive industries. The practice of using the public's money and resources to subsidize private enterprise continues to this day. It is variously estimated that every year, the federal government doles out hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare, in the form of tax exclusions, reduced tax assessments, generous depreciation write-offs and tax credits, price supports, loan guarantees, payments in kind, research and development grants, subsidized insurance rates, marketing services, export subsidies, irrigation and reclamation programs, and research and development grants.

<edit>

The U.S. Forest Service has built almost 400,000 miles of access roads through national forests---many times the size of the entire federal interstate highway system. Used for the logging operations of timber companies, these roads contribute to massive mud slides that contaminate water supplies, ruin spawning streams, and kill people.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (AID), spent over $1 billion in taxpayer money over the past decade to help companies move U.S. jobs to cheaper labor markets abroad. AID provided low interest loans, tax exemptions, travel and training funds, and advertising to the corporate outsourcers. AID also furnished blacklists to help companies weed out union sympathizers from their work forces in various countries.

<edit>

Under corporate capitalism the ordinary citizen pays twice for most things: first, as a taxpayer who provides the subsidies and supports, then as a consumer who buys the high priced commodities and services. Overall, federal spending represents an enormous upward redistribution of income.

more...

[marmar]

1. Those "externalities," as big biz likes to call them...

It's time for capitalism, as it's practiced to America today, to die.

[glitch]

2. We are watching it commit suicide right now - and there won't be an FDR to

save it this time. It is being replaced by feudalism for a new american century.

[meow2u3]

3. We must return to a small business orientation

in capitalism, along with strict, tight regulations on big business to protect small and mid-size business owners from the giant, multinational predators and monopolists. We also have to plug up the loopholes in the Sherman antitrust laws that allow this mergermania and repeal the so-called "free trade agreements" that let predatory businesses ship out our jobs to China, India, and other third-world dictatorships that pay a 12-year-old $.15 an hour instead of paying an American $15 an hour.

[FormerDittoHead]

5. Small businesses aren't manufacturers, but 'merger mania' must stop!

We will always need "economy of scale" companies (steel, auto, etc) but your point is well taken about the "giant, multinational predators"....

I want to see the days of "synergy" ENDED. Businesses should be made to COMPETE!

[davekriss]

23. Perhaps we'll be forced into a...

...localized, smaller-scale production model as we slide down the backward slope of Hubbert's Peak. It's possible the rising cost of energy will make the long-distance shipment of goods too expensive, opening opportunity for local enterprise again. A silver lining to an otherwise growing cloud of deprivation for we the many?

I think the owning class has long looked past the American market for their personal prosperity and, instead, see $$$ instead in heretofore marginally exploited markets of Chinese and Indians and others. As such, they're only too glad to fund the continued illusion of democracy by placing Republicrat thugs in office only too willing to sacrifice we the many at their holy alter of economic efficiency.

Our only salvation is to adopt a Timothy Leary attitude, turn on, tune in, drop out -- and do for ourselves what needs to be done.

[malaise]

4. The best book I read as an undergraduate was

Michael Parenti's Democracy for the Few. The new Edition is even better.

[Karmadillo]

8. Thanks for mentioning it. Here's the description from Parenti's website.

http://www.michaelparenti.org/DemocracyForFew.html

Democracy For the Few
Seventh Edition

The study of politics is itself a political act, containing little that is neutral. True, we can all agree on certain neutral facts about the structure of government and the like. However, the book that does not venture much beyond these minimal descriptions will offend few readers but also will interest few. Any determined pursuit of how and why things happen draws us into highly controversial areas. Most textbooks pretend to a neutrality they do not really possess. While claiming to be objective, they are merely conventional. They depict the status quo in implicitly accepting terms, propagating fairly orthodox notions about American politics.

For decades, mainstream political scientists and other apologists for the existing social order have tried to transform practically every deficiency in our political system into a strength. They would have us believe that the millions who are nonvoters are content with present social conditions, that high-powered lobbyists are nothing to worry about because they perform an information function vital to representative government, and that the growing concentration of executive power is a good thing because the president is democratically responsive to broad national interests. The apologists have argued that the exclusion of third parties is really for the best because too many parties (that is, more than two) would fractionalize and destabilize our political system, and besides, the major parties eventually incorporate into their platforms the positions raised by minor parties (which is news to a number of socialist parties whose views have remained unincorporated for more than a century).

Reacting to the mainstream tendency to turn every vice into a virtue, left critics of the status quo have felt compelled to turn every virtue into a vice. Thus they have argued that electoral struggle is meaningless, that our civil liberties are a charade, that federal programs for the needy are next to worthless, that reforms are mostly sops to the oppressed, and labor unions are all complacent, corrupt, and conservative. The left critics have been a much needed antidote to the happy pluralists who painted a silver lining around every murky cloud. But they were wrong in seeing no victories, no "real" progress in the democratic struggles fought and won. Democracy for the Few tries to strike a balance; it tries to explain how democracy is incongruous with modern-day capitalism and is consistently violated by a capitalist social order, and yet how democracy refuses to die and continues to fight back and even make gains despite the great odds against popular forces.

[malaise]

9. Thanks n/t

[Just Me]

21. "they would have us believe that the millions who are nonvoters are,...

,...content with present social conditions,..."

I'm going to order his book.

[intheflow]

12. Me too.

That book was the seed that grew into the social justice work I do. I'd love to see the new edition. Saw Parenti speak a few years ago, and he's not only insightful but also very funny.

[BlueEyedSon]

6. k&r

[lyonn]

7. kicked and reccomended n/t

[bonito]

10. Kicked!! & rec. n/t

[gulfcoastliberal]

11. K&R - At my latest temp job today the plant manager came in during break

and said all our jobs would be moving to Mexico & China in a few months. No joke. I hate the job, but goes to show they are outsourcing EVERYTHING. The company is Pall Membrane.

[Clara T]

13. Pretty much sums it up

Consumerism and the New Capitalism

Essay by R.Cronk

The traditional cultural values of Western society are degenerating under the influences of corporate politics, the commercialization of culture and the impact of mass media. Society is awakening from its fascination with television entertainment to find itself stripped of tradition, controlled by an oppressive power structure and bound to the credit obligations of a defunct American dream.

For the public at large, the integrating and transformative experiences of culture have been replaced by the collective viewing experience and by participation in consumer trends. The American public has been inundated by an unending parade of commodities and fabricated television spectacles that keeps it preoccupied with the ideals and values of consumerism.

<snip>

The hallowed dollar is a cheap substitute for cultural values lost to greed and ambivalence in post-modern America. Economic worth has displaced traditional cultural values defining self-worth. Self-worth is gauged by buying power. The acts of buying and owning reinforce self-worth within consumer society. You can see it in the haughty and demanding attitude of the consumer as he stands before the cashier. No longer does the purchase have to be justified by purpose.

Mass media perpetuates the myth of consumerism as a priority of the New Capitalism. As America settles into its nightly routine of television viewing, corporate profiteers are quick to substitute the lure of material luxury and consumer gratification for the fading spirit. Media advertising sells an image -- an empty shell. Corporate America placates its flaccid public with despiriting pastiche. There is only fraudulent illusion. Instead of Swiss clockworks encased in hand carved hardwood, the consumer is offered a cheap imitation of routed particle board and computer chip technology. Who cares as long as it looks good?

http://www.westland.net/venice/art/cronk/consumer.htm

The great accomplishment in this capitalist dystopian empire is how sooo many who are on the short end of the sticking and gasping for air still defend the glory and promise of the stick that is swatting their foreheads every moment of every day. Breathtaking.

I am a consumer. I spend the money I make as quickly as possible in Walmart buying colored plastic widgets manufactured in China and imported by corporations controlled by executives making $100M a year. I save some money to give to the GOP in election years. I support all wars past, present, and future. I support cutting down ancient trees and pouring waste into rivers. I oppose paper ballots and think electronic voting is great and don't mind if someone changes my vote after I cast it, because they must have a reason to change it. Therefore I have nothing to hide, RFID is for consumers.

[sweetm2475]

14. And Dubya is our "CEO"!!!!!!!!!!

:scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared:

[Just Me]

15. BEST ANALYSIS AND EXPLANATION, EVER!!! K & R

:applause:

[MN ChimpH8R]

16. It also privatizes risk

Any good 'puke will tell you that if you don't have health insurance and can't afford to go to the doctor, it is your personal responsibility not to ever get sick or hurt.

Also, if Joe Schmuck goes under, he can no longer find any meaningful relief in bankruptcy. If you're a big cigar, the 'pukes can't get there fast enough to bail you out as long as you squeeze your employees until the scream. You needn't make any sacrifices yourself.

This country is headed permanently down the crapper. The only ways to survive are (1) be rich enough to survive the coming shitstorm, or (2) sink beneath the radar, economically speaking. Downsize, economize, small scale lifestyle. I am in fast pursuit of the latter. If the 'pukes are not taken down in the next couple of years, the middle class is totally doomed. I am not hopeful.

[bpilgrim]

17. wow: he sure knows who to fit'm on a bumper sticker

too bad folks like O'Really are too cowardly to debate our biggies... like parenti, zinn, chomsky, Arundhati Roy, etc.

and some think o'really is a good debater up against a COMEDIAN :rofl:

peace

[malaise]

19. Profound comment n/t

[WCGreen]

18. The best example I can think is the NFL, MLB and NBA

owners getting huge public assistance via the public financing of stadiums and arenas...

Privatize the benefits and socialize the costs....

[welshTerrier2]

20. the most expensive abuse is military spending

the US military has been used as a private security force to procure and protect oil for America's multi-national oil cartel ... the US government has used its military to topple regimes that are unfriendly to US corporate interests ...

we used to think of the military-industrial complex as a process whereby a bunch of lobbyists convinced Congress to waste all kinds of money on unnecessary defense hardware ... the reality is that the problem goes well beyond spending on hardware; it is embedded like a cancer in America's foreign policy ...

and as the article said, the citizens foot the bill while corporate America rakes in the bucks ...

[Just Me]

22. The military/industrial "complex" has also been exploited to secure,...

,..numerous contracts for U.S. multi-nationals in the business of "infrastructure" development (roads, water-ways, power, pipelines, etc). Those companies have defrauded billions from weaker nations for decades leaving marked trails of severe poverty and oppression behind.

[Polemonium]

24. Kicking

good stuff

[Karmadillo]

25. Kick

nt