My two favorite paragraphs are hilighted below.
Conservative Values Versus Corporate Values
By Randolph T. Holhut
Much as I dislike Pat Buchanan, there is one issue where I am in agreement with him: opposition to free trade and unfettered free-market capitalism.
``There is no doubt that there is an inherent contradiction between conservatism and unfettered capitalism,'' Buchanan recently told the New York Times. ``Conservatives ought to be worshipping at a higher altar than the bottom line of a balance sheet. What in heaven's name is it that we conservatives want to conserve if not social stability and family unity.''
Social stability and family unity are two things that the free market has no concern for. The cardinal rule of the New World Order is that ever-increasing profits are the only thing that matters. Then again, that rule has been in effect for as long as capitalism has existed.
Some of his Republican rivals have been ridiculing Buchanan for siding with the Left on this issue. But he has a very valid point. The people he championed as ``the silent majority'' when he was President Nixon's speech writer are the ones who are now getting hurt by the brutality of the free market, which is anything but free.
Earlier this month, AT&T announced they will eliminate 40,000 jobs over the next three years. The Dow Jones average rose 60 points the day the AT&T layoffs were announced. The pressures of global competition and mobile multinational corporations have combined to make layoffs a permanent fixture in the American economy. Whatever job growth there is consists of low-wage service jobs that can barely support one person, let alone a family.
Capitalism has always worked best when the concept of utility - the greatest good for the greatest number - is fully and fairly applied. When the workers, the managers and the owners all believe that the system is fair and democratic, everybody gets along. When the government provides for the people for whom the free market doesn't work and makes laws that protect their health, safety and welfare, everybody benefits.
This isn't a way out notion; this is the basic foundation of the American political and economic system known as democratic capitalism. But the conservatives in Congress don't seem to realize that the combination of trickle down economics, the weakening of government and public institutions and a social policy that punishes the poor while rewarding the rich is a recipe for disaster.
Capitalism has always worked best when the concept of utility - the greatest good for the greatest number - is fully and fairly applied. When the workers, the managers and the owners all believe that the system is fair and democratic, everybody gets along. When the government provides for the people for whom the free market doesn't work and makes laws that protect their health, safety and welfare, everybody benefits.
The GOP talks loudly about family values and personal responsibility. When it comes to backing those words with action, everything that the current Republican Congress has done so far has been done with corporate America in mind.
The conservatives are working to weaken environmental laws, to relax standards for food and drug safety, to deregulate the telecommunications industry and to cut social welfare spending to the bone. At the same time, they have no problem with using government to help their corporate friends. Current corporate subsidies from the federal government amount to about $265 billion over the next five years, equal to what the Republicans want to cut from Medicare.
Doesn't this seem to be a contradiction? Not for people who believe that the poor need the incentive of poverty to make them work harder while the rich need low taxes and government handouts to make them work harder. The conservatives truly don't see the social chaos that will be unleashed if they do get their way and turn the clock back to 1900.
Last summer, economist John Kenneth Galbraith said that ``economic justice can be measured by the screams of anguish from the very rich.'' The very rich have screamed at every proposal in this century that would benefit the many at the expense of the few. They fail to see that they have ultimately benefited every time that government saved capitalism from its worst excesses and promoted economic growth for all.
When corporate greed is unchecked, economic collapse usually follows. Laissez-faire capitalism has never been successful in the long run. Sooner or later, the government has to step in. If the GOP succeeds in eliminating the role of government as counterbalance, the next collapse won't be pleasant for any of us
