The End of the Republican Party: Socialism for Capital; Capitalism for Labor

The party of the free-market?  Please.  There is no such thing, there never will be such a thing, there never has been such a thing, and it's probably, on balance, a good thing when accountable governments shape markets to democratic, humanitarian and reasonable ends.  What is not a good thing: When a Party emerges, I'm not going to say which one, proclaiming the free market's reign, but in fact only worshiping the production of wealth from wealth in order to sate an astonishing greed (have you seen what's happened to housing in NYC the last seven years?), yet continues to mask its intentions and actions behind rhetoric.  Then what we have is a government that lies to the people about the dangers of intervention, subsidy and the public sector while concurrently indulging these things for the benefit of the few against the good of the many... they need to listen to Spock...

Because we think big government is bad government, we've stopped paying attention: And here we have an apparently gigantic financial meltdown, during which the government has, over and over, pledged tens of billions one way or another to save the very institutions which in many cases profited off of shall we say unclear or even deliberately misleading transactions and are now being rescued.  The class and profession that priced average New Yorkers out of the housing market in many cases oversaw, or were involved in, the very mortgage-based crisis of the present, and now our tax dollars are subsidizing their incompetence, which has, wonderfully, made it even harder for the average guy to get a mortgage or loan of any kind.  This is a ridiculous circle.  Really.  Aren't eight years far too much?

It may not have been deliberate, it may not even have been ill-intentioned, but it is here, everywhere -- and here we are.  The know-nothing sense that Orientals are "outside" history and we Americans are "above" history, able to circumvent it through sheer specialness alone, has brought us this kind of tremendous oversight failure.  And no questions meaningfully asked, except shooting moose and wearing lipstick: What does rescuing the financial market mean in the long-term?  Because the party of the free market is the party of thoughtlessness: No regulation! Oops, everything's [bleep]ed. Just pump tons of cash to help them un-[bleep] themselves.  What?  How?  Why?  With whose permission?  They are "too big to fail."  To the American people: Are you therefore too small to succeed?  Why is it that AIG gets $80 billion to rescue itself from its own institutional failures, and wider market greed, arrogance and incompetence, but the American child does not get guaranteed health care?  Are they too small to fail? 

But I do know this: Invest in education, healthcare, job creation, infrastructure -- that is, doing what Barack Obama is saying he will do, and has been educated well enough to know how to do and and is humble enough and purposeful enough to know where to find the best minds, regardless of ideology, to help him to do so -- will earn us countless more rewards, as a nation, and as a planet, in the long-term: Ten dollars of education now will make far more back in the future, and so on.  But no.  This is socialism without a society; socialism for capital; capitalism for labor.  My goodness.  Country First?  Uh, no: Capital First.  What else is rescuing AIG?  What are we watching, except for the pathetic rescue of capitalism by socialism, a kind of public health plan for the private sector?  When you categorically rule out intelligent government, and instead preach small government while overseeing morbidly obese, debt-ridden government, you preclude any intelligent conclusions.  There are intelligent, productive people in this country; if they are in government, why do we assume government must be anything but competent?  Because this one is, maybe.  When the Republicans warn you away from big government, it's because they're subconsciously warning you about themselves:  Don't trust us.  We can't help.  Because we are too busy ideologically swatting away challengers to actually pay attention, too busy pretending morality and decency instead of acting on it, kind of like how Donald Rumsfeld blathered on some macho b.s. while American troops and Iraqi people were dying.

And who pays for this in the long-term?  Come to New York City, the supposed American and global capital of finance (I know, I know, that's likely London now, if not definitely) and look at what our policies have brought us and bought us.  You will find an ostensibly first-world city with third-world infrastructure: Have you seen the subway system?  Cairo's is a peer.  Not Beijing or Dubai or London.  And as we bail out bank after bank, and not invest in American after American (can we not do both, or even some of both?), other countries will pull ahead.  Slowly.  But they are.  Because instead of nurturing capital and strengthening regulation, in order to have a strong market, we are asleep at the wheel.

We are not too special to fail.

Comments

[Baraka]

Salaams dear Haroon,

Have you thought about writing for the HuffPo or other news/opinion outlets? After reading this & your Hitchens piece, I think you really should consider it.

We need more sane voices out there.

Warmly,
Baraka

[sophister]

I think in order to maintain some semblance of an economy in the *near* future, this was done. It was to save face for capitalism. In fact helping the big guy is the cornerstone of capitalism. The fact that the government is doing the helping may seem socialistic, but it would be more socialist to help the small guy for the sake of helping the small guy. I think whether we had someone like Obama in control, or Bush, a financial crisis was inevitable. This is more a result of consumerism and people living well beyond their means. New York City is an shining example of that. In the end, Ob's got my vote, but if you think he is any cure for Wall Street, then that is wishful thinking.