WHAT IS THE REAL NATURE of American capitalism today? Is it a grand national adventure, as politicians and textbooks aver, in which markets provide the framework for benign competition, from which emerges the greatest good for the greatest number? Or is it the domain of class struggle, even a “global class war,” as the title of Jeff Faux’s new book would have it, in which the “party of Davos” outmaneuvers the remnants of the organized working class?
Today, the signature of modern American capitalism is neither benign competition, nor class struggle, nor an inclusive middle-class utopia. Instead, predation has become the dominant feature — a system wherein the rich have come to feast on decaying systems built for the middle class. The predatory class is not the whole of the wealthy; it may be opposed by many others of similar wealth. But it is the defining feature, the leading force. And its agents are in full control of the government under which we live.
Our rulers deliver favors to their clients. These range from Native American casino operators, to Appalachian coal companies, to Saipan sweatshop operators, to the would-be oil field operators of Iraq. They include the misanthropes who led the campaign to abolish the estate tax; Charles Schwab, who suggested the dividend tax cut of 2003; the “Benedict Arnold” companies who move their taxable income offshore; and the financial institutions behind last year’s bankruptcy bill. Everywhere you look, public decisions yield gains to specific private entities.
Humm... you can add the use of Eminent Domain to take your private property for another's private use, in the guise of "public good." Of course, "they" get to define "public good."
Note that the reasoning that building hotels, business complexes, etc., create jobs and a tax base does not require that local governments turn over property to private developers. Local governments could use Eminent Domain to acquire private property as government property, then lease the property to developers. This would provide a income stream to the local government and comply with the true intent of public good. Of course that's a non-starter because the local government development people are beholding to big-money developers, and the developers do not want to pay a long term lease.
As to the nature of capitalism today? The hyenas are feeding and getting fatter.
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