Op Ed: 'Socialism' Shades
U.S. Business From
Capitalist Heat

Bailouts for distorted “Free Market” destroy system.

Widespread deregulation removed reasonable governmental surveillance and control, as generous subsidies for powerful industries continue to eat away at the U.S. taxpayer's dollar.

(EUGENE, Ore.) - Our Founding Fathers set up what was then very definitely “big government” in both concept and coverage intended. They knew only wise governance could accomplish some essential actions, from study of the world’s leading philosophers.

They already faced early, threatening agricultural secessionists. (Shay’s Rebellion) They felt they had to restore fleeing slaves to plantation owners, protecting Southern interests. They meant to be ready for Indian resistance to the inevitable Western drive for dominion. They rapidly made the power of their new form of government clear by redeeming otherwise worthless bonds for speculators financing the American Revolution.

The first actions of the first American Congress were to subsidize manufacturers by establishing tariffs; then to set up a national bank with already-established private firms.

Those revealing actions reflected a common-sense attitude which led to ongoing strong support and subsidy for many decades. That was how we created canals, merchant marine, railroads, then national roads; and opened up Westward expansion, with huge land grants for colleges and universities established to build our manufacture and research efforts, too.

But that was 1776-1860; this is 2008, starting the 21st Century. What was demanded THEN is NOT what is demanded from us NOW. Sometimes, when American enterprise went too far --and often too fast-- in the complex business of the modern world, that has forced lush bailouts by suddenly reluctant government for some parts of our American economy.

Famously, American historian Charles Beard, in 1931, identified fifteen interventions by government to aid, assist and/or rescue big business. The pattern of taxpayer payouts as rescue-resource continued intermittently, triggered time and again by the business cycle, world events, and sometimes even cataclysmic weather-impacts.

The radical concept that “Government IS the problem!”, key element of the Reagan Era, turned the Founders fundamental findings for our firm economic foundation upside down. The tenor of those times then insisted that “Greed is good!”.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time” is the most widespread explanation now of this truly radical --and theatrical-- departure from our recorded history.

That attitude motivated and manipulated the current deep damages. Widespread deregulation removed reasonable governmental surveillance and control. Generous subsidies for powerful industries continued with extremely damaging impacts.

As late as 2006, the Cato Institute reports $92 billion in taxpayer dollars for General Electric, Boeing, Dow Chemical, Xerox and Motorola. BUT “socializing the risk while privatizing the profits” goes much too far, most modern Americans now believe.

Worldwide economic credit-crisis “caused by continued laissez faire and overly determined monetarism”, has solidified already strong negative attitude for millions more, more recently.

This Presidential election will determine our choice for the coming Century, just as theirs did for their time. We are wise to question how lush bailouts lavished on freebooters simply perpetrate “socialism only for the rich”.

These freebooters abandon promised integrity, then avoid or deny any reasonable regulation, by covert control of ostensibly elective authorities. They flavor all operations with greed and “gotcha”, easing every action via money manipulations.

Corporate “campaign contributions” substitute dollar-power for elective authority, conferred by voter choice.

“Open, honest, transparent, independent” operation attributed to “the free market”, and its always-miraculous “automatic remedy” for even “irresponsible exuberance”, have proven monstrous economic myths. Unrealistic expectations of business dogmas have brought us to this perilous point in our 21st Century world.

In 1776, never before had there been the essential combination of continental opportunity, open dependence on essential freedoms, and the huge natural resources and land-sweep our predecessors found open in this New World.

Overwhelmingly complex needs and unforeseeable demands swept away both caution and citizen concern. The universal mood, mode and multiple actions were surely motivated by intense, manifold personal mission and professional mandate felt by those early-arrival entrepreneurs.

That same striking essential for unique “American exceptionalism” served them --and their nation-- very well for many decades. It shaped and drove both the Monroe Doctrine and the concept of Manifest Destiny, clearly shaping foreign policy and “free trade” while this nation was a’building.

Widespread public apathy, very obviously motivated by growing disgust with constant overblown political confrontations, have created a perilous new public condition.

That destroys trust-and-confidence once enjoyed by political groups, substituting a beginning demand for a Second American Revolution. Cultural, social, economic changes shape the new generations. Huge population growth, bolstered by millions of immigrants seeking “equal opportunity for all, under law”, add additional strivings as well as greater national capacities.

Failure of our “free press” to inform, monitor and motivate full citizen understandings is a root cause of our calamity. Revolting recent developments arrived insidiously, manipulated by malign intent-- overwhelming democratic processes. Human personhood --and political “voice”--was conferred on corporations by Supreme Court precedent by “recorder-error”.

Power passed from our tried-and-true democratic elective control to corporate profit-driven perpetrators by “campaign contributions”.

We may never truly recover from this collapse of citizen concern and care for America’s national value system without painful remediation. Only decisive far-reaching return to Constitutional fundamentals on which this nation was first built can prevail against a money-shaped tide of private interests far over-shadowing the commonweal concerns of our 1776 Revolution.

The indispensable remedial action is rapid and complete return to the basic principles which led our Founding Fathers in establishing our governance system.

“Socialism for the rich” --paid for by primitive raids on taxpayer funds by either subsidies OR “special” bailouts-- can no longer be allowed to shade and protect any American business from the real competitive heat of the capitalist system.

Worldwide rapid developments in once-backward nations are now completing their own transition to the 21st Century. We must do likewise ourselves, or fall into the dustbin of history like other once-world-leader nations.