One of the refrains I’ve seen of late is how capitalism failed and that’s why we are in an economic crisis. Something I’ve tried to explain to people in the past is that real capitalism is rarely seen in America these days. What we have is huge corporations that dearly wish to be monopolies. Monopolies don’t want competition, they want total control and are big believers in centralization.
So I’ve found it interesting how Republicans have been labeled the party of big business when so many big businesses mainly contribute to Democrats. When big government and big business conspire, you get what we have these days. What I am is a believer in competition of the free market which is different than being pro-business. Jonah Goldberg has an excellent piece on this that everyone should read.
At Blogmocracy, Rodan has a post based on Goldberg’s op-ed that connects the union of progressives and big business with the policies of fascism. In it, he uses a term I’ve used for years, Neo-feudal to describe the attitude of those wishing control through making everyone beholden to them. I have to point out that the ever increasing number of “czars” in the Obama administration accentuates the impression of feudalism to me. Having people with cabinet level power who directly report to the President is all too much like vassals reporting to their lord, in my view.
I will say that the video in the post is annoying, it has some good content on socialism and George Orwell, then completely goes off the rails with the cartoony stuff at the end.
I think a fundamental human mistake is to vest power in one organization and then have all the decisions be made at the top. This is the essence of centralization and history shows that it leads to inflexibility, inefficiency, and corruption every time. This applies to businesses, organizations, political parties, and governments equally.
But here we are, repeating the same mistakes and being shocked when it goes wrong. While I think people are starting to wake up and see what is happening, I wonder if it is too late. The consolidation of power by the federal government and large corporations has been going on for some time now. The ACTA shenanigans are a good example of how it works, with the US government doing the bidding of the entertainment industry.
The solution is smaller government and small business. A focus on these things will lead to better economic and political health in the country. But will the American people do what is needed to bring reform about? That’s the multi-trillion dollar question.
