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Will Obama Save Capitalism?
November 23, 2008 Corporatism

I sure hope not. If by saving it we are going to get the largest expansion in government power in history, unsustainable entitlement programs that discourage productive workers from producing and saving, increased class warfare and economic suspicion (only 90% marginal tax rates on top incomes back then), frightening the daylights out of businesses and investors resulting in a decade long period of net negative capital investment, consumer expenditures that are lower 10 years from now than they are today, the destruction of livestock and crops in an effort to prop up prices in a struggling industry, a duping of the public into thinking that “hope” and “change” and a nice fireside “chat” will suddenly make it rain filet mignon, wine and pastry … and fuel efficient cars, the further cartelization of various industries, the rise of destructive union power (card check anyone?), and an open and honest detestation of the myriad wonders that commercial society has bestowed upon us …

I didn’t sign up for that man. Asking Obama and FDR to save capitalism is like asking the influenza virus to preserve its human hosts. And when the flu manages to not kill it, it will take credit for “saving it” from the healthy cells within it. The sick auto executives and student loan executives and financial company executives running to Obama and Paulson and Bernanke with their hands out are not capitalists, there are simply the influenza virus disguised in healthy cell clothing.

Beyond that, it would be nice to have folks consider what exactly it means to “save capitalism from the capitalists.” Efforts by government to save capitalism necessarily reduce freedom, liberty and the ability of individuals to get the most out of their lives. If anyone ever undertook an effort to “save democracy” from the evils of the democrats (lowercase d), it wouldn’t be by making reforms that are anathema to its ideal working. Reforms to democratic governance would be made by expanding democracy, and by figuring out ways to make political representatives better represent the interests of “the people” and to reduce the ways they have of exploiting the many to their own benefit and the benefit of a few powerful constituents. The same people that are being branded as “evil capitalists” are no different than the people that are destroying the political process. In many cases they are the same people. But for some reason the public has been duped into believing that any excesses that happen in our commercial lives are the fault of a system of liberty and peaceful exchange, and that the wise and good and omniscient MEN that desire the awesome powers that government allows them to wield, will somehow act in “society’s” interest when they accrue such powers.

The better question should be, Will Obama Save American Democracy? As he is my president too, I sure hope so. But I am not holding my breath.

"2" Comments
  1. I streamed a mouthful of cranberry juice though my nose when I read that title! 😉

  2. hahaha problems problems, do you think we will really deal with the sources of them? no man, we just keep dancing around them.

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