Corporations, as William Vanderbilt emphatically asserted, exist for the benefit of their stockholders. Ideally, governments exist to represent and act in the interests of all the people, and that ongoing entity: the nation. And if a government fails in these duties to the people and to the future, then the people have the right to improve it or, failing that, abolish it and replace it with a new government. (Read The Declaration of Independence. It's all there).
For example, although I have a stake in clean air and water, I can't vote out the governing board of a polluting corporation; not unless I am a stockholder, and a wealthy one at that. However, I can elect representatives that will enact laws and regulations that protect me and other stakeholders from the abuses of the corporation. In short, if corporations, in the proper pursuit of profits for their stockholders, are also to operate to the benefit of society at large, they must be regulated by the only agency legitimately qualified to act in behalf of the general population, and that would be a democratically-elected government.
So we come to an unspectacular conclusion: capitalism and corporations are good things, but it is possible to have too much of a good thing. For these worthy and indispensable servants of the body politic can become cruel and insufferable masters, to prevent which, we establish laws and regulations - i.e., government.
Today, in Bush's America, we have way too much of these "good things," as they now undermine and destroy the institutions, the economic foundations, and the political structures that sustain us - and the corporations as well.
The solution is also compellingly obvious: let's return to the system of regulated capitalism, of checks and balances, of the rule of law, and of a government of, by, and for the people, that has served us so well for over two-hundred years.
In the previous administration, under such a regime, the American economy enjoyed unparalleled prosperity, the country was at peace, and the United States of America and its political traditions were respected throughout the world.
Let's bring back that which was proven to work in the recent past.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
(Author's note: This essay is a brief statement of an argument developed at length in my book-in-progress,
Conscience of a Progressive.).
Copyright 2006 by Ernest Partridge
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