Book Review With Additional Commentary On The Subject
Thom Hartmann's latest book, SCREWED: THE UNDECLARED WAR AGAINST THE MIDDLE CLASS - AND WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT, tells how the Neo-Conservatives have been systematically attacking and dismantling the Democrats' New Deal/Great Society socio-economic structure in the United States.
To me, the main theme of the book is that Democracy requires a strong and healthy middle class in order to function properly, and that this is impossible without responsible Public regulation of business. This regulation was gradually accomplished by the United States Government during the time between the passage of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890) and the beginning of Ronald Reagan's first term as President (1981), at which time the Neo-Conservative process of "Deregulation" began, and continues up till now, attempting to reverse all the earlier progress.
If they are not regulated, profit-seeking corporations will naturally and inevitably seek to maximize their own profits, above all other considerations. (That is their main purpose, to make profits. What else would they do?) But the so-called "Free Market," where unregulated profit-seeking corporations are responsible only to their owners and not to a higher Public authority, leads inevitably to social and economic disaster.
When Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand" - as described in WEALTH OF NATIONS (1776) - and David Ricardo's "Iron Law Of Wages" (1817), are applied to unregulated industrial Capitalism, the disastrous results are accurately described by Karl Marx in DAS KAPITAL (1867): poverty and exploitation of the masses; cartels, monopolies, and extreme concentration of wealth among the corporate owners; violent social upheavals; perpetual wars. This is what we were beginning to have here in the USA in the late 1800's, but the process was stopped by the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890) and subsequent Progressive and Democratic legislation to regulate business in the Public Interest.
In this book, Hartmann identifies many of the various ideas and policies which the Neo-Conservatives have been using to enrich and empower the economic elite, while weakening and diminishing America's Middle Class and endangering the entire country. Among these Neo-Conservative ideas and policies are . . .
* "Trickle-Down Economics" - the idea that if the rich grew suddenly richer, they would use that money to build factories and hire more people. Yes, that's what they frequently do. And when they do that, they perpetuate and increase their economic advantage over those less wealthy, who could have started their own businesses if they had any money left over after buying the necessities of life.
* The policy of maintaining abnormally low interest rates, to artificially pump up the economy by increasing borrowing and debt.
* The policy of huge deficit spending and increasing our balance-of-payments debt to other countries, because of trade deficits.
* The policy of trying to privatize everything that has been Public. Thus Public property becomes Private Property, and the Private owner owns it, controls it, and profits by it. The Public loses all rights to it. Roads, bridges, schools, prisons, airports, hospitals, and other Public facilities become Private Property, owned and run for the profit of their Corporate owners.
* The policy of deregulating everything that has been regulated. This allows businesses to ignore safety and environmental regulations, enacted for the Public benefit. And it allows the largest and most powerful corporations to swallow up their smaller and weaker competitors. The result is that a few large corporations wind up owning almost all of every important industry; and then they run it however they choose, with no oversight by the Public. In the case of Media Conglomerates, it allows them to publish and broadcast whatever the owners choose; and the owners always choose to broadcast and publish whatever seems to best protect their political interests and yield the greatest profits. Public be damned!
* The policy of attacking and weakening Public Education, so as to justify privatization of the Public Schools and to eliminate teachers unions.
* The policy of opposing estate taxes, so as to perpetuate and increase the power of inherited wealth vs. "earning it yourself." Suppose one person begins life with a ten-million-dollar nestegg which he inherits. Another person has no such inherited wealth. They are both equally talented, equally capable. Which one do you think will be the owner and which one will be the employee? (A traditional football cheer of the Harvard fans when their opponents score a touchdown: "That's all right; that's okay; you're gonna work for us some day.")
* The policy of opposing or reducing progressive income taxes, while pushing for flat-rate taxation. This allows the rich to get richer, because as their income rises, they get to keep most of the ever-increasing excess of their income over the amounts needed for normal life. So they then buy profit-making assets and begin to make a profit from the labor of others, thus further perpetuating and increasing their economic advantage over the less wealthy.
* The idea that, "I earned this money myself. It all belongs to me. I don't owe anything to anybody. Taxation is robbery." This is a basic Neo-Conservative idea. It ignores the reality that profit-making businesses can only exit within a pre-existing framework of laws, courts, infrastructure, and national defense. Nobody earns anything "all by himself." Taxation is the means by which profit-making businesses pay their way in our society.
* Seeking and promoting perpetual war. This keeps the Public in fear, and keeps the Defense contractors humming profitably, at Public expense.
Rev. Bill McGinnis is an Internet Christian minister, writer and publisher. He is Director of LoveAllPeople.org, a small private think tank in Alexandria, Virginia, and all of its related websites, including InternetChurchOfChrist.org,CommitteeForTheGoldenRule.org,CivicAmerican.com, and AmericanDemocrat.net. His agenda is to help maximize the happiness and well-being of all people. His blog is located at http://blog.myspace.com/revbillmcginnis
You are hitting the nail on the head. What is so disapointing is that many of the people who have allready fell victim to the war on the middle class still support the very people or parties that screwed them over.Clever use of wedge issues and other distractions hide the well thought out war plans. Allowing our country to be ran by multinational corporations is a threat to national security in many ways.How can you promote democracy abroad when you are busy destroying it at home? How can you produce and maintain a strong military when all your factories and technology secrets are in China because of the slave labor there. If average Americans dont step up and fight back our democracy will be destroyed by the unrelenting greed of mutinational corporations. Multinationals have no sense of patriotism or the U.S. best interests in mind, our elected officials should not kneel down to them as they do. Our presidents since 1981 have all been corporate puppits.We need a man like Teddy Roosevelt or FDR.
by
Gary Denson (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 197 comments)
on Sunday, September 24, 2006 at 10:00:27 AM
I was living in Seattle (I am a native North Carolinian) when the Witless One in Washington, DC stole his first election as president. I was still living in Seattle when this amoral tool of Corporatists went to war illegally by failing to get the Congressional permission to do so (as have all the presidents since FDR).
I was active and vocal in my opposition to Bush's 'election' in 2000. A fat lot of good that did when Americans watched as this thief and his cohorts stole an American election.
I was active and vocal in my opposition to Bush's invasion of Iraq. based on what even then, seemed to be spurious 'evidence' and his war cry of remember 9/11 when he knew that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Once again, the American people wrapped themselves in the flag and followed Bush and his lying administration into this 'war'. This country is now into the 1,245th day since the Craword, TX village idiot landed on an aircraft carrier and declared "mission accomplished" in Iraq. Mission accomplished...NOT!
Bush has enjoyed five years of national 'sleepwalking' while the American economy went into the toilet. The administration has somehow been able to hoodoo many Americans into believing that the economy was improving. It was...but only for the richest people, corporations, accountants and stockholders. For the Middle Class (a disappearing part of our society) the economy has not improved in any measurable way.
More and more factories are being closed forever here. The work that used to be done by Americans has been outsourced and 'offshored' to Asia, Mexico, India etc. Many of the so-called "high tech" jobs that the last several presidents and 'talking heads' insisted would replace the lost "smokestack" jobs never materialized. Furthermore, many of those "high tech" jobs that did matertialize have been 'offshored' especially to India. Additionally, many of the Indians that were imported to the US at the behest and insistence of Bill Gates to be trained/educated as lower cost workers for Mircosoft have been trained/educated here and returned to India to start up companies to snatch even larger numbers of these "high tech" jobs from Americans. Have you called a corporate service center (banks, internet service providers, credit companies etc.) lately? If so, it is much more than likely that you were speaking to Indians in India that are carefully trained to sound American. And that's just one example among many.
The New World Order, globalism whatever you wish to call it is most definitely not good news for America's middle class workers. The Bush administration has proven to be the premier tool of corporatists. Corporatists have no interest in the welfare of their workers. Ask any corporatist, they'll tell you that the planet is full of cheap and trainable labor. That doesn't even take into the effect the field of cybernetics. Most of the work now done by semi-skilled labor will very soon be done by computer contolled equipment that even repairs itself.
An interesting thing is this. Back in the mid 80's I read an article by the late Malcolm Forbes. He described in great detail and with precision this very War on the 'Haves' against the 'Have-Nots'. He stated without equivocation that the "Have-Nots" would not win.
As posited in a book by Jeremy Rifkin The End of Work, that as long as the value of a person was tied to "productivity" in creating things that our society had little hope for the middle class. He stated that there already exists the technology do away with almost all production jobs. He further posited that quality of life jobs would be the answer for employment of the future (e.g. teachers, nurses, childcare etc.). I recommend this book to you. It is not the easiest of reads but it is worth the effort.
The one thing that is certain is that middle class Americans have no one working in their interest in either the corporate world or the US Government. You may believe that.
It is my sincere hope that Americans will awaken and return our nation's government to a true two (or more) party system in the election this November. Furthermore, I hope that there will be an awakening to the fact that we are each and every one in the smae boat together and that boat is sinking...fast!
There are answers to our dilemma. I personally believe that a real return to comittment to and worship of the Living God.
Simcerely,
Rev. Michael Weaver-Robbins,retired
by
Michael Weaver-Robbins (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 30 comments)
on Friday, September 29, 2006 at 4:44:07 PM
