January 14, 2010
By Mark Biskeborn
With neoliberalism, otherwise known as Regeanomics, government hardly dares to challenge the power of certain corporations that are so overbearing that they succeed in altering every aspect of our lives, our society, and culture.
::::::::
As
noted in Part
I, Octavio Paz emphasized how Mexico's economic policies favor monopoly.
Industry monopoly and its sister, oligopoly, enable a handful of wealthy
business owners to set prices and permit control of certain goods and services
to maximize their personal profits. With neoliberalism, otherwise known as
Regeanomics, government hardly dares to challenge the power of certain
corporations that are so overbearing that they succeed in altering every aspect
of our lives, our society, and culture.
In
the U.S. this situation has become blatantly clear as the oligopolistic healthcare
industry does everything possible to avoid a public option that would only
encourage competition in an otherwise tight-knit, ol' boy industry. America's political
leaders and pundits strongly promote the idea of free-market enterprise,
although their speeches provide the rest of society with just enough hope only
to ponder the American Dream and how the regular guy might achieve a
comfortable spot in the sunshine. "Change you can believe in."
Meanwhile
a handful of the world's largest insurance companies spends billions of dollars
to block the public healthcare bill because it would break the oligopolistic
choke-hold on faceless millions of Americans. Corporations like Cigna, Aetna,
WellPoint, and AHIP dominate the industry and consequently increase prices
faster than in any other industry or economic trend. They pay the hooligans
like Joe Lieberman--via his wife--or the automaton Harvard medical professors,
like Joseph P. Newhouse, one of Cigna's board of directors, and other paid puppets
to defend the policies of market domination, stagnation, and out-right highway
robbery.
Contrary
to their ideals of competitive, efficient capitalism, the salesmen of
neoliberalism only talk about the theories while they defend their privileged
position, and in doing so, they defeat the very principles they espouse about an
open, innovative, free market where buyers have choices and suppliers are
forced to innovate and cut costs. Politicians and pundits for the corporations
lie to the public because the insurance companies pay them to spread the gospel
that government is evil and inefficient and only big corporations can manage
our society and our economy.
The
corporate-bought talking heads take the money and live in comfortable houses
near the country club and send their children off to expensive schools where
they learn corporate etiquette to insure that they land upwardly mobile jobs at
powerful corporations. The picture we see in this represents how our society
has devolved into a place where materialism overwhelms us while it destroys our
environment, our democratic system, and our community.
A
vast majority of the middle class dreams of a career in a large corporation
because, in America, it's where the greatest social benefits are offered,
healthcare, retirement packages, and vacations. These are all the benefits that
the government provides its citizens in prosperous European democracies. As
this trend continues, American becomes less and less a democracy and more a
corporatist welfare state.
The
broad chasm between what the paid pundits say and what they do reminds us of
the Communist propaganda about how everyone must sacrifice today for a greater,
more equitable tomorrow. A free democracy is mere myth when corporations
overrule the democratic processes.
The
broad chasm between what the paid pundits say and what they do reminds us of
the Communist propaganda about how everyone must sacrifice today for a greater,
more equitable tomorrow. A free democracy is mere myth when corporations
overrule the democratic processes.
"I hope we shall crush in its
birth the aristocracy of our moneyed
corporations, which dare already
to challenge our government to a
trial of strength and bid defiance
to the laws of our country." Thomas Jefferson, 1812
The
U.S. Senate and Congress meekly kneel to the will of the corporations at the
cost of the will of the people.
Democratic leaders dropped a
government insurance option and the idea of expanding Medicare to younger
Americans. Reid also omitted language that would have eliminated the federal
antitrust exemption for health insurers -- another nonstarter for Nelson.--The Washington Post, December 20, 2009
In 2010, U.S. Supreme Court Justices
will explicitly consider Citizens
United v. Federal Election Commission to
determine whether to overturn a 1990 ruling that had upheld the ban on direct
corporate contributions. If corporations gain this last bit of power over our
democracy, the will of the people is crushed completely.
Likewise,
in Mexico the government almost never steps in to regulate the large land
owners, much less the large monopolistic corporations.
Nothing New about Neoliberal Economic
Policies
Variations
of what we currently call "neoliberalism" have always existed throughout
history. Indeed, history is mostly a study of how the privileged few impose their
authority by various shams and tricks to overrule the gullible populace. In the
U.S. when an elected official, like Sarah Palin, states in a public speech that
Obama's healthcare bill includes "death panels," a certain part of the gullible
public believes the drivel. It's the depraved and perverted segments of fanatically
money-driven Americans that allow dishonest scam artists to continue their
criminal careers like Dick Cheney--the former vice president who granted no-bid
billion dollar contracts to his own corporation, Haliburton.
Mexico's
history contains its share of such flimflammery in rude and violent acts. Since
Cortes dropped anchor in a Yucatan bay, a class of Spanish nobles has always
managed to dominate the masses of the poor and uneducated. In many ways, the Spanish
monarchy and aristocracy, in cooperation with the Catholic Church, have imposed
policies similar to what we call neoliberalism today. And even after Mexico
established its independence from the Spanish monarchy and formed a constitutional
democracy, it has still maintained a government that strongly promotes the
interests of the caudillos, the wealthy few who reign over regions or
industries in Mexico.
Even
more so in Mexico than in the U.S., a small number of huge corporations dominate
the economy and the democratic processes with a heavy political and financial hand.
Monopoly and Neoliberalism
Pemex
holds a monopoly on the petroleum in Mexico. As the Wall Street Journal reports on April 7, 2008, any talk of
stimulating competition in the oil industry is unheard of in Mexico.
Such heresies cannot even be whispered in
Mexico though not because the Mexican people can't be convinced that there is
a better way to run things. The reason is because the guardians of the status
quo politicians, suppliers and labor would suffer if competition hit the
market. Private Mexican contractors who "supply" Pemex are used to
business transactions tied to political connections. If there were multiple
buyers in competition with one another, those political profit margins would
evaporate.
Even
though Mexico's President Calderon delivers noble speeches about breaking up
monopolistic industries that dominate its economy, he continues to apply
neoliberal policies by privatizing many industries--from petroleum to tortillas
and telephones. by Definition monopolies own markets and that means they can
charge high prices without pressure to improve or innovate. They turn economies
into murky swamps that move slowly to a standstill.
At
any moment in their daily routine, Mexicans cannot avoid the monopolies that
plague their lives. When they fill their gas tanks, they pay homage to Pemex,
the only supplier of petroleum. When the average Mexican, Jose, makes a phone
call to reserve a table at his favorite restaurant, he pays a high price to
Telmex, which owns 94% of landlines, a de facto monopoly. And when Jose takes
his family to the restaurant and orders tortillas, he pays dearly to the main
supplier of corn and flour, Roberto González
Barrera, owner of the Maseca flour monopoly and Banorte bank, who controls more than 70% of
the market. A desire for tacos leads to extortion, because the price of corn
has risen more than 700% since NAFTA's start in 1994. When Jose's family
watches the news about inflation on TV, their only choice for cable channels is
owned by the Grupo Televisa, which controls an overwhelming part of the
industry.
Mexico's
captains of industry, the business elites, enjoy a tight grip on the economy while
the country sinks deeper into its original feudal state when the Spanish
monarchy ruled. A few dominating corporations own the economy. By accumulating power
with political contributions and other bribes, these corporations also control
most of the government. The distribution of wealth has remained in the hands of
the owners of the feudal domains--which in modern terms are the oligarchic
corporations. The concentration of wealth in the barons of fiefdoms keeps
competition away. Since they own their own industries, they can continue to extort
the general population, reduced to peasants in an economy that increasingly
resembles the landscape of the Middle Ages.
Carlos
Slim Helu, the owner of Mexico's telecommunications industry, enjoys a
government-granted guaranteed monopoly, making him one of the richest men in
the world with over $60 billion.
Mexico's
super-rich class includes at least twenty-four billionaires and over 85,000
millionaires, not counting the billionaires and millionaires who prosper from
the drugs and sex trafficking. Much of this skewed distribution of wealth began
with Mexico's President Salinas's privatization and NAFTA policies in the early
1990s. At the same time that a handful of billionaires emerged in Mexico, more
and more of the common people fell below subsistence level. More than fifty
million Mexicans live on less than $4 per day and another fifteen million live
on $1 or less per day (source: CONAPO survey of 2005). In like manner, many
American citizens still prefer to live in a Disneyland vision of the U.S. while
the middle class sinks deeper and closer to the same situation as in
Mexico.
Feudalism
and Capitalism
The
privileged Mexican lords of industry represent the same special interest groups
we know and despise so much here in the U.S. Just as in the U.S., the Mexican government--which
is right-wing regardless of its political party and imposes neoliberal
policies--blocks liberal groups at every turn when they propose changes to the
system for a more equitable distribution of the wealth that reduces crime and
creates a more efficient and productive country. The government, in collusion
with the captains of industry, crushes any such attempts to chip away at their
stronghold, built up over the centuries when Mexico was a closed, one-party
state--from monarchy to make-believe democracy.
The
authoritarian government in Mexico has continued a centuries-old tradition to
serve and to protect the wealthy few. This cozy, collusive relationship between
the government and the wealthy began when the Spanish colonized Mexico. At that
time the Catholic Church played a prominent role as the governing authority.
The encomienda system granted
Spaniards with a "trusteeship" over the common people. In exchange for
spreading Catholicism, the Spaniards could tax the "blue collar people" for
their labor, forcing them to work the haciendas.
As
the constitutional government gradually overtook certain authoritarian roles
from the Church, similar arrangements continued regarding how the privileged
class dominated the common folks. One of the few opportunities left for the
destitute middle class is to enter the illegal businesses such as sex and drug
trafficking. As the U.S. Border Patrol reveals on its Web site, the practice of
slavery has since then grown and now we see that the U.S. is one of the largest
markets for sex slavery.
When
confronted with these facts, economic theorists, like Milton Friedman, and
other neoconservatives from Bill Crystal to Joe Lieberman and to Podhoretz,
G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney--or the right-wing religious fanatics of the 700 Club
like Pat Robertson or Joel Osteen--defend the neoliberal's new world order by
claiming that the spoils of the wealthy few will eventually trickle down to the
masses, so long as liberal politicians do not interfere with the neoliberal
policies that, ironically, only intensify the economic calamities. On the
contrary, the neoconservatives promote their neoliberal economic policies by
demanding a fanatical faith in the infallibility of laissez-faire and
unregulated markets.
Large
corporations use enormous funds in commercials and public relations to
influence mainstream media. As a consequence, the entire U.S. culture is
drastically influenced by emphasizing the commercial and consumer motivations
in our lives.
Although
the neoliberals claim that profits are the essence of democracy, people need to
sense a connection to fellow citizens in order to maintain a civil
responsibility. Without citizens finding respect for their community, democracy
loses its foundation. Instead of citizens, people lose their connection with
other people as they become preoccupied with their personal interests as
consumers. The neoliberals promote consumerism by means of consumer credit,
unregulated finance products, and shopping malls.
In
this new world order, people lose their identity as people and about who they
are. They change their identity by following the commercial propaganda and
adopt a belief that they are what they possess. In a culture immersed in
commercials and consumer products--one that shows only a marginal resistance--we
identify ourselves by our cars, clothes, and other possessions more than by our
principles about freedom, democracy and other values that the neoconservatives
claim to protect, while, on the contrary, they manipulate and destroy them to
such an extent that regular Americans value more what we own than the
principles we might be ready to defend to the death in preemptive wars.
Individuals
in modern society have always struggled on a balancing line between enjoying
the surface of appearances and beauty and considering the underlying reality of
our lives. When commercials, like some dogma, overrule our lives, we become
alienated and competitive in a struggle to obtain more products than the next
guy. We become exactly what corporations want from us, consumers, not citizens
of a democracy. As people identify themselves more with products they buy, it
becomes easier for us to see each other as products. This makes it easier for
us to take the next step by buying one of the fastest growing imports from
Mexico, a sex slave. (source: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09251/996295-84.stm#ixzz0bHjivXS3
).
Authors Website: www.biskeborn.com
Authors Bio:Mark Biskeborn is a novelist:
Mojave Winds, A Sufi's Ghost, Mexican Trade.
Short Stories: California & Beyond.
Poetry & Essays.
For more details: www.biskeborn.com
See Mark's stories on Amazon.com or wherever books are sold.