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Re: Sunday, December 14, 2003
This is a great post about an important topic. Thanks for posting. I think making distinctions between the kinds of corporate behavior and corporations that diminish our power as citizens is important. I do think there is a real and important problem in our democracy regarding the influence of corporations in government, and I think that Republicans get way too much credit for being thrifty and pro-business than they actually deserve. "Always seemed to me that the Republicans had the party of income production, while Democrats had the party of income redistribution." If that is so, how is it that Reagan, Bush, and Bush II ran up such huge deficits? On the face of it, their policies redistributed a *lot* more money -- more money, in fact, than we actually had. Both sides redistribute money by their very nature. The difference is that Republicans have been redistributing that money to large corporate interests -- by allowing them not to pay their fair share of taxes, not to treat workers fairly, and not to clean up their toxic messes. That is when they are not giving money from the public treasury to them outright to support boondoggles like ethanol production. "Is it just because some corporate fat cats have been buying votes with campaign contributions? Fine: lot's wrong with that, but does that mean everything "corporate" is wrong?" The problem is that in many cases large corporations have seized the levers of power in our democracy and are now *running* the government without reference to the citizenry's right to do so. You need look no further than the most recent energy bill. This is not a case of "buying votes" with campaign contributions. The actual legislation was written and negotiated in secret meetings with the administration by and for oil companies and energy companies, and then rubberstamped by Congress. They're not just buying votes: they're making law. And not just in the energy bill but everywhere. Do small businesses have the power to do this? No. Do software companies get involved in this much? No. But they are not the ones benefiting from massive tax breaks, giveaways, and the ability to dump bad products and toxic waste, either. A small group of very large corporations are benefiting from an administration that is not just allowing but helping them to loot the public treasury -- and everybody else, including the average citizen *and* the average midsize business -- is paying for it with their tax dollars. A better word for what's happening might be crony capitalism, or just plain old kleptocracy. There are responses to this message:
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