Posted on 04/15/2010 6:52:37 AM PDT by Laissez-faire capitalist
What is corporatism? In a (somewhat inaccurate) phrase, socialism for the bourgeois. It has the outward form of capitalism in that it preserves private ownership & private management but with a crucial difference: as under socialism, government guarantees the flow of material goods which under true capitalism it does not. In classical capitalism...government's role in the economy is simply to prevent force or fraud from disrupting the autonomous operation of the free market...Under corporatism, it is not, instead being systematically manipulated to deliver goods to political constituencies...
Unlike socialism, corporatism understands that direct government ownership of the means of production does not work...But it does not represent a half-way condition between capitalism & socialism. Corporatism blends socialism & capitalism not by giving each control of different parts of the economy, but by combining socialism's promise of a government guaranteed flow of material goods with capitalism's private ownership & management.
What makes corporatism so politically irresistible is that it is attractive not just to the mass electorate but to the economic elites as well...big business likes big government except when big government gets greedy & tries to renegotiate the division of spoils. Although big business was an historic adversary of the introduction of the corporatists state, it eventually found common ground with it.
The first thing big business has in common with big government is managerialism. The technocratic manager who deals in impersonal mass aggregates, organizes through bureaucracy and rules through expertise without assuming personal responsibility is common to both. The second thing big business likes about big government is that it has a competitive advantage over small business in doing business with it and negotiating favors. Big government in turn, likes big business because it is manageable; it does what it is told...
(Excerpt) Read more at 97.74.65.51 ...
While I do disagree with Ron Paul on some issues, like his foreign policy, he does have Obama pegged - Obama definitely being a corporatist. Paul is also correct that the Fed Reserve must be audited, that only Congress has the constitutional authority to declare wars and some other things (End the Fed, etc).
Dr. Ron Paul's vision for the American economy is classical capitalism where the market is not systematically manipulated to deliver profits to private businesses and corporations with government guaranteeing flow of material goods. I.E. ObamaCare. ObamaCare guarantees insurance coverage for the masses at taxpayer expense (with even more profits through the forced individual mandate), while the gov't controls the flow of this good and service to the "underprivileged." ObamaCare is the gov't guaranteeing the flow of insurance coverage via the individual mandate. It is a hijacking of the Commerce Clause. If SCOTUS does not declare the individual mandate as being unconstitutional, America will be a corporatist state, lock, stock and barrel. There will be no end to what the gov't can control the flow of, guarantee to the masses at taxpayer expense, with the profits going to the corporations: life insurance policies, sales of automobiles and on and on. Just like with the big banks now being part of the corporatist structure: gov't owns a big chunk of it and the bankers get the profits and if big losses occur, the tax-payer foots the bill (and they did with the banker bail-outs). And just like with the housing market (Fannie & Freddie): Gov't now controls the majority of the housing market (they control alot of the flow), the bankers get the profits and the tax payer got stuck with the bail-out. BTW, the big banks railed against the Federal Reserve Act, but they were the ones behind it.
The far, far left of the Democrat Party does NOT like ObamaCare. I have been watching Huffington Post, Howard Dean, Daily Kos, Michael Moore, Moveoners and others for weeks. They see Obamacare as a sell out to Big insurance & Big Pharma (what they call them). The far, far left (around 1/3+ of the Dem Party) did not want the forced insurance mandate, nor pharma being given a monopoly over prescription drug reimports and a monopoly over generic versions of biotech drugs and so on. They see Obamacare as a sell-out. I have watched their reaction for weeks now. The far, far left wanted direct gov't control of the flow and distribution concerning health care coverage. The Dem Party has been a party that has fought over going the corporatist route and the direct gov't control route and a split in the Dem Party is now getting bigger and bigger and starting to emerge with the far far left now seeing Obama and many other elected Dems for what they are: corporatists.
There are those who say that they would rather the corporations control things than have gov't directly control the production, control and distribution of goods and services. But that is a false dichotomy. Conservatives need to be against both socialism (direct control of the flow of goods and services) and corporatism (gov't guaranteed flow of goods and services with private ownership). Example: The individual mandate is an abomination, but so is single payer, too.
What is scary is that some on the far, far left actually got this right about ObamaCare - that it is corporatism pure and simple. Jane Hamsher of Fire Dog Lake got it right. Even a blind squirrel gets a nut every now and then. Her article that rips Obamacare: "The Truth About The Health Care Bill." I would normally never mention an article at HuffPo, but I will in this case, like I did with one other article there which ripped Al Gore & Anthropogenic Global Warming.
I am not anti-corpration or anti-profit by any stretch of the imagination. Corporations should be able to make a profit and big ones at that, but corporatism is another matter. I am anti-corporatism, as we should all be.
Corpseratist.
- Bill Vance
***
I would add Corporatism and Islamo-fascism to the above list!
corporatism
1890, from corporate + -ism. Used over the years in various senses of corporate , in 1920s-30s often with ref. to fascist collectivism.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
See Hugo Chavez for details.
Obama and fellow Democrats may say that he is going to stick it to Wall Street, but unless he deals withe shadow banking and the squirelling away of tens of trillions of dollars, collateralized debt obligations, level 3 banking, special investment vehicles and on and on, he is yet again making it sound like he is anti-bank, anti-wall street.
Just like he did with the big insurance corporations: he met with their reps behind closed doors, gave them what they wanted (individual mandate and so on), they stopped their attack ads against ObamaCare, then he started demonizing them to make it look like he and fellow Dems were sticking it to the insurance companies.
Who owns GM & Chrysler? Who totally runs the student loan program? Obama is no corporatist and the only reason Ron Paul called him one is so he could also hammer the Republicans for what's going on.
A: Socialism for the masses pits man against man, while with socialism for the bourgeoisie it's the other way around.
Thank you for putting together a well written OpEd for FR, you hit the nail on the head, and let us not forget Corporatism as defined in Western Democracies is an evolutionary child of Mussolini style Fascism and Swedish style national socialism.
Corporatist is another word for fascist.
Corporatist is another word for fascist.
What does this guy want?
Sometimes he’s right on target,
other times he’s throwing wild pitches over the backstop.
The gov’t controls what cars GM makes (green cars pretty much - just wait and see), the consumer gets stuck with the reen cars, and GM gets the profits nonetheless.
Do you get it now?
Compassionate fascism.
It's been along time since I've seen anything about the evolution of the American corporate form. I know it ain't what it was.
Corporatism is simply an obscure and outdated term for facism. Ron Paul is merely using it in an attempt to appear more clever and intellectual. In addition, because the term, unlike facism, is unfamiliar to most people, it gives him cover for his lack of courage to discuss the issue in terms that will actually connect with most people.
Paul is an intellectual poseur and a disingenuous coward for framing his argument in this manner.
The men who created, gamed and destroyed the CDO market CONTROL the White House...
Rahm Emanuel and Magnetar Capital, a Chicago based hedge fund and destroyer of America, are for all intents and purposes, one and the same.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/04/doth-magnetar-speak-with-forked-tongue.html
Further, Rahm Emanuel is using agitation groups such as ProPublica to try to obfuscate the intense levels of multi multi billion dollar crimes the Chicago syndicate in the White House has perpetrated in the last 7 years.
BTW, Obamacare is corporatism.
Gov’t controls the flow with the government panels, the “underpriviledged” get taxpayer funded health care, and the Individual Mandate means more profits for the privately owned insurance and pharma corporations.
Socialized costs in exchange for a share of the profits.
Yes but “Corporatism” implies that corporations are the evil entity. Ron Paul (the mental case)hates them as well. “Fascism” reminds people of Mussolini.
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