I run a small business. So I have impeccable capitalist credentials. Rich and buying off politicians is NOT capitalism--it is a third-world hidalgo system.
As our government accumulates ever more power and money, rich folks are tempted to buy what they want instead of going out and earning it in the market.
Businesses have always tried this; but our gvt is getting to be more and more of a third-world spoils system. As that happens, businesses and rich guys become more and more dependent on being able to buy and maintain their position and, accordingly, are becoming more and more involved in using the government to make sure things, which favor them now, don't change.
Under a rule of law, rich is not a problem. But in a third world hidalgo type system, rich guys paying politicians to maintain their competitive edge/fortune/whatever is a problem.
The current immigration debate is a great example of this. There would be no debate on closing the border--it would have been done years ago--were there not multiple millions of dollars flowing into politicians coffers from, well, rich guys who are abusing the system.
The great ethanol scam is another. Large agribusinesses have seen the value of their land increase by 50% because of the money they paid to politicians to force, at best, a marginal alternate energy source onto the market.
There should be a rough balance of power between folks who walk precincts and folks who write checks in a political party. They have to live together and neither can survive without the other. It's obvious at this point that, at least in the R party. The folks who write checks are wagging the doggie.
That said, the ultimate ones to blame are American voters for passing the income tax and electing the politicians that brought us the new deal, the war on poverty and the prescription drug entitlement. Them and the folks that have since used the powers given to drive America toward a third-world spoils system of government. All the immigration debate has done is pull the mask on what has been true for decades. But do I occasionally get pissed off at the rich folks who take advantage of it? Yes. And I'm a capitalist.
Well said.
BTTT
As a young news junkie, I for years wondered what it was that Archer Daniels Midland did that made it important enough to sponsor Meet the Press and Face the Nation alongside legendary corporations like General Electric and financial mammoths like Smith Barney and Merrill Lynch. ADM's commercials didn't promote a product that could be purchased by the general public, but the ads were vague as to reasons why it should be invested in as well -- it was like ADM was more of a charity than a business ("Supermarket to the World").
Only later did I understand that the targets of ADM's campaigns were not individual consumers, but politicians who watched the shows every Sunday. ADM was insisting it was the be-all and end-all to all sorts of "problems" that government claimed to be able to solve, gave gobs of cash to politicians, and every Sunday showed sixty second promotionals showing the pols how they could sell soybeans and corn as panacea to the electorate. Finally, it all paid off with ethanol getting its toehold in the market as "cleaner" and "greener" although the green is mostly in the form of greenbacks.
Now, after many years of mentioning it in speeches, President Bush is still holding on to the heretofore fruitless notion that sawgrass could help break the nationwide addiction to oil. In retrospect, I am not surprised he would buy it.
well said ... it’s people like you who run small businesses who get squeezed by the corporate guru’s and their K Street lobbyists. Unfortunately, few recognize that.
The current immigration bill would not be out there were it not for big business and the multitude of related trade associations in DC lobbying full time. We can complain about LaRaza all we want, but on its own it wouldn’t have been able to pull in enough Congressmen and Senators to bring this bill to the Floor, much less have a chance of passing.