Disastrous Right-Wing Economics Should Go the Way of Soviet Communism
- From: Harry Hope <rivrvu@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 22:07:10 -0500
http://www.alternet.org/story/114999/the_right-wing_economics_that_got_us_into_this_mess_should_go_the_way_of_soviet_communism/
December 26, 2008
The Right-Wing Economics That Got Us into This Mess Should Go the Way
of Soviet Communism
By Arianna Huffington
It's high time we cast "free market" economic theory into the dustbin
of history.
The collapse of Communism as a political system sounded the death
knell for Marxism as an ideology.
But while laissez-faire capitalism has been a monumental failure in
practice, and soundly defeated at the polls, the ideology is still
alive and kicking.
The only place you can find an American Marxist these days is teaching
a college linguistic theory class.
But you can find all manner of free market fundamentalists still on
the Senate floor or in Governor's mansions or showing up on TV trying
to peddle the deregulation snake oil.
Take Sen. John Ensign, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial
Committee, who went on Face the Nation and, with a straight face, said
of the economic meltdown:
http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/ensign-calls-financial-crisis-a-body-blow-to-gop-2008-11-02.html
"Unfortunately, it was allowed to be portrayed that this was a result
of deregulation, when in fact it was a result of overregulation."
Or Gov. Mark Sanford, who told Joe Scarborough he was against bailing
out the auto industry because it would "threaten the very market-based
system that has created the wealth that this country has enjoyed."
If a politician announced he was running on a platform of "from each
according to his ability, to each according to his need" he would be
laughed off the stage.
That is also the correct response to anyone who continues to make the
case that markets do best when left alone.
It's time to drive the final nail into the coffin of laissez-faire
capitalism by treating it like the discredited ideology it inarguably
is.
If not, the Dr. Frankensteins of the right will surely try to revive
the monster and send it marauding through our economy once again.
We've only just begun to bury the financially dead, and the free
market fundamentalists are already looking to deflect the blame.
In a comprehensive piece on what led to the mortgage crisis and the
subsequent financial meltdown, the New York Times shows how the Bush
administration's devotion to unregulated markets was a primary cause
of our economy to ruin.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/business/21admin.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
But the otherwise fascinating piece puts too much focus on the
"mistakes" the Bush team made by not paying attention to the warning
signs popping up all around them.
"There is no question we did not recognize the severity of the
problems," claimed Al Hubbard, Bush's former chief economic adviser.
"Had we, we would have attacked them."
But the mistake wasn't in not recognizing the "severity of the
problems" -- the mistake was the ideology that led to the problems.
Communism didn't fail because Soviet leaders didn't execute it well
enough.
Same with free market fundamentalism.
In fact, Bush and his team did a bang-up job executing a defective
theory.
The problem wasn't just the bathwater; the baby itself is rotten to
the core.
William Seidman, the longtime GOP economic advisor who oversaw the S&L
bailout in 1991, cuts to the chase:
"This administration made decisions that allowed the free market to
operate as a barroom brawl instead of a prize fight. To make the
market work well, you have to have a lot of rules."
Even Alan Greenspan, whose owl-eyed visage would adorn a Mount
Rushmore of unregulated capitalists, has begun to see the light,
telling a House committee in October that he "made a mistake in
presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks
and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their
own shareholders and their equity in the firms."
But most Republicans are still refusing to see what's right in front
of them.
Especially Bush, our CEO president, who lays the blame not on the
failures of the marketplace but on past administrations and corporate
greed.
"Wall Street got drunk," he says.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/banned-bush-video-surface_b_114363.html
Maybe so, but who made the last 8 years Happy Hour, and kept serving
up the drinks?
Last week, Ben Smith reported that the GOP was launching "a new,
in-house think tank aimed at reviving the party's policy heft."
In a private memo explaining the think tank, RNC chairman Mike Duncan
wrote:
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/12/in_internal_memo_rnc_chief_con.php
"We must show how our ideology can be applied to solve problems."
But, of course, it's that very ideology that's causing the problems.
It's like the old horror movie cliché:
"We've traced the call -- it's coming from inside the house!"
We've got to do everything we can to make sure there will be no
sequels to this political horror.
The blame shifters cannot be allowed to make their case without the
truth being pointed out at every turn.
It's time to relegate free market fundamentalists to the same standing
as Marxist ideologues: intellectual curiosities occasionally trotted
out as relics of a failed philosophy.
____________________________________________________
Harry
.
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