Aug 29, 2018

Delineating Between Capitalism, Industrial Capitalism (Vulture Capitalism) And Democratic Socialism (Constitutional Capitalism)

Lets begin with the Constitution and what the Constitutional job of politicians is supposed to be;

The whole point of the Constitution is to promote the general welfare of the American Nation/Community (defense, peace, justice etc. are all a part of general welfare);

Preamble To The Constitution: We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.


To promote the general welfare of the American People, Congress have been given specific powers (and they only promote the army part of their job, thus earning them the name "war party" at one time);

Intro to Article 1 Section 8 in the Constitution: The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;


Since this post involves economics (which causes people's eyes to glaze over) and is rather lengthy I though I should begin with a summary to provide some focus...

Summary: Capitalism is noted for private ownership of property. Industrial Capitalism (or, as I like to call it, "Vulture Capitalism") all or most property and modes of production are owned by a few rich cats and everyone is subjected to abject poverty. Then there is Socialism where ALL means of production are controlled by the State (such as USSR, China etc. and have never been successful at alleviating the problem they sought to address, i.e. exploitation of the people). Finally there is Democratic Socialism which does NOT seek to control means of production but instead limit how much damage it can do and provide safety nets to help the population thrive and grow while maintaining rules against greed and exploitation so that as many people as possible can PRIVATELY own property (the major change to society that capitalism signified, pushing populations into abject poverty is just another form of slavery which is not new).

In the following video the innovation of capitalism is noted, where it comes from (basically England), the emergence of industrial capitalism signified by workers living in abject poverty and would best be described as "Vulture Capitalism" (a term taken from private equity businesses but, based on comparing effects, can be readily used as a description for GOP economic policies) and then the video compares capitalism to the theories of socialism. The theories are presented side by side as if on a scale while leaving out current cultural realities but this provides a good introduction to the topic of capitalism and socialism;

Capitalism and Socialism: Crash Course World History



Highlight:

The part of capitalism detrimental to society and a nation is its vulture capitalism aspect. Country's such as Denmark or Sweden have conquered this vulture capitalism part by reigning it in and making capitalism something anyone in their societies can pursue (that's a true free market, not one where industrial capitalists are free to control the market as they wish without "Government" (of 'we the people') interference;

Long hours, low wages. miserable working conditions, unemployment - Long hours and low wages predominate America. Working conditions have been alleviated with laws and unemployment has been reduced after years of stimulus applied by Obama Administration following traditionally and scientifically established economics that has [p itself over the decades and thus qualifies to be called a science (i.e. America is only half as bad as it could be but the Republicans are working on that with this fake - religion like - economics based on using whatever crap they can come up with to sell their policies EXCEPT the truth or their constituents wouldn't support them).

One of the innovations that characterize the western world, in the half a century or so that is not covered in the above video, is harnessing capitalism to benefit the community and nation as a whole. This has worked in European democracies (and has been labeled "Democratic Socialism" in America) and represents an accomplishment where the vulturistic component of 18th and 19th century industrial capitalism has been brought down to help the people and the community while increasing private property ownership, ease of starting a business and other such capitalistic opportunities that is represented by perfect competition in a market that has been made free for all, rather than just an elite, through regulation. In america the scene is the opposite. Here Vulture Capitalism reigns and people and being killed by the thousands and hundreds of thousands by forcing them into abject poverty (or just poverty and declining income - the declining middle class is indicative if this trend) of the industrial capitalism era (ironically funded by industrial capitalists through a network of nazi style propagandists that goes fundamentally against the Constitution oft the common good. One of the great ironies in America is that the Constitution that was established for the common good of society actually took root in Europe while Europe industrial capitalism and robber baron mentality of stealing from the people (environment damage, living in poverty, no healthcare and killing them for personal profits by bribing politicians etc) has taken root here because of some weird notions of being rich one day so you too can oppress people that has been inherited in the american mind set from the slave days (see myth 3).

The following article proves the above and constitute a walk through the phenomenon and problem and how we can take the country away from unconstitutional capitalism of vulture capitalism that the GOP and right (or their donors, really, since they fund the views)towards Constitutional capitalism that the words Democratic Socialism represents but doesn't necessarily get across due to historical connections and the lack of education amoungst the targeted population under GOP mind control;

“Socialism” vs. “capitalism” is a false dichotomy We need go-go capitalism to afford a generous welfare state, and people won’t support go-go capitalism without a safety net. “Socialists” and Republicans forget different parts of this lesson.


Suddenly there’s a lively debate on both the left and the right about the specter of socialism in America. According to Gallup, Democrats now view socialism in a more positive light than capitalism. And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, became an instant political star after she clinched the Democratic Party’s nomination for the New York 14th District’s House seat.
Some conservatives, brought up declaiming, “Better dead than red,” are understandably in a bit of a tizzy. In a fiery peroration on The View, Meghan McCain warned of the peril of going the way of socialist Venezuela, where, she says, people are “starving to death.”
In National Review, Kevin Williamson offers a rather more measured and illuminating conservative perspective. He argues that the vogue of “socialism,” embodied in the rise of Ocasio-Cortez, and the intemperate right-wing reaction to it, is mostly semantic — a matter of “words about words,” as he puts it, freighted with polarized sentiment and little definite meaning.
“All this talk about socialism isn’t about socialism,” Williamson writes. “It’s about the status quo.” The idea that “capitalism” has failed us and that “socialism” is the answer relies on a cartoonish oversimplification of reality. Current economic arrangements in the US, and throughout the developed world, involve a complex mix of “capitalist” market institutions and “socialist” regulatory and redistributive institutions.
If our mixed system is failing many of us, it’s highly unlikely that the blame can be assigned exclusively to either its “capitalist” or “socialist” components, or to the fact that the system ismixed rather than purely one thing or the other. The real debate, as Williamson goes on to suggest, concerns the structure, balance, and integration of the elements that make up our political economy.
This gets lost when the debate is framed as a binary choice between “capitalism” — which the left blames for all contemporary ills — and “socialism.”
The polarized ideological charge around these hazily conceived rival ideals leaves both left and right with a dangerous blind spot. As Williamson argues, the left needs to better appreciate the role of capitalism in producing abundance. For its part, he says, the right needs to square up to the unyielding fact of human “risk aversion” and the indispensable role safety nets in placating this deep-seated distaste for feelings of uncertainty and insecurity by insuring us against the turbulence of capitalist dynamism.
Even if “socialism” isn’t really “what anxious young Americans are looking for,” Williamson says, conservatives need to “be honest with the fact that they aren’t buying what we’re selling, and do the hard work of understanding why and what to do about it.”
He’s right on all counts. I’d like to lend a hand and help the right better grasp why it’s bleeding market share, and why the “socialist” brand has caught fire with the “anxious young American” demographic.

The free market welfare state: how to make capitalism and socialism friends

Williamson is right that the new democratic socialists running for office aren’t calling for nationalization of industry or the abolition of private property (though some of their cheerleaders are). They’re calling for an extravagantly beefed-up welfare state, and a shift toward stronger governmental regulation of various industries. These are questionable ideas, but they won’t turn America into Venezuela.
Still, there’s a big difference between real, existing social democracy — of the sort on display in Denmark or Sweden —and the Christmas list exorbitance of the DSA platform. (If you’re confused by the difference between “social democracy” and “democratic socialism,” Sheri Berman is indispensable.) As Williamson observes, progressives in the mold of Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez seem not to know or care that today’s model social democracies also boast model capitalist economies that are in many ways more economically laissez-faire than the wickedly capitalist American system.
According to the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom, for instance, Denmark and Sweden — where taxes are high and welfare spending is lavish — outscore the United States in the security of property rights, ease of starting a business, openness to trade, and monetary freedom (a measure of inflation and price controls). Both narrowly beat the US in overall “capitalist” economic freedom, despite receiving a stiff penalty from Heritage for their big-spending ways.







Heritage Foundation 2018 Index of Economic Freedom

As I’ve argued ad nauseam, go-go capitalism is how you pay for safety-net soft socialism. Ocasio-Cortez has so far flailed pretty badly on the “how would you pay for all this stuff?” question. She seems not to grasp that you can’t do so just by reallocating the Navy’s budget (though that would help). In the real world, you finance soft-socialist guarantees with a level of tax revenue and borrowing you can only sustain through capitalist innovation, competition, efficiency, trade, and growth. That’s the lesson of the Nordic social democracies.
The other side of the equation, the part the rightoften misses, is that insuring folks against bad luck and the downside risks of capitalist disruption is how you maintain political support for “neoliberal” market dynamism — and mute democratic demand for reactionary economic nationalism. (It’s also how you ensure that prosperity is broadly shared.)
On this score, Williamson insightfully chalks up the current appeal of both socialism and Trump’s mercantilism to the urgent human desire to be insulated from the anxiety of uncertainty, and suggests that the libertarian idea that “The free market will take care of it, or private charity will” is the right-wing analogue to socialist wishcasting about bottomless budgets and technocratic omnicompetence. It is a fantasy vision incapable of answering deep-seated anxieties about dislocation and loss that inevitably shape democratic politics. I wholly agree.
Instability and uncertainty are nerve-racking. The market competition that drives innovation and efficiency is a wrecking ball that leaves some among us sifting through the rubble, all the time. For those of us living paycheck to paycheck, and that’s most of us, it’s scary. Capitalism creates wealth by setting up a contest for profits that necessarily creates a steady stream of losers.
The fact that capitalism also creates a steady stream of opportunities does not, by itself, make the risk of losing tolerable. If rough seas keep tossing folks overboard, and people are barely keeping their heads above water (“Just keep paddling, Aunt Andrea!”), it’s not enough to be told that there’s usually a boat to swim to. We’re more willing to risk storm-tossed seas when the ship of state is bristling with lifeboats and manned by a competent crew.
That’s a key insight of “the free market welfare state.” Call it “lifeboat laissez-faire.” I’m glad to see Williamson sticking up for lifeboats. But I also don’t think risk aversion is the whole story behind the recent attraction to social democracy.

Rigged American capitalism is a big part of the problem

I disagree with Elizabeth Warren on a slew of policy particulars — on the minimum wage, single-payer health care, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, for example — but I think her recent affirmation of the progressive power of capitalist dynamism gets the bigger picture basically right:
I am a capitalist. ... I believe in markets. What I don’t believe in is theft, what I don’t believe in is cheating. That’s where the difference is. I love what markets can do, I love what functioning economies can do. They are what make us rich, they are what create opportunity. But only fair markets, markets with rules. Markets without rules is about the rich take it all, it’s about the powerful get all of it. And that’s what’s gone wrong in America.
She’s right. We need markets to make us richer. But we also need them to make all of us richer, and that’s not just about making sure that we’re indemnified against the risks of wrecking-ball competition. It’s also about making sure the basic rules of the game aren’t rigged to favor people who already won, locking the rest of us into a lower tier of possibility. Warren is a free-market social democrat in the Nordic mold. Her vision is a far cry from the anti-capitalist agenda of the Ocasia-Cortez and the DSA.
Now, the problem isn’t exactly “markets without rules.” The problem is that markets are defined by an incomprehensible jumble of regulatory kludges — an accumulation of individually reasonable but cumulatively stifling technocratic fixes — that strangle economic freedom for ordinary people, allowing the powerful to capture the economy by writing and selectively enforcing the rules to their advantage.
Warren pretty clearly gets this too. For example, she led the charge to deregulate the over-the-counter sale of hearing aidsagainst the objections of state-licensed audiologists and incumbent medical device manufacturers, promoting market competition that raises the quality and reduces the cost of a critical life-enhancing technology.
Ocasio-Cortez should take a page from Warren and learn to love markets. As should Republicans, who might come to grasp the appeal of combining sturdier safety nets with freer, fairer markets.

The GOP’s market rigging and rejection of the social safety net drives voters toward “socialism”

No less a classical liberal than F.A. Hayek supported a robust safety net capable of “providing for those common hazards of life against which few can make adequate provision.” It’s true, as Williamson says, that “There isn’t any obvious and non-arbitrary place to draw the line on those common hazards of life.” But he’s wrong that “the fundamental difference between Right and Left is where to draw that line (or those lines) and how to go about helping those we decide to help.”
A Republican Party that remains doggedly devoted to Grover Norquist’s goal of shrinking government until it’s small enough to drown in a bathtub isn’t pro-lifeboat. It’s pro-drowning. Moreover, cannibalizing Obamacaresetting public assistance ever further out of reach, and exploding the deficit with massive tax cuts doesn’t make the ruling political right a friend of free markets. Trump’s tariff-hiking, winner-picking economic nationalism, which looks to communist China as a model, is an immiserating morass of rank corruption. But that’s what the GOP currently stands for, whether conservative thinkers like it or not.
The right’s Pavlovian reaction to Ocasio-Cortez’s budget-busting democratic socialism has trapped it in a comforting haze of commie-fighting nostalgia. It leaves Republicans blind to the electoral threat posed by Warren’s Nordic-style social democracy, because they can’t see the difference; they can only see reds. Warren’s coalescing vision of the market-friendly welfare state doesn’t exactly amount to the second coming of Milton Friedman, but it’s far more intellectually sound and politically attractive than anything Republicans currently have on offer.
If the governing GOP is unable to hear what Hayekian conservatives like Williamson are saying and just keep on smashing the lifeboats, and fail to offer a compelling alternative to Warren’s vision for unrigging the economy, not only will they be totally overwhelmed on their left flank on social insurance, they might also find themselves outflanked on the issue of fair, open, competitive markets. They’ll get routed by the left on capitalism, still screeching about Venezuelan bread lines.
Will Wilkinson is the vice president for research at the Niskanen Center, and a Vox columnist.


What is left out of this article is that a small group of GOP donors - including the "owners" of Heritage institute - are actively applying their version of economics which would require many people to die (and is basically the same policy as Thanos in Avengers, Infinity War where he wants to kill half of the universes population for prosperity);


This Libertarian Strategy to Make America as Screwed-Up as Texas Before there were the Koch Brothers, there was James McGill Buchanan, the inspiration for their modern right-wing oligarchy.
How would you draw a line connecting Buchanan to the Koch brothers?
Charles Koch supplied the money, but it was James Buchanan who supplied the ideas that made the money effective. An MIT-trained engineer, Koch in the 1960s began to read political-economic theory based on the notion that free-reign capitalism (what others might call Dickensian capitalism) would justly reward the smart and hardworking and rightly punish those who failed to take responsibility for themselves or had lesser ability. He believed then and believes now that the market is the wisest and fairest form of governance, and one that, after a bitter era of adjustment, will produce untold prosperity, even peace. But after several failures, Koch came to realize that if the majority of Americans ever truly understood the full implications of his vision of the good society and were let in on what was in store for them, they would never support it. Indeed, they would actively oppose it.
So, Koch went in search of an operational strategy -- what he has called a "technology" -- of revolution that could get around this hurdle. He hunted for 30 years until he found that technology in Buchanan's thought. From Buchanan, Koch learned that for the agenda to succeed, it had to be put in place in incremental steps, what Koch calls "interrelated plays": many distinct yet mutually reinforcing changes of the rules that govern our nation. Koch's team used Buchanan's ideas to devise a roadmap for a radical transformation that could be carried out largely below the radar of the people, yet legally. The plan was (and is) to act on so many ostensibly separate fronts at once that those outside the cause would not realize the revolution underway until it was too late to undo it. Examples include laws to destroy unions without saying that is the true purpose, suppressing the votes of those most likely to support active government, using privatization to alter power relations -- and, to lock it all in, Buchanan's ultimate recommendation: a "constitutional revolution."
Read more about the Thanos correlation to the GOP here.
In communism and socialism the same problem of how to deal with vulture capitalism exploiting people to the point where they live in slave like conditions from poverty was addressed by trying to turn ALL means of production to the State (something a small group of people have never achieved as power corrupts);

Communism vs. Socialism: What's The Difference? | NowThis World



More specific details;

Democratic Socialism combines the private property aspect of capitalism with the desire to help the community as per Article ..... but without the need or desire to control modes of production. So we still have independent actors with wealth and thus power with economic opportunities for all (what was previously known as "the American Dream" but is now more common elsewhere where Democratic Socialism exists, i.e. western Europe). ONLY regulations control the system rather than the State controlling the means of productions it creates channels for private industry to follow while making it safe and open for everyone to take part in it (at least that is the goal that HAS been achieved in several first world country's in Europe, I think its Americas long slave owning Southern past that prevents it from treating its people as anything other than slaves unless they are rich. Is it just a coincidence that the Egyptian God Osiris is a god that dies and is resurrected with everyone else as slaves/peasants before him (or his earthly representative, the Pharaoh)?

In other words, in some western European countries that have REGULATIONS allowing people to run means of production but limiting how much they can exploit the people so that EVERYONE in the community can have a good life (i.e. production is used for the common good through independent actors but instead of charging a billion dollars  for a cancer cure they have to charge something affordable rather than let the person die or bad wages that give the owners extra ordinary profits while subject the workers to poverty unless they can work 60 days a week (medicare for all is how societies bring private hospitals etc. to support the population while it seeks to act independently in the market while providing a safety net for the common good. and so on., i.e. Democratic Socialism.

(Aug 30, 2018) Note: Democratic Socialism is the same as "Constitutional Capitalism" because it seeks to better the general welfare/common good of the population/people (as per the Constitution as printed at the top of this post) while allowing privet enterprise and private property to exist, i.e. it doesn't seek to control production like socialism but instead seeks to regulate exploration of workers/resources through rules and regulations. Thus "Democratic Socialism" is a misleading term for our current political environment (for America basically) and will require alot of explaining and maybe even arguing to get across (but it can be done). I believe, the term "Constitutional Capitalism" is more appropriate given that Democratic Socialism seeks to regulate capitalism for the benefit of the entire society and nation rather than control production AND it fits what the Constitution was designed to do. Side note: Isn't it sad that European countries copied our Constitution and then set up an economic system which actually helps "we the people" while we have moved to Vulture/Robber-Baron style capitalism despite all the evidence in Europe showing that helping society rather than stealing from it - as an economic system - works better for everyone (except the greedy rich people who fund/own a great deal of politics and media).

The following country (Sweden) has a higher tax rate than America and provides actual services to it's Citizens... not to mention jobs and international growth into third world countries such as the US. Notice that the "entitlements" the Swedish get is better than what Megyn Kelly was fighting for... after saying it was wrong. Really. Fox News seems to have no honor. It certainlyisn't "news" in the remotest sense of the word. More like Gossip mongering using fear.










What the Republicans are doing is opposing regulations as well while calling any regulations socialism. Why? because regulations means their handful for donors can't control everything like the Monarchs of old (think of our current Oligarchy as a table of British lords and I think you are getting a good idea of the basic structure of our Government - at least as far as policy making goes).


Behind the Republican Rhetoric: The Misleading Appeal of Free-Market Capitalism
Basic belief systems, if regularly reinforced by carefully orchestrated advertising campaigns, are enormously difficult things to shift. Paradigms of thought, once established in dominance, are hard to get rid of. We have just lived through 30 years of an orchestrated consensus on the wonders of free-market capitalism. No matter that the business deregulation it served to legitimate triggered the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Facts don’t necessarily have to get in the way when the defense of dominant belief systems is at stake; and in vast swathes of the Republican Party, facts visibly are not doing so now.
Think where we are, as we go to vote. Four years back, an inadequately-regulated American banking system went into crisis, and the Republicans paid the electoral price. A mildly progressive administration was elected into office because the crisis occurred on the Republicans’ watch; and now — four years later — that same mildly progressive administration runs the risk of being ejected from office because the scale of the recovery it has orchestrated is still as modest as its progressivism. The right-wing propaganda machine, momentarily silenced in 2008, is back in overdrive. We need to return to free-market capitalism — we are now so regularly told — because the Obama experiment in state-led economic recovery has failed. We need to go back to limited government, to unregulated private enterprise and to labor markets unrestrained by any extensive welfare net. We need to go the Bain Capital way to our collective future — private prosperity through public austerity.
The only trouble is: we don’t. The free market route to prosperity now being canvassed at us by a resurgent Republican Party is a complete illusion, for at least the following reasons.
Whatever else the United States economy is, or has been, in the twentieth century, it has not been free-market capitalism.
We carry in our heads this image of economic markets made up of small producers and rational and fully informed consumers, and we tell ourselves that this is perfect competition and an ideal world. But actually it is a fantasy world. It is certainly not the world — nor the economy — that we currently face in the United States. Nor is a world that will miraculously reappear if we simply remove regulations and subsidies from major American industries and companies.
There was a time in which the U.S. economy approximated the ideal of perfect competition: the pre-Civil War era of small capital and independent farmers. Even that, of course, was an era of slavery in the south and indentured servitude in the north — so it was hardly an ideal economic model for generalized human freedom. But that era fell to the robber barons of the Gilded Age, and to the construction of a huge American tariff. We must remember that the United States used protectionism on the grand scale in the nineteenth century, as a wall behind which to industrialize rapidly. There was no free trade for America then: just the rapid rise of the vast American corporation, and the spread of the managerial revolution. Instead of an economy full simply of small companies, we now have one dominated by vast corporations. Instead of equally-empowered consumers, we now have unprecedented levels of income inequality, entrenched poverty and the arrogance of riches. Instead of an ever-more informed citizenry, we now have a mass culture designed to entertain and obfuscate, and a democratic process flooded by the political assertions of the Super PACs.
So if the world of free-market capitalism ever existed, it has long gone. As recently as 1997, the 50 largest U.S. companies accounted for 24 percent of total U.S. manufacturing value added; and there are currently at least ten major industries in this economy in which just four firms are responsible for over 90 percent of the goods produced and consumed. In 2005, the top 5 largest arms manufacturers were responsible on their own for 45 percent of global arms sales, and four of those companies were American. This is big-scale capitalism: imperfectly competitive capitalism, not perfectly competitive capitalism — oligopoly capitalism shading towards monopoly capitalism. Moreover, its most profitable sectors are those operating closest to the state, not those operating furthest from it: defense industries, big oil, agribusiness, pharmaceuticals, large banking institutions and now, after the Affordable Care Act, large private health insurance companies as well. Collectively, large private firms in the United States are currently in receipt of almost $100 billion of tax breaks and direct subsidies each and every year.
So we are not in, nor are we going towards, something we might legitimately call “free-market capitalism.” At this moment, the U.S. economy is probably more properly described as a classic example of “crony capitalism” — full as it is of interlocking corporate boards, mutually reinforcing top-salary compensation committees, and revolving-door relationships between Washington and Wall Street. And if we are going anywhere new as an economy, we are in danger of heading from “crony capitalism” to something even worse — “vulture capitalism:” to a world in which the man who is quite possibly our next president can personally add over $15 million to his private wealth from restructuring deals within the GM bailout — a bailout he condemned and a restructuring that, in this particular case, cost over 25,000 unionized auto workers their jobs and their pensions.
The Dangers of Further Business Deregulation
The greatest weakness in the argument about letting private firms just do their own thing (Adam Smith’s much cited “invisible hand” at the heart of the free-market argument) is that it rests on a fallacy of composition. It is perfectly rational — indeed, in unregulated markets it is absolutely essential — for each private firm to seek out the cheapest sources of labor. But what is rational for the firm is not rational for the system as a whole. Racing to the bottom behind Asian wages erodes the hopes and dreams of the entire American middle class, and robs the national economy of the consumer demand vital to the achievement of long-term full employment within it. Wages are not just a cost. They are also the source of consumer demand. We have outsourced good-paying American jobs to countries which tolerate working conditions and levels of political repression that we would find abhorrent at home. The result inside the United States is companies flush with profits and cash, but fearful to invest and hire here for lack of consumer demand. We outsource, and we damage ourselves.
We have just lived through a generation of business deregulation — and seen what it has generated. Do we really want to go back to a world dominated by Wall Street Masters of the Universe? Do we really want to go back to a world in which environmental degradation can go unchallenged? Do we want to go back to a world where one American in seven has no regular access to health care? Do we want to remain in a world in which men and women of privilege will spend vast treasure trying to block the mild Keynesianism of the Obama administration but will not allow even a small proportion of that treasure to be taxed away to finance better schooling, health cover for more Americans, investments in roads, research and new forms of energy? The greatest threat now before us is that a vote for Romney will be taken by sections of the private sector as a green light for doing the Bain Capital thing: asset stripping, outsourcing and the total denuding from the American economy of any vestigial worker rights. The result will be a genuine free-for-all — a genuine free-market — but one with the cards inside it stacked against labor and against the poor. It will be a free-for-all wrapped up in the language of freedom, of course, but with freedom concentrated at the very top.
There is nothing in market competition that automatically leads to equilibrium at socially-desirable levels; and it is hard to deny that the scale of income and wealth inequality in the United States that has come from 30 years of business deregulation and anti-trade unionism is far from optimal: for it has left us with chronic barriers to both immediate and long-term growth.
Immediately: lack of adequate consumer demand. Long-term: depreciating social capital, low skill levels in the base and middle of the economy; a crisis of public funding in deprived areas; and underneath it all, the ticking social time-bomb of a frustrated, deprived and ever-growing underclass. That scale of inequality which we now endure was not inevitable. It was a choice — something consciously created. Other industrialized countries made different choices, and created different social orders. In the space of a generation, we have turned the United States of America into the inequality capital of the advanced world. Through Washington’s enthusiasm for business deregulation — especially deregulation in relation to finance, outsourcing and off-source tax havens — we have turned an economy whose wages were once the highest in the world into an economy based on low-wages, long working hours, and high levels of personal debt; and we have turned the greatest creditor nation in the global economy into the greatest debtor one. We have made a terrible choice.
We cannot design further economic strategy on nostalgia for an imagined (and imaginary) golden past. Nor can we deal with the enormous economic and social problems of the 21st century so long as we remain trapped in the mental furniture of the nineteenth. Free-market capitalism is long gone, and will not return. So if we want an economy, structured as ours now really is (and not as how we ideally imagine it to be), if we want an economy that will serve the interests of all Americans and not just those of its privileged elites, we have to recognize that the major barrier to the successful reconstruction of the United States is the income inequality with which it is now scarred, and the anti-democratic sentiments locked away in the call for business deregulation and the pruning of what is already — in comparative terms — a very thin welfare net. We have to recognize that, and do something about it.
Doing something about it does not involve electing a Republican President and his ultra-conservative friends. Doing something about it involves reelecting Barack Obama, and making his second term the launching pad for a genuine New Deal.
These arguments are developed further in David Coates, Making the Progressive Case: Towards a Stronger U.S. Economy. New York: Continuum Books, 2012
Vulture Capitalism/Class Warfare (standard GOP politics)

In other words what Republicans want is Laissez Faire capitalism of the British feudal era that allowed its development of nobles that supported a monarch (is America destined to eventually become a monarchy? Maybe, Republicans are halfway there).

Here is the definition of Laissez-Faire Capitalism:  Laissez-faire capitalism is an economic system. Capitalism involves the ownership of property by individuals. The individual's goal is to use this property, or capital (buildings, machines, and other equipment used to produce goods and services), to create income. Individuals and companies compete with one another to earn money. This competition between companies determines the amount of goods produced and the prices company owners may demand for these goods. The French term laissez-faire literally means "to let people do as they wish." Thus, supporters of laissez-faire capitalism do not want the government to interfere in business matters, or if governments do involve themselves in business matters, to keep government influence to a minimum.

One result of no rules in private enterprise is that a person with money and thus the ability to buy influence (i.e. allot of money equals greater power, political and social) can destroy any chance of a competitor entering the marketplace.

In fact, without rules and law, people tend to be greedy and selfish. Something which is normally well-known. With no law there is no control over anyone with power using it unfairly against someone who is socially and politically weaker. Generally, this is seen as immoral by all religions and philosophies as being ruthless means there is no 'charity' and others must be manipulated to gain even more wealth and control (a never ending process). That is why religious sources tend to be against the 'might is right' belief embedded in Laissez-Faire Capitalism.

The following is a religious explanation(from Christianity) which is naturally against the type of behavior which takes from fellow human beings to the detriment of society;

Darwin's ideas played a critically important role in the development and growth, not only of Nazism and communism, but also of the ruthless form of capitalism as best illustrated by the robber barons. While it is difficult to conclude confidently that ruthless capitalism would not have blossomed as it did if Darwin had not developed his evolution theory, it is clear that if Carnegie, Rockefeller, and others had continued to embrace the unadulterated JudeoChristian worldview of their youth and had not become Darwinists, capitalism would not have become as ruthless as it did in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Morris and Morris (p. 84) have suggested that other motivations (including greed, ambition, even a type of a missionary zeal) stimulated the fierce, unprincipled robber baron business practices long before Darwin. Darwinism, however, gave capitalism an apparent scientific rationale that allowed it to be taken to the extremes that were so evident in the early parts of last century.

The basic argument against Laissez-Faire Capitalism (as opposed to a mixed economy with laws to help keep the market fair - see definition above) is that without rules, ruthlessness and "might is right" reigns supreme. Allowing the rich and powerful to take advantage of the weak.

In the feudal system, allot of power (through control of land and resources) was given to a few people by a king. These people would then do everything they could to take whatever they could at the cost of society and every other human that could be conned (that is generally in a different clan or family, though this didn't hold in all cases).{i.e. EXACTLY like the handful of donors that fund the GOP and dictate their policies today!}

Such economic behavior (and an effect of Laissez-Faire Capitalism) was and is referred to as "Robber Barons";

What Does Robber Barons Mean? A disparaging term dating back to the 12th century which refers to: 1. Unscrupulous feudal lords who amassed personal fortunes by using illegal and immoral business practices, such as illegally charging tolls to passing merchant ships. 2. Modern-day businesspeople who allegedly engage in unethical business tactics and questionable stock market transactions to build large personal fortunes.

Regulating immoral business practices is an old function of modern democracies and modern economiesThis is another reason why in the modern world government is mixed with private enterprise. To provide rules and a framework for a fairer society with more opportunity for all its citizens not just a few who happen to be on top and thus have the wealth and influence to get more and more while giving back less and less to the community that these individuals are from.



Republican policies are definitely robber baron style and their structure of corruption is too. Of course, Robber Baron was the old term of similar behavior carried out differently. In our time, "Vulture Capitalism" as something like Robber Barons but functions through bribing independent politicians who represent them and deflect any attacks to them, is the best term.

This is an example of what's wrong with explanations that define socialism and capitalism the way Fox News and the GOP do (as, what I like top call, Vulture Capitalism). Chris Mathews not only doesn't know what he's talking about he's also pushing the false narrative. He leaves out Dick Cheney's and the GOP's capitalistic venture into Iraq using up 400 plus lives to make money for themselves and pushing the oil agenda (which is paramount even today in GOP politics, even attacking alternatives if they have to indicating a corrupt bias). He leaves out economics where environment doesn't affect policy making for business, i.e. business are allowed to use everyone else,s air and water as dumping grounds (stealing from nature to sell to the masses for profit, GOP have turned the EPA into a joke). No regulations to keep business or wall street in check, thus creating robber barons (that historically lead to monarchs or oligarchs or something like that). Pointing out the difference between capitalism that benefits the general welfare of the community verses the vulture capitalism the GOP practices is very important.

Question for Dems: Socialism or capitalism? Chris Matthews finishes the show with a question for Democratic primary and caucusgoers: Socialism or Capitalism?




Vulture capitalism is actually even glorified in the media (the way war and dying in a war was once glorified)...

Media portray these tales of perseverance as uplifting and inspirational. They're actually horror stories. In areas like health care and sick leave, systems are failing Americans -- and the obsession with uplifting stories optimized for social media is obscuring it.


These four examples all come from just the past five months, but there are countless additional articles and segments that share the same lessons about never giving up, going the extra mile, and taking care of others. The articles are framed to make you feel good, to illustrate the kindness of others, to show you that things can work out when tragedy hits, and yes, to “restore your faith in humanity.” These are excellent messages that we could probably all benefit from having in our lives, but there’s one thing that gets left out on an all-too-regular basis: the underlying causes.
If the United States followed the lead of other well-off countries, paid sick leave would eliminate the need for co-workers to donate their sick days; if workers were paid a living wage and we invested in public transportation, no one would have to walk 20 miles to work; if we fulfilled the promises made to our veterans, none of them would go 40 years without teeth; if we treated health care as a right, no child would feel a responsibility to sell enough lemonade to keep their mother alive. Each story could be just as easily framed in a way meant to disgust us with the state of the social safety net and inspire us to enact policies that prevent such situations from happening. Instead, the authors tend to isolate each situation from its larger context.
In 2017, writer Adam Johnson coined the term “perseverance porn” to refer to uplifting stories centered around people overcoming long odds and societal roadblocks on the path to happy endings. It makes for an apt name considering how these stories fetishize bootstrapping one's way out of trouble.
Part of what makes perseverance porn so effective, at least when it comes to getting our attention, is that it tends to follow a storytelling structure sometimes known as the “dramatic arc” -- consisting of, in the Florida teacher’s story, an introduction (meet this teacher), a rising action (he was diagnosed with cancer), the climax (he realized he doesn’t have enough sick days), a falling action (he posted a selfie calling for help), and a resolution (within four days other teachers had donated enough days to cover his needs). In these dramatic-arc pieces, we see the happy ending, or are at least left with the impression that there will be one. This is the same time-tested technique, sometimes also referred to as the “hero’s journey,” used in fiction from The Odyssey to Star Wars. (In this case, CNN did publish a follow-up story making similar arguments about the original piece as are being made here, but it was an opinion piece and not the straight-reported version originally published.)
The problem with these stories is that they routinely gloss over harsh realities in order to fit this structure. They lead us to believe that these situations have a way of working themselves out. In fact, many (if not most) people facing these challenges — whether it’s the majority of people whose medical crowdfunding campaigns don’t reach the goal, or it’s someone who dies because they can’t afford their cancer treatmentor their insulin —  don’t get the the help they need, and things do not magically work themselves out. But these stories buoy the conservative argument that aspects of the social safety net should be trimmed back or abolished altogether in favor of private charity.
During his run for the 2012 Republican nomination for president, Ron Paul famously responded to a questionabout what responsibility the government should have for an uninsured person facing a long-term medical emergency such as a coma by saying that such a person should “assume responsibility for himself.” When pressed, he suggested that churches, neighbors, or friends would take care of it. In practice, we can see that this just isn’t the case.
Last year, artist Shane Patrick Boyle lost his health benefits after moving from Texas to Arkansas to care for his dying mother. A Type I diabetic, he simply didn’t have the $750 he needed to buy a month’s supply of insulin, so he did what more than 250,000 people do each year: He launched a GoFundMe campaign. Unlike the stories the news media tends to highlight, his doesn’t have a happy ending. He came up $50 short, and less than a month later, he was dead.
Read more.


Anyone opposing Vulture Capitalism (such as having laws for the rich to hide their money from taxes in off shore tax havens but not for the poor, i.e. class warfare) is called a socialist or neo-socialist;

Fox Business attacks Pope Francis for making "authoritarian socialism ... part of Catholic doctrine" Stuart Varney: Pope Francis' denunciation of offshore tax havens suggests "we now believe that authoritarian socialism is part of Catholic doctrine"


STUART VARNEY (HOST): I've got two problems with this. Number one, this document approved personally by the Pope, is part -- it came from the Catholic doctrine, (comma) the Vatican's office for Catholic doctrine. Do we now believe that authoritarian socialism is part of Catholic doctrine? I've got a problem with that. Number two, I don't want to see politics. When I go to church on a Sunday, and I'm a believer, I go -- I don't want to hear politics from the pulpit. I just don't want to hear it. So I'm like, save my soul, not my vote. 
ELIZABETH MACDONALD (FOX BUSINESS STOCKS EDITOR): And what did Jesus say, "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's," right?
ASHLEY WEBSTER (FOX BUSINESS): But you know, isn't the church all about money?
Related:
Previously:


To help capitalism thrive the market has to be balanced. In other words, people should be able top leave and enter markets without being pushed out by big corporations and conglomerates. That is the very essence of "the common good". 


AMERIFAM 9/28/2011 Samantha Bee gives a struggling American family all the advantages of corporatehood, with a huge can of "You're welcome."


To deal with Warren's move towards such control on corruption of their masters, Fox news blatantly lies about what is going on in the following example;

Fox & Friends hosts a CEO to attack a proposal to give workers a larger voice within corporations  Rebecca Walzer: "Corporations already answer to the American public. Look at the rise of social media."


ED HENRY (CO-HOST): Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren unveiling a shocking new proposal that would nationalize every major business in America. The new legislation called the Accountable Capitalism Act would constitute the largest seizure of private property in human history. So what would it do to our economy? What would it look like with the government in charge of our largest corporations? Let's ask the CEO of Walzer Wealth Management, Rebecca Walzer.
...
What's your immediate reaction to this idea that all of the sudden the government would nationalize all these companies? 
REBECCA WALZER (WALZER WEALTH MANAGEMENT CEO): Well, I'm glad that she's bold enough to actually tell us exactly what she wants because now we can call a spade a spade. This is definitely socialism because socialism is public ownership of companies where all the profits are actually redistributed to stakeholders instead of shareholders. And --
HENRY: Yeah, let me just break down the bill for you and then we can let you pull it apart. So this is what Elizabeth Warren says because, as you point out, she's being direct, she's being blunt about saying I want socialism. "The Accountable Capitalism Act restores the idea that giant American corporations," she writes, "should look out for American interests. Corporations with more than a billion dollars in annual revenue would be required to get a federal corporate charter." She says the bill "also would give workers a stronger voice in corporate decision-making at large companies and employees would elect at least 40 percent of the directors to address self-serving financial incentives in corporate management." That's what she says is in the bill. What's your reaction to that? 
WALZER: You know Ed, it's just simply unnecessary. Corporations already answer to the American public. Look at the rise of social media. When somebody is not happy with something that corporations are doing, it's all over Twitter. There's boycotts. We already have really ownership of private corporations through boycotting. If you don't like what they're doing you don't go there. So what she's trying to do is really say let's take the profits of these corporations and let's use them for our purposes, and so what we have to look at is how good is the government at taking resources and effectively using them, and so the VA comes to mind, Medicare comes to mind, Social Security comes to mind. These are all financially inept systems and American businesses reach a billion dollars because they are privately managed and with regulation, already government regulation, they are free to do what they do.
Previously


What Warren ACTUALLY proposes...

Sen. Warren introduces anti-corruption bill, criticizes Trump Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is introducing new legislation to end corruption in Washington, and she joins Morning Joe to discuss the bill. Sen. Warren also calls the Trump White House the most corrupt administration in living memory.


Notes:
1. No conflict of interest.
2. No bribing/lobbying (especially after being a politician i.e. conflict of interest for passing laws)
3. Make sure publica are at least on even footing with rich plutocrats manipluatring policy in thier favor at teh cost of the American people
4. No insider trading (conflict of interst again) - No woning busines on the side (it influeces stuff like wage increases since Republcians are thinking of THIER business profits and not the peopel or society in egneral)
5. No private interests working for "public good" as conflict of interest make sit impossible to helpt he publican when personal inetrests are involved (as GOP have proven again and again)

Basically Warren is trying to remove CONFLICTS OF INTEREST through rules and regulations. There is no company/corporation/department being formed to MAKE/PRODUCE anything.

Opposing wage increases, an proven effective way of improving standard of living AND boosting the economy is being fought tooth and nail for a more vulturistic/slave type job experience of abject poverty (thus inflation eats away at real wages while Republicans that hire minimum wage workers get to keep their costs low by manipulating public policy in thier favor like robber barons);

MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle explains that huge companies that pay low wages force their employees to use public assistance Ruhle: "In the state of Arizona ... one in every three of Amazon’s employees depend on SNAP to put food on their family’s table. In Pennsylvania and Ohio, the figure appears to be about one in ten"

STEPHANIE RUHLE (HOST): In today’s "Money, Power, Politics," are we subsidizing low-wage employees for companies with record profits? A comprehensive report from UC Berkeley’s Labor Center studied working families who rely on public assistance programs like Medicaid and CHIP, the basic household income assistance program Temporary Aid to Needy Families, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. That means U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill. That’s about 153 billion bucks every year.
The Intercept and the New Food Economy examined this problem, focusing specifically on Amazon employees using SNAP food benefits. In the state of Arizona, please listen to this, one in every three of Amazon employees depend on SNAP to put food on their family’s table. In Pennsylvania and Ohio, the figure appears to be about one in ten. The president for his part consistently picks fights with Amazon about their use of the U.S. Postal Service for deliveries and their dominance in the retail market, and even Jeff Bezos owning The Washington Post. But here's what makes no sense. None of those touch the legitimate criticisms of Amazon. You want to criticize Amazon? I’m going to help you do that right now, but what the president is going after is nonsense.
When jobs do not pay enough, workers turn to public assistance in order to meet their basic needs, and that burden is falling on taxpayers. But when the head of that company paying low wages happens to be the richest man in modern history -- let me remind you of this, Jeff Bezos on Amazon Prime Day become worth $150 billion -- when he’s worth that much money, you begin to start asking the question, are companies like this who are paying their employees so little gaming the system?
Previously:







Related thoughts;

Economics:Constitutional Capitalism VS Vulture Capitalism (GOP's Capitalism)

Countering GOP's Use Of The Word "Socialism"


Lessons In Civics & Economics


GOP Economics


GOP's War On Healthcare


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