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Blog PostsWhy Free Market Ideologues Violate Their Faith: “To preserve it”
By Michael McGehee at Oct 14, 2008 |
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It is February 7, 1968 and Peter Arnett is reporting on the Vietnam War. He quotes a U.S. Airforce major:
It became necessary to destroy the village in order to save it.
Flash forward to October 14, 2008.
President Bush has announced that within the "bailout" plan $250 billion of taxpayer money will be used to buy stocks in nine banks.
The increasing comments about the apparently anti-free market policies put him on the defensive and today he said "these measures are not intended to take over the free market, but to preserve it."
Déjà vu.
Yeah right, George. I am sure it makes a lot of sense to you. Being someone who has constantly had to rely on family and close connections to bail you out of your jams. And all through them I am sure you told yourself you are still free, independent and responsible.
But what irked me about this notion of "preserving" (everyone knows the more appropriate term is "preventing") big banks from suffering the consequences of their actions is the bankruptcy laws in 2005.
When the guy on Main Street has difficulty with his debt he doesn't get a bailout. President Bush and Congress don't rush to pay his bills. He gets stricter laws telling him his bankruptcy is fraudulent and makes it harder for him to seek relief.
And Noam Chomsky has recently pointed out the obvious in regards to the myth of Free Markets when he noted:
First, we should be clear about the fact that capitalism can't end because it never started. The system we live in should be called state capitalism, not just capitalism. So, take the United States. The economy relies very heavily on the state sector. There is a lot of agony now about socialization of the economy, but that is a bad joke. The advanced economy, high technology and so forth, has always relied extensively on the dynamic state sector of the economy. That's true of computers, the internet, aircraft, biotechnology, just about everywhere you look. MIT, where I am speaking to you, is a kind of funnel into which the public pours money and out of it comes the technology of the future which will be handed over to private power for profit. So what you have is a system of socialization of cost and risk and privatization of profit. And that's not just in the financial system. It is the whole advanced economy.
The faith-based ideologues known as Capitalists should just admit that there is and never has been a Free Market.
You cannot "preserve" that which does not exist.
Admit it.
The only thing being preserved is the wealth and leisure of affluent bankers.
And don't expect us to forget your response to Main Street in 2005. You can cover cow shit in strawberries, but even us simple folk in Texas won't eat it.
