Is Obama a socialist?
Has he already ruined America?
To choose a single quintessential that characterizes the esprit de corp of the United States, that quality that defines it uniquely, I think I would nominate Capitalism. [I also considered "freedom", "the US Constitution", "democracy" (American-style), "college football", ...]
Regardless of political stripe, Americans believe that the American vision is the product of hard work, ingenuity and free enterprise, largely unfettered by government interference.
Indeed recently, when a clear majority of Americans wanted the deplorable situation with health insurance fixed, the efforts to do so were easily thwarted simply by raising the spectre of Socialism.
Even with a Democratic President and Congress and a large mandate for change, no change has been able to overcome this charge of socialism.
But as the Republican division desperately accuses Obama of being the Anti-Capitalist and having ruined the country in just one short year, its bewilderment and disarray is most palpable.
The grand failure of Ponzi Capitalism, embodied in the current financial crisis besetting the USA (and the world), has shocked Americans, and particularly Republicans, to the core. "How did this go so badly wrong?". "Where is The Invisible Hand of Adam Smith?", to discipline the market. Even the Maestro, Alan Greenspan, claims to be shocked…
Now we come to what I believe is a fundamental disconnect in the political discourse: the capitalists themselves do not believe in free enterprise [freedom for their competitors and consumers].
The free market makes the best decisions and gets the job done, so people believe. Competition not only weeds out the bad ideas and managers, but it holds prices down to cost plus a reasonable profit, as well as stimulating the search for continuous improvement. Thus, free enterprise is good for consumers (the public) and provides incentive to companies to be responsive to and satisfy their customers. And companies provide jobs as well as goods. It is thus a win-win situation and everyone prospers. This is the theory.
Capitalists, however, believe in only three principles: 1) profit, 2) lots of profit, and 3) unregulated, unlimited and unreasonable profit.
Competition and the free market are a brake and a limit on the amount of profit that can be made, benefiting the numerous customers, and only hardly the companies. But corporations are driven to make profit and nothing else drives them.
(Here I want to express a novel thought. Inasmuch as Americans define their country in terms of free enterprise, competition and freedom, then the wealthiest, monopolistic capitalists who work against those principles should be considered to be saboteurs and traitors. Indeed, David Rockefeller candidly admitted in his 2002 auto-biography, Memoirs, to having spent a lifetime "working against the best interests of the United States" (and in favor of globalization).)
Now let's consider a corollary of the notion that capitalism does not actually favor free enterprise.
People view Big Business and Big Government as adversaries; incompatible; mortal enemies even. That they are believed to be at odds with each other is precisely why the charge of socialism works so effectively in American politics. In the simplistic view, governmental control runs counter to free enterprise. (It does, but the deep question is, "whose side is Business on?": freedom or regulation…)
What if Big Business is no friend at all of Freedom and if instead favors techniques of coercion? Then government becomes seen as a powerful tool for control. And since it so evidently may be bought with large enough sacks of gold, the situation suddenly hearkens back to the entrepreneur who liked the product so much that he bought the company! For enforcing its monopolies, Big Business is so fond of Big Government that it might have invented it. (And indeed: I think it did.)
Now one may consider anew why it is that corporations donate to candidates of both parties simultaneously. They don't care whether a candidate is Republican or Democrat, as long as he or she is going to be successfully elected and — with their backing — beholden.
Obama is not a socialist. He is a pawn. Carefully chosen and groomed. Just like Bush before him.
And the drive to ruin the United States (for the majority of its inhabitants) was started before Obama. Before Bush. Before Clinton.
These Presidential Commandos-in-Chief are just agents of the one enemy, the Plutocracy, its fifth column; no change, no change, no change.
From: The Monday Morning Quarterback
