The Selfish, Greedy
Rich Part II
By
Bill Becker
In
Part I of this article,
I introduced the reader to Americas selfish, greedy rich.
Their heroes are not Washington or Jefferson; instead they revere
19th and 20th century robber barons. I pointed out that the selfish,
greedy rich are the spiritual heirssome are probably the biological
heirsof Americas captains of industry, who hated President
Franklin D. Roosevelt with a passion that makes Osama bin Ladens
hatred of America look like puppy love. It is worth noting that
they hated Roosevelt for trying to undo the damage that they themselves
had brought upon the nation and the world through their no-holds-barred
stock market speculation. No matter that Roosevelt was trying to
help the millions of suffering middle-class Americansthe selfish,
greedy rich hated him nonetheless. In 1934, with German and Italian
fascism as a model, these proto-fascists plotted a military coup
against Roosevelt. Their plan failed, and soon events on the world
stage forced them underground.
But the selfish,
greedy rich are nothing if not patient. For 70 years, they dreamed
and schemed to return America to the era of laissez-faire capitalism.
There were setbacksthe democratizing effects of WWII and the
GI Bill; the anti-materialist, anti-imperialist 60s, in which
millions of young Americans threatened to opt out of the consumer
culture the Cold War producedbut with Arizona Senator Barry
Goldwaters entry into the 1964 Presidential race, the camels
nose was in the tent, as our Arab brethren like to say. More of
the camel entered the tent when the Republicans "magic
salesman," Ronald Reagan was elected President, largely by
convincing millions of honest, hard-working Americans to hate their
government almost as much as the selfish, greedy rich do. Then came
the takeover of the Republican Party by the hard-right, and the
advent of right-wing radio.
President George
W. Bush is wholly the creature of the selfish, greedy rich, and
with his reelection, virtually the entire camel entered the tent.
With a more solidly Republican Congress, the selfish, greedy rich
now effectively control every important aspect of American life.
All that remains to them is to dismantle the few remaining obstacles
to the plutocracy they have so long dreamed of.
Privatization
of all government functions; complete deregulation of industry and
finance; indeed, the elimination of the idea of the public interest
itself, are the core goals of the selfish, greedy rich. They have
convinced the millions of honest, hardworking Americans that a return
to laissez-faire capitalism is the answer to all of our social,
environmental, and spiritual problems. But, as we might expect,
the selfish, greedy rich are dishonest.
The selfish,
greedy rich told the millions of honest, hardworking Americans that
deregulation would solve Americas problems, and deregulation
marched across America. The result? Thousands of these same honest,
hardworking Americans lost their retirements or their savings, or
both, in the Enron and other swindles. While beating the drums of
patriotism, the selfish, greedy rich send thousands of jobs to sweatshops
in countries ruled by repressive regimes overseas, but they do not
send their sons and daughters into harm's way in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The selfish,
greedy rich often invoke the famous invisible hand of capitalism's
patron saint, the kindly and humane Scot, Adam Smith. In a "free
market," Smith proposed an invisible hand as the mechanism
by which the owner of capital would naturally, and through self-interest
alone, benefit the entire society by allocating his resources within
the domestic economy. But the free market was even thenand
still isstrictly a hypothetical construct, and the selfish,
greedy rich naturally neglect to mention that Smith himself was
onto their own innately deceptive nature:
"The
proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes
from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution,
and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and
carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with
the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose
interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who
have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the
public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived
and oppressed it." -- (Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations)
Who now is
unaware that the selfish, greedy rich receive tax breaks for investing
their capital overseas? Who can seriously believe that the presidents
aborted plan to privatize Social Security was not just another means
for transferring wealth from the middle class to the selfish, greedy
rich?
What is in
store for America?
The material
about the plot against Roosevelt comes from the new book, The
Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, by
University of British Colombia law professor Joel Bakan. Bakan's
well-developed thesis is that the modern American publicly held
corporation is a psychopathic creature, totally indifferent to the
human and environmental costs it inflicts on society. It goes without
saying that the corporation serves the interests of the selfish,
greedy rich.
Bakan makes
the point with chilling clarity:
"Today,
seventy years after the failed coup, a well-organized minority again
threatens democracy. Corporate America's long and patient campaign
to gain control of government...is now succeeding...using dollars
rather than bullets, corporations are now poised to win what the
plotters so desperately wanted: freedom from democratic control."
Nonetheless,
in the face of all historic and contemporary evidence to the contrary,
the millions of honest, hardworking Americans believe that the corporation
is "looking out for them," to paraphrase right-wing talk-show
host Bill O'Reilly. It is a public relations success of Orwellian
proportions, perhaps matched only by the fascist propagandists of
20th century Germany and Italy. Indeed, Mussolini himself said that
fascism was more accurately called "corporatism."
With President
Bush in the White House for another three years, the selfish, greedy
rich are well along the way toward achieving their ultimate goala
few plutocratic families controlling the economy, and by default
the internal security forces as well. They will allow just enough
of a servile middle class to organize the manufacture and distribution
of the goods and services they require. Everyone else will labor
for a subsistence wage, complaining at their peril. We will then
enjoy the condition so vividly described by the British philosopher
Thomas Hobbes: the "war of all against all." The generals
directing that war, protected far behind the front lines by the
state security forces, will be the selfish, greedy rich.
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