Free, Fair and Foul Trade
My fellow citizens, I come to you today to talk to you about free, fair and foul trade. The trade policy of the United States is supposed to be one that promotes free world trade. The definition of free trade is as murky as the definition of democracy which is totally impenetrable. Free trade in the day of Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft would have been considered a radical plot to destroy America. These two presidents at opposite ends of the political spectrum of the time, the former a progressive, the latter a conservative both stood for an America dominated by individualistic small business entrepreneurship. Both the progressive Roosevelt and the arch conservative Taft who succeeded him in the presidency agreed that the economic well being of the nation was fundamentally threatened by the power and marauding avarice of giant monopolistic corporations. It was even considered that these collectivized behemoths be banned altogether as entities too great to be controlled in the interest of the common good. How right they have turned out to be.
The time we are referring to, around the turn of the nineteenth century, was the beginning of the battle for the control of America between the forces of individualism represented by entrepreneurship and the forces of collectivism represented by corporations. Roosevelt and Taft both brought legal action to break up monopoly control by corporations that had gained more than a fifty percent market share in their industries, hoping thus to put a limit on their power. Taft, the conservative, did much more trust busting than Roosevelt who initiated the idea. They thought that by such means the adverse effects of giant corporations could be controlled by government and somehow harnessed for the good of the nation. Government itself, however, would have to be powerful enough to dominate and control these dangerous leviathans. Thus began, as a protection against corporate power, the rational for big and powerful government. Sadly to say, Roosevelt and Tafts worst fears have come about in spite of the growth of government to mammoth size. Corporations have come to dominate governments all over the world to the extent that they have virtually a free hand to conduct business anyway they please. In the process of doing as they please, they are turning the world's workers into virtual wage slaves.
Big American government has been subverted and eclipsed by the bigger and smarter and more powerful corporate sector. Now that the American people, distracted by sixty years of military confrontation, have forgotten that they and not the corporations own America, corporations are attempting to emasculate what remains of such control by downsizing our government to a feeble shell of itself. They are even willing if necessary to give up some valuable corporate welfare they get from the existence of the commerce department cheerleaders and other government programs to accomplish this.
Is this a good thing for America or a bad thing? In principle, corporations colletively socialize the economic process, substituting bureaucratic cooperation for entrepreneurial individualism. This collective socialization allows the corporation to grow uninhibited by the physical constraints of the individual entrepreneur who is only one person and mortal while the corporation is immortal under present, if not original, laws. Without knowing it, we have created a virtual God, with all the godlike trappings, including unwavering faith in free trade and the rest of the jingoistic corporate jargon. If unobstructed by government limitations, a corporation could in theory take over an entire economy and become what in fact the Soviet Union became. One large company store owned corporatist country. (Really Fascist in Mussolini's definition) Corporations then are in reality mini-socialist states that exist like predatory army ants whose economic rapaciousness no government or individual is a match for. It's owners are absentee investors who have surplus capital they want to use productively. Publicly traded corporations are a convenient way for this capital to be invested. Mutual funds that own stocks are an even more convenient way to invest surplus capital. Corporations then are a form of exclusive socialism for those who are rich enough to join the club by purchasing a share. Individualism, the traditional bases of the American form of economic democracy, once protected by liberal and conservative alike, has therefore, largely been replaced by corporatism, a form of exclusive socialism for those who wish to be absentee investor owners. Perhaps then, the reason three out of four Americans are skeptical of government is they realize instinctively their individualistic democracy has been stolen from them by people calling themselves Democrats and Republicans, but who are in reality corrupt free loaders in the employ of socialist entities that do not represent traditional American values.
There is something of a mystery about why American government officials constantly ballyhoo the advantages of free trade when America has the largest trade deficit in the history of the world. To a large degree this is because our slicker trading partners are fleecing us by practicing pseudo-free trade while we practice free trade.. There really is no mystery at all. The only players that count in world class economic terms are the large multinational corporations that for the most part are doing very well. Their executives are reaping obscenely outrageous incomes (In my opinion illegal under fiduciary trust obligations) and their absentee owner investors are gleefully making money by pushing stocks to what would once have been thought insane levels because of their poring their surplus cash into them. And the politicians who are making this possible are reaping huge campaign contributions from them. This group that represents most of the top rung in America are becoming plutocratic oligarchs while the rest of us are impoverished by this system that takes no prisoners while exploiting everyone but themselves. The corporation dominated American government seems totally oblivious to the fact that this so called free trade has resulted in the degradation of the American family and the destruction of American entrepreneurial individualist democracy. This is why we need millions of immigrants, legal and illegal. Instead of a high quality standard of living, as recommended by F.D.R., that would encourage family formation and a normal birthrate, the American family is being squeezed out of existence by extreme economic pressure that is eliminating the American worker. The traditional American culture has been sacrificed to protect the competitiveness and bottom line of large transnational corporations. That is why what America politicians call free trade, I call foul trade. There is no such thing as a free anything. Somebody must always pay the piper. Free trade is the same as a game of musical chairs. Somebody always gets left out. The concept that everything always balances out because every country has some kind of economic advantage is the biggest hoax in the world. The only comparative advantage that poor nations have is to allow corporations to pay slave wages to their citizens at the expense of citizens in more developed countries. In this foul trade that is solely for the benefit of large corporations, most Americans are paying a price that far exceeds the price of the cheap imports they're getting. The lack of economic opportunity in a large part of America is the direct cause of crime and misery on a grand and tyrannical scale unknown is civilized history. America has over two million people incarerated, most of whom are victims of this miserable economic system that denies a decent standard of living to a large segment of its citizens. This tyrannical economic obscenity that ignores the plight of all but its own class is turning America into an elitist two class system of rich and poor much like a banana republic. Is it not a form of bananaism when both public officials and corporate elite of a country work together to enrich themselves with little regard for the welfare of the masses? This foul inhumane free trade that mainly benefits plundering corporations needs to be replaced by fair trade that improves and protects the quality of life and the standard of living of workers all over the world. And this can be done. I show how in my book, Parity Economics. (On sale here. See profile)
The time we are referring to, around the turn of the nineteenth century, was the beginning of the battle for the control of America between the forces of individualism represented by entrepreneurship and the forces of collectivism represented by corporations. Roosevelt and Taft both brought legal action to break up monopoly control by corporations that had gained more than a fifty percent market share in their industries, hoping thus to put a limit on their power. Taft, the conservative, did much more trust busting than Roosevelt who initiated the idea. They thought that by such means the adverse effects of giant corporations could be controlled by government and somehow harnessed for the good of the nation. Government itself, however, would have to be powerful enough to dominate and control these dangerous leviathans. Thus began, as a protection against corporate power, the rational for big and powerful government. Sadly to say, Roosevelt and Tafts worst fears have come about in spite of the growth of government to mammoth size. Corporations have come to dominate governments all over the world to the extent that they have virtually a free hand to conduct business anyway they please. In the process of doing as they please, they are turning the world's workers into virtual wage slaves.
Big American government has been subverted and eclipsed by the bigger and smarter and more powerful corporate sector. Now that the American people, distracted by sixty years of military confrontation, have forgotten that they and not the corporations own America, corporations are attempting to emasculate what remains of such control by downsizing our government to a feeble shell of itself. They are even willing if necessary to give up some valuable corporate welfare they get from the existence of the commerce department cheerleaders and other government programs to accomplish this.
Is this a good thing for America or a bad thing? In principle, corporations colletively socialize the economic process, substituting bureaucratic cooperation for entrepreneurial individualism. This collective socialization allows the corporation to grow uninhibited by the physical constraints of the individual entrepreneur who is only one person and mortal while the corporation is immortal under present, if not original, laws. Without knowing it, we have created a virtual God, with all the godlike trappings, including unwavering faith in free trade and the rest of the jingoistic corporate jargon. If unobstructed by government limitations, a corporation could in theory take over an entire economy and become what in fact the Soviet Union became. One large company store owned corporatist country. (Really Fascist in Mussolini's definition) Corporations then are in reality mini-socialist states that exist like predatory army ants whose economic rapaciousness no government or individual is a match for. It's owners are absentee investors who have surplus capital they want to use productively. Publicly traded corporations are a convenient way for this capital to be invested. Mutual funds that own stocks are an even more convenient way to invest surplus capital. Corporations then are a form of exclusive socialism for those who are rich enough to join the club by purchasing a share. Individualism, the traditional bases of the American form of economic democracy, once protected by liberal and conservative alike, has therefore, largely been replaced by corporatism, a form of exclusive socialism for those who wish to be absentee investor owners. Perhaps then, the reason three out of four Americans are skeptical of government is they realize instinctively their individualistic democracy has been stolen from them by people calling themselves Democrats and Republicans, but who are in reality corrupt free loaders in the employ of socialist entities that do not represent traditional American values.
There is something of a mystery about why American government officials constantly ballyhoo the advantages of free trade when America has the largest trade deficit in the history of the world. To a large degree this is because our slicker trading partners are fleecing us by practicing pseudo-free trade while we practice free trade.. There really is no mystery at all. The only players that count in world class economic terms are the large multinational corporations that for the most part are doing very well. Their executives are reaping obscenely outrageous incomes (In my opinion illegal under fiduciary trust obligations) and their absentee owner investors are gleefully making money by pushing stocks to what would once have been thought insane levels because of their poring their surplus cash into them. And the politicians who are making this possible are reaping huge campaign contributions from them. This group that represents most of the top rung in America are becoming plutocratic oligarchs while the rest of us are impoverished by this system that takes no prisoners while exploiting everyone but themselves. The corporation dominated American government seems totally oblivious to the fact that this so called free trade has resulted in the degradation of the American family and the destruction of American entrepreneurial individualist democracy. This is why we need millions of immigrants, legal and illegal. Instead of a high quality standard of living, as recommended by F.D.R., that would encourage family formation and a normal birthrate, the American family is being squeezed out of existence by extreme economic pressure that is eliminating the American worker. The traditional American culture has been sacrificed to protect the competitiveness and bottom line of large transnational corporations. That is why what America politicians call free trade, I call foul trade. There is no such thing as a free anything. Somebody must always pay the piper. Free trade is the same as a game of musical chairs. Somebody always gets left out. The concept that everything always balances out because every country has some kind of economic advantage is the biggest hoax in the world. The only comparative advantage that poor nations have is to allow corporations to pay slave wages to their citizens at the expense of citizens in more developed countries. In this foul trade that is solely for the benefit of large corporations, most Americans are paying a price that far exceeds the price of the cheap imports they're getting. The lack of economic opportunity in a large part of America is the direct cause of crime and misery on a grand and tyrannical scale unknown is civilized history. America has over two million people incarerated, most of whom are victims of this miserable economic system that denies a decent standard of living to a large segment of its citizens. This tyrannical economic obscenity that ignores the plight of all but its own class is turning America into an elitist two class system of rich and poor much like a banana republic. Is it not a form of bananaism when both public officials and corporate elite of a country work together to enrich themselves with little regard for the welfare of the masses? This foul inhumane free trade that mainly benefits plundering corporations needs to be replaced by fair trade that improves and protects the quality of life and the standard of living of workers all over the world. And this can be done. I show how in my book, Parity Economics. (On sale here. See profile)
posted by Ed @ 3:01 PM
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