Only a truly powerful group of ideological dogmatists, well-funded by our wealthiest citizens, could redefine American democracy, unscrupulously steal the sovereignty of the American people, and obscure the belief in the progressive economic values subscribed to by The Constitution’s Framers.
Friedman/Hayek’s Chicago School of economics is a laissez faire, capitalist ideology parasitic by nature. Our Founding Father’s fought a revolution, created a Federal Constitution, state constitutions, a bi-cameral legislative Congress, The Bill of Rights, the executive branch headed by the president, and a judicial branch headed by the SJC, to protect us from this evolving parasite. Their knowledge of the failures of past experiments in democratic-republican governments compelled them to issue forewarnings that would survive 231 years. Madison said:
The instability, injustice, and confusion, introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments perished….”
– James Madison, The Federalist. Barnes and Noble Classics. p52 brilliance of the ideology is that like any bug that causes disease, it adapts.
Success is what matters to its Friedman School adherents, not popularity. They don’t measure their success in polling data. Whether people agree with their belief that social programs should be privatized or abolished, that departments of the federal government that protect the environment should be shuttered, does not matter to them. That a majority agree with progressives on the issues, does not matter to them. The parasitic neoliberal, Friedman economic model embeds itself in our government and unscrupulously redefines the language of our Constitution. Freedom has become a word that connotes Friedman Capitalism. When the government makes use of its economic regulatory powers and when it properly conducts the oversight of Wall Street, it is infringing on freedom.
The Orwellian nature of this parasitic ideology is so blatant, yet people have an historical amnesia when it comes to American History, so it’s easy to change the meaning of the ubiquitous words of our republic, like the word freedom, which actually has nothing to do with corporations and money, but is defined as the right to do what one pleases, except when it infringes on another’s right to freedom.
The retail industry, corporations, and workers now have an economic relationship that closely resembles feudalism. The peasant retail workers do all the work and get paid minimum wage. They are only given less than 40 hours so benefits are not provided. Upper Management probably gets full time hours and benefits. They are the feudal agents who keep the peasants labor production high. The feudal lords are the folks sitting 60 stories above the real world. They are the CEO’s, CFO’s, COO’s who rake in millions of dollars while their workers struggle to stay financially stable.
These corporate feudal lords are more powerful than the people; they sponsor the government that is supposed to be the most powerful institution in the country since it represent the voice of the people and God. Vox populi, vox dei. The voice of the people is the voice of God. Yet our Congresspeople mute the voice of the people. They are puppets of their corporate contributors. Alexander Hamilton writes:
The power of the head of the nation was commonly too weak, either to preserve the public peace, or to protect the people against their oppression of their immediate lords.
Later in The Federalist, he states:
A government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to the full accomplishments of the objects committed to its care, and to the complete execution of the trusts for which it is responsible; free from every other control but a regard to the public good and to the sense of the people.
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It is blasphemy when neoliberals talk about “shrinking the federal government so that it can fit down the sink.” We fought wars and spilled blood to to save a government for the people, by the people, and of the people. The Revolutionary War and the Civil War began when the blood of Massachusetts’ men were shot and killed.
Anyone who talks about shrinking the role of the Federal Government, is euphemistically talking about ending our democratic-republic–ending the sovereign power of the people.
How did this e
Since the election of Reagan, the first neoliberal who was able to manipulate the people into voting against their own economic interests, the middle class has slowly disappeared, now we listen for the sound of the death knell of the middle class.
Reagan cut taxes for the wealthy, cut federal funding to social programs, fired 11,000 airline workers who were on strike, fighting for fair wages and benefits. Reagan fired all of them. That was the first big blow to unions. All across the country, organized labor is under attack. The neoliberals want to turn us into their feudal peasants. The students of Friedman seek to take away the power of the mult
Trsump appealed to white people by scapegoating people of color and people who pray differently. The Trump Campaign stayed away from issues whenever possible. Their campaign was emotive, striking racist tones, instilling fear, and promoting hate. Trump’s message was the opposite of Obama’s, but appealing to fear and hate and other base human emotions is something that Hillary did not understand.
The only progressive candidate of late to understand that politics is won by appealing to the voter’s emotion rather than his stance on issues is President Obama. Aware that once a candidate politically categorizes oneself, enemies are created–passionate enemies–and aware that Americans were exasperated with hyper-partisanship, Obama’s rhetoric often cited principles that all Americans share–he espoused a message of unity. President Obama allowed the pundits to argue and define his political philosophy.
Speaking of ideological categorizing, for the sake of simplicity, I will refer to the aforementioned parasitic, purist capitalism that currently threatens our democratic-republic by the name most folks presently refer to it as: neoliberalism.
Neoliberalism’s biggest success in the judicial branch of our government happened under Chief Justice Robert’s conservative Supreme Court’s “Citizens United v FEC” decision. Charles and David Koch own one of the wealthiest privately held corporations on the planet with Koch Industries, and are surpassed only by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet in wealth. The Koch Brothers and their likeminded corporate cohorts ensured that the SJC would side with the neoliberal agenda in the Citizens United decision. So personally invested in the decision’s outcome that the Kochs not last only donated money, but deployed their own Koch Industries attorney, Ted Olson, to argue their neoliberal position.
Those neoliberal positions do not reflect any of the American principles lain out by our Founding Fathers. Show me one document that does not prove neoliberalism antonymic to American values.
Koch and his neo-liberal cohorts believe that the government should not invest in social programs the benefit our most vulnerable citizens; they do not believe that the wealthy should pay a higher percentage of taxes; and they believe that the departments of the federal government that regulate corporate greed should be abolished. The Federal Government keeps corporations in check through federal oversight and through regulatory practices. Neo-liberals want the government to serve corporations, rather than corporations serve government. (Hamburger, Tom. “The Koch Brother’s Impact on America’s Political System.” Opinions. The Washington Post. [15 January 2016] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-koch-brothers-impact-on-the-american-political-system/2016/01/15/6a3694aa-b579-11e5-9388-466021d971de_story.html Accessed 28 August 2017)
The Citizens United decision has infected our federal election process with the parasitic, neoliberal ideology. Our candidates are no longer responsive to the needs of their consituents–they are responsive to the needs of their corporate sponsors. The spirit of Alexander Hamilton would be vexed to find that our democratic-republic had been highjacked by the greedy and self-interested men and women of our day:
A government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to the full accomplishments of the objects committed to its care, and the complete execution of the trust for which it it responsible; free from every other control but a regard to the public good and to the sense of the people.
– Alexander Hamilton. The Federalist (New York: 2006) p. 165
Neo-liberals seek the destruction of any component of the federal government that doesn’t protect their private property and mthe source of most of their wealth, international trade. Social programs that benefit the poorest citizens are socialist–in the neoliberal myopic political mindst hey receive no benefits from an educated, economically hopeful hoi polloi. Neoliberals rebuke social programs as sources of higher taxes, rather than a public good necessary for societal stability.
Yet if neo-liberals are to refer to those who believe in a progressive taxation system in which the wealthy pay more in taxes, while the poor benefit from the redistribution of wealth, then they must call the Framers of the Constitution socialists as well. Alexander Hamilton writes:
…make it a fixed point of policy in the national administration, to go as far as may be practicable in making the luxury of the rich tributary to the public treasury, in order to diminish the necessity of those impositions, which might create dissatisfaction in the poorer and most numerous classes of society. Happy it is when the interest which the government has in the preservation of it own power, coincides with a proper distribution of the public burthens, and tends to guard the least wealthy part of the community from oppression! (Boldness mine) (Ibid. p. 192)
Perhaps the parasitic neo-liberal ideology has infected our collective knowledge of history. The men who founded this country were some of the most progressive men of their day.
Our Founders believed that the power of the federal government made up of the people should be more powerful than any other institution, including corporations, and that when the federal government failed to do so, the state governments were compelled to protect individual liberty. If the states and federal governments ultimately failed to protect individual liberty, then they believed in the people’s right to rebel.
The Founders believed that the government had a role in taking care of its most vulnerable citizens. And they believed in a progressive tax system in which the wealthy paid their fair share of taxes, so that society could continue to progress. Neo-liberalism is un-American to the core. Progressivism is the ideology this country and its constitution was built on.
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