Neoliberalism sets corporate profit above labor and environmental protection. The poor and unemployed are blamed for their misery. Problems are ascribed to government intervention and regulation since the market is held to be self-healing and sacrosanct raising all boats and leading ultimately to equilibrium. Corporations have rights without responsibilities and normalize tax evasion and tax havens as “business as usual.” The injustices and darkness in our taxation, investment and forever war policies are ignored or repressed as an “envy debate.”
The security state is a perversion of the constitutional state marked by generalized anxiety, apolitical people and susceptibility to rightwing myths. The state should represent the public interest and yet special interests seem to be in the driver’s seat with privatization, deregulation, liberalized markets, financial speculation, tax havens and corporate tax evasion. In the 1960s the corporate share in federal revenue was 40% and now is only 8% or 9% (cf. www.foreffectivegov.org). The state has become the “errand boy” of the banks (Bill Moyers).
Finance capitalism is an inequality machine, French economist Thomas Piketty explains in his best-selling “Capital in the 21st Century.” Simplistic solutions address symptoms and ignore causes, systemic and structural criticism. The Walton family has more wealth than 40% of Americans. The top 1% have more wealth than 99%. Tax havens, corporate tax evasion and neoliberal mythology are causes of exploding inequality.
Our society becomes a mirror of corporate feudalism where the luck of wealthy parents determines access to education. In Orwellian doublespeak, corporations are called people and money is called free speech. Corporations have rights and not responsibilities. All personal and corporate achievement was based on state investment in roads, schools, hospitals, water quality, food safety, air waves and community centers and nevertheless the “state evil business good” mantra resounds.
Thanks Bernie for running an “issues based” and “justice first” campaign, for emphasizing the social contract and MLK’s revolution of a “person-oriented” society instead of a “think-oriented society! Thanks Bernie for focusing on the injustices and darkness in our taxation, investment, and forever war policies! Thanks Bernie for being a truth-teller and pleading for the social interest and long-term necessities instead of special interests! Thanks Bernie for trying to bring our country into the 21st century and resisting the despair and hopelessness of corporate feudalism!
