I don't understand what you mean about corporate socialism being ok with me... I never said that... lol.
agreed, it was a semi-cheap shot....apologies
And I'm not sure what you even mean by corporate socialism.
how much time do you have?
technically, imo, the idea of corporate socialism is only applicable to the bailout, as it aptly describes the redistribution of wealth -for whatever reason
as such, many of its definitions are political in nature...and the bailout has spawned of horde of articles defining and refining the term -much of it, like this thread, offered up as a counterpoint to "obama, the socialist"
but ralph nader does the best job of offering up a definition that offers a broader perspective (fwiw, i'm not a naderite)
"Corporate socialism" -- the privatization of profit and the socialization of risks and misconduct -- is displacing capitalist canons. This condition prevents an adaptable capitalism, served by equal justice under law, from delivering higher standards of living and enlarging its absorptive capacity for broader community and environmental values.
he does an adequate job of describing what he's called "capitalist canons" in
this washinton post article from 2002
but what the heck is an "adaptable captialism"?...personally, i think that the two qualities you hold dear -freedom and opprotunity- pretty much sums it up, particularly if you limit them to specifically economic freedoms and opprotunities....and i think the founding fathers would agree: they were all about creating a document that described an egalitarian society
{egalitarianism} is apolitical doctrine that holds that all people should be treated as equals and have the same political, economic, social, and civil rights.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egalit...[URL]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism
pretty much just product of economic opprotunity, then....something that an egalitarian society should, and does, promote.....least ways, america does, and has.....but i'm gonna submit to you that our current version of an egalitarian society exists somewhere between the extremes of corporate communism, where the economic unit of a corporation effectively controls the flow of capital through the use of vertical monopolies and political lobbying, and the other end of the spectrum, where the government
....through the process of licensing and regulating officially-incorporated social, religious, economic, or popular organizations, effectively co-opts their leadership or circumscribes their ability to challenge state authority by establishing the state as the source of their legitimacy, as well as sometimes running them, either directly or indirectly through corporations.
a conservative pov will be quick to point out that this entire spectrum is the fruit of economic opprotuntiy....the concentration of wealth and power that results is understandable to them, because its promoted by the golden egg of capitalism.....
all well and good...until something like the bailout becomes necessary to prop the system up.....when it becomes apparent that the economic opprotunities of corportatism are, in fact, not so egalitarian, and do -time and again- select for greed....then conservatives do two things, imo.....
they blame the other party -in this case, for deregulation that was aimed to promote economic opprotunity among the economically dispossessed in america....and they blame the consumer, for doing exactly what was expected of them by the rules or corporatism.....take advantage of the sudden deluge of economic opprotunities.
so we end up with a situation where a/ deregulation is great for corporatism, except when it strives to be egalitarian.....then it's bad, and not the fault of capitalism (bill gates offers a somewhat different presepective
here.....) and b/ consumers are supposed to consume, but also be a whole lot smarter than the people who make the rules, and who then sell those rules to the consumer via multi-million dollar advertising budgets.
and -if we prove to be just as dumb as the corportations are greedy- we are the ones who have to pay for it.
so...when push comes to shove, we select for greed, and assume education and ethics will take care of themselves (i guess)....and not selecting for greed is to raise the threat of a/ destroying america (no bailout) or b/ making us a socialist state (balancing the egalitarian equation)
to me, spike, the fact that you can claim that captialism is not about the little guy....but socialism is....only points out just how widely condoned corporatism has become in this country....it has become the goose that lays that golden egg....the canons of capitalism- aka, the giant that the constitution attempts to define- is secondary.....something that must be outwitted to succeed.
