by Craig Willms
Part 1
Since I became aware of how the world works to whatever degree it's possible the system, the American system, has been under attack. The constant consternation of the discontented and their antics has been on display since I could absorb the news of the day. By the time I was old enough to participate in the workings of the world I was well aware of the disenchanted. I could either join them or I could just get on with the business of carving out my own place in this life. I could be angry about everything that is wrong with the world or I could put my head down and get to work on my own life. I chose the later.
I'm not saying either course is right or wrong. We all want the world, the system, our lot to be better than it is, the question is what can we do about it? I was and still am, I suppose, absorbed in my own little world. I suspect we all are. Early on my beliefs and politics was an extension of my parents worldview. There's nothing odd in that, most people start there. My blue collar parents, both factory workers, were both union Democrats. They had a work ethic that was beyond reproach, but they had a narrow worldview that never strayed far from the boundaries of the union or in my mother's case, beyond the Church. They never desired to tear down the world, but they knew who their allies were and who were the nefarious kleptocrats (hint: Republicans).
I remember my father-in-law relaying the story of his awakening - his partial awakening. He was also a union Democrat and in fact was working for 'the union' as an enforcer (whatever that entails). When he saw that the union bosses were two-faced kleptocrats in their own right he was so disillusioned he quit. He never lost his faith in his us against them view of the world, but he could not be a part of such deception. He had something called personal integrity.
What my father-in-law encountered was human nature. We are ruled by our self interest. It's an integral part of our will to survive. Yes, of course we care about our clan, our group, our causes, but we care mostly about ourselves. His union bosses cared mostly about themselves and pilfered their union members coffers to feather their own nests. They were no different than the businessman who took his employees productivity and then mercilessly flaunted his wealth.
By now in the early part 21st century we have plenty of evidence of what happens when humans pretend to deny human nature by forcing, at the point of a gun, a system of economics on a nation that purports to be fair and equitable. What happens? Disaster is what happens.
There's no need to chronicle point by point these disasters. Short of Cuba and North Korea most of the communist and socialist experiments dissolve into quasi-capitalist realities. In each of these cases despite the high-minded drive to create classless equality, human nature expressed itself in thriving black markets where certain high achievers prospered. As well, the kleptocrats within the ruling class also prospered. This while the average citizen continued to be mired in poverty, disillusionment and death.
In the United States and Western Europe on average the citizenship prospered despite the unhidden inequality and unfairness. All the things that the communists declared about the 'capitalists' was largely true, to a degree, but enough people, a majority, raised their lot in life to pass on a better life to their descendants. It was not, and is not perfect, but it works for the majority. For now.
Today in the West the kleptocracy is an alliance of the ruling class and consolidated business interests taking a lion's share of the wealth. More and more people fall through the cracks, more and more people cannot afford to live well. This current generation will not pass on a better life to their kids (if they have any kids).
Free market based capitalism does exploit people, but enough people live really well and prosper so that all in all it works. That's changing. The gap between those who have enough, more than enough, and those who just scrape by is getting wider. Everyone sees this, and most people see this as an intractable problem. The aforementioned disillusioned and discontented keep returning to collectivism, via communism or more likely socialism despite the abhorrent track record. It makes no sense to go down that road again, it won't work - again. Maybe it's time to do something different. Maybe we should try to embrace capitalism, maybe we should fix it, make it better, make it fairer or we can just keep shooting ourselves in the foot.
Why can't the the richest, most innovative, most expansible economic system be fixed?
Entrenched special interests might have something to say about that. They like things the way they are. But even they have to see the writing on the wall. The system will crumble when all that's left are a select few rich folks and the rest of us living hand to mouth.
We can all see that there are countless things wrong with American capitalism. How wonderful if we could snap our fingers and fix them all. Fairy tales are also wonderful. We need to focus on a few things that can be clearly explained and resonate with the most people. Since we are a people that need a figurehead to rally around, we need someone brave, charismatic, likable and able to reach people from all walks of life.
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Part 2
In my eyes the number one issue with American capitalism is the rampant cronyism. Lawmakers have become paid operatives of business interests far and wide. This is well known and fully entrenched into the business of office holding. Many have talked about this cancer but rarely do they actually do anything to fix it.
Why call it a cancer? Free market capitalism is potentially as clean and clear as mathematics. The inputs and outputs on one end is essentially pure math. The marketing and follow through on the other end is used to the measure success. It's all pretty straight forward. With a level playing field everyone has the same chance at succeeding. Cronyism stacks the system in favor of some and throws stumbling blocks out for the rest. Low paid politicians, and public sector leaders use their decision making powers to do the bidding of the powerful for a 'taste' of the green. There is no appetite among law makers to end the gravy train. This is a cancer in as much as any cancer eats the body from the inside out. It weakens the body politic so that insidious infections like socialism or communism can ravage it.
Most people understand the sort of deals where politicians obtain knowledge, let's say like land purchase deal where a large public infrastructure project is going to be proposed. Not only do they gain the fore knowledge and have the connections they magically get access to sweetheart loans with which to purchase said land. This is the classic grift. The senator makes a pile of money and his "associates" gain access to government largess.
You might ask why can't 'they' just change this, stop this? The structure of the power dynamic in most governmental organizations is so stacked in the leadership that any newcomer proposing sweeping changes would be ousted in the next cycle or otherwise fired. Since the pay for office holders is so low all of them soon realize they stand to lose their big pay day if they try to buck this system. Therein lies the problem. Short of doing the right thing, there is no incentive to change this. Capitalism is built on incentives.
If then it seems impossible that this brick wall of cronyism could ever be knocked down, sadly that's probably right, it poses this challenge: how to make this esoteric, complicated and entrenched practice easy to understand and rallying call to the voters. Those who can see and understand the grift have yet to form a strategy to defeat it, again, there are no incentives to fight it? Have I mentioned that we need someone brave, charismatic, likable and able to reach people from all walks of life.
If there was such a plan what would it be?
First, I'd propose a non-compete clause of sorts. It wouldn't be a traditional business non-complete per se but would prevent former office holders and high officials from being hired for a period of 5 years by any company or interest-group that they had business with during their time in office. No more cushy jobs opening doors and pedaling influence. The revolving door between special interests and the government bureaucracy has got to be closed.
Next, I'd strengthen whistleblowers protection. This is where the rubber hits the road. None of this grift happens in a vacuum, but lower-level staff has little protection if they were to allege wrongdoing. Most people are afraid of the powerful, imagining the trouble they could cause. This is not some kind of crazy at all. Does anyone doubt that squeakers and leakers (or their families) have died mysterious deaths? With that, standard audits of all public institutions should be automatic, and results published with fanfare. Rats do not like the spotlight. By putting the screws to obvious cronyism other misappropriations and corruption will be uncovered.
If this ever was to happen we'd have to be okay with paying office holders and high government officials a real competitive wage. Many of them come into office or an important position wanting to do good and do what's right, but are soon dazzled and or threatened into toeing the line and learning to play the game. It's nearly irresistible, it's so much money, and everyone else is doing it. Join in or wither away. As well, political campaigns are expensive, deep pockets are needed to fund them, and deep pockets want something in return. Some sort of real campaign finance reform needs to be considered, not the pretend reform they instituted decades ago. Maybe even consider publicly financed campaigns... Reasonable term limits as well. There is no reason someone should be a representative or a senator for 40+ years.
There needs to be faith in the public institutions we all pay for to be on the up and up. The grift has got to stop. The public, the rank and file public employee want to see the end of this corruption.
As for the private sector, I'd incentivize the idea of profit sharing or creating stakeholders out of employees. There is another three legged stool analogy here. For a publicly traded company you have management, shareholders, and employees. Remove any one of these legs and the stool falls over. Only management and shareholders are ever considered, where employees are treated as commodities, interchangeable, expendable, less human. If the employee can also benefit richly from a companies success they will work harder, smarter and identify inefficient and wasteful practices. The idea of a yearly 'pay off' is a powerful incentive. Tax incentives would entice companies to create shareholders and stakeholders out of their employees.
If America can begin to tamp down cronyism the rest of the world will follow. Billionaires will find ways to get what they want, but corrupting governments will be less and less fruitful if the governments can resist and reject them for the good of the public at large. It's a tall order and it isn't likely to happen without a real movement. In the early 2000's the so-called Tea Party was a glimmer of hope, but it was easily defeated because there was no titular head of the movement, no one to rally around. I may have mentioned that we need someone brave, charismatic, likable and able to reach people from all walks of life.
The drive to tear down the system, the capitalistic system is also an insidious cancer. In every instance where socialism or communism is propped up as an alternative to free market systems it's because the unfairness and inequality is completely lopsided in favor of the rich and privileged. In the countries that succeeded in tipping it over abject disaster always follows. The low-level workers and peasants suffer while the rich and privileged get richer or flee. Nothing is solved, no one is really better off.
Free market systems became the rising tide that lifts all boats. That is only if the public can sense that the tide is actually rising does this resonate. When we see what has become of LA, San Francisco and Chicago and inner-city neighborhoods all over we get the picture that capitalism has failed. It has not. These places fell because public leaders have failed. In the case of California, the elected officials enacted laws and rules that forced companies to leave. Others gave up when the business and industries they supported left for greener pastures. The reasons these corporations left the state, shutdown or set up business in Asia are obvious, California created incentives for the capital to leave. What really mattered is what the local leaders did after that. They dropped the ball.
All of this merely scratches the surface of this complicated world. There is no perfection, everything is a series of trade-offs. There are the more successful economic systems and there are the disasters. Capitalism has delivered progress and wealth to more people than could have been imagined. Its imperfection is held up for all to see while all the collectivist failures are swept under the rug. There's no reason that our Western culture should be teetering on the brink. With an emphasis on ending blatant cronyism and bolstering employees by giving them a fundamental stake in the enterprise we can pull it back.
