There's a sentence in this article in which Hedges quotes Marx, and it
begins, "Capitalism, if unregulated and unfettered". This causes me to
wonder if Marx was not as opposed to regulated capitalism, as are his
followers.
Miriam
The Capitalists Are Afraid
The Capitalists Are Afraid
Mr. Fish / Truthdig
Capitalists seek to maximize profits and reduce the cost of labor. This sums
up capitalism at its core. It is defined by these immutable objectives. It
is not about democracy. It is not, as has been claimed, about wealth
creation for the working class. It has nothing to do with freedom. Those
capitalists, especially in corporations, who are not able to increase
profits and decrease the cost of labor, through layoffs, cutting wages,
destroying unions, offshoring, outsourcing or automating jobs, are replaced.
Personal ethics are irrelevant. Capitalists are about acquisition and
exploitation.
Capitalists go to absurd lengths to lie about capitalism's true nature. It
is why Business Roundtable's most recent version of its Principles of
Corporate Governance, signed by 181 major CEOs-including the heads of
Amazon, General Motors and Chevron, all three of which paid no federal
income tax in 2018-rivals the doublespeak of the worst totalitarian regimes
of the 20th century.
Related Articles
To Defeat Fascism, We Must Dismantle Capitalism
To Defeat Fascism, We Must Dismantle Capitalism
by Christian Fuchs / Los Angeles Review of Books
The Corporate State and the Subversion of Democracy
by Chris Hedges
Amazon Is Proof Positive That Capitalism Is Failing
Amazon Is Proof Positive That Capitalism Is Failing
by Paul Buchheit / Common Dreams
If maximizing profit means turning the oceans into dead zones, filling the
atmosphere with carbon emissions and toxins that render the climate unfit
for humans, pumping chemicals and waste into the soil, water, air and food
supply that ensure that cancer is an epidemic, buying off elected officials
and judges to serve the exclusive interests of capital and privatizing
social services, including health care, transportation, education and public
utilities, to gouge the public, that is the price of business. If reducing
the cost of labor means forcing workers to remain unorganized and abolishing
work, health and safety regulations, if it means moving industry overseas
where foreign workers toil like 19th-century serfs, if it means suppressing
wages at home to force an impoverished population into debt peonage, that is
the price of business.
It is not accidental that the United States now has the worst income
inequality since the 1920s. This was engineered by the capitalist class. But
what Business Roundtable's Aug. 19 statement reveals is that the capitalists
are frightened they have been found out. Capitalism free of external
restraints and with no internal restraints will pillage and exploit a
captive population until it rises up in fury. It is such an eruption that
today's capitalists worry is on the horizon.
Capitalism, because it is such a socially destructive force, saturates the
media landscape with advertising to misinform and manipulate the public. It
uses its vast wealth to buy up the press, domesticate universities,
nonprofits and think tanks and demonize and muzzle its critics. It funds
pseudo-intellectuals and pseudo-economists who tirelessly propagate the
ideology of neoliberalism, the belief that transferring wealth upward into
the hands of the ruling oligarchs is beneficial to society. It forms global
monopolies that prey on the public. It wages endless wars in its quest for
profit. It equates anti-capitalist agitation with terrorism, meaning, for
example, that anyone in the U.S. who attempts to photograph or film the
savagery and cruelty of industrial agriculture-one of the primary causes of
carbon emissions-can be charged under terrorism acts. And when its pyramid
schemes, frauds and financial bubbles collapse, it loots the national
treasury and leaves taxpayers with the bill. (In the U.S. economic crisis of
2008, corporations gobbled up $4.6 trillion in public money.)
Capitalism, as Karl Marx understood, if unregulated and unfettered, is a
revolutionary force. It first creates a mafia economy, as Karl Polanyi
wrote, and then a mafia government. It was the greed of the capitalist class
that turned our cities in decaying hulks and impoverished more than half the
country. It was the greed of the capitalist class that set us on a course of
ecocide. It was the greed of the capitalist class that created the
mechanisms of internal repression, including police that function as rogue
paramilitary units in our internal colonies, wholesale surveillance of the
public, a vastly expanded system of mass incarceration and the agencies,
including the National Security Agency, Homeland Security and the FBI, that
spy on the public to thwart resistance. It was the greed of the capitalist
class that dismantled the democratic institutions of the United States. It
was the greed of the capitalist class that gave us Donald Trump. This
disdain for the common good and democracy makes these capitalists traitors.
Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase and chairman of Business
Roundtable, conceded in the press release containing the "Statement on the
Purpose of a Corporation" that "the American dream is alive, but fraying."
He assured us, however, that "major employers are investing in their workers
and communities because they know it is the only way to be successful over
the long term. These modernized principles reflect the business community's
unwavering commitment to continue to push for an economy that serves all
Americans."
Alex Gorsky, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Johnson &
Johnson and chair of the Business Roundtable Corporate Governance Committee,
added that the statement "affirms the essential role corporations can play
in improving our society."
Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation, called the statement
"tremendous news" and said it would "result in shared prosperity and
sustainability for both business and society."
The sententious and self-congratulatory passages in the statement can be
summed up by the opening paragraphs:
"
Americans deserve an economy that allows each person to succeed through hard
work and creativity and to lead a life of meaning and dignity. We believe
the free-market system is the best means of generating good jobs, a strong
and sustainable economy, innovation, a healthy environment and economic
opportunity for all.
Businesses play a vital role in the economy by creating jobs, fostering
innovation and providing essential goods and services. Businesses make and
sell consumer products; manufacture equipment and vehicles; support the
national defense; grow and produce food; provide health care; generate and
deliver energy; and offer financial, communications and other services that
underpin economic growth.
Capitalists such as Dimon (net worth $1.4 billion), whose company has paid
more in regulatory fines than any other in America, and Gorsky, whose
corporation was charged with helping fuel Oklahoma's opioid crisis and then
ordered by a court to pay $572 million in restitution in that state, would,
in a functioning democracy, be in prison. Johnson & Johnson, Purdue Pharma,
Pfizer and McKesson together are responsible for the deaths of many
thousands of Americans-more than 130 people died every day in the U.S. from
opioid-related drug overdoses in 2016 and 2017, according to the federal
government.
The financial crimes of Dimon alone are numerous and notorious. They include
underwriting fraudulent securities in the years leading up to the 2008
financial crash, overcharging members of the military on mortgages and
mortgage refinancing transactions, overcharging customers for overdraft
fees, manipulating bidding on California and Midwest electricity markets,
overcharging homeowners for flood insurance, billing customers for
nonexistent credit card monitoring services, charging minorities higher
rates and fees on mortgages than those paid by white borrowers and failing
to pay overtime to company workers.
So, what is this statement-which is equivalent to Al Capone insisting the
mob ran a benevolent society in Chicago-about?
It is about the capitalists running scared. They know the reigning ideology
of neoliberalism no longer has any credibility. Its lies have been exposed.
They know the ruling institutions, including the legislative, executive and
judicial branches of government, are dysfunctional and despised. They know
the media, Wall Street and the big banks are distrusted and hated. They know
the criminal justice system, which criminalizes poverty and legalizes
corporate fraud, is a sham. They know social mobility is, in effect,
nonexistent. And, most importantly, they know that the financial system,
built on the scaffolding of trillions lent to them by the government at
marginal interest rates, is not sustainable and will trigger another
recession, if not a depression. They also know they are to blame.
The capitalists are determined to protect their wealth. They are determined,
and probably able, to block left-leaning candidates Elizabeth Warren and
Bernie Sanders from obtaining the Democratic nomination for president. But
they are also aware that politicians such as Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi,
Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden who have spent their careers serving corporate
power are harder and harder to sell to the electorate. The mendacity and
hypocrisy of the Democratic Party are evident in the presidency of Barack
Obama, who ran as an outsider and reformer in the wake of the 2008 financial
meltdown. Obama-whom Cornel West called "a black mascot for Wall
Street"-callously betrayed the party's base. Actions by him, Clinton and
other Democratic leaders after the 2008 financial debacle opened the door
for the demagogue Donald Trump, who, although a con artist and inveterate
liar, was astute enough to tell voters, especially from the white working
class, what they wanted to hear.
Business Roundtable's August statement is a pathetic attempt to reframe the
capitalists' roles in society, to give these corporate grifters gentler,
kinder faces. It will not work. The capitalists have the power to destroy,
but no longer to create. And out of their relentless destruction, which they
are incapable of halting, will come the social unrest they fear and
monstrosities more terrifying than Donald Trump.
Chris Hedges
Columnist
Chris Hedges is a Truthdig columnist, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a
New York Times best-selling author, a professor in the college degree
program offered to New Jersey state prisoners by Rutgers.
Chris Hedges
