13 November 2007
Waking from the American Dream, 2
Posted by Carleton Schade under: Economy; Future; Philosophy .
Numerous authorities across the political and philosophical spectrum have warned us that business has evolved in ways that generates great wealth and, at the same time, holds no allegiance to any country. Transnational in structure, corporations answer to their shareholders, and the shareholders of a company are principally other corporations, foreign as often as domesticate. And in following their short-term interests, capital’s flight to countries with cheaper labor, low taxes and lax environmental laws has left the United States “hollowed out,” according to Chalmers Johnson (1). In American Theocracy, Kevin Phillips shows that the American debt-industries are now significantly larger than its manufacturing sector. “44% percent of all corporate profits in the U.S. come from the financial sector compared with only 10% from the manufacturing sector.” The finance sector, we must remember, is largely a euphamism for the industries of debt–mortgage, auto loans, consolidation loans, credit cards, etc.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the business model has become the paradigm for everything. Americans had grown to accept only two models for a society’s structure–socialism and business. The collapse of the Soviet Union proved, in this simple dichotomy, the inferiority of the former and the superiority of the latter. And since government–the forum through which a society idealizes its values–is the socialist facet of our society, it has quickly become anathema to progress, common sense and decency. Capitalism, with its propensity to get things done, has become the only way to get things done. Even education, health, our environment, internal security and national defense are becoming privatized. In 2005, business went after the single biggest prize on the planet, the U.S. Social Security System. That this effort was thwarted by government (1,2,3) shows that business is not yet omnipotent.
Through the seduction of advertising and the information media, Americans have become willing participants in America’s transformation to this business worldview. As Benjamin Barber points out in Jihad vs. McWorld, we have come to think of ourselves as consumers, not as citizens. We are more likely to make our voice heard by the brand we buy, not the position we take at town hall or the person we elect in the voting booth. Political democracy is dying in America.
Robert Reich, Paul Krugman, Morris Berman, John Perkins, Naomi Klein, and David Harvey have persuasively shown, through different lenses, how transnational corporations have gravely compromised democracy in our country and elsewhere. Through the power of political contributions and the daily army of corporate lobbyists, the three branches of government have become the boughs of corporate fruit. Throughout history, the institutions of politics, religion, business, the military and (more recently) the media have shared power in society. In early Sumer and in sixteenth-century Spain, the priests were powerful, as they are again in Iran. In China, the politicians are the most powerful institution; in Burma it’s the military. In the United States, at the moment, business dominates. And so each day produces a new poll showing that our society is moving against the tide of the American people’s wishes (1,2, 3).
Nationalism felt retro forty years ago, and yet, ironically, as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has realized, it has become one of the few counter-forces to the power of McWorld. While global issues such as climate change will require nations to transcend borders, issues such as food, energy and job security will require us to think, act and legislate locally. On this scale, each person has more say over his and her own world, and power becomes transparent. The model of greater democracy is not civilization’s interdependent hierarchy, but independence in the form of heterarchy, or rhyzomes.
2 Comments so far...
Daniel Says:
7 December 2007 at 9:07 am.
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Waking from the American Dream, 2, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.
cyeiwn fqrvjcag Says:
1 January 2008 at 5:56 am.
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