Robert Reich: Economic growth and strong civil liberties are inseparable

American business should be deeply concerned about the claims by the President to authority for whatever action is necessary to secure the nation, even if that means stretching or ignoring the law.

From its infancy, modern capitalism depended on liberty and predictability, and business leaders fought for the rule of law. The idea that a head of state must be bound by law emerged from the struggles of the 17th and 18th centuries with monarchs who claimed to have divine right to do as they pleased. A rising class of European merchants insisted that rulers do only what they were authorized by law to do.

These business leaders understood that economic liberties could not be separated from civil liberties. If a king or emperor could arrest or detain or search or torture anyone for whatever reason, there was nothing to stop him from taking private property, interfering in private contracts, commandeering private resources.

.......

If civil liberties can be sacrificed at the whim of the president -- without deliberation by Congress, and absent the normal procedures involved in making law -- economic liberties are equally at risk. How far are we from the specter of no-bid government contracts to politically well-connected suppliers who agree with the President’s assertions about the war? Of selective prosecution of antitrust laws or health and safety regulations, depending on support for the President’s war agenda? Of pressure on the media to provide favorable coverage of the war, in return for regulatory favors?

When a president or a king is unaccountable to law, it’s impossible to predict where or how he will act in pursuit of his aims.



http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10772

I wonder how long it will take before all the little Republican business "leaders" will understand that. I think a lot of them are Republican because their friends and business colleagues are, it's a social thing, a networking tool, not an actual political thing for them. It's time to wake up guys....someone is strangling your golden goose.

"Economic freedom and civil liberty -- the two are inseparable. And both are threatened by unaccountable power that refuses to be confined by the rule of law. As they did centuries ago when confronting monarchs who claimed unbridled power to rule as they wished, business leaders must come to the defense of liberty."