Social Origins of the American Corporate Predator State

from ThomasPalley.com:



Social Origins of the American Corporate Predator State


Jamie Galbraith’s recent book describes modern (Bush-Cheney) Republicanism as creating a “predator state”. Its predatory aspects are starkly visible in the gangs of corporate lobbyists who roam Washington DC, the Halliburton Iraq war procurement scandal, and the corruption and incompetence that surrounded the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.

However, the broad concept of a predator state needs qualification as we are really talking of an “American corporate” predator state. Thus, the predatory nature of contemporary US governance is quintessentially linked to corporations, and it is also a uniquely American phenomenon.

Kleptocratic predator states, like Mugabe’s Zimbabwe or Mobutu’s Zaire in Africa, are fundamentally different. There is no equivalent in Europe, and none in East Asia where ruling elites have a sense of obligation to the nation even as they often enrich themselves illicitly. Nor too is there an equivalent in Latin America because government there never reached an economic size proportional to that of government in the US.

It is important to understand the social origins of the American corporate predator state because understanding is a necessary part of developing responses for caging the predators and replacing them with another better order. Those origins clearly trace back to the military – industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned about in his final televised address to the nation on January 17, 1961.

That complex has captured politics and corrupted the business of government, including of course the conduct of national security policy. The fact that it has wrapped itself with the flag and entwined itself with the military makes it impossible to confront without being charged as unpatriotic. Worst yet, its enormous enduring profitability has provided a model for imitation by other industrial complexes like Big Pharma and Big Oil.

The political success of these predators is clearly linked to money’s role in politics. Money gives the power to buy the political process, and that power is defended by a gospel of free speech that takes no account of the fact that out-shouting someone is qualitatively equivalent to silencing them. Economics also comes to money’s defense with its absurd myth of a market for ideas in which participants compete on a level playing field and truth is effortlessly sorted from error. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thomaspalley.com/?p=115

:kick:

The rot has penetrated so deeply that I am cynical about the possibility of changing things just by electing the right people.

Stop buying their stuff.
Stop borrowing their money and paying it back with interest.
Stop allowing them to profit from your every action.
Starve the Beast.

No kidding.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030919.html

Send more people like Dennis Kucinich and Barbara Lee to Congress.

It starts with us. Too bad most are too lazy, apathetic or stupid to vote any way else than along party lines or fashion.

They'll be no change until EVERYBODY in the U.S. participates intelligently.

And having kids drafted into foreign Korporate war$$$.

If Obama loses this year, then it just means...


America has not suffered enough & needs more economic deprivation and
kids being sent home in boxes from profitable foreign war$.

$8.50-per-gallon gas will help also.

When 10-million swing voters are homeless, they will be more receptive to a Progressive message, I suppose.

Suddenly, Americans will discover that they really didn't care that much about fetuses,
not really much at all.

They will discover that gay strangers getting married didn't actually hurt them in any real way.

They will discover that some candidate's perceived level of patriotism and
love-of-country was all cheap talk, appearance and HYPE, and that REAL candidates talk about ISSUES.

They will be living in the street and crying, "I want my house, SUV, and SON back! Waaaahhh!!!!!"




Why do so many people need to be absolutely CRUSHED by Konservative
politicians before they stop voting for them?

:kick:

Looks like a great read, thanks!

I hope he means there is no equivalent presently in Western Europe and the three major powers of East Asia. Otherwise:

Nazi Germany
Fascist Italy
Spain under Franco

Ukraine, Georgia, Chechnya presently

Indonesia under Sukarto
Taiwan till the 1980s
South Vietnam
Cambodia

The list goes on and on. I agree with his overall point, but saying that predatory states exist only in Africa and the contemporary US is silly.

and the English-speaking Caribbean as well.

More based on feudal principles than on control by indigenous global corporations.

El Salvador with its "14 (super-rich)familes" controlling millions of peasants, or pre-revolutionary Nicaragua, where the Somoza family owned all the major businesses in Managua, are examples of the kleptocratic model, as is Mexico, where it is believed that most of the foreign aid has ended up in the private Swiss bank accounts of government elites.

(and presumably the ones in Asia, like Suharto's Indonesia and Marcos' Philippines), kleptocratic predatory states, in that they enriched not corporations but the dictator and his personal friends.

They are characterized by dictators who amass great wealth, carefully stowed away in Swiss bank accounts, while their people live in cardboard and tin shacks.

Taiwan never fit this bill, despite its military dictatorship under the Chiang family. For one thing, the Chiang's inherited an island with a 50-year legacy of control by Japan, which had left it with a pretty decent infrastructure by regional standards. For another, they felt a Confucian obligation (as did the military rules of South Korea and the Lee Kuan Yew de factor dictatorship in Singapore) to be paternalistic dictators. Cambodia was different, ruled by a traditional monarch, who was definitely king but who held weekly audiences for the general public to come and give their opinions.

Under Confucian doctrine, a ruler is supposed to be obeyed, but he, in turn, is supposed to look out for the well-being of the people. The rulers in South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore clamped down on political dissent but they also created world-class educational systems, sent their brightest youth to study abroad, left their countries with modern infrastructures, and insisted on technology transfers from foreign businesses.

Here's a telling factoid: In 1965, South Korea and the Philippines were considered to be on the same economic level. The Peace Corps sent volunteers to both countries.

Today, the Philippines still receives Peace Corps volunteers, while South Korea is one of Asia's economic giants.

My reading comprehension is fine, thank you, but your history is faulty. The author makes blanket statements that are simply wrong, and you have also. Surely you are kidding that Chiang kai-shek, right? The level of corruption among the Nationalists was legendary. You seem to be confusing the issue of whether a country's economy developed and whether its government was corrupt.

Also, his lumping together of Mugabe and Mobutu as kleptocrats fundamentally mischaracterizes the Zimbabwe problem. Mobutu certainly was a kleptocrat (although it turned out at his death that the amount of wealth he kept to himself was much less than expected, and his legendary theft had more to do with keeping an entire klepocrat class sysytem operating), even Mugabe's harshest critics believe that he himself is an austere autocrat who has let his Zanu cronies and security forces plunder the country.

Again, while the OP's application of predatory state to Bush era America, his attempts at comparative history are pretty much rubbish.

I'm astounded nobody here mentions Burma, one of the worst.

Thanks for this.

"Worst yet, its enormous enduring profitability has provided a model for imitation by other industrial complexes like Big Pharma and Big Oil."

The prison-industrial complex has also followed the military-industrial complex model.

creating a pool of tens of millions of people who will vote for the Republican candidate no matter how bad that candidate is or how obvious the failures of the Republican Party, because to do otherwise would be "unchristian." Rick Warren is out there telling people this again today.

very unChristian actually


I'd say they worshiped wealth more than their so-called "God", or maybe that "god" is the devil. Seems they don't understand the difference because they are so twisted.

I don't know how it happened, but this connection goes back to the anti-Communist days of the 1950s and 60s. The beliefs, teachings, or ideology of the military industrial complex and conservative religious fundamentalists have a lot in common.

The idea of an mysterious threatening enemy was latched onto by fundies, and they got behind the anti-Communist (all things even hinting at communism are bad, including class awareness), pro-corporate agenda.

The shared appeal of authoritarianism played a role too, I suspect.

Also, early in the 20th century a movement began to equate wealth with holiness. In contrast to the age-old concept that poverty is a virtue, many churches embraced the idea that faith in God would yield material rewards. The televangelists and now the mega-churches promote this idea. Self-help books tell Christians that if they are true believers they will be rewarded by God with material riches. This is all counter to my understanding of Jesus's teachings but what do I know.

to come up with something completely different...

Can predatory governments be overturned by peaceful means, or does it always take a violent revolution?