My OperaThe Bailout
Wednesday, October 20, 2010 7:29:11 PM
The financial bailout was profoundly offensive to most Americans because most Americans don’t understand that they are living in a capitalist system. They think they are living in a democracy that values every individual equally, but that is simply not the case. Democracy only describes the cruder aspects of our government, but not the economic system that actually controls our government, and which our government serves.
The bailout was a rescue of endangered capital, not endangered people. The financial collapse put trillions of dollars of capital at risk, and it had to be rescued. That is what our system requires, but people don’t really understand that, because most people think of “people” as the government’s primary responsibility, when it simply isn’t. Economically, the government’s primary responsibility is capital and the flows of money and currency. People come much further down the river. And people’s sense of “fairness” generally centers on other people, rather than on capital, so they got upset about the financial bailouts, since the people it directly benefited were capitalists, and in many cases the same capitalists who put the system in danger. But our government isn’t designed to mete out fairness to people, it is designed to preserve capital. It didn’t respond the same way to the plight of the unemployed because this is a capitalist system, not a people-ist system. It is not purposed for the preservation of people, but the preservation of capital. And most people simply don’t realize what system they are living under. Democratic capitalism is primarily about capitalism and only secondarily about democracy. “Democratic” in that phrase is a modifer of the noun “capitalism”, and not the other way around. So we have capitalism that is modified by democracy, rather than democracy that is modified by capitalism. And that’s the illusion most people are tripped up by and don’t comprehend.
So the tea-partiers’ legitimate beef here is that our system of fairness, of creating just rewards and punishments, doesn’t mete out the right balance in terms of people and who deserves what. That’s because it isn’t even supposed to do that. It’s supposed to address the concerns of capital, and not people, and thus the closer a person is to capital (i.e. capitalists) the more his concerns will be addressed by our government. The tea party people cry that this is not fair, that we are a democracy, but they don’t seem to comprehend that this is simply not the case. We are a capitalist society first and foremost, and a democracy only as one of several modifying forces that shape our form of capitalism. And when push comes to shove, it’s capital that prevails.
So the financial bailout was merely our system acting to preserve its primary basis, and letting secondary matters (such as people) make due with secondary assistance, such as unemployment insurance, some stimulus money, some minor tax breaks, etc. If tea partiers really want to change the system, they are going to have to become leftists of some kind and undo capitalism as we know it. It isn’t going to happen from the right. Capitalist democracy looks a lot different from democratic capitalism. In fact, it probably looks a lot like socialism, the very thing they are most opposed to. So the tea party really hasn’t thought through these matters and is just reacting angrily to something they don’t actually want to change in any meaningful way. They like the idea of democracy and social justice, they just don’t want to create a system based on those ideas that has real mechanisms for delivering them. They want a dream world in which all that is handled by a benevolent God who somehow gets elected by tea party activists and serves at their will and whim. Good luck with that.----Conrad G
The bailout was a rescue of endangered capital, not endangered people. The financial collapse put trillions of dollars of capital at risk, and it had to be rescued. That is what our system requires, but people don’t really understand that, because most people think of “people” as the government’s primary responsibility, when it simply isn’t. Economically, the government’s primary responsibility is capital and the flows of money and currency. People come much further down the river. And people’s sense of “fairness” generally centers on other people, rather than on capital, so they got upset about the financial bailouts, since the people it directly benefited were capitalists, and in many cases the same capitalists who put the system in danger. But our government isn’t designed to mete out fairness to people, it is designed to preserve capital. It didn’t respond the same way to the plight of the unemployed because this is a capitalist system, not a people-ist system. It is not purposed for the preservation of people, but the preservation of capital. And most people simply don’t realize what system they are living under. Democratic capitalism is primarily about capitalism and only secondarily about democracy. “Democratic” in that phrase is a modifer of the noun “capitalism”, and not the other way around. So we have capitalism that is modified by democracy, rather than democracy that is modified by capitalism. And that’s the illusion most people are tripped up by and don’t comprehend.
So the tea-partiers’ legitimate beef here is that our system of fairness, of creating just rewards and punishments, doesn’t mete out the right balance in terms of people and who deserves what. That’s because it isn’t even supposed to do that. It’s supposed to address the concerns of capital, and not people, and thus the closer a person is to capital (i.e. capitalists) the more his concerns will be addressed by our government. The tea party people cry that this is not fair, that we are a democracy, but they don’t seem to comprehend that this is simply not the case. We are a capitalist society first and foremost, and a democracy only as one of several modifying forces that shape our form of capitalism. And when push comes to shove, it’s capital that prevails.
So the financial bailout was merely our system acting to preserve its primary basis, and letting secondary matters (such as people) make due with secondary assistance, such as unemployment insurance, some stimulus money, some minor tax breaks, etc. If tea partiers really want to change the system, they are going to have to become leftists of some kind and undo capitalism as we know it. It isn’t going to happen from the right. Capitalist democracy looks a lot different from democratic capitalism. In fact, it probably looks a lot like socialism, the very thing they are most opposed to. So the tea party really hasn’t thought through these matters and is just reacting angrily to something they don’t actually want to change in any meaningful way. They like the idea of democracy and social justice, they just don’t want to create a system based on those ideas that has real mechanisms for delivering them. They want a dream world in which all that is handled by a benevolent God who somehow gets elected by tea party activists and serves at their will and whim. Good luck with that.----Conrad G
