Bailout Is Capitalism Murdering Democracy

[GinaMaria]

By David Sirota

October 3rd, 2008 - 10:15am ET

The United States has always struggled to balance its capitalist economy with its democratic ideals. We've spent the last many years telling ourselves that the two go hand in hand, only to watch capitalism thrive in China in the absence of democratic freedoms. Indeed, if there's been any lesson the last few years, it is that authoritarian capitalism - rather than democratic capitalism - may be the dominant ideology of the 21st century. And as I write in my newspaper column this week, that ideology may be coming to America.

The Wall Street bailout bill is a lot of things - a giveaway, a heist, a legislative manifestation of crony corruption. But it's structure is pure authoritarian capitalism. Whether you think handing over $700 billion to speculators will help our economy or not (and many economists believe it will hurt it), it is undeniable that this bill vests authoritarian power in the hands of the Treasury Secretary - and that is a radical departure from the fundamental tenets of our democracy.

What has differentiated America from other countries is our reliance on institutions rather than individuals. When we have faced crises, we have built institutions (think about the alphabet soup agencies out of the New Deal), not czars. That's what democracies do - they build nations of laws and institutions, not cults of personality.

This is clearly changing now. We saw Paul Bremer appointed monarch of Iraq after the invasion and we see Congress about to hand over its power of the purse to Henry Paulson so that he can be the financial despot, free to buy and sell whatever securities he feels like, with almost no oversight.


Read the rest here
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2008104003/column-bailout-capitalism-murdering-democracy

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Some sobering thoughts for the weekend.