Startlingly nice, actually. From the
September 9, 2011 New York Times:
She made three interlocking points. First, that the United States is now governed by a “permanent political class,” drawn from both parties, that is increasingly cut off from the concerns of regular people. Second, that these Republicans and Democrats have allied with big business to mutual advantage to create what she called “corporate crony capitalism.” Third, that the real political divide in the United States may no longer be between friends and foes of Big Government, but between friends and foes of vast, remote, unaccountable institutions (both public and private).
In supporting her first point, about the permanent political class, she attacked both parties’ tendency to talk of spending cuts while spending more and more; to stoke public anxiety about a credit downgrade, but take a vacation anyway; to arrive in Washington of modest means and then somehow ride the gravy train to fabulous wealth. She observed that 7 of the 10 wealthiest counties in the United States happen to be suburbs of the nation’s capital.
Her second point, about money in politics, helped to explain the first. The permanent class stays in power because it positions itself between two deep troughs: the money spent by the government and the money spent by big companies to secure decisions from government that help them make more money.
...
Ms. Palin’s third point was more striking still: in contrast to the sweeping paeans to capitalism and the free market delivered by the Republican presidential candidates whose ranks she has yet to join, she sought to make a distinction between good capitalists and bad ones. The good ones, in her telling, are those small businesses that take risks and sink and swim in the churning market; the bad ones are well-connected megacorporations that live off bailouts, dodge taxes and profit terrifically while creating no jobs.
Strangely, she was saying things that liberals might like, if not for Ms. Palin’s having said them.
I don't know why this New York Times columnist found this so strange: these are essential conservative ideas. Perhaps they just aren't getting out enough to know what conservatives think. And as the columnist admits, she and her peers are so intent on hating Sarah Palin that they have a hard time listening to what she says.
Clayton - while Republicans and libertarians have been complaining about crony capitalism for a long time, Republican *officeholders*, and even most prominent (visible in the mainstream media) conservatives, don't talk much about it. There seems to be an attitude that if the corporation isn't actively helping the Democrats, it's ok for it to get government help against its competition, or at least that there are bigger problems which need addressing.
ReplyDeleteI am so glad Sarah Palin is getting some good publicity. She deserves it. She will make a super good president. I hope she chooses to run.
ReplyDeleteI don't know whether the Times or Palin made the claim that only large businesses (and by implication all large businesses) engage in crony capitalism and rent seeking as their main source of profit.
ReplyDeleteThere are many small businesses which suck off the public teat, or benefit from favorable regulations. (Usually they do by group lobbying. Consider the funeral industry, which has no megacorporations.)
On the other side, there are megacorporations which earn honest profits by producing genuinely valuable products and services.
Neither the great nor the small are virtuous or villainous by nature as a class.
Rich,
ReplyDeleteYou might be surprised who really owns many of the mom and pop mortuaries, google "Service Corporation International" as one example. They only keep the family names to not upset the locals.
I do believe crony capitalism is by its nature a threat to what is left of the republic, and that large corporations are indeed the worst offenders. its a simple matter of greater concentrations of money and power.
Richard