| Four more years for President Trump? It may happen. But, how come?
Well, his base loves him. Republican politicians fear him. Trump’s fans cheer when he sticks his finger in the collective eye of their perceived enemy: moderate and liberal America. Ironically, Trump’s agenda flies in the face of what we should be doing to make capitalism great again; what we should be doing to make America great again. Our website www.capitalismincrisis.org is all about this; it’s all about mission-driven capitalism. But why mission? Contemporary capitalism is beset by two pernicious problems, each with roots in doctrinal oldies invented by brilliant minds like Adam Smith. But Smith couldn’t foresee how his economics would become twisted and warped by the unvarnished pursuit of contemporary self-interest; by self-interest run amuck. Problem One owes its existence to a mechanistic vision of how the world was thought to work that Smith borrowed from Isaac Newton. Right-wing fundamentalists still believe the economic world is orderly. It operates according to dictates of natural law; God’s economic law, they assert. Government and taxation are universally dysfunctional or worse, Trump’s followers remonstrate. Therefore, laissez-faire economic and social policy is the only acceptable alternative for them. These folks are stuck in a warped view of how the economic world is thought to have worked, even before the start of the Great Depression almost a century ago. Problem Two grows out of Problem One. It grows out of the minds of doctrinaire economists who followed Smith but failed to see the procedural economic rules they created eventually would lead real economies, including ours, toward crisis. This is where America is now. Problem Two occurs because conventional economics doesn’t differentiate between the legitimate reward to capitalist entrepreneurs and the lesser reward that should accrue to pseudo-capitalists. These folks take easy paths to riches, often by operating casinos, doing real estate and other deals and manipulating finance. Looking for a highly visible illustration of pseudo-capitalism? Look no further than the business dealings of Donald Trump. At www.capitalismincrisis.org we show how to fix both problems. We lay out essential tax and regulatory oversight of pseudo-capitalists. We also dwell on the importance of mission. America must democratically construct a mission that reflects what Americans want now, what America will want next year, and what Americans hope for in the next decade and beyond for their kids and grand-kids. But how can such a democratically bold formula square with strategies preferred by Trump populists? It cannot. Links: Podcast: |
