The Economic Consequences of Capitalist Governments.
"Do not worry about scarcity, but worry about unequal distribution. Do not worry about poverty, but worry about instability". Confucius, Analectsi.
American corporations today are like the great European monarchies of yore: They have the power to control the rules under which they function and to direct the allocation of public resources. This is not a prediction of what’s to come; this is a simple statement of the present state of affairs. Corporations have effectively captured the United States: its judiciary, its political system, and its national wealth, without assuming any of the responsibilities of dominion. Harvard Law School.
As we are reluctantly realizing, unregulated capitalism contains from birth the seeds of its own destruction—and ours. By prioritizing private profit over public purpose it inevitably undermines the very nations that permit it. JM Keynes explained this to the US President and his economic advisers. It’s time to revisit his predictions.
Corporate Capture
American corporations today are like the great European monarchies of yore: They have the power to control the rules under which they function and to direct the allocation of public resources. This is not a prediction of what’s to come; this is a simple statement of the present state of affairs. Corporations have effectively captured the United States: its judiciary, its political system, and its national wealth, without assuming any of the responsibilities of dominion. Harvard Law School.
When corporations participate in governance through lobbying, campaign finance, and revolving doors, the state serves shareholder value instead of citizens. Citizens United v. FEC, for example, unleashed unlimited corporate political spending in the US, sufficient to effectively captured the United States’ judiciary, political system, and national wealth, without assuming any of the consequences.
China, by contrast, maintains strict separation between business and political power. The Communist Party directs private companies to serve national goals rather than allowing them to capture the state.
