General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGulp. What is Corporate Capitalism? Is President Obama a Corporate Capitalist?
Can we keep this discussion on track? Probably not. In any case. I'm looking for an honest discussion and not bashing of President Obama- and discussion and criticism are different than bashing.
Corporate capitalism is a term used in social science and economics to describe a capitalist marketplace characterized by the dominance of hierarchical, bureaucratic corporations.
A large proportion of the economy of the United States and its labour market falls within corporate control.[1] In the developed world, corporations dominate the marketplace, comprising 50 percent or more of all businesses. Those businesses which are not corporations contain the same bureaucratic structure of corporations, but there is usually a sole owner or group of owners who are liable to bankruptcy and criminal charges relating to their business. Corporations have limited liability and remain less regulated and accountable than sole proprietorships.
Corporations are usually called public entities or publicly traded entities when parts of their business can be bought in the form of shares on the stock market. This is done as a way of raising capital to finance the investments of the corporation. The shareholders appoint the executives of the corporation, who are the ones running the corporation via a hierarchical chain of power, where the bulk of investor decisions are made at the top, and have effects on those beneath them.
Corporate capitalism has been criticized for the amount of power and influence corporations and large business interest groups have over government policy, including the policies of regulatory agencies and influencing political campaigns. Many social scientists have criticized corporations for failing to act in the interests of the people, and their existence seems to circumvent the principles of democracy, which assumes equal power relations between individuals in a society.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_capitalism
Is there any doubt that both our social and political systems are dominated by corporations? From Microsoft to Facebook to Monsanto to big pharma and on and on.
Can we agree that we live in a corporate capitalist system? (probably not, though I think the evidence is overwhelming, literally with every breath you take)
Yes, President Obama is a Corporate Capitalist. No, that's not bashing him. I like him. I think he genuinely cares about people. I think he cares about keeping a social safety net intact, and I commend him for that, but he is a Corporate Capitalist. The evidence for that is overwhelming. It's reflected in appointment after appointment. It's reflected in his policies. Are there places where he bucks it a bit? Yes, but they aren't nearly enough to tip the scales.
It's hard to imagine we'll ever elect a President who isn't Corporate Capitalist. Corporations have us well and truly corralled, and that sure as hell includes, oh, 97% of our politicians. I'm sure I'll be voting for another Corporatist Capitalist in 2016 whether its Hillary (not my first choice) or Governor O'Malley. Let me be clear, a dem is always better than a repub. at least they push back a little, and a little is better than not at all.
It's the system, stupid. Even if you don't start out as one, you're operating in the system. And the higher you get the more corporate pressure there is.
I wish President Obama pushed back more- like with the TPP and more of his appointments, but he withstands other pressures in other places.
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Cal Carpenter
(4,959 posts)This phase of capitalism has been predicted for a long time. It is inevitable.
Qualifying capitalism with words like 'corporate' or 'rampant' or 'disaster' makes it too easy to assume that there is some other variation of capitalism that wouldn't come to this.
Fact is, capitalism trumps regulation or 'taming'. It is neither a natural or necessary way for an economy to function. It cannot work for the best interests of the majority of the population, and it is not conducive to popular democracy of any kind.
Further, it is counter-productive to look at capitalism in terms of specific politicians or even countries.
It doesn't matter who we elect in this case - the dominant global economic system trumps any good intentions of any particular politician. And anyone who is truly critical of capitalism and wants to challenge its dominance will never gain power, or will be thoroughly compromised by the time they do. Perhaps this applies to Obama, I don't know, but I also don't think it is vital to discussions of how to deal with our economic problems.
History shows, around the world, that the most effective social movements that create real, lasting change, are rooted in an *independent movement*, not a partisan one.
"We" are colonizing ourselves now. Or rather, corporations (both domestic and international) are colonizing the working class (eg the vast majority of the population whether they self-identify that way or not) and resources of the US to an extreme (see wealth disparity stats). We all know economy is international, and that the forces of western capitalism have been dominant for awhile. What we are seeing and experiencing in the US now has been the case throughout much of the world in the last couple centuries.
Last, I recommend reading Marx, Lenin, Engels. Honestly, I'm not being flippant - whether or not you agree with their conclusions, their analyses are on point. Those guys wrote about this 150 yrs ago. We don't need to reinvent language or critical thought. We just need to read and learn from the ideas and historical realities of the past, and stop getting mindfucked by capitalist propaganda so we can move forward. Simply recognizing that there is propaganda does not counter its effects. It takes deliberate effort to look at things differently and lose the faulty assumptions that exist within capitalism.
cali
(114,904 posts)I've read Marx, Lenin and Engels, but it was long ago in college and I can't say I read with a critical eye- I read for exams and papers.
Time to read them again.
Cal Carpenter
(4,959 posts)They are often available at libraries, and marxists.org has tons of stuff available online if you don't mind reading on a screen. Marx tends to be the hardest of the three to slog through, but if you really decide to dig into this stuff, Marx's Capital says it all. It's a serious pain in the ass though, LOL. Engels is much more readable.
cali
(114,904 posts)and check out the website you recommend.
Again, thanks so much for that excellent post. Everyone should read it.
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)Last edited Sat Jul 6, 2013, 11:21 AM - Edit history (1)
what I would have said! 
I'm reading "The New Economics" by Preobryzhenski now. He actually analyzed American capitalism in relation to the new socialist state in the USSR and the rest of the Europe and the world. Although written almost a century ago, you can see the logical outcome of that analysis in the capitalist economics of today.
What we see today is NOT a new development and it's was NOT a surprise. It is a logical result of how the system is set up. What's more, I'm convinced that the capitalists KNOW this. SOME of the best Marxists today are the big capitalists. They just use it for the benefit of the system and NOT for the benefit of the working class.
Edited to change a word for accuracy.
Cal Carpenter
(4,959 posts)Capitalist economists definitely study the Marxist analysis of the system. Some even admit it, LOL. But most just do as you say - they use this understanding to the benefit of the ruling class. Others use it to theorize about how it can be regulated into submission - and in doing so, they protect it by perpetuating the myth that there is some happy medium to be found, which is impossible.
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)"Others use it to theorize about how it can be regulated into submission- and in doing so, they protect it by perpetuating the myth that there is some happy medium to be found, which is impossible." Now THAT is some solid analysis comrade!
Cal Carpenter
(4,959 posts)
(and kick)
leftstreet
(36,112 posts)No one can explain Marx as well as a fanatical capitalist
There's something wrong with that picture
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)and Engels analyses of capitalism to advance the efforts of the ruling class WITHOUT THE MASSES REALIZING THAT THEY'RE DOING IT! Because if the people realized this was what was happening, then they would discover Marx for themselves and see the prescriptions that Marxism taught FOR the masses. And those prescriptions would result in the end of capitalism.
It's actually a neat trick they're doing to give the Devil his due. But I don't think that it will last. Too many people are discovering it now days. A literal and literate vanguard IS being formed around Marxist thought. And eventually these ideas will find the working class they were meant to reach.
leftstreet
(36,112 posts)
Zorra
(27,670 posts)
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)
factsarenotfair
(910 posts)
kenny blankenship
(15,689 posts)Usage example: "Our President is a dyed-in-the-wool Corporatist, who fraudulently portrayed himself during the campaign as a voice of the people."
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)Of course, it's convenient to politics to pretend we can elect one person to "fix it." We can't. Currently, it's questionable whether anyone can even be elected to office, national or otherwise, without being to one degree or another co-opted.
It's not conspiracy, and it's not about personality or one person's politics, either.
This is a power dynamic that occurs wherever money and resources accumulate enough to give one group of interests the ability to push its advantage at the expense of the common good.
"Corporate capitalism," in my mind, IS precisely the problem we're dealing with. It requires ever-increasing profits to satisfy investors. We are told that's okay, because a rising stock market helps everyone. Except of course it doesn't.
I read an article recently suggesting that companies like Exxon are for practical purposes foreign powers. They don't require the approval or assistance of a nation -- even the U.S. -- because they wield as much power and influence as entire countries, on their own, to get what they want.
And what they want, increasingly, is unfettered power. Look at the recent stories about low-wage workers being paid with fee-heavy debit cards. The bank makes billions, kicks some back to the corporate employer, and the person making a few dollars an hour pays for it. How in the world is such a thing a legal? That's not "free enterprise."
What we have now is more like the old business and banking trusts we fought against a century ago. The game is not to build a better mousetrap, but to flood the world with mice, sue every other mousetrap manufacturer out of business, then take mousetrap fees out of everyone's paycheck.
It's not about Obama. He can push back, and he can use the bully pulpit. But he is not, frankly, powerful enough to enact systemic change.
It's OUR job to provide political cover so that elected leaders can put the brakes on, here and there. Put the common good over corporate profits where possible.
We can't do this by just electing Democrats, or by unconditionally supporting one person or one party.
cali
(114,904 posts)it may have been worth posting the op after all.
love this paragraph:
What we have now is more like the old business and banking trusts we fought against a century ago. The game is not to build a better mousetrap, but to flood the world with mice, sue every other mousetrap manufacturer out of business, then take mousetrap fees out of everyone's paycheck.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)The fascist/corporatists' control over the US was more or less sealed on November 22, 1963. It was cemented for good on June 6, 1968. It will never be challenged again and it has been reinforced every day since September 2001.
It's hard to imagine we'll ever elect a President who isn't Corporate Capitalist. Corporations have us well and truly corralled, and that sure as hell includes, oh, 97% of our politicians. I'm sure I'll be voting for another Corporatist Capitalist in 2016 whether its Hillary (not my first choice) or Governor O'Malley. Let me be clear, a dem is always better than a repub. at least they push back a little, and a little is better than not at all.
...revealing. I mean, you're pointing this out, and at the same time acknowledging that this applies to every American President past and future.
by David Woolner
<...>
The driving force behind this effort was FDR’s Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, who considered the passage of Smoot-Hawley an unmitigated disaster. Hull had been arguing in favor of freer trade for decades, both as a Democratic congressman and later senator from Tennessee. Given the long-standing protectionist tendencies of Congress — which reached their zenith with the passage of Smoot-Hawley, the highest tariff in U.S. history — Hull faced an uphill struggle to accomplish this task. He also had to overcome FDR’s initial reluctance to embrace his ideas, as the president preferred the policies of the “economic nationalists” within his administration during his first year in office. By 1934, however, FDR’s attitude began to change, and in March of that year the president threw his support behind Hull’s proposed Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act — a landmark piece of legislation that fundamentally altered the way in which the United States carried out foreign economic policy.
Convinced that the country was not ready for a truly multilateral approach to freer trade, Hull’s legislation sought to establish a system of bilateral agreements through which the United States would seek reciprocal reductions in the duties imposed on specific commodities with other interested governments. These reductions would then be generalized by the application of the most-favored-nation principle, with the result that the reduction accorded to a commodity from one country would then be accorded to the same commodity when imported from other countries. Well aware of the lingering resistance to tariff reduction that remained in Congress, Hull insisted that the power to make these agreements must rest with the president alone, without the necessity of submitting them to the Senate for approval. Under the act, the president would be granted the power to decrease or increase existing rates by as much as 50 percent in return for reciprocal trade concessions granted by the other country.
The 1934 Act granted the president this authority for three years, but it was renewed in 1937 and 1940, and over the course of this period the United States negotiated 22 reciprocal trade agreements. Of these, the two most consequential were the agreements with Canada, signed in 1935, and Great Britain, signed in 1938, in part because they signaled a move away from Imperial Preference and hence protectionism, and in part because they were regarded as indicative of growing solidarity among the Atlantic powers on the eve of the Second World War. It is also important to note that Hull, like many of his contemporaries, including FDR, regarded protectionism as antithetical to the average worker — first, because in Hull’s view high tariffs shifted the burden of financing the government from the rich to the poor, and secondly, because Hull believed that high tariffs concentrated wealth in the hands of the industrial elite, who, as a consequence, wielded an undue or even corrupting influence in Washington. As such, both FDR and Hull saw the opening up of the world’s economy as a positive measure that would help alleviate global poverty, improve the lives of workers, reduce tensions among nations, and help usher in a new age of peace and prosperity. Indeed, by the time the U.S. entered the war, this conviction had intensified to the point where the two men concluded that the root cause of the war was economic depravity.
<...>
Of course, it is important to remember that the Roosevelt administration’s efforts to expand world trade were accompanied by such critical pieces of legislation as the National Labor Relations Act and Fair Labor Standards Act, which vastly strengthened the place of unions in American life. The 1930s and ’40s were also years in which the government engaged in an unprecedented level of investment in America’s infrastructure and industry — largely through deficit spending — that helped vastly expand our manufacturing base and render the United States the most powerful industrialized country in the world. Our efforts to expand trade and do away with protection were only part of a broader effort to reform the U.S. economy in such a way as to provide what FDR liked to call “economic security” for every American.
- more -
http://www.nextnewdeal.net/fdrs-comprehensive-approach-freer-trade
President Obama also has a record on trade.
In case you missed it: Good moves by the Obama administration
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002540300
Catherina
(35,568 posts)Good morning Cali 
It's always nice to see your thoughts and so many great responses first thing in the morning! It gives me real hope that, with enough of us asking questions, things will change one day. Hopefully during our lifetimes.
cali
(114,904 posts)It's so great that this thread hasn't devolved into a food fight and that really knowledgeable people are posting such great information.
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)I think if I could tack on a couple of thoughts-I actually do think some of this could be helped a bit with a more progressive Congress. The Progressive Caucus have interesting proposals that would help working people but don't yet have the numbers to get past the post. They can't fix the whole system of capitalism (which is following an inevitable path) but improvements to the life of working people helps their fight for bigger goals.
With our two-party system, we're always going to have a mix of labor/grassroots people and centrist corporate interests who realize that the right wing free market is actually not good for business. If we had a parliamentary system, a lot of us would probably be in a labor party or similar. We don't, so our national leader is always going to reflect a lot of contradictions. Labor is getting more progressive and putting resources into more grassroots outreach, so I'm hoping that this wing will gain more muscle.
I think President Obama had the misfortune to be elected at a time when capitalism underwent the worst crisis in its history. And then the 2010 election delivered a do-nothing Congress full of ideologues and capitalist death cultists of the worst kind. We lost a couple of more states to right to work laws. It must be hard to look over that landscape and wonder where the impetus to go left is. I think he could lead more on some of these issues, a lot of politicians came out vocally for marriage equality after the President did.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)explicitly voiced it until now, because until recently such thoughts were beyond the pale at DU. But maybe not so much anymore.
You say "President Obama had the misfortune to be elected at a time when capitalism underwent the worst crisis in its history."
But looking at it historically, the context seems somewhat similar to the appearance of the first black big-city mayors in the 60s (& of lower-level city officials). They came to power, though they may not have known it (but somebody did) just as capital was being withdrawn from many of the cities they ran.
e.g. Detroit: Coleman Young took office in 1974, Detroit's first black mayor. Detroit was still (barely) majority white at the time, & its population was still growing. But capital & jobs were already leaving, and 1980 was the first census in which Detroit showed a population loss, which accelerated, along with capital flight. Every mayor since has been black.
If you agree with me that the choice of a GOP/Democratic candidate is a very deliberate one, doesn't it seems rather odd that the Party decided to run its first black candidate at the beginning of a sharp economic downturn that has become the longest period of continuously high unemployment, with falling wages & increasing job insecurity, since the great depression?
In the case of the big cities, having black leadership in power was a convenient scapegoat for the ills of disinvestment ("Black people don't know how to run things right"
.
Was it just accidental 'misfortune' that Obama came to power during an economic crisis that seems liable to be a historical dividing line as much as the great depression was?
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)I was a primary supporter of Obama, and I felt he'd probably run for President after he gave the keynote speech at the DNC in 2004. That was before the signs of crisis were getting acute. I think he gained popularity because the country has shifted enough in feeling that people wanted a person of color in the office also someone who was unlike the den of ghouls the Bushes keep dragging around with them.
I guess I see it a different way, that when economic crisis hits, people rally harder behind a candidate that they know will unbalance the ultra-right section of the ruling class. There was a lot of interest among the public in 2007 in trying to find a break from the Bushian hegemony. Maybe my memory is going, but I seem to remember by the very end of the GE, there was a great deal of momentum for Obama even as the economy was cratering.
It's true in this country that the racist right wing tries to use this to send a message about the competence of Black leaders. But really, after Bush I don't know how that claim could be given serious credence by the electorate. They tried to run a CEO like Romney on the premise that he'd be better qualified, and he lost too. I don't think he lost on purpose, too much money was poured into his campaign to think it was theater, IMO. Wealthy people don't like to lose money.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)history of keynoters later emerging as candidates. But by 2004 anyone with eyes could see the crash coming. It was a bubble of historic proportions.
"By 2004, concerns about a housing bubble were pervasive throughout the popular media. But responsible authorities continued to throw cold water on them."
http://www.forbes.com/2008/12/31/housing-bubble-crash-oped-cx_bb_0102bartlett.html
So I find it difficult to believe that the political au courant didn't see it coming.
And after bush it was highly unlikely that a republican would win. Even my winger businessmen cousins hated bush by the end of his reign.
Anyway, just thought I'd throw it into the mix. Disinvestment is certainly what we're getting.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)1) Yes, the system we live under can be roughly described as "corporate capitalism." I prefer more classical definitions like Ernst Mandel's "late capitalism," as a particular stage of capitalism's development, even if it remains far too optimistic about our prospects. We're probably more in something like "capture" capital, where the organization of the extraction of surplus value is in a period of transition (where it once depended on securing the forms of extraction in-house--ie., labor--it now functions by capturing forms of value produced across the social whole--i.e., not just limited to the site of labor, as the Italian Autonomists clearly recognized beginning in the 1960's. See also Chris Harman's excellent Zombie Capitalism: Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx.
2) Obama is clearly a corporate capitalist. He clearly believes that this system has the capacity to produce widespread social good if it is tempered and adjusted by modest government interventions. He believes in the invention of government-capitalist hybrids. There are two elements there: a) he believes the old hybrids have failed (it's because capitalism is a failure, which he doesn't get); b) he believes that (therefore) new mixed forms have to be invented. That's been his position as long as I've seen him in action. The details have certainly appeared to shift precipitously at times, but the overall picture is consistent: he departs from older versions of a left/Democratic politics by looking for potentials to create the social good through the current system of capitalist exploitation. He is, of course, disastrously wrong on this score in the long run and for the most part. Capitalism destroys and exploits in all its forms; neoliberal or capture capitalism is one of the worst forms, since it no longer even contemplates a moment of life outside the circuits of capital. Obama and I differ on this basic axiom. He deploys a program that matches his belief in inventing new mixed forms of government-capitalist hybrids.
Whether Obama is able to invent anything new and worthwhile through current systems of power remains to be seen. Whether he ends up giving away the store in his effort to invent new forms remains to be seen. It should be noted that all programs we cherish these days had to be invented, and that they are for the most part government-capitalist hybrids.
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)Some very intelligent and thoughtful responses on this thread.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)It took corporations to help him become President so he's kind of beholden to them. I don't think he's as far into their pockets like Bush/Cheney, but it would be hard for him to push back hard. I don't think we would ever get the opportunity to vote for someone who isn't such an animal. They just wouldn't make it to the finals. Look at the past elections and see who has fallen by the wayside when they run for President. Some were not even allowed into the debates even though they had as much legitimacy as candidates as the others. And of course there's the campaign money issue. The grass roots can't raise enough to out fund the corporate money flowing into the campaigns.
Rex
(65,616 posts)which someone in short time will come along and tell me THAT IS capitalism, but I disagree.
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)If it's NOT capitalism (or the end result of same), then Marx and Engels couldn't have predicted it.
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)good thread.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)No one is allowed to get within a thousand miles of the Presidency who is not a corporate capitalist.
I am currently visiting the Hangzhou area of China for a few weeks as an orientation for my upcoming job as marketing director for a German based manufacturer of high-end audio equipment that manufactures in its wholly-owned Chinese facility.
Prior to coming here I did some thinking about the US and China. They are far more alike than they are different. In both countries there is one de facto political party. In China it is the "Communist" Party. On its left wing are moderately liberal reformists, on its right are the hard-liner authoritarian assholes. The one thing they agree on is that the basics of the system have to remain in place.
In the US there is also one de facto political party. It is The Money Party. On its left wing are moderately liberal reformists that are known as "Democrats." On the right wing there are hard-liner authoritarian assholes. They are known as "Republicans." The one thing they agree on is that the basics of the system have to remain in place.
US Republicans might probably worse in many ways than Chinese authoritarians - there are about as many hard-line Maoists in the Politburo as there are left-handed heavy metal guitarists - because they have to lard everything with their Cro-Magnon Jeebus ravings and old testament lunacy.
The difference? The Chinese don't bother trying to hide what their system is by wrapping it in ludicrous - and blatantly, glaringly obviously FALSE - platitudes of the sort 'murkans throw around on the Fourth of July (and which the 'pukes and Faux Snooze blare 24/7/365). The Chinese system is what it is and they don't try to make you think it's anything else. I'd rather deal with a system which doesn't coddle you into believing things that are such utter and transparent lies.
Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)for President of the United States within the last 35 to 40 years as well as almost every other major mainstream major political figure in the United States. As one great political economic figures of the 1800's once said, "Government is the executive committee of the bourgeoisie."
“The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.” ---- ― Karl Marx
