That’s called social democracy and we tried that already with FDR and the New Deal. There were 2 compromises; stay capitalist but with high taxes on the rich and heavy regulation, and make sure black people can’t benefit from the social programs.
Those 2 compromises doomed the project because after the civil rights movement successfully forced the government to extend benefits to black people the business community (which remained powerful because of the former compromise) was able to use the racist backlash to dismantle the social safety net and eliminate the taxes on the rich almost entirely.
If you don’t curtail the power of big business they will seize upon every opportunity to undo whatever progress you’ve made, and racism provides them a perfect opportunity.
I fully agree that the reconfiguration of our government will include the basic axiom that the government’s and money supply’s primary objective is to serve the people, not business or the wealthy.
Those entities will be made to understand they operate their businesses and fortunes at the pleasure of the American people, and the moment they start using their money to benefit themselves at the expense of the Citizens is the moment their corporations are seized by the government to be operated for the benefit of the nation, their fortunes confiscated, and the Capitalist criminals imprisoned.
After that, the rest will fall in line quickly. They work for us, not the other way around.
We’ve had periods in the US where the government passed powerful anti-trust legislation, broke up monopolies, and even nationalized certain industries. It should be clear from the current situation that this state of affairs didn’t last. As long as the underlying economic system allows people to accumulate wealth and then leverage that wealth into power no reforms that oppose the interests of big business will last. Even the Nordic social democratic countries are constantly having to fight austerity policies pushed by their business communities.
The only way to break this cycle is by collectivizing the means of production and abolishing private property (in Marxian economics this refers specifically to the means of production being privately owned and involved in an economic enterprise employing wage labor). I personally believe that social democracy can be an important step in the right direction, but if we stop there it just won’t last.
That’s called social democracy and we tried that already with FDR and the New Deal. There were 2 compromises; stay capitalist but with high taxes on the rich and heavy regulation, and make sure black people can’t benefit from the social programs.
Those 2 compromises doomed the project because after the civil rights movement successfully forced the government to extend benefits to black people the business community (which remained powerful because of the former compromise) was able to use the racist backlash to dismantle the social safety net and eliminate the taxes on the rich almost entirely.
If you don’t curtail the power of big business they will seize upon every opportunity to undo whatever progress you’ve made, and racism provides them a perfect opportunity.
I fully agree that the reconfiguration of our government will include the basic axiom that the government’s and money supply’s primary objective is to serve the people, not business or the wealthy.
Those entities will be made to understand they operate their businesses and fortunes at the pleasure of the American people, and the moment they start using their money to benefit themselves at the expense of the Citizens is the moment their corporations are seized by the government to be operated for the benefit of the nation, their fortunes confiscated, and the Capitalist criminals imprisoned.
After that, the rest will fall in line quickly. They work for us, not the other way around.
We’ve had periods in the US where the government passed powerful anti-trust legislation, broke up monopolies, and even nationalized certain industries. It should be clear from the current situation that this state of affairs didn’t last. As long as the underlying economic system allows people to accumulate wealth and then leverage that wealth into power no reforms that oppose the interests of big business will last. Even the Nordic social democratic countries are constantly having to fight austerity policies pushed by their business communities.
The only way to break this cycle is by collectivizing the means of production and abolishing private property (in Marxian economics this refers specifically to the means of production being privately owned and involved in an economic enterprise employing wage labor). I personally believe that social democracy can be an important step in the right direction, but if we stop there it just won’t last.