Why do we have stop signs? Or traffic lights? Or painted crosswalks? Because without rules and regulations to provide structure to our driving and walking behavior, we would live in a chaotic world of high risk and certain injuries/deaths.
So why do some people oppose regulation of other hazardous activities - like deep water drilling? Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour says the Gull Oil Spill Disaster is proof that the free market is working because it's costing BP lots of money. If that is the free market "working," then what would constitute a failure in his weird, (delusional?) mind?
(BTW, it's only costing BP money because of the teeny-tiny bit of regulation we already have. The "free market," unregulated, would simply permit BP to shrug and sail away to drill in another location.)
To me, something "works" if it (1) accomplishes its goal while (2) not harming anyone or anything unintentionally. (If BP did this intentionally, that would constitute highly successful environmental terrorism. I don't think that's the case.) BP's goal is to extract oil. *FAIL* And it is seriously (and presumably, unintentionally) harming the Gulf, its sea life, the coast, fisherman, shrimpers, resorts, clean-up workers, etc. (the list goes on and on and on). So, *FAIL* #2.
So, the free market FAILED in this instance because there were not sufficient regulations of safeguards, and a woeful lack of proper enforcement of the meager regulations that do exist. All in the pursuit of profit.
In the purest capitalistic sense, a corporation wants a free, unregulated market because corporations are amoral and they don't care about Imperative #2, "not harming anyone or anything unintentionally." They want PROFIT and don't care about anything else. It's not a corporation's job to care about anything else. But it is the job of people (you and me) to care about Imperative #2 (I'll call it "I#2" from here on out.) So why don't we?
We have been beaten about the head by quotations from Ronald Reagan and Ayn Rand to the point that anyone who wants some rules and regulations to make the corporations (and banks!) behave fairly and responsibly gets called a socialist. No, stopping the rape and pillage of our natural resources, environment, and retirement accounts is not "socialism." Indeed, the merger of corporations with our government, which we are dangerously close to feeling the full brunt of, is in fact the very definition of fascism. (I'm not calling anyone Hitler or Nazis. I'm just pointing out the definition and asking you to think.) Wanting to keep the PEOPLE in charge of the government, and therefore society, is not socialism, it is in fact the most basic tenet of democracy. Don't confuse your political rights with economic philosophy.
It is really very simple, just basic common sense: If your neighborhood had no speed limit, some idiots would drive through at any speed they wanted, posing great danger to you and your neighbors. This is unacceptable, so we impose speed limits, and fines for those who violate them. Why is it so hard to translate this way of thinking to corporations? Are we so easily swayed by ad campaigns and propaganda (paid for by the same corporations who want to stop regulations) that we cannot see how the world really works?
Until we grow a pair - of eyes - and really see what's going on, we are doomed to be the patsies of big corporations. Our political leaders are largely already rented, if not owned, by corporations. And with the recent Supreme Court ruling, which ignored and reversed case precedent and added "corporation" to the definition of "person" in our constitution (Can you say "activist judges?), and now permit corporations to make unlimited political contributions to candidates, we are moving closer and closer to realizing the true consequences of corporatism (aka fascism).
I'm not an alarmist, and I'm not going to paint a little mustache on anyone, but the irony of the Tea Party Movement is glaring. It gets HUGE sums of money from corporations. The people in the bag-stapled hats may be populists, but the money funding the movement is corporate. The genius of convincing people to campaign against their own best interests is truly something the right wing in this country has mastered. They've got people ON DISABILITY opposing entitlements, and grannies screaming "Keep your government hands off my medicare!"
We need not fear socialism or capitalism. It is ignorance that will do us in, as it does with every declining world power. Because opposing the idea of stricter regulations of oil companies, banks, and insurance companies - industries that have proven they cannot be trusted to accomplish I#2 - does not make us better capitalists or better Americans. It makes us chumps.
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