Undermining the Free Market

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.” (Abraham Lincoln)

The current lobbying debacle going on in the Capitol would make excellent fiction if it weren’t so terribly true. Here we have a giant house of political, interpersonal cards being not ever-so-gently toppled by the jilted ex-lover of one of the major players. “Hell”, indeed, “hath no fury as a woman scorned.” If I were to offer advice to anyone on K Street or in Congress, it would be to keep all your money in your pants and to always keep your pants on when counting your money. Never mix greed and lust. A wise criminal indulges only one particular vice at a time to avoid ‘burning his candle at both ends’ at it were, allowing himself the space to cover his tracks and keep some part of his existence free from worry. Always keep your vices far apart from each other.

Everyone realizes that Washington is no longer a place of debating and voting, but rather a cesspool of trading, buying, and cajoling. The terrible truth, among all the other terrible truths we must face, is that lobbyists are the fellows writing much of the legislation presented before Congress. Whether in carefully worded appropriations bills or as addendums to the Congressional record, our elected representatives represent the interests of the special interests first, and their constituents last. We elect men and women from our home states, but are really sending them to perform the biddings of drug makers, oil drillers, and insurance companies. Even the nominees to our courts are chosen based upon a ‘corporate-friendly’ predisposition.

To be fair, one can fully expect to find this sort of criminality under any loosely policed political structure. The Soviet Union and Red China were no less corrupt then any democratic or parliamentary system. Political corruption and influence peddling are the bane of society and the boon of those lucky enough to become players in the game. Please do not take this rant as a specific attack directed solely at the American government. It isn’t. It is not an attack upon capitalism or the free market either, since even under some communist regimes we find enough shenanigans going on to make pure anarchy seem attractive by comparison.

Contrary to what many Republicans promote as reality, most Democrats in the US are not economic leftists, and continue to support capitalism and free market values. The assault levied upon the Democrats as being “socialists, communists, etc.” is propaganda designed to malign opponents to obscure any real debate, and putting the Democrat on the defensive even before the debate begins. Any attempts to regulate greed and bribery are seen as attacks on the free market or entrepreneurialism, and with the vehemence of a McCarthyist in steroid rage, the industrialist, corporatist attack mongrels hurl themselves at our fences, frothing and growling to scare us from violating their sacred territory.

The Abramoff problem is one that should have most supporters of the free market very, very upset. I would expect to find true conservatives to be generally outraged by the scandal. Influence peddling offers an unfair advantage to one company over another. It means that the consumer in many cases doesn’t get a real choice of product, and that this product or service is contracted without the consent of the consumer at all. Lobbyists undermine the very things that proponents of free market economics cite as reasons to allow free markets. Ingenuity is no longer a matter of making a better, safer, or necessary product; all of that mental effort focuses on the means by which it can be sold through payoffs to elected officials. Those voices among conservatives, if there are any remaining, keep silent because of political allegiances.

Under the present system, we no longer have a world where product A competing honestly against product B for the consumer dollars. When product A is able to influence politician X to write laws that would, in effect, restrict market access for product B, then the system is no longer a market, nor is it free. The makers of product A have every right to advertise to consumers. They should not however be able to enact law on their own behalf, or law that benefits their own specific interest through bribery. I see little difference between K Street and a mafia crime syndicate. Neither one of these blatantly criminal organizations consider hard work, honesty, ingenuity, necessity, or safety as a means to financial success. Those qualities that make the free market a viable economic option take a back seat to the opportunism and the ruthless greed of corporo-political thuggery.

Capitalists, Anarchists, Theocrats, and Socialists alike should be outraged by this, and too few seem to really care. Where has honesty gone? The barbarians are not merely at the gates; they hold the mortgage.

“Corruption? Corruption is our protection! Corruption keeps us safe and warm! Corruption is why you and I are prancing around in here instead of fighting over scraps of meat out in the streets! Corruption... is why we win!” (From the movie Syriana, 2005)

“Principles, Sir, are becoming corrupt, deeply corrupt; & unless the progress of corruption, & perversion of truth can be arrested, neither liberty nor property, will long be secure in this country. And a great evil is, that men of the first distinction seem, to a great extent, to be ignorant of the real, original causes of our public distresses.” (Noah Webster, 1837)