Capitalism: Under the Microscope of Morality

In a January 14, 2012 published by La Mesa Patch, Larry Howe asserts that our current capitalist economic model is unsustainable. I agree. Mr. Howe then suggests that the fault lay with the free-market, Chicago School of Economics model. I disagree—but more on that to follow.

A table that records the national debt—now exceeding $15 trillion—for selected years (link) includes an expression (in percent; and about to exceed 100%) of the relationship between the debt and America’s gross domestic product (GDP). The one critical detail that the reader needs to understand is that the national debt represents federal government [accumulative] deficit spending that has far exceeded federal government [accumulative] revenue.

The national debt falls mainly into two categories: public (held by you and I) and treasury certificates (held by the holders of debt instruments that have been issued to various investors). Here are but a few of the more eye-opening details related to the national debt:

• Yearly interest on the national debt is fast approaching $500 Billion; and is the third most costly line-item in the federal budget.
• The United States owes more than $1 Trillion (each) to both China and Japan.
• The United States owes billions to oil producing nations Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Libya.
• The United States owes billions to the failing economies of Italy, Spain and France.

On the one hand, in contrast to borrowing for the purpose of funding a militaristic foreign policy, and on the other hand in response to the economic crisis, the Federal Reserve—both directly and through its surrogate financial institutions—secretly lent, at zero percent interest, $16 trillion to foreign banking institutions —at best an inexplicably deceitful and duplicitous scenario.

Make no mistake: This is not free market capitalism. It is the worst of crony capitalism; philosophically influenced by key tenets of the Keynesian school of economics.

This is the introduction of city, county, state and federal government legislation calling for “investment” in enterprises that the public sector normally shuns; as well as interference in private enterprise through rules, regulations, fees and taxes; all of which sorely inhibit economic stability, real private sector growth, and job creation.

Through institutionalization of the Federal Reserve Act, the Congress of the United States of America effectively issued itself a book of blank checks. With the advent of the Great Depression, FDR’s Great Society social programs and the onset of WWII, every possible special interest group commissioned a literal army of lobbyists, and the “K Street” wolves (see Jack Abramoff) were turned loose to prowl the halls of Congress.

This is the confluence of a broad spectrum of special interests; driven and suborned by an illegal and unconstitutionally founded institution; producing the most blatantly immoral of life-altering outcomes.

It is a system created and sustained by federal printing presses being operated by an unscrupulous amalgamation of bankers and bureaucrats. It is a debt-based monetary system conjuring inducements to the darker side of human nature—that can only and ultimately lead to the systemic outcome(s) of political, economic and personal subjugation.

Thus, Mr. Howe, your assertion is seriously flawed, sir. The free-market precepts of the Chicago School would never suborn the out-of-control borrowing and spending currently en vogue within our nation’s process of governance.