American Kleptocracy
How Fears of Socialism and Fascism Hide Naked Theft
by William Astore at 4:00pm, April 20,
2010
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175235/tomgram%3A_william_astore%2C_the_
business_of_america_is_kleptocracy__/#more
Kleptocracy -- now, there’s a word I was taught to associate with
corrupt and exploitative governments that steal ruthlessly and relentlessly
from the people. It’s a word, in fact, that’s usually applied to
flawed or failed governments in Africa, Latin America, or the nether
regions of Asia. Such governments are typically led by autocratic strong
men who shower themselves and their cronies with all the fruits of
extracted wealth, whether stolen from the people or squeezed from their
country’s natural resources. It’s not a word you’re likely to see
associated with a mature republic like the United States led by
disinterested public servants and regulated by more-or-less transparent
principles and processes.
In fact, when Americans today wish to critique or condemn their
government, the typical epithets used are “socialism” or “fascism.”
When my conservative friends are upset, they send me emails with links to
material about “ObamaCare” and the like. These generally warn of a
future socialist takeover of the private realm by an intrusive,
power-hungry government. When my progressive friends are upset, they send
me emails with links pointing to an incipient fascist takeover of our
public and private realms, led by that same intrusive, power-hungry
government (and, I admit it, I’m hardly innocent when it comes to such
“what if” scenarios).
What if, however, instead of looking at where our government might be
headed, we took a closer look at where we are -- at the power-brokers who
run or influence our government, at those who are profiting and prospering
from it? These are, after all, the “winners” in our American world in
terms of the power they wield and the wealth they acquire. And shouldn’t
we be looking as well at those Americans who are losing -- their jobs,
their money, their homes, their healthcare, their access to a better way of
life -- and asking why?
If we were to take an honest look at America’s blasted landscape of
“losers” and the far shinier, spiffier world of “winners,” we’d
have to admit that it wasn’t signs of onrushing socialism or fascism that
stood out, but of staggeringly self-aggrandizing greed and theft right in
the here and now. We’d notice our public coffers being emptied to
benefit major corporations and financial institutions working in close
alliance with, and passing on remarkable sums of money to, the
representatives of “the people.” We’d see, in a word, kleptocracy on
a scale to dazzle. We would suddenly see an almost magical disappearing
act being performed, largely without comment, right before our eyes.
Of Red Herrings and Missing Pallets of Money
Think of socialism and fascism as the red herrings of this moment or,
if you’re an old time movie fan, as Hitchcockian MacGuffins -- in other
words, riveting distractions. Conservatives and tea partiers fear invasive
government regulation and excessive taxation, while railing against
government takeovers -- even as corporate lobbyists write our public
healthcare bills to favor private interests. Similarly, progressives rail
against an emergent proto-fascist corps of private guns-for-hire,
warrantless wiretapping, and the potential government-approved
assassination of U.S. citizens, all sanctioned by a perpetual, and
apparently open-ended, state of war.
Yet, if this is socialism, why are private health insurers the
government’s go-to guys for healthcare coverage? If this is fascism, why
haven’t the secret police rounded up tea partiers and progressive critics
as well and sent them to the lager or the gulag?
Consider this: America is not now, nor has it often been, a hotbed of
political radicalism. We have no substantial socialist or workers’
party. (Unless you’re deluded, please don’t count the
corporate-friendly “Democrat” party here.) We have no substantial
fascist party. (Unless you’re deluded, please don’t count the
cartoonish “tea partiers” here; these predominantly white, graying, and
fairly affluent Americans seem most worried that the jackbooted thugs will
be coming for them.)
What drives America today is, in fact, business -- just as was true in
the days of Calvin Coolidge. But it’s not the fair-minded “free
enterprise” system touted in those freshly revised Texas guidelines for
American history textbooks; rather, it’s a rigged system of crony
capitalism that increasingly ends in what, if we were looking at some other
country, we would recognize as an unabashed kleptocracy.
Recall, if you care to, those pallets stacked with hundreds of millions
of dollars that the Bush administration sent to Iraq and which,
Houdini-like, simply disappeared. Think of the ever-rising cost of our
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, now in excess of a trillion dollars, and just
whose pockets are full, thanks to them.
If you want to know the true state of our government and where it’s
heading, follow the money (if you can) and remain vigilant: our
kleptocratic Houdinis are hard at work, seeking to make yet more money
vanish from your pockets -- and reappear in theirs.
From Each According to His Gullibility -- To Each According to His
Greed
Never has the old adage my father used to repeat to me -- “the rich
get richer and the poor poorer” -- seemed fresher or truer. If you want
confirmation of just where we are today, for instance, consider this
passage from a recent piece by Tony Judt:
In 2005, 21.2 percent of U.S. national income accrued to just 1 percent
of earners. Contrast 1968, when the CEO of General Motors took home, in
pay and benefits, about sixty-six times the amount paid to a typical GM
worker. Today the CEO of Wal-Mart earns nine hundred times the wages of
his average employee. Indeed, the wealth of the Wal-Mart founder’s
family in 2005 was estimated at about the same ($90 billion) as that of the
bottom 40 percent of the U.S. population: 120 million people.
Wealth concentration is only one aspect of our increasingly
kleptocratic system. War profiteering by corporations (however well
disguised as heartfelt support for our heroic warfighters) is another.
Meanwhile, retired senior military officers typically line up to cash in on
the kleptocratic equivalent of welfare, peddling their “expertise” in
return for impressive corporate and Pentagon payouts that supplement their
six-figure pensions. Even that putative champion of the Carhartt-wearing
common folk, Sarah Palin, pocketed a cool $12 million last year without
putting the slightest dent in her populist bona fides.
Based on such stories, now legion, perhaps we should rewrite George
Orwell’s famous tagline from Animal Farm as: All animals are equal, but a
few are so much more equal than others.
And who are those “more equal” citizens? Certainly, major
corporations, which now enjoy a kind of political citizenship and the
largesse of a federal government eager to rescue them from their financial
mistakes, especially when they’re judged “too big to fail.” In
raiding the U.S. Treasury, big banks and investment firms, shamelessly
ready to jack up executive pay and bonuses even after accepting billions in
taxpayer-funded bailouts, arguably outgun militarized multinationals in the
conquest of the public realm and the extraction of our wealth for their
benefit.
Such kleptocratic outfits are, of course, abetted by thousands of
lobbyists and by politicians who thrive off corporate campaign
contributions. Indeed, many of our more prominent public servants have
proved expert at spinning through the revolving door into the private
sector. Even ex-politicians who prefer to be seen as sympathetic to the
little guy like former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt eagerly cash in.
I’m Shocked, Shocked, to Find Profiteering Going on Here
An old Roman maxim enjoins us to “let justice be done, though the
heavens fall.” Within our kleptocracy, the prevailing attitude is an
insouciant “We’ll get ours, though the heavens fall.” This mindset
marks the decline of our polity. A spirit of shared sacrifice, dismissed
as hopelessly naïve, has been replaced by a form of tribalized
privatization in which insiders find ways to profit no matter what.
Is it any surprise then that, in seeking to export our form of
government to Iraq and Afghanistan, we’ve produced not two model
democracies, but two emerging kleptocracies, fueled respectively by oil and
opium?
When we confront corruption in Iraq or Afghanistan, are we not like the
police chief in the classic movie Casablanca who is shocked, shocked to
find gambling going on at Rick’s Café, even as he accepts his winnings?
Why then do we bother to feign shock when Iraqi and Afghan elites, a
tiny minority, seek to enrich themselves at the expense of the majority?
Shouldn’t we be flattered? Imitation, after all, is the sincerest
form of flattery. Isn’t it?
William J. Astore is a TomDispatch regular; he teaches History at the
Pennsylvania College of Technology and served in the Air Force for 20
years, retiring as a lieutenant colonel.
business_of_america_is_kleptocracy__/#more
Kleptocracy -- now, there’s a word I was taught to associate with
corrupt and exploitative governments that steal ruthlessly and relentlessly
from the people. It’s a word, in fact, that’s usually applied to
flawed or failed governments in Africa, Latin America, or the nether
regions of Asia. Such governments are typically led by autocratic strong
men who shower themselves and their cronies with all the fruits of
extracted wealth, whether stolen from the people or squeezed from their
country’s natural resources. It’s not a word you’re likely to see
associated with a mature republic like the United States led by
disinterested public servants and regulated by more-or-less transparent
principles and processes.
In fact, when Americans today wish to critique or condemn their
government, the typical epithets used are “socialism” or “fascism.”
When my conservative friends are upset, they send me emails with links to
material about “ObamaCare” and the like. These generally warn of a
future socialist takeover of the private realm by an intrusive,
power-hungry government. When my progressive friends are upset, they send
me emails with links pointing to an incipient fascist takeover of our
public and private realms, led by that same intrusive, power-hungry
government (and, I admit it, I’m hardly innocent when it comes to such
“what if” scenarios).
What if, however, instead of looking at where our government might be
headed, we took a closer look at where we are -- at the power-brokers who
run or influence our government, at those who are profiting and prospering
from it? These are, after all, the “winners” in our American world in
terms of the power they wield and the wealth they acquire. And shouldn’t
we be looking as well at those Americans who are losing -- their jobs,
their money, their homes, their healthcare, their access to a better way of
life -- and asking why?
If we were to take an honest look at America’s blasted landscape of
“losers” and the far shinier, spiffier world of “winners,” we’d
have to admit that it wasn’t signs of onrushing socialism or fascism that
stood out, but of staggeringly self-aggrandizing greed and theft right in
the here and now. We’d notice our public coffers being emptied to
benefit major corporations and financial institutions working in close
alliance with, and passing on remarkable sums of money to, the
representatives of “the people.” We’d see, in a word, kleptocracy on
a scale to dazzle. We would suddenly see an almost magical disappearing
act being performed, largely without comment, right before our eyes.
Of Red Herrings and Missing Pallets of Money
Think of socialism and fascism as the red herrings of this moment or,
if you’re an old time movie fan, as Hitchcockian MacGuffins -- in other
words, riveting distractions. Conservatives and tea partiers fear invasive
government regulation and excessive taxation, while railing against
government takeovers -- even as corporate lobbyists write our public
healthcare bills to favor private interests. Similarly, progressives rail
against an emergent proto-fascist corps of private guns-for-hire,
warrantless wiretapping, and the potential government-approved
assassination of U.S. citizens, all sanctioned by a perpetual, and
apparently open-ended, state of war.
Yet, if this is socialism, why are private health insurers the
government’s go-to guys for healthcare coverage? If this is fascism, why
haven’t the secret police rounded up tea partiers and progressive critics
as well and sent them to the lager or the gulag?
Consider this: America is not now, nor has it often been, a hotbed of
political radicalism. We have no substantial socialist or workers’
party. (Unless you’re deluded, please don’t count the
corporate-friendly “Democrat” party here.) We have no substantial
fascist party. (Unless you’re deluded, please don’t count the
cartoonish “tea partiers” here; these predominantly white, graying, and
fairly affluent Americans seem most worried that the jackbooted thugs will
be coming for them.)
What drives America today is, in fact, business -- just as was true in
the days of Calvin Coolidge. But it’s not the fair-minded “free
enterprise” system touted in those freshly revised Texas guidelines for
American history textbooks; rather, it’s a rigged system of crony
capitalism that increasingly ends in what, if we were looking at some other
country, we would recognize as an unabashed kleptocracy.
Recall, if you care to, those pallets stacked with hundreds of millions
of dollars that the Bush administration sent to Iraq and which,
Houdini-like, simply disappeared. Think of the ever-rising cost of our
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, now in excess of a trillion dollars, and just
whose pockets are full, thanks to them.
If you want to know the true state of our government and where it’s
heading, follow the money (if you can) and remain vigilant: our
kleptocratic Houdinis are hard at work, seeking to make yet more money
vanish from your pockets -- and reappear in theirs.
From Each According to His Gullibility -- To Each According to His
Greed
Never has the old adage my father used to repeat to me -- “the rich
get richer and the poor poorer” -- seemed fresher or truer. If you want
confirmation of just where we are today, for instance, consider this
passage from a recent piece by Tony Judt:
In 2005, 21.2 percent of U.S. national income accrued to just 1 percent
of earners. Contrast 1968, when the CEO of General Motors took home, in
pay and benefits, about sixty-six times the amount paid to a typical GM
worker. Today the CEO of Wal-Mart earns nine hundred times the wages of
his average employee. Indeed, the wealth of the Wal-Mart founder’s
family in 2005 was estimated at about the same ($90 billion) as that of the
bottom 40 percent of the U.S. population: 120 million people.
Wealth concentration is only one aspect of our increasingly
kleptocratic system. War profiteering by corporations (however well
disguised as heartfelt support for our heroic warfighters) is another.
Meanwhile, retired senior military officers typically line up to cash in on
the kleptocratic equivalent of welfare, peddling their “expertise” in
return for impressive corporate and Pentagon payouts that supplement their
six-figure pensions. Even that putative champion of the Carhartt-wearing
common folk, Sarah Palin, pocketed a cool $12 million last year without
putting the slightest dent in her populist bona fides.
Based on such stories, now legion, perhaps we should rewrite George
Orwell’s famous tagline from Animal Farm as: All animals are equal, but a
few are so much more equal than others.
And who are those “more equal” citizens? Certainly, major
corporations, which now enjoy a kind of political citizenship and the
largesse of a federal government eager to rescue them from their financial
mistakes, especially when they’re judged “too big to fail.” In
raiding the U.S. Treasury, big banks and investment firms, shamelessly
ready to jack up executive pay and bonuses even after accepting billions in
taxpayer-funded bailouts, arguably outgun militarized multinationals in the
conquest of the public realm and the extraction of our wealth for their
benefit.
Such kleptocratic outfits are, of course, abetted by thousands of
lobbyists and by politicians who thrive off corporate campaign
contributions. Indeed, many of our more prominent public servants have
proved expert at spinning through the revolving door into the private
sector. Even ex-politicians who prefer to be seen as sympathetic to the
little guy like former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt eagerly cash in.
I’m Shocked, Shocked, to Find Profiteering Going on Here
An old Roman maxim enjoins us to “let justice be done, though the
heavens fall.” Within our kleptocracy, the prevailing attitude is an
insouciant “We’ll get ours, though the heavens fall.” This mindset
marks the decline of our polity. A spirit of shared sacrifice, dismissed
as hopelessly naïve, has been replaced by a form of tribalized
privatization in which insiders find ways to profit no matter what.
Is it any surprise then that, in seeking to export our form of
government to Iraq and Afghanistan, we’ve produced not two model
democracies, but two emerging kleptocracies, fueled respectively by oil and
opium?
When we confront corruption in Iraq or Afghanistan, are we not like the
police chief in the classic movie Casablanca who is shocked, shocked to
find gambling going on at Rick’s Café, even as he accepts his winnings?
Why then do we bother to feign shock when Iraqi and Afghan elites, a
tiny minority, seek to enrich themselves at the expense of the majority?
Shouldn’t we be flattered? Imitation, after all, is the sincerest
form of flattery. Isn’t it?
William J. Astore is a TomDispatch regular; he teaches History at the
Pennsylvania College of Technology and served in the Air Force for 20
years, retiring as a lieutenant colonel.
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