Barakonomics
Posted on | November 30, 2008 |
A short argument as to how Barak Obama represents the failure of American Democracy.
The so-called transition team and the choices Barak Obama has made in the last few weeks reveal not just characteristics about what an Obama presidency will look like, but more importantly what it suggests about the state of the democratic experiment in America. For a brief moment as evidenced by some of my previous posts, I believed. Obama’s great oratory and the fervor it engendered finally picked up this young cynic. “If there is anyone who still doubts,” he said “tonight is your answer.” He may have more directly been answering the black community’s doubts about electing a colored president; maybe more directly answering those who lost hope after the Bush administration. But, for me, the appointments to the highest levels of government come as total disappointment, but hardly as a surprise.
I pounded my fist on the table when I read Lawrence Summers had been appointed to be the Secretary of the Treasury. I cannot explain in depth here why I reacted so strongly to this man’s appointment. If you are interested in understanding Obama’s economic team listen to last Tuesday’s Democracy Now! discussion with Naomi Klein, Michael Hudson, and Robert Kuttner.
Many apologists for Barak Obama will argue that he needed to make the appointments that he did. The arguments will be based on his lack of experience, the system’s temperament for change, the turbulence of the times and Obama’s brilliance as a leader (he is making the decisions, not those that he appoints). Obama himself told the country it needs continuity and coordination at the highest levels of government to see us through this difficult time.
Continuity: antonym of change.
George W. Bush, our idiot war-child, has been blamed for the state of the economy. He deserves the blame, but George is the symbolic head and culmination of a much longer process of capital deregulation, privatization and economic colonialization. The Bush Administration reigned over the acceleration of this process and happened to be in power when it crescendoed in crisis. The government in Washington D.C. is a glorified board of supervisors, not an omnipotent economic master. While George deserves the blame, the Democrats are mistaken in only blaming him. We should string-up Ronald Reagan, Bush I and Bill Clinton with him. Clinton gave us NAFTA and the WTO. Both arrangements enlarged the sphere of corporate control of the world economy. Clinton also oversaw the de-regulation of the communications industry that sped of the conglomeration of media resulting in the propaganda that led us to war in Iraq. This country needs a break from the past, not just a break from the Bush years.
One commentator said appointing Lawrence Summers to repair the economy is akin to asking Paul Wolfowitz (intellectual architect of the war) to preside over the withdrawal from Iraq. Summers built his career on the economic ideology that sunk us into $10 Trillion dollars in debt to foreign bank, the housing crisis and the collapse of Wall Street. (Numbers too big to comprehend: one trillion seconds is 32,000 years).
Two men should be in Obama’s cabinet. Paul Krugman who just won the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel. (There is no Nobel prize in economics because Nobel didn’t want his name on the ideological science of money). Krugman has argued tirelessly against the war. In his column in the New York Times he warned over and over of the housing bubble. He has a heart.
The other intellectual who understands the causes of the economic problems is Joseph Stiglitz. Stiglitz has produced better estimates of the cost of the war than any other economist. Stiglitz has also argued against “globalization.” He understands the processes behind this catch-all term–the privatization of government, the expansion of capital markets, the deregulation of finance and the economic imperialism of the United States.
These two would be a good place to start if Obama were serious about changing our economic system.
Comments
Leave a Reply