Country at crossroads
Posted by reasonfactory on September 24, 2008
America,
We are at the crossroads. We are faced with a tough choice: to adopt free market capitalism as it is with no regulation whatsoever, or to get on the course that resembles social democracy.
If we choose capitalism, we need to let this financial crisis play its course with many financial institutions disappearing from the economic landscape and many peoples’ savings and houses going away. Once the crisis is over, market will probably correct itself at some point. However, we as a country need to be prepared for this major catastrophe to happen again and again because unregulated capitalism will inevitably lead to this at some point simply because of the nature of it; we will need to understand that capitalism is about losses as well as gains. You cannot have a win-win capitalism: have gains and then have more gains when the government is ready to bailout your losses. If we choose predatory capitalism without regulation, we need to be honest and admit that peoples’ livelihoods and savings might be at risk at anytime.
Or we can try our best to try to ensure that nothing like that will happen again by instituting a system where peoples’ interests take precedence over interests of big corporations, its CEOs, and top 1 % of the country. In that case we will need to agree that governmental intervention and necessary regulation would be inevitable and necessary in order to protect its citizens. Even republicans and free market advocates now agree that we cannot let this financial crisis spin out of control. This is remarkable because it appears they recognize that government has an important role to play!
But, America. We cannot have it BOTH ways: we cannot let profits be privatized and at the same time let losses be socialized. We cannot have capitalism when you make money and socialism when you loose money. We cannot let investors and bankers push for unregulated capitalism when they make money and begging for bailouts when they loose money. We cannot let regular folk be faced with the most ugly side of capitalism when they are faced with a foreclosure and be left on their own, and at the same time let big corporations ask for our money to help them out when they are in trouble. This has to stop.
Here America, make your choice.
