ESTABLISHMENT

ESTABLISHMENT

I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.  – Thomas Jefferson

By J.M. Hamilton (Originally published 6-14-12)

A conservative at the NY Times, Mr. David Brooks, was complaining about the lack of respect accorded by the general population to the “establishment” this week, and I couldn’t help but find myself amused and relieved.  For here Mr. Brooks offered up a political counterpoint to an editorial written by Mr. Luigi Zingales (of Chicago School of Economics fame).  Both editorials, make perfect bookends to this week’s JMH editorial.  Mr. Brooks laments the lack of good “followers” in America today; and Mr. Zingales – a bit of a conservative in his own right, and certainly a libertarian with strong capitalist credentials, fears the corruption of the political and business establishment culminating, or metastasizing, into crony capitalism.  Mr. Zingales holds up Italy’s corrupted economy and government by way of comparison, and the path he asserts the U.S. is headed down, if we are not careful.

JMH, of course, has argued for some time that we are already there.  Witness the idolatry and blind deference U.S. Senate members accorded Mr. Dimon this week.

Now none of this is to say Mr. Brooks is not a great guy and a worthy polemicist… Shucks, about six years ago and for nearly all of my adult life – starting at the age of two- I would have agreed with nearly everything Mr. Brooks put down on paper.

But something happened in 2007 and 2008 that called into question my entire belief system, and apparently the belief systems of many U.S. Citizens (99%), or what Mr. Brook’s refers to as “followers,” who are having a exceptionally hard time buying what the “establishment” is now laying down as gospel.

What could have awoken the masses from their apathy and slumber, and motivated the “followers” to turn against their master, the establishment?   Was it, as Mr. Brooks asserts, that our own personal “vanity” has made Tea Partiers and disenfranchised libertarians and liberals jaded, or was it something else that turned us off on the ruling economic and political elite?

Was it the fact that for the last thirty years the establishment underwrote the greatest Keynesian raid heretofore known to man, whereby the one percent/establishment crushed democracy and redistributed wealth and expropriated political powers for themselves?

Perhaps it’s the intergenerational wealth larceny that has become today’s FED policy, again all in the interest of keeping the rescued Cartel/establishment afloat, at the expense of savers and retirees.

Or maybe it was the toxic assets that have been transferred from the Cartel’s/establishment’s balance sheet and onto the public sectors balance sheets at list price, only to be sold back, selectively, to the Cartel and shadow banking at a discount.

Was it the fact that the political establishment just could never say “no” to big business or the Chamber of Commerce, and allowed them under the rubric of free trade and capitalism to transfer jobs, tax base, and the U.S. manufacturing economy offshore?

Was it the fact that the establishment showed us the true meaning of socialism with endless bank bailouts – running into the tens of trillions- while hypocritically attempting to light a match to the social contract, and seeking significant reductions/privatization in Medicare, Medicaid, and social spending?

Was it the insider trading cases and the manifestation of a two-tiered stock market: one for the insiders/establishment, and the other for the followers.

Perhaps it’s the two tiered justice system: where white collar criminals/the establishment are rarely if ever convicted, and then there’s the justice system for the rest of us — the “followers” facing the criminal justice industrial complex and corporations profiting from the incarceration of individuals for victimless crimes (so that the U S has the highest incarceration rate among western democracies).  If we are to believe the numbers, the U.S. incarceration rate, per Wikipedia, is 39% higher than Russia’s and several hundred percent higher than China’s….. What’s wrong with this picture?

Or perhaps it’s our beloved supreme court, which like our Republican led congress, suffers from very low follower opinion polls; and why should followers be upset when this very same court tells us that corporations/establishment are people too, who may and will collectively purchase our government under a Citizens United decision.

Perhaps it’s the abuse the establishment has heaped upon our fighting men and women with endless wars, so that the U.S. soldier suicide rate now exceeds are monthly casualty rate.  But heh, those soldiers/followers volunteered for it, so that makes it all okay.

Just maybe as Mr. Zingales notes, from the freshwater school of economics no less, that the U.S. establishment has abandoned meritocracy, industriousness, and capitalism…. for cronyism, speculation/private equity schemes, and monopoly.

Maybe its the real unemployment and underemployment rate in this country, and for much of Europe, is in the high teens— or in some instances in the neighborhood of twenty percent or more; as noted in the Times this week many U.S. citizens have watched their net worth crumble to 1990 levels in the span of four years.

Thank you, Establishment!

Mr. Brooks went on to note: “To have good leaders you have to have good followers— able to recognize just authority, admire it, be grateful for it and emulate it.”

To which JMH responds, which part would you like us to emulate Mr. Brooks?

Democracy is a wonderful thing. It makes people feel empowered, no matter how distorted the representative reality from the ideal.  Take that away, or the ability to protest, or form new political parties, or rebel against the established order of things…. And we find ourselves living in another elitist dictatorship, or government by the establishment.  The very things are founding fathers fought against.

Americans of all stripes understand human failings in the economic and political establishment; what the followers cannot understand is blatant political corruption, economic theft leading to lost decades and lives, and the death of opportunity – strangled by the corporatist and monopolist.  Hence, the rise in America and Europe of extremist political parties, like Occupiers, the Tea Party, and in Europe — Socialist, Anarchist and Communist.

When the establishment abandons the 99%/followers, the followers look for solutions outside mainstream political parties.

P.S.

To his credit, Mr. Brooks wrote admiringly of Mr. Jefferson, whom he referred to – longingly – as a “graceful aristocratic democrat.”

Remarkably, Mr. Jefferson wrote the defining document of the American Revolution and provided the ultimate act of rebellion against the established British aristocracy, with the Declaration of Independence.  One wonders what our third U.S. president would have had to say about what the Wall Street Cartel/establishment has done with his Agrarian Dream, or additional thoughts Mr. Jefferson may have had on the establishment of his day?

We need not wonder, here are a few quotes from Mr. Jefferson on the establishment of his day:

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people to remain silent.”

“In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to Liberty.”

“Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich upon the poor.”

His thoughts on globalism?  “Merchants have no country.  The mere spot that they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.”

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted into tyranny.”

“Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and misfortunes of others.  Our own share of miseries is sufficient:  why enter then as volunteers into those of another.”

“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of this country.”

“I believe banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies.”

“A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against any government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest in inference.”

Given our nation’s current predicament, I wonder if Mr. Jefferson would have been in favor of an economic bill of rights?

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2015