There are laws that enslave men and there are laws that set them free. The problems we have in this country are not rocket science. The billionaires and CEOs want to have the liberty to have slave labor. The billionaires and CEOs want to have the liberty to create monopolies and cartels. And that is exactly what we have. The billionaires and CEOs use data analytics to price fix wages and pricing of goods and services so the worker making the median wage is driven into poverty on a path to slavery. Essentially, the billionaires and CEOs pay the lobbyists huge sums of money to force the politicians to pass laws creating cartels and monopolies in exchange for campaign financing. And the billionaires and CEOs are winning:
People really have no idea how bad the problem of wealth inequality has become. Companies no longer exist to serve the public. The public exists to serve the billionaires and CEOs. Wealth inequality cannot be any worse and still have a government currency with any shred of value.. Marx said the laissez faire capitalism is always followed by communism because unfettered greed would result in the government's currency collapsing to being zero in value. Once the currency becomes worthless people in the breadlines would demand MORE government not less!!!
This is because paradoxically as more and more wealth is concentrated into fewer and fewer hands the dollar becomes worthless. It doesn't matter what you pay in taxes. All that matters is the purchasing power of your take home pay. And the numbers are ugly:
Quandl
Here Marx's criticisms of laissez faire capitalism are more true today than ever (Entfremdung):
The collapse of our government's currency is inevitable. Government simply cannot stop the greed driving public policies. See you in the breadlines comrades!
This is why I am a liberal Democrat. I think it is inevitable the government's currency will collapse to be worth nothing. The words of FDR from his 1936 Democrat National Convention speech are MORE true today than ever:
"An old English judge once said: 'Necessitous men are not free men.' Liberty requires opportunity to make a living - a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.
For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality.
A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor - other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.
Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of government."
Government is the only force strong enough to ensure we have free and open markets. Right now, there is no mechanism to wring out the inefficiencies of CEO compensation packages and shareholder dividends.
Government is the only answer to fight the greed and excesses of laissez faire capitalism.
We have a single centralized communist style government in this country. The problem is it's not the kind of communist government that is in the worker's favor. What we have in this country is corporate communism! All the laws are in favor of the corporations and billionaires!
But I am not naive. The words of George Carlin ring MORE true today than when he first spoke them: