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Wednesday, July 12, 2006 |
When civilizations perish they do so from the inside. When the flag of 'freedom and liberty' no longer covers the cargo, the system starts crumbling. The Bush administration (the year 2000 suits fine) will be pinpointed in history as the beginning of the decline and fall of the Western civilization (actually it started with Ronald Reagan). The following excerpts will explain why.
If there is an American magazine that has published some thought-provoking articles recently, it is Harper's. Don't miss the July issue. Better still, subscribe.
Here are some excerpts from the essay Breaking the Chain by Barry C. Lynn.
(Harper's Magazine July 2006)
"It is now twenty-five years since the Reagan Administration eviscerated America's century-long tradition of antitrust enforcement. For a generation, big firms have enjoyed almost complete license to use brute economic force to grow only bigger. And so today we find ourselves in a world dominated by immense global oligopolies that every day further limit the flexibility of our economy and our personal freedom within it.
The stakes could not be higher. In systems where oligopolies rule unchecked by the state, competition itself is transformed from a free-for-all into a kind of private-property right, a license to the powerful to fence off entire marketplaces, there to pit supplier against supplier, community against community, and worker against worker. When oligopolies rule unchecked by the state, what is perverted is the free market itself, and our freedom as individuals within the economy and ultimately within our political system as well.
But what should concern us today even more is a mirror image of monopoly called 'monopsony'. Monopsony arises when a firm captures the ability to dictate price to its suppliers, because the suppliers have no real choice other than to deal with that buyer. Not all oligopolists rely on the exercise of monopsony, but a large and growing contingent of today's largest firms are built to do just that. The ultimate danger of monopsony is that it deprives the firms that actually manufacture products from obtaining an adequate return on their investment. In other words, the ultimate danger of monopsony is that, over time, it tends to destroy the machines and skills on which we all rely.
The idea that Wal-Mart's power actually subverts the functioning of the free market will seem shocking to some. After all, the firm rose to dominance in the same way that many thousands of other companies before it did - through smart innovation, a unique culture, and a focus on serving the customer. Even a decade ago, Americans could fairly conclude that in most respects, Wal-Mart's rise had been good for the nation. But the issue before us is not how Wal-Mart grew to scale but how Wal-Mart uses its power today and will use it tomorrow. The problem is that Wal-Mart, like other monopsonists, does not participate in the market so much as use its power to micro-manage the market, carefully coordinating the actions of thousands of firms from a position above the market.
In essence, Wal-Mart has grown so powerful that it can turn even its largest suppliers, and entire oligopolized industries, into extensions of itself.
And so, every year, the landscape is littered with that many more dead or half-dead retailers - including such once-big names as Winn Dixie, Albertsons, K-Mart, Toys R Us, and Sears.
To defend Wal-Mart for its low prices is to claim that the most perfect form of economic organization more closely resembles the Soviet Union in 1950 than twentieth-century America. It is to celebrate rationalization to the point of complete irrationality.
If, however, we choose the path of the free market, and of individual freedom within the market; if we choose to ensure the health and flexibility of our economy and our industrial systems and our society; if we choose to protect our republican way of government, which depends on the separation of powers within our economy just as in our political system - then we have only one choice. We must restore antitrust law to its central role in protecting the economic rights, properties, and liberties of the American citizen, and first of all use that power to break Wal-Mart into pieces."
Attempts are being made by Wal-Mart and Home Depot to get a charter for industrial-loan companies, special banks that process checks and transactions for corporations so that they can also control the money stream.
MarketWatch: "Bids by retail giants Wal-Mart and Home Depot to own specialized banks would be derailed under a House bill introduced Monday by Reps. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Paul Gillmor, R-Ohio."
Change Wal-Mart, change America.
The words 'liberty and freedom' are being abused by neocons. Freedom is not poverty, discrimination and absolute power. The liberty and freedom of Wal-Mart is destroying the liberty and freedom of Americans.
11:04:04 AM 
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© Copyright 2006 Hetty Litjens.
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