Just what is the role of government in the United States? Is it to promote, “Unfettered capitalism”, as Rush Limbaugh recently said when trying to defend against Mitt Romney’s outing as a leverage buyout (a.k.a. private equity) king. As CEO of Bain Capital, he was personally responsible for putting thousands of Americans out of work.
In my view, the Preamble of the US Constitution clearly states not only why we have a Constitution but also why we have a government: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Why do we allow American Capitalism? Because American Capitalism has become a tool to help us achieve and maintain what is written in the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution.
As for the “unfettered” part of U.S. capitalism, history has clearly shown that our human capitalists, like the rest of us humans, have a dark side. Rules and monitoring are required when it comes to power and money in order to at least try to protect us from “unfettered” greed and out of control egos.
In his recent column, “America Isn’t a Corporation”, (12 Jan 2012) New York Times columnist Paul Krugman tried to turn the spotlight onto the role of government and the role of U.S. capitalism:
“And there’s also the question of whether Mr. Romney understands the difference between running a business and managing an economy.”
“Like many observers, I was somewhat startled by his latest defense of his record at Bain — namely, that he did the same thing the Obama administration did when it bailed out the auto industry, laying off workers in the process. One might think that Mr. Romney would rather not talk about a highly successful policy that just about everyone in the Republican Party, including him, denounced at the time.
“But what really struck me was how Mr. Romney characterized President Obama’s actions: “He did it to try to save the business.” No, he didn’t; he did it to save the industry, and thereby to save jobs that would otherwise have been lost, deepening America’s slump. Does Mr. Romney understand the distinction?
“America certainly needs better economic policies than it has right now — and while most of the blame for poor policies belongs to Republicans and their scorched-earth opposition to anything constructive, the president has made some important mistakes. But we’re not going to get better policies if the man sitting in the Oval Office next year sees his job as being that of engineering a leveraged buyout of America Inc.”
A leader, who would be looking “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”, would be nice.
Please read Krugman's article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/opinion/krugman-america-isnt-a-corporation.html?hp
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