Glenn Greenwald over at Salon has an excellent
blog post about something that has seemed to creep up in conversations I've had with both conservatives and progressives -- the pernicious and pervasive system of corporatism. "Corporatism" is the perception that the traditionally hostile institutions of business and government are now subjugated in favor of cooperative, entrenched, mutually-beneficial circle-jerks, where our supposed elected representatives pass laws that are written by, and primarily benefit, our largest and richest corporations. Government serves the corporations, and the corporations fund, hire, and coopt government employees. And the health care reform bills circulating Congress are particularly egregious. As Greenwald writes:
The health care bill is one of the most flagrant advancements of this corporatism yet, as it bizarrely forces millions of people to buy extremely inadequate products from the private health insurance industry -- regardless of whether they want it or, worse, whether they can afford it (even with some subsidies). In other words, it uses the power of government, the force of law, to give the greatest gift imaginable to this industry -- tens of millions of coerced customers, many of whom will be truly burdened by having to turn their money over to these corporations -- and is thus a truly extreme advancement of this corporatist model.
Posts
