Charles Hugh Smith has been a roll lately, with a number of good articles, featured in SLL, that clearly and concisely explain some difficult concepts. From Smith at oftwominds.com:
With authentic growth scarce, there’s no other way to reap huge profits but cannibalism.
When people say “capitalism has failed” or “capitalism has succeeded,” we have to ask: what type of capitalism do you mean? Authentic capitalism, in which capital is placed at risk to earn a return in a competitive, transparent marketplace, or do you mean cartel-state capitalism, or crony-capitalism, or monopoly capitalism or finance capitalism, i.e. the types that dominate the global economy?
As long as most startups crash and burn, and anyone with a few bucks and plenty of inner drive can start an enterprise, authentic capitalism still lives. But let’s face it, authentic capitalism occupies a diminishing corner of the U.S. and global economies.
With a work force of 150 million and around 120 million full-time workers, the U.S. economy has about 6 million small businesses with employees and a few million self-employed (sole proprietors) who earn a middle-class livelihood: Endangered Species: The Self-Employed Middle Class.
The political and financial influence of small business and the self-employed barely registers on K Street, Wall Street and in Washington D.C. Politicos praise small business in the same way they speak of small family farms as the backbone of American agriculture–as a form of pandering for PR purposes while they pocket the big campaign contributions from Monsanto and Big Ag.
Meanwhile, in the real world, small business is in decline while corporate money floods the financial sector and Washington D.C.
To continue reading: When Capitalism Turns to Cannibalism
