Rational Nation USA
Liberty -vs- Tyranny
Capitalism is under attack. Cronyism and corporate welfare will of course be defended in many nefarious ways by the Obama administration. We are indeed witnessing the slow transformational changes this President promised the nation. It ain't going to turn out so picturesque as the nanny state gig government statists would have Americans believe.
This excerpt from the David Brooks article in yesterday's New York Times says it well.
... The president is now running an ad showing Mitt Romney tunelessly singing “America the Beautiful,” while the text on screen blasts him for shipping jobs to China, India and Mexico.
The accuracy of the ad has been questioned by the various fact-checking outfits. That need not detain us. It’s safest to assume that all the ads you see this year will be at least somewhat inaccurate because the ad-makers now take dishonesty as a mark of their professional toughness.
What matters is the ideology behind the ad: the assumption that Bain Capital, the private-equity firm founded by Romney, should not have invested in companies that hired workers abroad; the assumption that hiring Mexican or Indian workers is unpatriotic; the assumption that no worthy person would do what most global business leaders have been doing for the past half-century.
This ad — and the rhetoric the campaign is using around it — challenges the entire logic of capitalism (emphasis mine) as it has existed over several decades. It’s part of a comprehensive attack on the economic system Romney personifies.
This shift of focus has been audacious. Over the years of his presidency, Obama has not been a critic of globalization. There’s no real evidence that, when he’s off the campaign trail, he has any problem with outsourcing and offshoring. He has lavishly praised people like Steve Jobs who were prominent practitioners. He has hired people like Jeffrey Immelt, the chief executive of General Electric, whose company embodies the upsides of globalization. His economic advisers have generally touted the benefits of globalization even as they worked to help those who are hurt by its downsides.
But, politically, this aggressive tactic has worked. It has shifted the focus of the race from being about big government, which Obama represents, (emphasis mine) to being about capitalism, which Romney represents (emphasis mine).
Just as Republicans spent years promising voters that they could have tax cuts forever, now the Democrats are promising voters that they can have all the benefits of capitalism without the downsides, like plant closures, rich C.E.O.’s and outsourcing. Just as Republicans used to force Democrats into the eat-your-spinach posture (you need to have high taxes if you want your programs), now Democrats are casting Republicans into the eat-your-spinach posture (you need to accept outsourcing and the pains of creative destruction if you want your prosperity).
The Romney campaign doesn’t seem to know how to respond. For centuries, business leaders have been inept when writers, intellectuals and politicians attacked capitalism, and, so far, the Romney campaign is continuing that streak. {Read More}
Perhaps Romney and the Republicans ought to revisit, read, and grow to understand Ayn Rand and they just might to be able to sell capitalism on the basis on which it should be sold. I'm not holding my breath.
Via: Memeorandom
