"Corporate Americans"-- Joshua Holland on ownership society....

[mike_c]

http://www.alternet.org/story/21000/

"Corporate Americans"

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted January 18, 2005.

Every working person dreams of sharing in the nation's wealth, of owning their own home and controlling their own future. That dream is the hook on which President Bush's Ownership Society hangs — it's a visceral appeal to our naked self-interest. And even if you live on a commune, there's something compelling about relying on your own strong back and standing on your own two feet — forget about social contracts, collective risk and safety nets.

The Ownership Society represents a new form of distinctly right-wing economic populism. It turns the notion on its head; while liberals offer a populism that promises underserved groups that "We will stand with you against the heartless and powerful," the central theme of the Ownership Society is that we're all big capitalists just waiting to blossom — even the lowliest among us. If only we could get the yoke of taxes, asbestos litigation and regulations off our backs we would all be in a position to worry about losing a piece of our multi-million dollar estate to the "death tax." Forget about a semblance of economic justice, it's about giving you, the individual, the tools you need to beat your neighbor. And if you can't beat him, he'll beat you. It's a populism born in the Hobbesian belief that we all struggle alone in a world where life is nasty, brutish and short.

This is Bush's narrative that winds its way through cradle-to-grave issues as diverse as the move from universal public education to school vouchers, transitioning from Medicare to Health Savings Accounts and privatizing Social Security. The Ownership Society touches almost every major social program we've enacted since the New Deal.

Of course, the Ownership Society's policies — which President Bush will be selling hard in the coming months — won't do anything to add to the wealth of average families. As Lew Rockwell, founder of the Libertarian Mises Institute wrote in an e-mail, "The Ownership Society has become the rhetorical mask for the newest form of right-wing central planning." We know from experience how that impacts ordinary Americans.

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[Demit]

1. The full Hobbes quote is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish & short".

And that's what Bush and his like want, in their Ownership Society: a guaranteed pool of poor people. Always there for the exploiting.

[cap]

2. who gonna be the ownee...

owners have to own something....


God... we are all gonna look like the South ... a few people on top owning everything... a very small middle class, a small class of entrepreneurs clearing 30K... the rest making 10-20K. Everyone except the poorest in private school cause they've run down the public ones. Be like Mississippi with one abortion clinic and everyone who has money going to another state for an abortion and those who dont having kids and back alley abortions.

I guess the owners can really have a lot of servants... they'll be so many poor people.

I guess W must really love poor people he's making so many of them.

[SharonAnn]

3. Yep, that's it. Read "Made in Texas" and you'll learn how *

is of the southern plantation mentality (East Texas and the oil fields) and not the "liberal" part of Texas where LBJ was from. The oil fields are part of the "extractive" mentality which is part of the plantion mentality.

They see the world differently. They want low property and income taxes, because they have all the property and income. They're OK with sales taxes because that's not a very big bite out of their wealth.

They don't want to invest in public schools and parks because they send their kids to private schools and private country clubs.

Etc., etc.