March 21, 2010

The Business Class & Community of Investors

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Here's a pretty good breakdown of what the Republican party considers sacrosanct in American political life and what it considers a betrayal of our founding principles.  Michael Steele: 

...this is a President who believes fundamentally in an activist government, not an activist business class, not an activist community of investors and, and those who will create the wealth in an economy.  He sees that being centered - coming out of the federal government, using the institutions and the apparati [sic] of, of federal government to achieve those ends. 

Steele, like most Republicans, would like the government to go Galt.  What's astonishing here is that he seems to be completely oblivious to the fact that 5/6 of our citizens are employed in the retail and service industries; we're not CEOs or small business owners or entrepreneurs.  We're mostly a country of low-level employees.  We're the people that run the show, clean the floors, do the laundry and make the food.  That such a hoard of proletariat scallywags could enfranchise themselves to the point of actually influencing the government to act in their interests as opposed the interests of a "business class" or a "community of investors" is an unthinkable monstrosity.

What's germane about this view is that it deliberately recasts the most salient feature of American government as Capitalism rather than Democracy.  Furthermore, it demands that the fulcrums of Capitalistic power throughout our country economy be given proportional representation in Congress as a function of that power.  This is the New Republicanism. Recall the recent decision of Texas Board of Education to excise "democratic" from the curriculum and re-define America as a "constitutional republic."

The Republican party is morphing into a hardcore constitutionalist haven.  Gone are the divisive social issues, the influence of Christianist thought, conservative economic values and - most importantly - any trace of sympathy for democratic institutions.  

Mar 21, 2010 2:37:37 PM

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