ECONOMIC DICTATORSHIPS

If I had to choose one person who did more to destroy American Democracy than anyone else did, I would choose Milton Friedman. His name is synonymous with the Chicago School of Economics. His focus was on reducing regulations on business and in advancing laissez faire competition. In a sense, he was Ronald Reagan’s mentor. Friedman was professor in that school from 1948 until 1979 but his shadow has darkened the economic world ever since and has led to dictatorship in small countries through out Central and South America and South East Asia. Military leaders in all these countries paraded their economist through that school. Nevertheless, Friedman’s biggest victory was destroying Democracy in America. Recent studies have shown a strong trend in our country toward plutocracy. Go to the internet, if you doubt this. Plutocracy is top down economics, which is Reaganomics. Congress is no longer responsive to the will of the working class of people including small farmers who are the people who vote for these politicians. This is clear to everyone who follows politics. We see subsidies going to corporate farms and big oil companies. Big oil is making more money than ever before but their greed is insatiable. The money paid for produce to small farmers fall while politicians vote pay subsidies to corporations to compensate for the low prices. Store prices do not reflect the fall in prices paid for produce. We see the stead fall in labor union membership, a decrease in wages, which happens in the face of an increase in productivity per worker. We hear a constant drum beat for more individual giving to charity to take care of the poor; echoes of Nancy Reagan. We hear a constant call for people to save more for retirement at the same time we see corporations cutting of pensions. The rich paid for the Citizen United decision by the corrupted Supreme Court. Is it so difficult to understand that if we do not have a strong democracy, the rich become the government? That is the goal of Reaganomics, which Milton Friedman modeled; he is the true devil in all of this as he is of every economic dictatorship in the current world. We have shifted from countries ruled by military strong men to countries ruled by unregulated bankers. This has happening in my life time. URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated