If you have either Medicare or Medicare Advantage, you need to read this article by Alexander Zaitchik, published today in Drop Site and Truthdig. Dr. Oz and the Plot Against Medicare.
Christians at one time believed that money was the root of all evil, but today we not only think it is life itself but we worship those who profit by it. This cultural change has taken place slowly over more than 600 years. The last phase of this change, however, has come so quickly that it takes my breath away.
In 2015, crony capitalism was still a public issue. That year, the Committee for Economic Development issued a report called “Crony Capitalism: Unhealthy Relations between Business and Government.” In case you think this is an anti-business group, be assured that it is not. The CED is a research center for The Conference Board, a non-profit, non-partisan, business-led policy body, organized and directed by corporate business board members. “Crony Capitalism” showed that crony capitalism harmed the overall economy, making economic life more inefficient and costly. That conclusion does not differ from many studies showing that corruption, bribery, fraud are costly and wasteful for any economy, even if legalized (like lobbying). The Conference Board is a thorough-going supporter of what it calls sustainable capitalism. In the wake of that study (2016), the CED published “Crony Capitalism, Corruption and the Economy in the State of New Mexico,” which was authored by a team of Political Scientists at the University of New Mexico. It’s a must-read, too.
The first Trump administration was certainly marked by crony capitalism. Think of his Secretary of State or Secretary of Treasury. But it was also chaotic with the president’s competing favoritisms, such as, familial power, personal friends, political allies.
The present administration, however, is streamline in comparison. It is clearly marked by the final stage of crony capitalism, its withering away as the government itself becomes a business. Today, anyone who thinks crony capitalism is an issue, has not been watching what is going on across the country. One cannot speak intelligently of the relations between business and government when there is to be no government except the military, at the service of business, of course.
I can hardly wait to see my new X-Visa card which will serve as my total banking, credit/debit card, my tax liability card, my Medicare Advantage card, my Social Security account, my wifi and telephone account, and my national ID. I will bet it will look snazzy. Like Musk’s pickup-size version of the batmobile. I bet it will be about 10% bigger than the standard credit card. Just think of all the new wallets that will have to be bought: a boon to the economy. If only I don’t get deported before that: More Americans Will Be Caught Up in Trump Immigration Raids — ProPublica.
What he’s describing sounds a lot like socialism (“crony capitalism… withering away as the government itself becomes a business”). I don’t see it and I don’t believe they are going to tackle Medicare, at least not in the way it’s being described here🤞. But who knows?
It does sound like socialism, Mr. Lawton, but the resemblance is skin deep. Socialism does have the form of a centrally concentrated state power used to control the economy but that power is itself controlled by the people and used for the sake of the betterment of the people’s economic well-being. When that principle of a government working for the common good became a political hype in the 1920s in Germany by the formation of National Socialism, things got confusing.
Our situation seems to me even more confusing because while Nazi leaders used the government for private gain, they doggedly also pursued a grand scheme for creating a unified government of the “Aryan” peoples. Still, the Nazi government was never socialistic and was very much supported by private corporations. What is new in our case is the attempt to run the government as a for-profit business or rather as a coalition of businesses. The concept of an economy has a built-in assumption of common good. Manipulating the economy for private gain is not the same as controlling the economy to make the whole system more efficient for everyone.
Musk’s references to “Western Civilization” whistles at white supremacists in a cast back to National Socialism, but that commitment seems to me much weaker than his interest in promoting Space X as a “public/private” monopoly on space (a result of his take-down of NOAA) or promoting Starlink as a “public/private” monopoly for communications (will he take over the FCC?).
As for Medicare, you are also right. We shall see.