leftlibertarian.org

Over at Counterpunch today, Robert Bryce posted an interesting question that, though to be expected from the “progressive” magazine, appears to me a bit dismaying.

Says Bryce,

But the question remains: given the myriad warnings that came via Enron – and the years-long neglect of any meaningful efforts to have serious policing of Wall Street – why are we surprised to find out that the financial engineers have robbed us blind? The warnings from the Enron meltdown could scarcely have been more clear. Indeed, two key lessons were obvious: financial regulators needed lots more funding, personnel and support; and derivatives markets that operate without proper regulatory oversight and reporting pave the way for financial engineers to privatize profits and socialize costs.

First, the lack of regulators. A key problem with today’s financial markets, as it was when Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling were piloting Enron into the dirt, is simple: we have too few cops patrolling Wall Street. That lack of oversight can most easily be understood by looking at the budget of America’s single most important financial regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Now, to propose this thought with all due respect, it seems necessary to at least make this single point. What exists today certainly is capitalism and the failing markets certainly are an effect of that system; however, in absolutely no way does that mean that ad hoc bandages like extra bureaucrats - feeding from the same capital trough filled to the brim with the limbs of the poor and the blood of the exploited - will fix the situation. Indeed, today’s dilemma, aside from possessing almost no causal connection to a lack of regulation, holds such a fundamental representation of the current capitalist system that to continue down the same road of American corporativismo would only serve to further degenerate the already meager positions of the impoverished - as it has done in history and will continue to do as long as the capitalists and the state exist.

In fact, contrary to the apparent economic ignorance and frustrating compromises of “progressives” like Bryce and the slew of other social democrats - the equivalent of Baptist preachers to capitalist whiskey bootleggers - what is needed today has nothing to do with a moderated exchange of exploiter A for exploiter B. No, what is needed is a radical overhaul of this Anglo-American system of state backed capital; what is needed is revolutionary redistribution, a freedom unmatched by a state’s economy, an Anarchy of the most beautiful varieties, a society based not on capitalists or proletarians, but rather on a new class of entrepreneurs in labour and innovation - a dynamic class of the revolutionary entrepreneuriat!

Indeed, no bandage could ever fix a broken arm; why then would piecemeal regulations - misguided and ultimately exploitative - fix a crisis of capitalism? Though I believe Bryce’s motivations are on the right track, I am afraid that he, and every state-socialist, is misguided and ultimately counter-productive in their constant hoots and howls calling to amend venom with poison whilst fixing problems with dilemmas.

I can only hope they convert to something better - change we can believe in, if you will.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 9th, 2008 at 3:28 pm and is filed under Exclusive Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.