Open for Business

Earlier this year, when the GOPer government of Wisconsin began what turned out to be a simultaneous national attack on unions, working people generally, as well as women, children, seniors, the sick, the poor, and generally everyone who isn't rich or a corporation,  the GOP launched a TV ad justifying the Wisconsin actions specifically.  Remember that in Wisconsin, as in these other states, the measures that materially take away from the non-rich as well as take away their rights were accompanied by tax breaks and other giveaways from state budgets to large corporations.  The TV ad cast all this as slashing state budgets and creating a better climate for corporations.  It ended with the resounding declaration that thanks to these GOPer efforts, Wisconsin would be "open for business" again.

It is a telling phrase, though not in the way the admakers meant it.  For in regards to government, the expression "open for business" is a euphemism for the agencies of government and all its actions are for sale.  As more and more of these GOPer laws have been proposed and many of them have been passed in many states, it's become clearer and clearer that this is indeed the true meaning of the phrase.

In the old days, and perhaps in some countries or states or cities today, "open for business" meant simply that government officials took bribes.  You wanted a permit, you bribed all the necessary officials.  You wanted a law passed, it cost more but if you could afford it, you could make the deal.

It's maybe a little more sophisticated now.  Money doesn't necessarily change hands immediately, in an acknowledged quid pro quo deal.  But some politicians who owe their office to big contributors know who they are working for.  They will find lucrative "employment" when they leave office.  They will be part of the most influential networks.

These days, when the rich are incredibly, unbelievably rich, and their corporations are richer still, while everybody else is just sliding (slower or faster) down the mudhill, that's a pretty potent motivation.  Everyone who has even gotten a sniff of what this means knows what I'm talking about.  Even writers who these folks like can find themselves getting huge fees to talk to corporate meetings and business roundtables, etc., where their books are piled high for eager sale.  They may even find themselves smiling and chatting on corporate media.

It's also no secret who the most influential corporations are: when government is for sale, it naturally goes to the highest bidder, and that means the big oil companies, the ones whose names you know, and the ones you don't.  Their profits make Google and Facebook look like the income of college students pushing carts of books around the library.   Then come the financial institutions, otherwise known as banks.  And then the telecoms and other big corporations, some of whom own media.  Some of them (and their owners) are buying government at wholesale prices.

They've accumulated the means of government production very quietly, a lot of it through the courts, expanding the power of corporations while making them less accountable to the public. In terms of campaign finance--a small part of their game--they increased visibility a bit with everybody knowing about the Supreme Court decision called Citizens United--but this enabled them to be in position to cripple any countervailing forces before the 2012 elections.  A nice adjunct to their strategy of growing politicians for themselves--while supplying them with lobbyists for hand-held guidance-- has been to have actual rich corporate leaders spend a few years in public service, making sure the trends accelerate in their favor, before they go back to making more billions.

But elected officials are only part of the government that's open for business.  For many years it's been the appointed bureaucrats in key jobs (once again in alliance with lobbyists), especially in federal departments, that have quietly made sure the government does what the corporate powers demand.  It's hardly a secret that the Energy Department in Washington, for example, has largely been controlled by energy companies, and even in the Obama Administration, it may still be.  If people wonder why all of Obama's environmental promises haven't been kept, I wonder how he's been able to keep as many as he has.  He's dealing with government departments that are deeply divided, harboring as they do the agents of corporate hegemony.

At this point, it's not that policies like this and actual corruption are coincidental, or even that they are loosely related.  They are pretty much the same thing.  And the boldness and greed are utterly astounding.  Corporate profits just registered their biggest gains since 1950. Rachel Maddow had a list of some Friday--I'll pass them along when that transcript becomes available.  But they are huge.  The rich are still getting the Bush tax cuts, while huge corporations pay no federal taxes and in fact get rebates the size of some state budgets.  So their relentless remaking of government is not exactly because they are threatened with penury. 

No, their current efforts are to slash the pay of already underpaid grade school teachers, slash the pay and take the jobs of firefighters and police, while taking away the little power they have to protect themselves in collective bargaining.  They are increasing taxes on seniors--not many of whom have their stock portfolios or even those horrifying little pensions--and they're trying to reduce or cripple Social Security and Medicare. They're cutting aid to the sick, the disabled, to poor children and the poor in general.  They've even convinced the Energy department to slash support for the poor to afford home heating oil, at the same time as the price of oil is skyrocketing, so Exxon Mobil can make more billions this year.

There are I'm sure some corporations and probably lots of small businesses trying to do the right thing, to maintain a sense of balance, to keep in mind where their profits come from ultimately.  But there are corporations--unfortunately including the world's largest--that are bloated and ravenous, like some mythological beast that is always hungry, that devours everything until it has only itself to consume.  And they appear to be the ones running the show, the puppet masters of the tea party people--half-mad with confused anger and fear--as well as the narrow-minded and narrow-souled suits they employ to make sure that government is always and everywhere open for business.