Nader's 'Corporate Socialism'

Great Debates
41

Mandelstam That was perfect. I give the Nader definition, you cite the OP. Almost a simulpost.

I think Ralph Nader is, ah, diverse enough that we can all agree to disagree on him personally. In Corporate Socialism he makes some valid points which need addressing.

If capitalists don’t start policing themselves, I might even vote for some fire breathing socialists to light a fire under their asses. Who likes to watch poor criminals get twenty year sentences while corrupt CEOs take the Fifth and fly to the Bahamas?

My link on the **airline bailout **is a good read for those who pity the poor airlines.

42

What Nader is talking about is not Socialism at all, but rather a form of state capitalism simular in some respects to that of the corrupted socialist system of Russia or that of Josip Tito’s Yugoslavia. Nader, being a true capitalist at heart, has mistaken monopolies capitalism leads to for for the democratic and decentralised administrative bodies that might exist under socialist democracy.

I cogradulate Nader on his attempts to be progressive, but the reality is if he were too smart, too progressive, the political system, that is designed to resist and divert fundamental change, would have already rejected him. Only a broad grass roots workers movement can possibly hope to smash the strangle hold of the capitalist minority on our countries, and achieve a society that is based on human need, not individual or corparate greed. Take for example the America civil war, that bloody rebelion was popular because it stated it’s aim as ending slaverly (many other not so noble reasons were about). But many people had to fight and die against the bulk of the capitalist minority in the south, because the wealthy in the south relied on slaves. Well image the war that would occur if Americans today refused to accept capitalist injustice and inequality? In other words Socialism will not come from capitalism through the reforms of our existings systems but rather through the violence the capitalist minority will use to try and quell any social uprising, reguardless of weather or not the majority will it so.

43

Um . . . Northern Virginia? It says so right there under my username. Fairfax County, to be specific, and if there’s a place that knows from overdevelopment, it’s Fairfax County, believe me.

I’m not so sure that there should be a national policy of any kind on the matter. Federalism, much to my chagrin, appears to be coughing out its dying breaths, and IMO, what’s left should be preserved. I think each state should adopt a coherent, intelligent policy, but I don’t think it’s the kind of thing that the Feds necessarily need to be involved with.

Don’t get me wrong – there’s a definite need for intelligent planning and proper guidance when it comes to development, but I think it’s the kind of thing best left to state governments, not the Federal government. HUD should exist in an advisory capacity, but not a policymaking one.

That’s great, and I happen to agree, but there are pro-green groups out there for which “smart planning” means exactly that: “arrested development.” I’m cynical enough at this point in my life to believe that when a political party – the Greens, the Libertarians, the Democrats, or anyone else – says something like “urban sprawl” and “smart planning,” it might require a little unpacking to get to what they’re really talking about.

I’d be very interested in such a hijack, or a separate thread, because I’ve read the Green platform quite a few times (and listed my specific exceptions to one portion of that platform above). The idea I get from many Green supporters at the SDMB (not you, and not jshore) is that they have absolutely no understanding of the issues involved – in some cases, if there even really is an issue, or if the party is creating one – or of how the party proposes to address it. They appear to have latched on to the Greens for contrarian reasons alone, which I think is dangerous.

44

What Nader is talking about is not Socialism at all, but rather a form of state capitalism simular in some respects to that of the corrupted socialist system of Russia or that of Josip Tito’s Yugoslavia. Nader, being a true capitalist at heart, has mistaken monopolies capitalism leads to for the democratic and decentralised administrative bodies that might exist under socialist democracy.

I cogradulate Nader on his attempts to be progressive, but the reality is if he were too smart, too progressive, the political system, that is designed to resist and divert fundamental change, would have already rejected him. Only a broad grass roots workers movement can possibly hope to smash the strangle hold of the capitalist minority on our countries, and achieve a society that is based on human need, not individual or corparate greed. Take for example the America civil war, that bloody rebelion was popular because it stated it’s aim as ending slaverly (many other not so noble reasons were about). But many people had to fight and die against the bulk of the capitalist minority in the south, because the wealthy in the south relied on slaves. Well image the war that would occur if Americans today refused to accept the capitalist injustices and inequality that are nessarsary to ensure maximum profits? In other words Socialism will not come from capitalism through the reforms of our existings political systems but rather through the violence the capitalist minority will use to try and quell any social uprising, reguardless of weather or not the majority will it so. Each time you see police beating on demostrators, you are seeing the capitalist minorities demestic army, or as most know it ‘police force’, trying to stomp out the seeds of desent that will in time undoubtably give rise to the next step in social evolution. Our first true departure from our dog-eat-dog animal heritage (I mean that in a evolutionary sense).

Real change is still overdue!

45

Ah, how about if people in the United States vote for change? 50% don’t vote at all.

Every time socialism is tried it results in a decidedly undemocratic and centralised society.

46

Beagle, that libertarian link was hilarious.

Halo13, I’m not entirely sure we’re you’re coming from but, in a sense, you’re proving my point that Nader is not, and does not expect to be taken as a “socialist.”

In the United States we have a term for people like Nader: they’re called liberals. This is somewhat confusing, especially for those outside the United States, since there, liberals are usually seen as fiscal conservatives–like the old Liberal Party in England. Roughly speaking, a US liberal of Nader’s stripe equates to a “social democrat” in Europe. There are, of course, divisions amongst US liberals on various issues–and I don’t mean to oversimplify–but Greens are primarily liberals in the sense that they’re fine with private enterprise so long as its restrained by government which, for them, should be made to act on behalf of the broad public interest. This is very different from the kind of social revolution that you’re alluding to above: though, to be sure, if anything approximating the Green Party platform were to arise in the very centrist and fiscally conservative US it would be pretty remarkable. And the truth is is that when it comes down to their beliefs on issues such as education and the environment, the majority of Americans are actually closer to the liberal position than their government is. So there is, in a sense, one thing we agree on : Real change is still overdue!

pld, sorry, I guess I don’t pay very much attention to those little boxes next to our names (though I have learned to be careful what I say about Texas in the presence of minty green :wink: ). And, in any case, I wouldn’t have known enough about “Northern Virginia,” so thanks for filling me in.

The thing is that the federal government already is involved in the urban planning issues: it subsidizes public transportation, highway-building and other big infrastructure projects. In doing so it does make some kind of effort to reduce the traffic/environmental issue (e.g., helping to fund H.O.V. lanes on fed highways)–but not effectively enough. In theory I have no problem with decision-making power being left to states. The problem though is that states are incredibly strapped for cash: they need federal money to do these things. It’s also true that sprawl-related issues get bogged down with jursidictional problems between municipal, county, and state governments. Although I like local control in principle, I do think that the federal government could devise ways to fund smart urban planning proposals on a case-by-case basis. And if it were to provide considerable funding, it would help localities to resolve their differences and make much-needed changes in the right direction.

I’ll let Avalonian, jshore and others weigh in on the matter of the hijack vs. the OP.

47

Those of you who say Nader is not a socialist: Could you describe the objections Nader has to socialism? Because he looks pretty socialist to me. He wants higher, progressive taxes. He wants the state to exert control over many aspects of the economy. He wants a much higher minimum wage, and a bigger social safety net.

Nader isn’t a Communist, but he sure looks like a socialist to me.

48

Sam, the point is to do with a difference in degree vs. a difference in kind. We already have progressive taxes: Nader wants them to be more progressive. The state already does regulate the economy; he wants more effective regulation, geared to serve the public interest. We already have a minimum wage: he wants it to be higher. We already have a social safety net. He wants it to be more rational and humane.
To me it makes no sense to attribute the term “socialism” to a position when the difference is one of degree–especially when (as I said above) it makes people who oppose Nader argue very sloppily about their own investments in government. Do you think of the fire department as “socialist”? Are the federal highways “socialist”? Is the army and the navy “socialist”? In other words, if we insist on calling the entire government sector “socialist” then where do we draw the line?

49

It’s also very confusing for most folks inside the United States, since people like Bill Clinton and Al Gore are labeled as “liberals”.

Dr. J

50

The nuts: Hitler, Stalin

The middle ground: Some of the milder Eastern Bloc countries.

The gray area: True democratic socialists who do not believe in violence.

51

Which is proof that the US isn’t over run with “liberals”.

It cracks me up when people refer to Bill Clinton as the ultimate “Liberal”.

52

Hitler was not a socialist except by calling his party that. He was a fascist.

53

Mandelstam: Uh, okay… So what ‘degree’ do you have to be at before you are a socalist? Or let’s put it another way - what ‘socialist’ policy does Nader disagree with? He wants to strengthen unions, nationalize a number of industries, raise the minimum wage (REALLY high), strengthen the social safety net, and exert state control over commerce to a much higher degree. WHY is that not socialist?

Methinks you are just avoiding the label in order to make Nader sound more palatable. But if it walks like a duck, and sounds like a duck, it’s probably Nader wearing a duck suit.

54

And, in fact, I believe it was the German left that was most strongly opposed to him and some of the first to be thrown into concentration camps like Dachau.

Sam, it is a very different thing to say that Nader’s views on major contentious issues are all more toward the socialist end of the spectrum than the current U.S. government and saying that he is a socialist. By that standard, we could call you an anarchist [although given your views on things like defense policy and the government’s right to withhold information from the citizenry, we may have to go with something like “anarcho-fascist” :wink: ].

In my view, a socialist is one who believes that the government should essentially run the bulk of the economy…If you go to buy a car, you buy it from the government. To my knowledge, he does not support this. [And, what industries does he want to nationalize exactly?]

pldennison, my short reaction to you on the Green platform would be that I do not support a lot of the details, although I do support some of the general directions it goes in. It clearly goes too far in some of these directions for my liking. To be honest, I think the platform of some party like the Green party is largely irrelevant in its details since there is no way in God’s creation that the number of Greens that could possibly get elected could move the nation any more than a tiny fraction of the way in the direction that they are proposing. I think having some people who had these views in Congress would have a generally positive effect on the public discourse.

By the way, I have very mixed feelings about the Greens and, besides my protest vote for Nader, I haven’t voted for them. I particularly don’t like the Greens running candidates against people like Paul Wellstone and the younger Udall. If that’s not cutting off your nose to spite your face (or whatever that saying is), I don’t know what is.

55

I wonder how different this topic would have turned out if I’d just posted the text of the article and left Nader’s name out of it entirely.

Yes, I’m aware that it would be considered plagarism, and somebody would have doubtless notice eventually, which is why I wouldn’t do it. Just pointing out, I guess, that it seems that many people’s personal feelings about Nader (positive or negative) are getting in the way of what he had to say in his Washington Post article. I was more interested in a substantive discussion about the points of that article, but it pretty quickly degraded into a discussion of Nader’s politics and background… which is fine, but… oh well.

While many have taken the time to criticize Nader, nobody’s disproven what he said in the Post:

To me he’s saying that modern corporations are working against capitalist ideals, and he would like to see a return to something more resembilng a fair capitalist market. Does anyone disagree?

56

I wonder how different this topic would have turned out if I’d just posted the text of the article and left Nader’s name out of it entirely.

Yes, I’m aware that it would be considered plagarism, and somebody would have doubtless notice eventually, which is why I wouldn’t do it. Just pointing out, I guess, that it seems that many people’s personal feelings about Nader (positive or negative) are getting in the way of what he had to say in his Washington Post article. I was more interested in a substantive discussion about the points of that article, but it pretty quickly degraded into a discussion of Nader’s politics and background… which is fine, but… oh well.

While many have taken the time to criticize Nader, nobody’s disproven what he said in the Post:

To me he’s saying that modern corporations are working against capitalist ideals, and he would like to see a return to something more resembilng a fair capitalist market. Does anyone disagree? If not… I guess we can move on. :slight_smile:

57

A word on where I’m coming from.

I heard Nader speak, just prior to his election bid, and one of the strongest arguments he makes is against limited liability for corporations which, legally, enjoy the same protected status as persons. (I wish I could be as eloquent as Nader was, or as detailed, but I’m going by my recollection of a talk I heard more than two years ago.) Nader was also eloquent and persuasive on the matter of how dysfunctional and corrupt US democracy had become. I could not help but be impressed by him.

I should make clear, though, that I’m not a Green and the people I know who voted for Nader are not card-carrying Greens either. So it’s likely that there are people on this board much more qualified to speak for the Greens than I am.

I agree with jshore that if the Greens are going to harm Democrats, and liberal Democrats at that, they’re being counterproductive. I’d like to see them use their influence to pull Democrats back towards core liberal principles; not to try to shoot the Democrats out of the water–which just won’t happen.

From pld’s post on the platform:

Make corporate shareholders bear the same liabilities as other property owners.

I agree with pld that this is probably going too far; but I do want to see the corporate non-liability addressed via legal reforms.

A public corporate charter review process for each corporation above $20 million in assets every 20 years to see if it is serving the public interest according to social and ecological as well as financial criteria.

pld thinks the bar is set too low here. I don’t see how we can know that unless we know what the review process would entail. I don’t have any serious reservation here; OTOH, it’s not a top priority for me.

Require breakup of any firm with more than 10% market share unless it makes a compelling case every five years in a public regulatory proceeding that it serves the public interest to keep the firm intact.

pld objects that his company would be an exception to this rule. Yet the rule itself provides for exceptions: if the company’s market share serves the public interest, then it serves the public interest. So I see no problem here so long as public interest rather than dogmatic break-ups is what’s intended. My first candidate for breaking up, btw, would be the horribly over-concentrated media industry–which never should have been deregulated in the first place.

  • Establish the right of citizens to vote on the expansion or phasing out of products and industries, especially in areas of dangerous or toxic production.*

I agree with pld that popular referenda can be dangerous if it boils down to a PR war. But I very much doubt that’s what the Greens have in mind. And I do think that in areas of dangerous or toxic production citizens need some kind of say–particularly since they end up picking up the tab for expensive clean-ups (not to mention bearing the brunt of health hazards).

Mandatory break-up and conversion to democratic worker, consumer, and/or public ownership on a human scale of the largest 500 US industrial and commercial corporations that account for about 10% of employees, 50% of profits, 70% of sales, and 90% of manufacturing assets.

I have to be honest that I don’t understand the wording here: I’m not sure what’s meant by “public owernship on a human scale”–though presumably something better than the usual shareholding arrangement. (And I’m not clear about how the criteria at the end relate to the 500 corporations.)

I think public ownership works for utilities and for basic services. Privatization in these areas is often disastrous: viz. the horrific performance of Swiss air traffic control, owned by a downsizing profit-making corporation, a few weeks ago.

Worker/consumer ownership is nice in theory but in practice I’m not sure that worker-owned companies–like the airlines that are owned by employees–end up up being all that different from typical private or publicly held companies. What really concerns me is the way that pension funds are managed–and here is an area where I think workers ought to have more representation in what, in a sense, they already own.

  • Mandatory conversion of the 200 largest banks with 80% of all bank assets into democratic publicly-owned community banks. Financial and technical incentives and assistance for voluntary conversion of other privately-owned banks into publicly-owned community banks or consumer-owned credit unions. *

Banks have way too much power right now: no question about it. I’m not sure, though, that this is the best answer to the problem as I’ve never read anything on this subject. This is an area I’d want to read a lot about before offering an opinion of my own.

Place a 100% reserve requirement on demand deposits in order to return control of monetary policy from private bankers to elected government.

Same thought here. I’d not want to offer an opinion here until I felt I’d heard the best arguments on all sides.

I would add that none of these particular provisions would, in itself, make me jump for joy. The possibility of such policies even coming under serious discussion right now is so remote.

I think that most people who voted for Nader–whether as a protest vote against Gore, or because they genuinely want to build a movement outside of the Democratic party–were attracted to Nader’s broad beliefs. They agree that corporations are too powerful and citizens too weak. They agree that the environment and education is being ignored. They see that the working poor can hardly get by. They see that professionals also have less autonomy and must also kowtow to pressures from corporations. They see a widening gap between rich and poor; inequalities on a scale not seen in decades. They see an exploited, angry world population that resents what is done on behalf of US and other Western corporations.

I could go on and on and on and on.

I have no time right now to take a closer look at the Green Party platform which I’ve never looked at before (nor, I should add, have I ever looked at either the Democratic or Republican party platform). But I imagine that the Green’s intentions are to answer to the very grave problems named above. And I imagine that if green-type liberal politics ever became mainstream, there would be plenty of opportunity to decide where specific recommendations would do more harm than good.

Sam, to me “socialism” entails the nationalization of major industries, lots of central planning, and a bona fide attempt to eliminate private property.

I am not just avoiding a label (and I’m kind of insulted by the implication!); I’m trying to maintain an important distinction.

Also, worker ownership isn’t nationalization: unless you see employee-owned airlines as harbingers of socialism (if anything, in that industry, it was deregulation that set off the trend towards employee ownership).

Again, I’m not really sure what’s meant by “public ownership on a human scale.”

I’m curious, Sam. Do you think of Europe as socialist?

So is it possible we can return to the OP now? :smiley:

58

You mean, like having the state evaluate companies every 5 years to see if they serve the ‘social interest’, and breaking them up and expropriating their property if they aren’t? (by the way, what about the ‘social interest’ of the people who buy and enjoy the company’s products? I assume they get some benefit from them).

You mean like giving the state the right to determine whether companies should be allowed to expand?

You mean like nationalizing the banking system?

You mean like nationalizing the top 500 companies in the United States?

Nah, nothing socialist about any of those policies…

Those policies you just listed are not just wrong-headed, they are INSANELY STUPID. They display an outrageous lack of understanding of how capitalism works. They appear to not give any consideration to the unintended consequences of those actions. For instance, let’s take this one:

First, it’s insane to punish companies for being successful. Second, can you imagine the real-world effect of this? Why in hell would any company with, say, 8% market share ever attempt to do better? How would anyone intelligently invest their money in a company that could be broken up every five years by some socialistic ‘review board’? And just who decides what’s in the ‘social interest’? How do you keep this review board from becoming corrupt, or becoming a tool of partisan politics and pork? ‘Cause you can bet that if you leave it up to the government, it will decide that the ‘social interest’ demands allowing that huge casino in a swing state to keep on truckin’, while the casino in the ‘safe’ state gets sacrificed in some judicious back-room deal. And if you leave it to the voters and referenda, you will have introduced the worst kind of tyranny of the majority - the tyranny to allow people to vote to expropriate the property of others.

And the implicit assumption here is a simplistic, “big is bad”. This goes back to the Green party’s (and Ralph Nader’s) belief in a communitarian world of big government and small business, where all businesses are too small to exert any influence over the citizenry, but government is pervasive and owns and runs the big ones. That is SOCIALISM. And not just a little bit - it’s an extreme form of it. It fails to recognize that big businesses generally get that way because they are efficient. Try to build automobiles in your local garage, and let me know how it’s going in a decade or two.

59

I fail to see what Nader’s political leanings have to do with what he’s aptly labeled corporate socialism. He’s not trying to present himself as laissez faire capitalist or attack socialism, but trying to point out why certain relationships lead to corruption in business and our government and how in the end it’s bad for most of the country.

Unless someone makes a convincing case for why it’s related, I would think that whether or not Nader is a socialist, is pretty much OT.

60

What is this “protected status”? Corporations obviously do not enjoy all the same rights as a person. They can’t vote.

The “person” concept with respect to a corporation refers to the fact that a corporation is an entity that carries legal liability. the purpose is to protect the SHAREHOLDERS, not the corporation itself, and not the corporation’s directors, who are legally responsible for its actions.

I absolutely, positively, totally guarantee you that the notion of “public interest” would, in such hearings, become “in the interest of the political party controlling the commission that hears the case” within five years. I can assure you that because it happens here, in Canada, with respect to the CRTC’s hearings on media licenses. The resulting decisions are so nakedly partisan and short-sighted, as well as culturally backwards, it’s more comical than the comedy shows that try to satirize it, and media concerns are now afraid to cross federal politicians for fear of having the CRTC punish them. I am sure the INTENT, originally, was the public interest. The results have been anything but.

Frankly, this is a ludicrous idea. How is a commission of political partisans qualified to determine what is legitimately in the “public interest”? How do you even define such a thing? Surely it’s obvious that such a process would become a political travesty, and that the VERY rare cases where a company occupied 11% of a market (ooh, one ninth. Horrors!) and its breakup benefitted anyone would be enormously outweighed by cases that pretty much just ate up time and tax dollars?

Exactly how, Mandlestam, could you submit “the phasing out” of a product or industry to a popular vote?

Industry: “This Goopex stuff is no good. There’s no demand for it. Let’s stop producing.”
President Nader: “No way; Goopex provides jobs for 1900 people, and that’s a lot of votes and tax dollars!”
Rep. Greenguy: “And it’s in my district! Save Goopex!”
Referendum: “52% say keep making Goopex!”

How can you force someone to NOT phase out a product?

Honestly, I think Nader has his heart in the right place, but suggestions like these strike me as being so dumb I can’t believe they’ve been seriously thought out. I can understand “let’s break up the banks!” - I think it’s a bad idea, but there ARE legitimate arguments in favor of it, and I can understand why someone might be swayed by them. But “public referenda on phasing out products” has got to be the silliest thing I’ve ever read. Are we going to force companies to keep making outdated products because they lost a referendum? Gosh, let’s bring back whale oil.

This would quite literally destroy the economy, reduce U.S. GDP by half, and probably start armed insurrection and civil war, if it were implemented to the letter. Actually, any President who tried to implement such a thing would be impeached. What a great idea.

I think that’s true of most candidates; it’s generally true, and I think most people understand it, that any candidate’s platform is moderated by reality and the demands of day-to-day concerns once they actually get elected.