Corporate Scandals: The Larger Picture
Kevin Phillips places the attitudes that made the latest round of corporate scandals possible in their larger political and historical context:
“Over the last two decades, the cost of winning a seat in Congress has more than quadrupled. Legislators casting votes on business or financial regulation cannot forget the richest 1 percent of Americans, who make 40 percent of the individual federal campaign donations over $200. Money is buying policy.
Speculative markets and growing wealth momentum also corrupt philosophy and ideology, reshaping them toward familiar justifications of greed and ruthlessness. The 1980′s and 1990′s have imitated the Gilded Age in intellectual excesses of market worship, laissez-faire and social Darwinism. Notions of commonwealth, civic purpose and fairness have been crowded out of the public debate.”
Will we have the strength to overcome what Phillips calls the “financialization” of the United States economy?
Comments are closed.
