Wearing the mantle of "the market," capitalism's agents vigorously advance public policies that create conditions diametrically opposed to those required for markets to function in a socially optimal way. Like cancer cells that attempt to hide from the body's immune system by masking themselves as healthy cells, capitalism's agents attempt to conceal themselves from society's immune system by masquerading as agents of a healthy market economy. Capitalism has become so skilled in this deception that we now find our economic and political leaders committed to policies that serve the pathology at the expense of the healthy body.
To restore health we must first recognize the diseased cells for what they are and either surgically remove them or deprive them of access to the body's nutrients.
Under a socialist system, government consolidates power unto itself. Under a capitalist system, government falls captive to corporate interests -- and then, as its captive and servant, facilitates the consolidation of corporate power. In a true market system, on the other hand, democratically accountable governments provide an appropriate framework of rules within which people, communities, entrepreneurs, and responsible investors self-organize in predominantly local markets to meet their economic needs in socially and environmentally responsible ways.
In today's WallStreet-based capitalist economy, on the other hand, money is both means and end, and the primary product is phantom wealth, i.e. money that becomes increasingly disconnected from the production or possession of anything of real value.
Contrast this with a truly market-based "Main Street" kind of economy that is largely engaged in creating real wealth from real resources to meet real needs.
Wall Street is very good at making rich people richer, but it has no concern for the health of people, community, or nature -- except insofar as they can be exploited, as sources of short-term profit and phantom wealth.
Our recent credit collapse has drawn back the curtain to reveal the inner workings of Wall Street, and it begins to look less like legitimate business enterprise and more like a criminal syndicate running a lucrative extortion racket. The nearest equivalent in nature is a cancer that drains the body's energy, but produces nothing useful in return. You don't 'fix' a cancer; you excise it and rebuild the healthy tissue that surrounded it, from which it drew its strength. "Main Street" is the healthy tissue and the foundation of the New Economy.
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