As well documented in Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, Milton Friedman and the "Chicago School" taught their extremist "laissez faire" ideology as religious doctrine, with fundamentalist fanaticism.
Events have brought forth a "teachable moment" for the nation. The internal contradictions of the Friedmanist ideology have resulted in yet another massive market failure that threatens the global financial system.
It is essential that Progressives produce a new paradigm that redefines the true nature of the market, and of the economic system as a whole, that will be the shovel we use to bury laissez faire once and for all.
Follow me below to see some ideas of what that might look like.
We all know that for generations certain words have become tainted, the word "socialist" for example being equal to "devil worshipper" in most of our country. So we must avoid the historic names for alternative structures for ownership and control of the means of production.
Here are some slogans that are the axioms of a new paradigm for us to lead the American people away from submission to corporatist tyranny and towards a more egalitarian, de-concentrated economic system.
The market is not a God, and we should not worship it. For too long, the idea of the "Invisible Hand" had led people to dispense with their critical faculties when looking at the reality of wealth creation and distribution. This fairy tale has captured the minds of even the least educated (for which it is admirably tailored) and led people to believe that "the Market" can solve all problems with the utmost efficiency. Instead, we need to emphasize that the market is just like a game of baseball. Imagine there were no umpires? Or no referees in football or basketball? We all know the players will do whatever they can get away with to win, and if one person decides to bend or break the rules, the game falls apart and degenerates even into violence. Hell that happens even WITH the umpires and referees in place! The market is no difference. It is a game, a sophisticated game, and it has rules that have to be enforced to keep the players in line.
The economy is a tool, not a master. For so long, the objectives of so much policy is to support and benefit "the economic system." We need to keep wages down to benefit the economic system. We need to refrain from taxing profits, or dividends, or capital gains, to benefit the economic system. We need to avoid controlling pollution to protect the economic system. Hogwash. The economic system is a tool, a way of organizing ourselves to meet our needs as a society. Whatever happened to the utilitarian goal of the greatest good for the greatest number? Well, partly that got redefined into the greatest amount of goods for the greatest number, meaning you can buy lots of crap from China at cheap prices if you still have a job. But that model runs out of gas when gradually all the jobs that pay anything are outsourced. Instead, it is time for us to take control of the economic system, and make it our servant again. Use it as a tool, to benefit the common wealth. To meet the needs of the many, not the desires of the few.
When any of us are poor, we all are poor. The doctrine that poverty is a result of moral failure is one that serves only to rationalize the existing (mal)distribution of wealth. Is it not moral failure to cheat and steal, as the inside traders have done? Is it not moral failure to defraud and lie, as the CEO criminals in cases such as Enron and Global Crossing and many others have done? And yet, because wealth seeks wealth and fights viciously to protect itself, many of these criminals get away with a Golden Parachute. Whereas those among us who are born in the wrong place, who go to the wrong schools, who are of the wrong skin color, are struggling simply to survive, much less better themselves. When we not only ignore the least among us, but despise them for their circumstances, it is we who are poorer, it is we who are diminished. It must be drummed in over and over: we ARE our brother's keeper.
I hope these thoughts will spur some lively discussion and suggestions, and perhaps someone reading them will find a way to spread these ideas around, and we can make something happen. We need to new way to describe the world we want to build if we want to share the vision and get others to embrace it. The old language only locks us into the old ways of thought.