Capitalism. Almost exclusively the province of white males. Blacks, other nonwhites, women, not allowed, although Carlos Slim Helú, Mexican, estimated net worth of $71.2 billion, with a scattering of billionaires from India, China, Japan, et al, are exceptions that prove the rule. Toss in a few women, including Oprah Winfrey, estimated net worth of $2.9 billion, into the billionaire salad. By the bye, I'd love to see Winfrey buy the Clippers.
But, I think Noam Chomsky nails it by the balls, below the fold:
From a February 5, 2014 Prison Legal News interview with Noam Chomsky, PLN editor Paul Wright conducting:
PW: Okay. The past 40 years have seen a massive increase in the U.S. prison population. The U.S. now imprisons more people than any other country in the world ever has, even including, you know, the Soviet Union at the height of the collectivization in the 1930s, even Nazi Germany. In your view, what has led to the rise of mass imprisonment in the United States?
NC: Primarily the drug war. Ronald Reagan, who was an extreme racist, barely concealed it under his administration. There had been a drug war but it was reconstituted and restructured so it became basically a race war. Take a look at the procedures of the drug war beginning from police actions. Who do you arrest? All the way through the prison system, the sentencing system, even to the post-release system.
And, here, Clinton was involved. Taking away rights of former prisoners, say, to live in public housing and so on. The lack of any kind of rehabilitation. The impossibility of getting back into your own community, into a job, essentially it demands recidivism. So there’s a system in place, mostly directed against black males – although by now it’s also African-American women, Hispanics and so on – but it’s overwhelmingly been black males, which essentially criminalizes black life. And it has led to a huge increase in incarceration and essentially no way out. It started with the Reagan years and goes on right up to the present.
Chomsky goes on to indict the period after the Reconstruction Era after America's Civil War:
The Reconstruction period. And it was not insignificant, like you had black legislators and so on. After the Reconstruction period, roughly a decade, there was a north-south compact which effectively permitted the former slave states to do essentially what they liked, and what they did was they criminalized black life. So, for example, if a black man was standing on a corner he could be accused of vagrancy and charged some fee which he couldn’t pay, so he went to jail. If he was looking at a white woman the wrong way, somebody claimed attempted rape, you know. A bigger fine. Pretty soon they had a very large part of the black population – black male, mainly – in jail. And they became a slave labor force.
A large part of the American Industrial Revolution was based on slave labor in the post-Civil War period. And for U.S. steel and mining corporations and others, it was a wonderful labor force. I mean, much better than slavery. Slavery is a capital investment; you’ve got to keep your slave alive. [But] you can pick them up from the state system for nothing. They’re docile. They’re obedient. They can’t unionize. They can’t ask for anything. I mean, we’re familiar with the chain gangs, but that’s only the agricultural aspect of it. There was also an industrial aspect. This went on almost until the Second World War when there was a demand for free labor for the war industry. And we’re essentially reconstituting it.
Counterpoint to existing cultural values, how the private prison industry sets itself up to flourish on the Reagan/Clinton largesse, Alternet, Aaron Cantú, April 23, 2014:
4 Disturbing Reasons the Private Prison Industry Is So Powerful
.... 1. Bankrolling Small Towns ....
2. Installing Friends in High Places ....
3. Receiving Secret Subsidies ....
4. Using Loopholes to Avoid Taxes
Read Cantú's article for the nitty gritty.