GoFuckYourself.com - Adult Webmaster Forum - Barry Ritholtz says today "The Left Right Paradigm is Over: Its You vs. Corporations"

I've said before, Barry Ritholtz is one of the sharpest economics commenters writing and appearing on the (corporate) media today.

The Left Right Paradigm is Over: Its You vs. Corporations

Quote:

The Individual has been supplanted in the political process nearly entirely by corporate money, legislative influence, campaign contributions, even free speech rights.

This may not be a brilliant insight, but it is surely an overlooked one. It is now an Individual vs. Corporate debate ? and the Humans are losing.

Consider:

? Many of the regulations that govern energy and banking sector were written by Corporations;

? The biggest influence on legislative votes is often Corporate Lobbying;

? Corporate ability to extend copyright far beyond what original protections amounts to a taking of public works for private corporate usage;

? PAC and campaign finance by Corporations has supplanted individual donations to elections;

? The individuals? right to seek redress in court has been under attack for decades, limiting their options.

? DRM and content protection undercuts the individual?s ability to use purchased content as they see fit;

? Patent protections are continually weakened. Deep pocketed corporations can usurp inventions almost at will;

? The Supreme Court has ruled that Corporations have Free Speech rights equivalent to people; (So much for original intent!)

None of these are Democrat/Republican conflicts, but rather, are corporate vs. individual issues.

For those of you who are stuck in the old Left/Right debate, you are missing the bigger picture. Consider this about the Bailouts: It was a right-winger who bailed out all of the big banks, Fannie Mae, and AIG in the first place; then his left winger successor continued to pour more money into the fire pit.

What difference did the Left/Right dynamic make? Almost none whatsoever.

How about government spending? The past two presidents are regarded as representative of the Left Right paradigm ? yet they each spent excessively, sponsored unfunded tax cuts, plowed money into military adventures and ran enormous deficits. Does Left Right really make a difference when it comes to deficits and fiscal responsibility? (Apparently not).

I've always thought it curious that one rarely or never hears mention of corporate power and the corporatist control of politics by the rightwingers here.

All these rightwing dupes have completely missed the real dynamic and the real root cause - not surprising, because Rupert Murdoch, the Koch Brothers, and the other corporations who own the right won't allow them to even think about root causes.

As have almost all of the left wing dupes - tho, awareness of corporate control of politics seems more common on the left than on the right.

Ritholtz has been writing more often about the corporate control of the country, and I think we can expect to see more from him.

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/