The Corporate Attack On President Obama

We talk a great deal about how the monopolies---monopoly capital---have a particular and commonly held political viewpoint. They make their profits by exploiting workers at the point of production, occasionally manipulate markets and prices and spread their investments in ways which generally guarantee that money makes money. There is nothing mystical or unpredictable about this or the crises that are created when overproduction or under-consumption take hold, when the rate of profit drops or when money stops making money at an acceptable rate for the monopolies.

These monopolies represent a distinct political force as well as an economic force on the world stage. Whatever competitive tensions exist between them, the monopolies represent a hard-right or far-right political force. When compliant governments adopt the economic policies championed by the Chicago School and Milton Friedman the monopolies institute a reign of terror in order to seize and create new markets and increase the rate of exploitation. They declare class war. This is brilliantly drawn out in Naomi Klein's book Shock Doctrine. More than that, they are now challenging some of the fundamentals of US democracy itself. The current economic crisis, which the monopolies are in large part responsible for, has provided the shock and fright among people necessary for the monopolies to push their political program here in the USA.

MSN Money asked, "Is fear of President Barack Obama one reason we're stuck with sluggish economic growth?" earlier this week and then answered the question by saying,"That's the message the CEOs of several major companies are sending out."

According to MSN Money, CEOs are apparently complaining that President Obama is unpredictable. In turn, they are not rushing forward to develop or invest capital, thus prolonging the economic crisis until they get their way. The MSN report quotes Cypress Semiconductor CEO T.J. Rodgers as saying, "We don't know what the latest great idea from Obama will be. Therefore, we are hunkering down...CEOs are uncertain, so they don't want to have the liability of adding a lot of employees."

Rodgers apparently went on to say, "Obama uses political rhetoric to demean me and my motives, but the fact is, I am completely happy with my motives and the morality of my decisions...My moral responsibility is to protect and grow the investment of shareholders." No other social force---not workers or the poor or African-Americans or even the small capitalists---could play such an obvious and publicly disruptive role and expect to weather the resulting political storm. No one else in society can speak so openly and bluntly about their self-interest and justify it with a stranglehold on your job or your home or your future. As the MSN article points out, "Profits are expected to rise 36% in 2010...And companies are sitting on a near-record $2 trillion in cash, money they could use to invest and create jobs."

Despite this and the President's inability or refusal to organize or even urge mass mobilization for a democratic and anti-monopoly program, or to push for legislation which goes to heart of monopoly power and control, company spokespeople for corporations such as Intel and Verizon believe they are operating in a particularly hostile environment and are saying so publicly. At another time their remarks would have been regarded as treasonous. Blackstone Group CEO Steven Schwarzman has apparently compared the Obama administration to Hitler while Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent has come close to comparing the administration unfavorably to the old Soviet government. James Tisch, the CEO of Loews (which apparently owns half of Diamond Offshore Drilling) has complained that Obama's commission to investigate the BP oil spill wasn't pro-oil industry enough. All were apparently offended that Obama once referred to some bank executives as "fat cats."

Obama's many friends in the corporate and monopoly-corporate world do not seem much interested in saving him or his administration. Among these "friends" and enemies of the administration are the real sources of funding for the tea party movement, mass privatization, defunding or eliminating Social Security, the attacks on labor rights and living standards and the extension of democratic rights to all. Any victory by these forces will leave gays, African-Americans, the labor movement and the marginalized particularly vulnerable.

This should give us pause as we criticize the Democrats and the administration for their inability or unwillingness to fight for change, or even for their own political survival. We need a big turnout in Washington, D.C. for the October 2 demonstration and we need a large voter turnout in November to answer these assaults on democracy.

If there are political losses for democratic and anti-monopoly forces now and in 2012, I figured today, I will be well into my 60s before there is a chance for serious political change again. My generation entered the workforce just as the recession of the early 1970s was taking off. If the most pessimistic reports are true, we will reach what should be our retirement age in the second dip of a deep recession or depression with little reason to expect progressive political movement.