Here Comes the Capital Strike

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Here Comes the Capital Strike

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From his seat in Congress, House Speaker John Boehner announced in mid-September that American business owners would continue to hold the nation’s wealth (and thus the public welfare) hostage until government granted them the “low-tax, deregulated world they wanted,” writes journalist and author Thomas Frank in Harper’s online.

Yes, in response to the murmurings of an ungrateful working class, our brave captains of industry have gone on strike. The whims of prevailing economic power, not a concern for the common good, should determine the amount of comfort, security and protection allotted to common Americans.

In reviewing the ruling class’ attempts to wage “capital strikes” during the New Deal era, Frank makes it clear—as Truthdig’s own Chris Hedges so often has—that the current imbalance of wealth in America makes political blackmail possible again. For the time being, there is no way to vote against the interests of the 1 percent. —ARK

Thomas Frank at Harper’s:

There were two distinct “capital strikes” during the administration of Franklin Roosevelt. The first, which is still referenced on the website of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s historical society, consisted of a decline in new stock and bond issues in the first years of the New Deal.

The second was a more general revolt of business interests, which were supposedly struggling to preserve laissez-faire political conditions by withdrawing investment from the economy in 1937, sabotaging the recovery and the chances of President Roosevelt. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes delivered a ferocious iteration of this theme in December of that year, warning that “the United States is to have its first general sit-down strike — not of labor, not of the American people — but of the sixty families [a then-popular term for what we now call “the 1 percent”] and of the capital created by the whole American people of which the sixty families have obtained control.” Should Americans yield to the demands of the walkout, Ickes warned, “then the America that is to be will be a big-business Fascist America—an enslaved America.”

… We live in a time when political blackmail works: The bank bailouts and bonuses of 2008 and 2009 were done on an emergency basis, lest the geniuses of Wall Street shrug off their burden and abandon us to Great Depression II. The Republican strategy during last summer’s debt-ceiling fight was simply to point a gun at the global economy’s head. And now, in 2011, the Speaker of the House tells us not only that capital strikes happen, but that the capital strike is happening now. John Galt lives, reader, and your task is to bow down and hail the Big Business America Harold Ickes feared — or be dropped forthwith into the poverty and darkness you no doubt deserve.

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By texanarch, November 28, 2011 at 11:20 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

A Capital strike? These guys act as if they are literally bullet proof. I suspect that they are not. The choices for the oppressed are being reduced daily. I am afraid that it will require violence and pain inflicted upon the 1% before any real change will occur.
Some of us have nothing left to lose.

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By moonraven, November 28, 2011 at 2:49 am Link to this comment

Gerard:

Since I am not together with you guys in Gringolandia, you may wish to reconsider speaking on my behalf.

I will be sucking it up with a whole different group of folks—none of whom is white.

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By mrfreeze, November 27, 2011 at 9:57 pm Link to this comment

OzarkMichael - Your comment: “People with money are afraid to invest it in the US economy. Uncertainty about the cost of hiring employees (including mandated future health care costs) and more importantly a great uncertainty about economic prospects are keeping folks from starting business or investing in them.”

Did you just copy and paste that from the Heritage Foundation website???? I thought all the top CEO’s and financial experts were getting paid THE BIG BUCKS to “manage” uncertainty and risk. Seems to me their self-appointed “compensation committees” should be reevaluating their job performance. I thought it was American ingenuity and creativity (supposedly coming from all our well-paid corporate board-rooms) that fuels our “exceptionalism.” Where’s all the “talent and genius” that corporate leaders brag about?

As for why employees are not being hired, please, give the health-care issue a rest would ya? There is NOTHING that forces businesses large or small to cover their employees with health insurance. In fact, since there are more employees out there for the jobs available, it wouldn’t be a problem to simply drop employee coverage. If employees don’t like it they can quit….there are plenty of others out there to fill their shoes…..right? After all, it’s just the economic mess we’re in,” right???

I guess my problem with your whole argument is that “businesses and business owners” inhabit a more ethereal dimension or something. I’m all for busting up a lot of large corporations (most of which are monopolies…the banks, the retailers, the phone companies, the Media….). Retaliation should take the form of HUGE governmental regulation and enforcement….

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By gerard, November 27, 2011 at 2:55 pm Link to this comment

Moonraven: As one human being to another, looks like we’ll all have to suck it up together, somehow. Nobody is inside any magic circle anymore.

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By moonraven, November 27, 2011 at 8:07 am Link to this comment

Gerard: National death wish—based on denial o guilt for genocide committed against indigenous folks. You become what you deny.

Suck it up.

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By diamond, November 26, 2011 at 11:22 pm Link to this comment

Bonehead strikes again! Anyone with a worse case of foot in mouth disease I’ve yet to see in public life - unless it’s Dick Cheney. But Dickhead is now semi-retired and has no pulse, so his outbursts of candor will be of much shorter duration than Bonehead’s.

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By Outraged, November 26, 2011 at 9:14 pm Link to this comment

Re: OzarkMichael

Your comment: “Screaming for retribution against
the people who arent investing isnt going to help.”

While its anyone’s guess as to whether you are this
stupid or you think everyone else is, for the record:

People ARE NOT asking for retribution because some
aren’t investing, they are asking for retribution
because of the crime spree wall street and the
banksters indulged in which then CRASHED the economy for which they then received bailouts and bonuses in spite of their ineptitude and criminality AND NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE ABOUT IT.

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By gerard, November 26, 2011 at 8:25 pm Link to this comment

Find out how Denmark does it. Investigate the workings of Sweden, Norway, Holland. Learn more about the inter-connected sense of responsibility in Japan. Are we just stupid, or what is our excuse? Lack of empathy? Loss of belief in democracy? Loss of self-confidence? Surveilled into silence? National death wish?

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By rumblingspire, November 26, 2011 at 6:06 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

theoretically, john galt has the character that would never ever take a bailout. ayn rand would have condemned the crooks that run todays economy. she spoke against gangsters.

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By OzarkMichael, November 26, 2011 at 5:47 pm Link to this comment

People with money are afraid to invest it in the US economy. Uncertainty about the cost of hiring employees (including mandated future health care costs) and more importantly a great uncertainty about economic prospects are keeping folks from starting business or investing in them.

It isnt a plot, it isnt an evil intention. Its just the econonomic mess we are in. Screaming for retribution against the people who arent investing isnt going to help.

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By greg_2, November 26, 2011 at 4:58 pm Link to this comment

Tax collectors don’t go to Heaven, that is why the Christian Conservatives do not want to raise taxes.

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By oregoncharles, November 26, 2011 at 12:22 pm Link to this comment

“For the time being, there is no way to vote against the interests of the 1 percent. —ARK”

That’s a flagrant lie. You certainly can’t do it by voting for Democrats, since they’ve long since sold their party to the 1%. But you do have an alternative: the Green Party, http://www.gp.org.

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