In American Theocracy, Kevin Phillips quotes Clyde Prestowitz, a former Reagan Commerce Department senior counselor, on the perils of the Republican infatuation with market forces:
America needs to recognize that many of the assumptions guiding its economic policy are at odds with the realities of today’s global economy. Its performance in a broad range of areas — including saving, education, energy, education and water conservation, critical infrastructure and workforce upskilling — is far below the standard of many other nations. America needs to understand that its refusal to have a broad competitiveness policy is, in fact, a policy. And it gives leading U.S. CEOs no choice but to play into the strategies of other countries. This policy, according to its proponents, leaves decisions to the unseen hand of the market. Actually, however, it leaves them to the highly visible hands of lobbyists and foreign policymakers. It is a policy that ultimately leads to impoverishment.
If all the areas Prestowitz enumerates were truly important to the economy, why, the market would invest in them. Instead, Bush, Congress and his acolytes at the state level, like friars dispensing indulgences, continue to grant tax breaks to the wealthy.
As with the corrupt medieval practice, there will be no remission of sins, but this time, the consequences will be real.
