"Obamanomics" is the title of two books on the economic platform of the Obama administration. Apparently the phrase has a nice catch to publishers. But in the hands of Timothy Carney, author of this book, "Obamanomics" is shorthand for corporatism; the use of big government regulations to support corporate profits. This, of course, is not how most commentators see the new administration. They accept the rhetoric that this administration is promoting change by putting the interests of ordinary citizens ahead of corporate lobbyists. As this important book reveals, nothing could be further from the truth.
During his campaign for president, Obama carefully crafted a message of change. A repeated theme of the campaign was that big business had too much power in the Bush administration and his own administration would strictly regulate lobbyists and their corporate sponsors. Throughout the election, the Obama campaign successfully portrayed John McCain as a representative of "Big Business" while suggesting that Obama was funded by donations from average Americans. This myth is still believed by many Americans today. Throughout the book, however, Carney shows how fundamentally wrong this conception is. Obama received far more money from big pharmaceutical companies, like Pfizer, from big oil, like Exxon Mobil, from GE and Goldman Sachs, than McCain. Indeed, he received more than any other candidate for President in history. Carney carefully details the money spent on Obama industry by industry and in subsequent chapters describes just what all this money bought.
In general, popular mythology notwithstanding, large corporations routinely benefit from government regulation. Carney details several ways this can happen. Government contracts and direct subsidies are of course enormously profitable, but other effects of regulation are less obvious. One of the least obvious ways is that regulatory costs protect large corporations from competition. Consider for example the Waxman-Markey climate change bill. This bill proposes to limit greenhouse gas emissions by giving away carbon credits to industry and then letting markets decide how to price and trade those credits. Conveniently enough, the bill will simply give away credits worth 51 billion dollars to established corporations like GE, Exxon, and Chevron. But new businesses, hoping to compete with these giants, will have to purchase the credits. Barriers to entry are essential to a monopoly and markets don't readily provide these. But governments do, and so it is no wonder that as the size of the federal government has expanded, so too has the influence of corporate lobbyists who stand the most to gain under the policies of the Obama adminstration.
One of the key points in the book is that none of this has anything to do with Obama's intentions. Obama may well believe his own rhetoric. He may think (or hope) that he is representing the little guy against the power of professional lobbyists, but the simple facts are that when government largess is offered out, those with the most resources will be the first to collect. An example of how this logic plays out is Obama's health care initiative. Despite his rhetoric against pharmaceuticals and HMOs, Obama received a lot of money from this industry, far more than his opponent. During the campaign, he offered 4 solutions to the health care crisis: a "public option" (meaning a government run health insurance to "compete" with private care), opposing individual mandates (ie., requiring an individual to buy health care), subsidizing insurance, and preserving a tax subsidy on employer sponsored (but not privately purchased) health care. Now, the first two solutions are not favorable to industry and the last two are. And the current bill ... favors industry and will include an individual mandate. The first two campaign suggestions are off the table. Again, big business wins and the tax payer is left footing the bill. To paraphrase Gore Vidal, this is truly socialism for the rich and capitalism (with heavy taxes) for everyone else.
Carney examines every one of Obama's economic initiatives and finds the same pattern. Rhetorical claims to be opposing big insurance, big tobacco, big auto, etc, and signing or promoting legislation that will ultimately benefit the bottom line of these very corporations who often write the legislation! Carney does correctly note that none of this started with Obama. Indeed, George W. Bush also worked to favor his corporate cronies, though to nothing like this degree. But when it comes to what to do about this problem, Carney offers few solutions. He supports Ron Paul's campaign to audit the Federal Reserve (it would be nice to know how much money was created out of thin air to buy AIG and save Goldman Sachs.) But ultimately we need to recognize that the problem lies in government itself. Governmental regulation inherently favors the powerful and they themselves know this. Indeed, corporations have used governmental regulation to promote their agenda for the better part of a century. Anyone familiar with Gabriel Kolko's classic
The Triumph of Conservatism
knows that from the progressive era on big business has used government to protect itself from competition. What we need then, is to recognize the difference between rhetoric and reality when it comes to political proposals. That is not an easy task when dealing with someone as charismatic as President Obama. But reading this book is a good start.
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