"Welfare in America is supposed to be a safety net for those in need, but instead, it's become an insider's game of power and profit."
~ Peter Schweizer (quote taken from page 8)
Ralph Nader, the longtime consumer activist for many decades now, has written another book that many critics are hailing as his most focused book calling for action yet. In "Unstoppable", he says that a convergence between liberals and conservatives must happen if we are to cooperate to end the de facto corporate supremacy that not only exists, but has driven the government agenda now for decades, and has seen, time and time again, the best interests of the American citizens that Congress and the President is supposed to represent yield to what is in the best interests of corporations.
The agenda of the corporatists (as they are called in this book) knows no boundaries, and even though it claims to be a conservative philosophy, it is in fact not derived from either conservative or liberal thinking. It is a remarkably elastic, hyper opportunistic lobbying force with what Nader calls a "laser-like focus" on profits at any cost. Having funded the campaigns of many prominent politicians, the corporatist lobby has turned both the Congress and the White House effectively into little more than rubber stamp agencies that legally legitimize corporate supremacy, and revealing time and time again just how deeply this corruption runs within the top echelons of power. To that end, the United States has now fought in illegal wars at huge costs to the taxpayer, and seen private interests grab wealthy resources from publicly owned land either for free, or for bargain basement prices - wealth that, Nader reminds us - was stolen from the American people. The successful corporatist approach has been terribly detrimental to the environment, and has largely been responsible for driving living standards down. In the meantime, the American taxpayer winds up footing the bill when so-called "too big to fail" banks find themselves, through their own fault, nearing the abyss. They received a huge payout, and then continued the same policies that got them into trouble in the first place, such as huge bonuses for executives.
It has reached the point of being a crisis, as things have gotten so bad now, that many on the left and the right can basically completely agree that corporate supremacy run amok has had disastrous consequences and needs to be stopped. Yet, these two sides often have been unable, and too often unwilling, to work together to effect necessary changes. But it is difficult to work with those that you disagree with on so many issues, of course, as "often certain basic differences between Left and Right outlooks seem to freeze conservatives, who will not work with liberals, even when there is an avowed similarity of interest concerning certain issues. The same is true for many liberal activists and writers." (p. 130)
But the two sides have more in common, perhaps even far more in common, than they realize. The icy spirit of gridlock that has prevailed for so long needs to be thawed, and the two sides need to come together, need their collective strength, in order to rein in the corporatist agenda that has grown even more greedy, and ever more efficient at getting what it wants.
Nader starts the book off with some examples of when liberals and conservatives worked together to achieve some stunning political victories. He mentioned, specifically, the Clinch River Breeder Reactor in Tennessee, which had support from both the Nixon and Reagan White Houses, as well as much support in Congress, and a lot of support from the nuclear industry and those in construction and engineering. The proposed project raked in some big money, too. But conservatives were outraged by the skyrocketing costs - far, far more than the original projections - while liberals were outraged by the detrimental impact this might have to the local environment, and suggested that large quantities of the lethal product would pose a security risk, as crude nuclear weapons could potentially be made from them. With both many liberals and conservatives opposed to the Breeder project, it became easier for members of Congress to voice their own opposition to it, without the political stigma attached to siding with the other party. The other left-right alliance that he cites was also from the eighties, with the False Claims Amendment Act of 1986, which allowed people to be protected when they report fraud. It's stated intention was that it "levels the playing field in the contest between corporate greed and personal conscience." (p. 3) The act was a success, and billions and billions of dollars of fraud were reported!
There are plenty of other issues that the left and right can join together on. What it takes, Nader points out, is what Republican Bruce Fein calls "advocacy without an agenda" (p. 5).
Nader explored how the corporatists have hijacked conservatism to forward a very narrow agenda that is decidedly not conservative at all. While President Reagan was in the White House, for example, many of the very conservative principles that he espoused in words were decidedly lacking in his record. Yet, he repeated the same themes over and over again, urging the need for "a strong defense, lower taxes and less government" (p 6), and even though he often did not deliver on these things as he promised he would, his image as a conservative icon remained because, as Nader suggests, Reagan "knew the hypnotic power of a slogan endlessly repeated."(p.6)
Corporatism has prevailed ever since in the United States, as it continues to "deliver a weaker economy for a majority of Americans, a weaker democratic society, and record riches for the few". Corporatists may profess a conservative ideology but, Nader points out, they are remarkably flexible in using the policies of either ideology to their benefit. They can, with a straight face, advocate cuts in government programs and deregulation, while greedily taking advantage of corporate welfare programs that they profit from. Nader argues (p. 8):
"What is behind this plasticity is a laser-like focus on expansion, profits, and bonuses. Corporate behavior transcends the normal meanings of opportunism. Corporate action is easy because there is rarely any steadfast, internal, interfering moral compass in the way."
He explains that this is in part what President Eisenhower was referring to in his farewell address, when he famously warned Americans of the dangers of the "military industrial complex".
Nader at one point does voice his clear frustration at conservatives for having allowed corporatists to hijack their agenda, and not making more of a point of clearing the air that their are, in fact, differences between legitimate conservatism and corporatism. Calling out one well known and established conservative specifically, he says something that, frankly, probably is as applicable to a lot of other conservatives as it is to Bill Bennett, the man he particularly calls out this time around (p 126):
"Why has he not led the way, defending his revered life philosophy and those who share it from damage, diminishment, and contamination by the omnipresent forces of commercialism and immoral manipulative marketing to adults and their children? A few sporadic appearances against commercialism exploitation of children are not enough, given his stature and media recognition. There are reasons for thinking twice that are unfathomable. The Bill Bennett puzzle is one of them. I'll leave it at that!"
Nader comes out with an extensive list (pages 65-66) on the many issues that both left and right can agree on, and which the prevailing corporatist agenda stands in the way of. These include (but are not limited to) reining in the vastly bloated military budget, ending the system of corporate welfare with increased transparency and accountability of budgets and actions through what he terms "rigorous procedures to evaluate claims of businesses looking for a government handout" (p. 73), increase the minimum wage to a truly livable wage, fairer tax reform, braking up "Too Big to Fail" banks, allow taxpayers the right to sue previously "immunized governments and corporations" (p. 65), push for community self-reliance, greater civil liberties, restore Congress's exclusive powers to wage war, revise trade agreements to restore American sovereignty, protect children from relentless commercialism aimed directly at them (and against parents, who are pestered into buying these things), ending corporate personhood, putting teeth into legal enforcement of corporate crime, which he reminds people are crimes that used to be taken very seriously and viewed as such: crimes, an investor watchdog agency, opposing patenting of life forms, including human genes, ending the war on drugs (and the vastly overcrowded prison system), a strong push for a much healthier environment, healthcare reform, and the creation of convergent institutions (think tanks, perhaps, merging both left and right, with the emphasis on taking action where cooperation can exist between them).
Nader elaborates quite a bit on each of these issues later in the book.
For research in this book, Nader also studied the long history of the conservative intellectual tradition, and in the process, he dispels some myths that have led to misunderstandings and misinterpretations of what conservatism is. He explains that many of the issues and concerns that iconic conservative thinkers have expressed are things that liberals can relate to, as well. The prime example that he uses is that of Adam Smith himself, often considered the father of capitalism (p. 25):
"The Wealth of Nations argued that high wages were both economically and morally beneficial, compared to the "bad effects of high profits.""
He goes on to say that Smith was an "early forecaster of the corporate state, and quote Smith (p. 25):
"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of prosperity, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all."
Yes, there are differences in the priorities of the two sides, and the way that the two sides think. But they will need to overcome all of this, at least enough to get back the power from the corporatist lobby that has taken over.
And he notes the challenges that will come with the differences in opinions. As he points out during his long list of things where there can be liberal-conservative (LC) convergence, severe ideological divides will remain and, ultimately, have to be dealt with. I use Nader's own words when discussing more honest use of taxpayer dollar here, when he brushed off the inevitable budgetary divisions to come by reminding everyone that the system presently simply does not work. Yes, there will be disagreements, he says, but "That is another discussion, which will have to be gone through category by category." (p 75)
These differences in opinion go far beyond just the budget, for that matter. But for now, the two sides must put their differences aside simply to take back control of the country, before the corporatist agenda, the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about, continues to derail the nation.
The words of Thomas Paine may be truer now then when he first expressed them. We live in times that try the souls of men and women. The political polarization and gridlock that we have witnessed in the last few decades threatens to tear the fabric of the country apart.
But Nader reminds us that this sense of despair and irreconcilable differences are largely manufactured things. In fact, convergence needs to happen if we are to break the chains that elite corporatist have tied the American people in with their narrow, self-serving agenda.
All in all, this is an excellent and useful book for those interested in going beyond political and ideological stereotypes in order to focus on priorities that both left and right thinkers should surely have in common: namely, power restored back to the American people. It is filled with numerous examples of when this has happened, and where and how it could happen again. But more importantly, it is also filled with something that has been truly lacking in the United States lately, particularly in regards to politics, and that would be hope for a better future. That is the work of a true American patriot in the best tradition of such patriots dating back to the American Revolution. This convergence that Nader speaks at length about is absolutely necessary at this point in time.
I will conclude this book review with the words that Nader himself concludes his book with:
"Experience, it should be noted, can be antithetical to innovative, bold thinking that breaks new ground and invites new talents to emerge from settled personalities. Convergence is not for the timid. Convergence is for pioneers breaking out of cultural ruts to move to the higher planes of human agreements and achievement."
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