Anyone who has ever read an editorial of mine would conclude that I’m not a socialist; that I despise communism; loathe fascism; and decry Marxism.
Most people would, judging from the tone of my op-eds, conclude that — when the subject turns to successful economic practices — I’m probably to the right of Attila the Hun in stumping for good old-fashioned American capitalism. It works; the United States is proof of that.
It is what has enabled America to become the industrial, technological and productive powerhouse that we are. It is what ultimately destroyed Soviet communism; and it is what drives ordinary Americans like Bill Gates to achieve extraordinary success.
But there is a fatal flaw in capitalism — fatal because, unfortunately, I see it as the ingredient for capitalism’s ultimate demise in this country, unless some serious political and cultural changes take place. Only under a capitalist society can this flaw be fully — and dangerously — exploited.
That flaw is greed. Greed and capitalism, will eventually kill this great nation of ours.
Granted, under a capitalist economic structure, there has always been greed. Some people even say greed is good, in that it drives people to push harder for success — and that their success, in turn, drives other successes, and so on. To some extent, that’s true and I’ll acknowledge that.
But as I pointed out in a column on Tuesday, greed — taken to its limits — can be inherently destructive.
For it was greed — a careless want of money, power, and influence — that most likely led Bill Clinton, along with the CEOs of Loral Space, Hughes, Boeing, Motorola and other major technology and defense contractors, to either sell or transfer sensitive U.S. technologies to communist China.
And as I pointed out yesterday, those sales and technology transfers will someday produce a reckoning this nation will simply be unable to avoid (most of our allies, too, for that matter, though most of my concern is for our well-being).
I also said such actions should be considered not “just good business,” but treasonous, because they cause harm and damage to this country and our people.
Greed drove these men to make these decisions. Greed drove others to cover up and hide those decisions. Greed drove some to make these decisions multiple times.
Capitalist greed; no more, no less.
“What are you saying, Dougherty?” you ask. “We should ditch capitalism?”
No, not at all; despite Clinton and Co.’s treasonous greed, capitalism is still the best way to go economically.
But like campaign financing, capitalism doesn’t need reform or change — it needs honest, principled players. It needs people who will force those players to put the U.S. first, to follow our laws, and to penalize and reprimand those who don’t.
There was a time when a guy like Henry Ford would never have considered locating an auto plant in another country. It was an American car; so Americans should build it.
Maybe that’s why Russian and Chinese cars are still awful but their nuclear missiles are top-notch.
And there was a time when even a hint of impropriety in the corporate world — as regards to selling an enemy sensitive technology or even potentially sensitive technology — was virtually unheard of.
Now, it seems, such sales are labeled as a “regular, normal” process of American capitalism, because “if we don’t sell it, somebody else will.”
So what has changed? Attitudes mostly, and the kind of players running the game. This includes the politicians who benefit from so much corporate largess every election cycle. Greed has worsened, in other words.
Corporate America and its congressional allies — who are in both parties, by the way, and are not just comprised of “nasty Republicans” (Barbra Streisand, pay attention) — have every right to use capitalism to compete, to get ahead, and to develop and market a better product for domestic and global markets.
I have no problem with that; in fact, capitalism is why Boeing is the world’s leading commercial aircraft maker and why the heavily subsidized, cumbersome (read “socialist”) Airbus Corp. isn’t.
But there is no excuse to jeopardize U.S. national security at the altar of profitability. Those who do should be punished to the maximum extent of the law.
Throughout our history, innovative Americans have given capitalism a great name. Time and again, our people have proven its merits over competitive economic systems. But when the fatal flaw greed is factored in, nothing good at all can be said about an otherwise stellar economic model.
The only way to clean up the world’s best economic formula is to root out its worst elements. In doing so, we should set an example for others to avoid; punishments should be harsh and offenders banned from the game forever.
If we don’t, then the prophecies of Marx and Lenin — creators of weaker, state-run and historically failed economic systems and who predicted America would hang herself with her own rope — will come to pass.
Again, I say, Clinton and Co. should be arrested, tried and convicted of using the world’s best economic model for selfish political and economic gain, at the risk of all other Americans.
How dare these people assume they have the right.