I confess that these are ideas I was not expecting to hear from Sarah Palin:
She made three interlocking points. First, that the United States is now governed by a “permanent political class,” drawn from both parties, that is increasingly cut off from the concerns of regular people. Second, that these Republicans and Democrats have allied with big business to mutual advantage to create what she called “corporate crony capitalism.” Third, that the real political divide in the United States may no longer be between friends and foes of Big Government, but between friends and foes of vast, remote, unaccountable institutions (both public and private). …
The permanent class stays in power because it positions itself between two deep troughs: the money spent by the government and the money spent by big companies to secure decisions from government that help them make more money. …
[I]n contrast to the sweeping paeans to capitalism and the free market delivered by the Republican presidential candidates whose ranks she has yet to join, she sought to make a distinction between good capitalists and bad ones. The good ones, in her telling, are those small businesses that take risks and sink and swim in the churning market; the bad ones are well-connected megacorporations that live off bailouts, dodge taxes and profit terrifically while creating no jobs. …
“This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk,” she said of the crony variety. She added: “It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest – to the little guys. It’s a slap in the face to our small business owners – the true entrepreneurs, the job creators accounting for 70 percent of the jobs in America.”
Well, I certainly like that more than most of what I generally hear from Palin. (Though notice her careful avoidance of any mention of the military-industrial complex.) But it’s not her usual tune; so where’s this coming from, and why now?
WTH? Did someone forward her a Carson article?
My first thought was that maybe she had read some James Burnham.
She may have some connection with Angelo Codevilla, who has similar ideas in his book The Ruling Class. He has called her America’s foremost political talent.
There’s a certain irony in an admirer of Machiavelli calling Palin “America’s foremost political talent.” I mean, say what you will about Machiavelli, but — well, let’s just say he’d be more interesting to chat with over lunch.
He he… it’s good! Whoever Machiavelli was he was one of the smartest guys of his Age. Not what we can say about poor Sara…
I will take seriously Palin’s sincerity in understanding of “good capitalism vs. crony capitalism,” along with Romney-Perry’s sincerity in understanding their Ron Paul-copying rhetoric regarding the Federal Reserve.
And you’re right about the absence of addressing military contractor corporate cronyism. Palin is a warmongering militarist who wants to pound the **** out of brown people, pure and simple. And like Michele Bachmann, Palin’s also a Bible-thumping Israel Firster, who likes the idea of seeing “all the world’s Jews” migrate to Israel “just like the Bible says.”
i.e. Don’t take Palin seriously.
Nobody takes her seriously.
Including her own fans if I understand them correctly 🙂
Well, perhaps *do* take Palin seriously in one limited respect: she has the ears of a whole lot of people who are otherwise not given to the minimal degree of subtlety required to distinguish between “good” capitalism and “bad” capitalism, and hence might serve to lead many of those people away from the stupefying capitalism/socialism rhetoric that tends to make most clear-headed thinking about politics impossible. Palinites aren’t likely to buy it coming from Kevin Carson or Charles Johnson or Rod Long, but they may just buy it from her. In other words, take her influence, if not her intellect, seriously.
Come clean Roderick, she is and has long been a Molinari Institute deep (deep deep deep) cover agent who is really good at meta-theater.
Seriously, where can I get ALL buttons?
Maybe she’s deliberately lying low and doing her homework? Or at least listening to someone who does their homework? Who knows…
sonv.libertarianleft.org/distro/#buttons
I’ve moved from Southern Nevada, and the Distro has moved with me, but the buttons are certainly still available, and when I have the new ALL Distro website set up in the next week or so, that link will still work (thanks to the magic of HTTP redirects).
Comrade Hoppe also agrees with Kevin Carson:
“[M]ore frequently than not they [the rich] owe their fortune now directly or indirectly to the state. Hence, they are often more dependent on the state’s continued favors than people of far lesser wealth.” (Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy—The God That Failed, pp. 73/4)
“While the redistribution from rich to poor will always play a prominent role, it would be a sociological blunder to assume that it will be the sole or even the predominant form or redistribution.”
DTGTF p 96