The system we live under is called "capitalism."

Just so we are all clear about one thing. The system we live under is called "capitalism."

 

The people who benefit under it are the capitalists.

 

ANY "bailout", etc., is going to be a bailout of the capitalists.

 

The aim and purpose of any such program is to help the capitalists.

 

That's what capitalism is all about -- profiting the capitalists.

 

Therefore, this or any possible plan will, first and foremost, profit the capitalists.

 

Will it help the rest of us? The answer is always the same. Some employees of the capitalists will benefit indirectly.

 

But "benefitting society" is not, and cannot possibly be, the purpose of such a program. Not under capitalism it can't!

 

Capitalism needs capitalists. For the last 150 years or so the main capitalists it needs are financial capitalists -- financiers.

 

Financial capitalists control the others, by controlling the supply of capital. Financial capitalists are the most powerful and -- as we now see -- the most important.

 

You can't have finance capitalism without financiers.

 

So the whole purpose of the government's actions is to benefit the financial capitalists.

 

That's how problems under capitalism are solved. Otherwise, it's not capitalism.

 

Some of this will "trickle down" to some of us employees and workers. Of course!

 

The financial capitalists can't function by themselves. They need the industrial, commercial, real estate, etc. capitalists, who will borrow from them.

 

And THOSE capitalists need us, the employees and workers, to actually do the work, and by doing it, create all the value that the rest of the capitalists appropriate, invest, borrow, lend, gain, lose, and spend.

 

Paul Krugman's column today in the NYTimes points this out too. "Cash for Trash?", at

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/opinion/22krugman.html

 

Henry Paulson is a politically-connected investment banker, and this plan is his. (Paulson succeeded New Jersey's own governor Jon Corzine as head of Goldman Sachs).

 

Naturally enough, his plan hugely profits financial institutions, while not necessarily solving the economic problems of the country. Obviously this is deliberate.

 

This is, after all, capitalism. The capitalists win, no matter what else. The British Empire crashed and burned in the 20th century, but the Bank of England and other British banks are still among the strongest in the world.

 

That's what capitalist politics are all about: profiting the financiers, who control the rest of the economy.

 

It's not a "mistake". It's not "incompetence." This is the way capitalism has always worked, since the 1830s at least.

 

It cannot possibly work any other way.

 

To ask capitalism not to work the way it must work is like asking a dog to act like a mouse.

 

* * * * *

 

So, let's complain, for sure. I'm going to write "our" Congressman, and the two senators.

 

But I'm not going to pretend I'm naive. I'm not going to say: "Make the government's actions benefit 'the little guy.'"

 

The capitalists -- mainly, the financiers -- RUN the government. The government always benefits them. It never benefits "the little guy", except as a by-product (they can't let us all die out, or there would be no capital, and therefore no capitalists).

 

Slavery wasn't made for the slaves, but for the slave-owners. Capitalism wasn't made for the workers, but for the capitalists.

 

But we don't have to like it. Any more than the slaves liked slavery.

 

And, like the slave system, capitalism isn't going to last forever.