Étiquettes
Bernie Sanders, crony capitalism, Donald Trump, Elections 2016, Gary Johnson, Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein, Wall Street
Emails released by Wikileaks remind us that the selling of the president to big business is complete
Donald Trump; Hillary Clinton at the presidential debate in Hempstead, N.Y., Monday, Sept. 26, 2016. (Credit: Getty/Drew Angerer)It is as Bernie Sanders has foreseen it, you might say.
Excerpts from various six-figure speeches that Clinton made in 2013 and 2014 reveal a politician who is not only quite friendly with Wall Street in private, but somewhat resentful of the American public for constantly attacking and scapegoating big banks for the financial crisis.
“The people who know the industry better than anybody are the people who work in the industry,” said Clinton in one speech. Reform, she continued, “really has to come from the industry itself.” In another speech, Clinton stated that you have to have “both a public and a private position,” which has cast further doubt on her trustworthiness among young voters.
Although these leaks don’t reveal anything new about Clinton, they do vindicate many of her critics on the left who have long criticized her ties to Wall Street and maintained that she is too comfortable with the neoliberal status quo. On both the progressive left and libertarian right, Clinton is largely seen as a symbol of “crony capitalism.”
Of course, crony capitalism — a term used to describe an economic and political system in which government officials and big business are closely connected, and thus promote each others’ interests over the public good — was the main target of the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign. The democratic socialist railed against the campaign finance system, which wealthy individuals and corporations use to gain influence over elected officials, as well as the lobbyists who have overrun Washington over the past several decades to shape policy that benefits their clients/employers.
Though Sanders has endorsed Clinton and is currently on the road campaigning for the Democratic nominee, it is hard to think of her as the reform candidate.
The Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee Gary Johnson obviously recognizes this, and made a direct pitch to millennial Sanders supporters last week in a campaign ad that zeroed right in on crony capitalism:
“[Millennials] supported Bernie Sanders because he rejects the crony capitalism that has become a way of life in Washington D.C. I rejected cronyism when I was governor, and I reject it now. Hillary Clinton? She’s the poster child for crony capitalism. Her entire life has been about government favoring the rich and picking the winners and losers.”
Throughout his campaign Johnson has compared himself favorably to Bernie Sanders in an attempt to win over millennials, who adore the democratic socialist. But behind the libertarian’s cordial pot-smoking persona, there lies a free market fundamentalist who opposes almost the entirety of Sanders’ progressive agenda. Johnson may reject crony capitalism, but for very different reasons than Sanders.
American libertarians are against the government getting involved in the private sphere altogether, whether it is to help business (i.e., corporate welfare) or to safeguard the public from big business (e.g., consumer protections, environmental regulations, workers’ rights, etc.). In contrast, progressives advocate a democratic government that works for the people rather than special interests. Libertarians advocate a “night watchman state” where the government’s role is limited to protecting private property and enforcing contracts, leaving just about everything to the unfettered free market, from healthcare and public transportation to education and criminal justice (Johnson expanded private prisons as governor of New Mexico, and would do the same as president).