Book TV: Kim Phillips-Fein "Invisible Hands"

Kim Phillips-Fein recounts a history of the modern-day conservative movement as she examines the businessmen who cultivated a culture that denounced New Deal legislation and championed the free market. This event was hosted by Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, DC.

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[rickbar123]

Great book. The right wing started out a bunch of greedy bastards and never changed.

[jazzbo66zz]

Capitalism uses Democratic government as a tax collector to redistribute wages through taxation back into the hands of business. This consolidation of economic interests has increasingly relied on the magical thinking of fundamentalism to rationalize massive poverty and repression in the name of a war between good and evil.

[FreiheitKampfer]

correction:

I said "Conservative politics is a way to use free-market rhetoric to push what is often corporatist despotism via the 'regulatory' regime and contracting."

but I meant:

"Conservative politics uses free-market rhetoric to gain power, the power of which they use to push what is often corporatist despotism via the 'regulatory' regime and contracting.(something which is radically anti-market)"

[FreiheitKampfer]

Better to be patronizing than blindly accepting. I listened carefully to what she said, and it's the same dribble I used to believe.

If you present ideas to national audience, you should expect incredulous criticisms.

I came across as insulting only because I was irritated with how much this unoriginal crap consumes mine and other's time..

Conservative politics is a way to use free-market rhetoric to push what is often corporatist despotism via the 'regulatory' regime and contracting.

[alarob]

Someone else did the thumbs-down.

My point is that your views on the market are now fixed - the result of your inward thought, not of sifting evidence, as this historian has done by reading and comparing huge quantities of archival evidence.

You speak very confidently about Phillips-Fein's views, as if you know them at a glance and have left them behind in your own advanced thought. Very patronizing of you. Wonder how much you really understand.

[FreiheitKampfer]

And what doctrine is that?

Every word I said was not a word I heard, it was from my own study and thoughts. I had VERY similar views as the speaker about 2 years ago.

Did you even read my comments or did you just run thumbs-down on all of them..?

[alarob]

Doctrine requires only repetition, not evidence.

You recite the creed very well.

[FreiheitKampfer]

What you see in the expansion of the political class is not the end of the market, therefore, it is unfortunately a change to the political market. Then businesses can bribe sovereigns who can hide their evil actions in mountains of paperwork.

[FreiheitKampfer]

When people say things like 'the market must be regulated', what they fail to recognize is that whether the market is controlled by regulators or by consumers, it is by the will of people.

It is dangerous to put your full faith in the choices of the FDA, and likewise it is dangerous to put your full faith in businesses. When the melamine in milk crisis occurred in China, the profit motive was not checked by accountability because of excessive bureaucracy.

[FreiheitKampfer]

It should be noted that the 'market' is the problem solving ability of cooperating individuals. The influence of a coercive institution like government, pirates, mafias, etc. Do not change the nature of the market, but only limits the choices of, and endangers individuals who try to be productive.

The 'liberal' market, no matter how great the power disparities between those in the political and civil classes, and no matter how common bureaucracies are, the 'market' doesn't end until life does.