Why Big Money Folk Want to Return to the 19th Century

Teddy Roosevelt had it right when he made this statement in 1912. Throughout the 19^th century it was pretty much Laissez-faire economics meaning that businesses operated with little or no interference from the government. The result of such an economic theory was wild rides of up and downs in the economy for a lot of folk, but the wealthy made out like bandits amassing huge fortunes. This lasted right up until the 1929 stock market crash where several major wealthy folk invested in the stock market jumped out windows preferring death to a lack of wealth. And the common folk lived in a horrible depression that lasted until Franklin Delano Roosevelt; using Keynesian economics policies got the country running again. And by Keynesian economics, I mean that government intervened in the actions of business setting limits on them to regulation the economy so that it would no longer have the wild up an down swings prevalent in the 19^th century.

Or, what Teddy Roosevelt said was prophetic. And FDR’s New Deal worked for most of the 29^th century. You’d think we’d learn from that and continue such policies even though they needed tweaking from time to time.

But then along came Ronald Reagan who seemed to think, along with others (mainly big business folk) that we should return to the 19^th century. And we began our 30 plus years of less and less governmental intervention and regulations. All this led up the George W. Bush presidency when banks, Wall Street, and Large Corporations pushed it to the breaking point and we went into a major recession. The conditions of pre 1929 and then were the same; the wealth of the country was held by a few people, the top 1% or the top 1% of the top 1%. You’d think we’d know better but greed and risk takers, who risked other people’s money – taxpayers, ruled the day.

Again, one would think that folk would examine history and say we need to return to the progressive programs that settled the economy and built up the middle class. Instead we went further and further to the right; both parties did.

Obama, took the helm of a sinking ship and did a few necessary things to plug enough holes for us to survive but not prosper. The modern Democrats are like the Republicans of the 50’s, and the Republicans, led by the Tea Party moved to the extreme right effectively blocking all progressive movements. The result democracy becomes a plutocracy (government by the wealthy) as it did in the 19^th century.

I seem to write this article over and over in several ways and I guess I’ll keep on doing it in hopes that we can recover our democracy.