As numbing news of multibillion dollar boondoggles, scandals and swindles becomes a daily occurrence, now is the time to take a close look at the right-wing propaganda machine’s favorite canards about capitalism and the free market. In the wake of the worst banking crisis since the Great Depression and in the throes of a prolonged recession brought on by rogue financial institutions operating outside a regulatory system supposedly designed to prevent the very kind of reckless behavior and profiteering that led to the current doldrums, here is a short list of myths perpetrated by the corporate greed-is-good culture – myths that taken together add up to The Big Lie that is destroying the American economy, the middle class, and the good character of a once-great country.
Let’s begin with an axiom the US Chamber of Commerce, Koch Industries, Inc., Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Company, and Bain Capital, to name but a few, would all wholeheartedly endorse: state interference (“regulation”) is inimical to economic growth, job creation, and prosperity. And this corollary: a free Market is the best and only way to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number.
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