The Dark Age of Money: Milton Friedman and the Rise of Monetary Fascism

[Octafish]

41. Economic Domination IS Political

We need to make the financial system work for us, not this toady's chummasters.



Another excellent overview of why we need to change the established order, meaning:

A System of Economic Exploitation and Domination

Wall Street and the Politics of Finance

by ROB URIE
CounterPunch
WEEKEND EDITION OCTOBER 5-7, 2012

In the early days of the Obama administration there was an opportunity, at least in theory, to reconsider the role of finance in Western economies. The financial part of the economic crisis that the banks created left them vulnerable and dependent on visible public support. And while Mr. Obama came relatively late to this history, his decision to wholly revive finance capitalism will haunt the economies of the West until banks are returned to their useful social function as utilities.

Public anger over outsized paychecks, predatory practices and freedom from liability for several decades of straightforwardly criminal behavior aside, banks and the debt based economy they produce force the most destructive elements of capitalism onto a fragile world. Ironically, finance capitalism produces monumental wealth redistribution, the great boogieman of capitalist economists, and serves to justify acts of human and environmental devastation that, when viewed on their own, are quite obviously insane. And while this tendency can be attributed to capitalism in general, financial leverage adds a structural element to economic production that amplifies the worst tendencies of capitalism. The existing system of global finance must be gotten out of the way before less destructive modes of economic life are possible.

SNIP...

Whatever the visceral anger toward Wall Street, the reasons why finance capitalism must be ended and banking returned to its social purpose as a utility are analytical. While financial crashes like that of 2008 are emblematic of systemic instability, it is the transfer of social wealth from labor to finance that is most socially, economically and politically destructive. The focus of official Washington on restoring the existing system as a means to restore economic vitality gets it exactly wrong. And calls to simply re-regulate the banks ignore that while the banks were regulated financial profits accrued that allowed them to buy deregulation from a compromised political system.

Finance capitalism can’t be fixed because of its inherent contradictions. There is no ‘natural’ reason why banks, rather than public institutions, have the right to create money—that is a political outcome. And the political power of finance capitalism is more than just capture of the political system, it lies in the everyday power over the way that the world is set up—the relation between ‘natural’ needs like shelter, transportation, education and healthcare and the debt system used to ‘buy’ them that converts an increasing proportion of the product of our work to financial profits.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/05/wall-street-and-the-politics-of-finance/

Guess things will keep on keeping on, as long as We the People are the ones who pick up the tab.

Now that I think about it, it's probably a good thing some of us are still of use to Capital. Imagine what things would be like if they didn't need us, anymore, for that?