The Cult of More

“In the midnight hour she cried ‘more, more, more.’” Rebel Yell, Billy Idol

John Boehner, our lachrymose Speaker of the House, insists at every opportunity that small businesses will suffer and stop hiring new workers unless the Obama administration once again extends the Bush-era tax cuts, but like all Republicans who inhabit economic fantasy land, Boehner never cites any objective evidence to support his point, like the fact that a miniscule percentage of small business owners would feel any pain if the Bush era cuts are allowed to expire – as they should.

Not that Boehner need bother with facts – the commercial media is all too happy to repeat his tripe without challenge.

Tax cuts as be-all, end-all, one-size-fits-all economic policy are an article of faith in the ranks of the GOP and on right-wing talk radio. In Congress, Boehner, Eric Cantor and Mitch McConnell bemoan the plight of small business owners as if their existence is constantly endangered. Switch on talk radio – if your mind can bear it – and Limbaugh, Hannity and O’Reilly echo the message day after day.

Taxes are too high and that’s why our economy isn’t rebounding! Taxes are too high and it’s all Obama’s fault! That unholy socialist Obama is scheming to steal the hard-earned income of this nation’s producers!

Someone able to speak Boehner’s peculiar language should explain to him that George W. Bush’s gift to America’s wealthiest citizens has been in play for more than a decade now, and that tax rates are at historically low levels. The wealthy and the uber-wealthy haven’t had it this good in decades, and the chasm that lies between these fortunates and the rest of us prove the point beyond any reasonable doubt.

By Boehner’s “low taxes equal booming economy” logic, the nation should be swimming in employment opportunities and all those heroic, stalwart small business owners across our blessed nation should be happier than pigs in slop.

Those of us who reside in the real world of flat wages and insecure employment know the score: the tax code and the entire economic system is a creation of the wealthy, by the wealthy and for the wealthy.

Working people don’t need to be told the deck is stacked against us anymore than we need to be reminded that neither political party represents our hopes and concerns.

We know any claim Republicans or Democrats make about job creation is hollow unless it also reveals whether the jobs are permanent or contingent, with employer-sponsored benefits or without, at a poverty wage or a liveable wage.

We haven’t forgotten the millions of jobs vaporized when the misdeeds of our financial masters came home to roost in 2008, and we know the majority of those jobs will never return, nor will the lives of thousands of our fellow wage earners ever be the same again. For working people it was the shaft -- for Wall Street it was low interest loans and taxpayer guarantees to make the banks and hedge funds and financial speculators whole. And look how it played out: the financial sector recovered quickly from the crisis, resumed business as if the calamity never happened, and no banker or CEO need worry about being held accountable for the blood on their hands. 

As Bruce Springsteen sings in a song from his album Wrecking Ball, “up on Banker’s Hill the party’s going strong.”

What do working people get as the recession drags on and on? Fiscal austerity, hysterical attacks on Social Security and Medicare and unemployment insurance, rabid assaults on public employees, their pension plans and their unions, public education, teachers. Even the venerable Postal Service, reliable servant of the underclass, must be targeted for dismantling and sale to the highest bidder.

Millions of us reject the prevailing ethos of this hyper-competitive, dog-devour-dog, more-more-more age, not because we are brilliant or noble but for the simple reason that this insane system isn’t sustainable. Perhaps in their headlong dash to incentivize destruction the oligarchs have forgotten or willfully ignored the lessons of history, but not us. Wisdom, courage, justice and moderation are the values that make for a sane, civilized society; one built on folly, mendacity, injustice and excess must eventually collapse.  

More, more, more.

This is the rallying cry as the morning sun rises over the canyons of Wall Street. More luxury vehicles, more homes, more yachts, more Gulfstream jets, more penthouses; more money, more connections, more power. Enough is never enough. Grab one brass ring and another immediately takes its place. No matter how much one has, someone else has more.

The beast of capitalism must be put back on its chain and trained to obey if for no other reason than to save itself – and us -- from certain death.