The following three readings are indicative of the direction I think we should follow in 2023, leading up to the 2024 General Election. A more specific exposé deserves a book-length response, but the first article (from Robert Reich) discusses an important aspect of American Central Bank behsvior. The second reading is by Thomas Hartman (author of the Hartman Report a progressive commentary on American politics) is a textbook case of how corporate greed impacted ordinary Americans this past holiday season. The third reading is a guest opinion written by an antitrust enforcement specialist published by Matt Stoller in his Substack blog BIGG.
Together, these three readings provide a shorthand answer for my question: Where do we go from here?
The first article is from Robert Reich, a measured voice of the democratic critique of American corporate excess, the person I would ask to answer the question “What is corporate personhood?”. In this short article Reich asks “Is the Fed Dead?” and defines for the comon reader (myself) the idea of "profit-price inflation”, pointing out that corporate profits have increased at a faster rate than labor compensation.
Progressive talk show host and Substack author Thomas Hartman suggests in his article Was the Southwest Airlines Meltdown Impacted By the "Great Share-Buyback Scam"? that the deregulation of employee stock options as compensation under Ronald Reagon was a leading cause of the failures that plagued Christmas and holiday traveler at the height of the 2022 Polar Vortex.
According to Thom Hartman, Southwest Airlines failure to provide service over the 2022 Christmas holidays was the product of out-of-control CEO compensation schemes and resulting disinvestment in employees, equipment and traffic management systems produced by a transfer of corporate wealth through buyback arrangements outlawed in 1934 by the Securities and Exchange Act and deregulated under Ronald Reagan in 1982.
The third and final reading is a Substack article by guest author published in Matt Stoller’s Substack blog and previously discussed on the club’s Facebook page as “Antitrust Policy and Croporate Personhood” (cf article “Closing Down the Billionaire Factory”)
Joe Biden, quoted in Heather Cox Richardson's 11 July 2022 "Letter from an American" said, “[It is] competition keeps the economy moving and keeps it growing . . . Fair competition is why capitalism has been the world’s greatest force for prosperity and growth . . . [W]hat we’ve seen over the past few decades is less competition and more concentration [and] that holds our economy back.”
In other words, fairness requires oversight and enforcement of existing regulations, some of them earned at considerable political cost, e.g. the 1934 “New Deal” acts including the Securities and Exchange Act and the Federal Communications Act. In a sense, the return to "progressive" standards of social regulation requires a "conservative" will to preserve hard won historical precedents.