4 reasons capitalism is morally bankrupt, dying…” Yes, capitalism is now morally bankrupt, a dying economic religion, thanks to the narrow, narcissistic behavior of the Wall Street banking community.”
Commentary: America’s big banks are self-destructing
By Paul B. Farrell
MarketWatch.com
July 31, 2013
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Warning: “Capitalism as we knew it is dead.” What an indictment: “Capitalism … dead.” Just a few years ago. A grabber in the Economist. But even if Wall Street banks ran that message as a public admission, in flashing neon lights racing around Morgan Stanley’s Times Square ticker every day for the past three years … it wouldn’t matter.
Why? Wall Street has lost its soul, has no sense of public responsibility, cares little about the rest of America. Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” established capitalism with a moral code for economic behavior, a secular theology in the Age of Reason.
Once a moral code for individuals and nations, capitalism has been distorted, manipulated and degraded by our too-greedy-to-fail banks, the Goldmans, Morgans and their co-conspirators who now care only about making short-term profits for a narrow base of shareholders and insiders, with no care for America as a whole. Yes, capitalism is now morally bankrupt, a dying economic religion, thanks to the narrow, narcissistic behavior of the Wall Street banking community.
So today Wall Street’s giant banks are back making huge profits, only for insiders and shareholders. Last week a Financial Times article cheered: “Wall Street returns to era of big profits.”
But at what expense? With wages flatlining now for three decades, as the long-term survival of America is threatened. That’s how the new pseudo-capitalism works. With 93% of short-term profits to the top 1%. And the long-term interests of the general public — jobs, health care, pollution — all irrelevant.
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