The USA CEO?

After Obama's recent declaration of the termination of GM's CEO, some have come to see Obama as the new CEO of the United States. Where is all of this actually heading, if anywhere?

The US government has semi-nationalized the banks with the way the bailouts have been going so far. As well, the government has actually taken over non-bank corporations (like Freddie and Fannie), but these are still a part of the financial, near-bank, systems in the US. Now, for the first time, Obama has set his sights of direct, top-level government intervention on a non-financial company: General Motors.

To the political right, this looks like socialism, plain and simple. The government is coming in and taking ownership/control of the means of production of the most productive sectors of the economy in a bid to exchange wealth generation for security. Curtailing of civil liberties will invariably and immediately follow behind, etc. etc. Despite how easy it is to point the finger at socialism and shriek in horror, this isn't actually what's going on.

What's going on is a knee-jerk reaction, not a well-planned conspiracy to undermine America. People feel upset that CEOs screwed up royally. They're also upset because they are being affected by the screw-up, but they had no power to prevent the problem. In short, we can "fire" our public leaders when they go astray, but when we can't do it to our private leaders (CEOs), AND we can't secretly transfer some of the blame to ourselves (because we never put them in in the first place), it makes us all very angry. There is no end to our righteous cries for vindication when we are being hurt by a power over which we have no control. It's not a "no taxation without representation" so much as a "no taking risks that can destroy us all without representation". The wording is different, but the sentiment is very much the same.

We do, now, have a way of remedying this problem through those we HAVE elected. If CEOs do a cruddy job, Obama has now made it possible (if not the responsibility) of the government to remove them, and put in someone better, as we can't remove them by ourselves. Depreciation of shareholder confidence and consumer advocacy is NOT the same as ousting someone in an election.

This GM step isn't, however, a step toward socialism. In order to socialize, the government needs to fire the CEOs and replace them with government agents. Furthermore, everyone needs to be put on the payroll of the state, the non-government bureaucracy eliminated, and the state needs to officially incorporate it into their system. While it's done this with the FDIC, and has somewhat done this with Freddie Mac, it has most certainly NOT done this with GM.

Instead, the government simply exerted itself as a entity that sits above corporations with power over them. That way, it gets to go in and do occasional actions (like fire CEOs) without having to do the tremendously complicated and costly process of actually running the businesses. You get all the political benefits without any of the liability. Sort of like arming rebel groups.

This "socialism light" is actually a form of corporatism. Corporations still exist in their non-democratic, closed off, profit-seeking ways, but they have a connection at the very highest eschelons with the government. The government doesn't tell them what to do (every once in awhile, perhaps, but it's not a planned economy by a long shot), or how to do it, but it's allowed to step in and commit drastic action when their seats are on the line.

Of course, you just might be asking yourself now if corporatism isn't actually a pillar of fascism. It is. Of course, we're not taking steps in other fascist directions like hyper-nationalism or imprisoning people of ethnic groups we hate, but this recent step is one that takes us towards fascism, rather than socialism. Remember that just because fascist institutions were destroyed by a total, global war bent on destroying it (a testament to it's strength, in a way), doesn't mean that the ideas have gone away, even if they've taken on new names.

Government power-grabbing without necessarily getting it's fingers dirty in the nitty-gritty day-to-day has happened during an innumerable amount of crises. This time doesn't seem to be much different. Who knows, maybe we'll eventually get our old mercury dimes back.