Thomas Frank on the Paula Gordon Show

 
Vandalism has defined conservative Republican strategy in Washington, D.C. during the 30 years they’ve ruled, reports economic historian Thomas Frank. All that matters is business, cynicism is the name of game and what remains of government is a plutocracy answering only to money. In The Wrecking Crew, he details his findings.

“There‘s no loyalty to anything except business. So they wreck the regulatory state because OSHA bugs them. Labor unions bug them. All these things cutting down their profit margin, They want 'em gone. Then look what happens. They cannibalize themselves. They revert instantly to Nineteenth Century capitalism, as we're seeing before our very eyes.

“This massive wave of corruption and scandal, the lobbying, all that stuff? Jack Abramoff (is) not a bad apple, he's representative. He’s the ideal figure of conservative Washington. What I’m talking about is conservative misrule.

“In Republicans’ minds, government is not a legitimate institution. The market -- now that’s legitimate. Vandalism is one way of describing what conservatives in Washington have done. Not playing by the rules is another. They believe that the state is corruption, only the market matters.

“This definition has been applied very successfully by people who represent the actual ruling class in this country, i.e., big business, the very wealthy, high net worth individuals, the great fortunes. They're the ones that funded and led the attack on liberalism ever since the 1930's and it’s only coming into flower since the 1970's.

“Republicans have this deep hatred of the liberal state, which is economic democracy. That's what has been under such brutal attack for 30 years. Liberalism is democracy not only in politics but also in the world of economics. A famous definition of liberalism is ‘Freedom Plus Groceries‘. That's been undone.

“What they have in mind is not just winning an election here and there, their quest is to make their vision of the state permanent. Permanent. That’s a word they use a lot. There are any number of strategies -- outsourcing, privatizing of all this federal work, monster deficits. Privatizing social security would be the A-bomb.

“The concept of the free market? That’s always been the greatest fig leaf of them all. They use it for the needs of business, the needs of the upper class. Of course when they need to be bailed out, then it’s ‘Forget the free market.‘ Even that goes.

“There's capitalism and then there's capitalism. In the 1960's when I was growing up and this country had a very equal distribution of wealth, it was a totally different world. The workers by and large were unionized. People had health care. Blue collar people lived next door to white collar people. It was the affluent society. Today it’s still a capitalist country but a very different one. And it’s not sustainable.”