Capitalism of today is what Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations, 1776, called Commercial Society and we sometimes call a Free Market System. Merriam-Webster offers an 1877 definition: "an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market."
The beauty of this system is that under ideal conditions the strongest motivators of human action which include greed, selfishness, lust for power, are directed into activities that benefit the society at large on balance instead of what would otherwise likely be activities that harm society. This is not a totally fair or egalitarian society but one in which the extremes of deprivation at the hands of a cruel dictatorship are not reached - at least if necessary controls and limits are placed on just how far people can go in satisfying their less than savory motivations.
Without some limits, capitalism will devolve in either of two directions. With too few controls it will become a corrupt government of a few who hold all the wealth and power over a largely impoverished society. Examples are Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia. With too many controls it will devolve into a brutal dictatorship of controlled economy such as what we had with Communist USSR under Stalin and now we see in Iran and North Korea.
So, we need a balance of control. Enough control to keep the system reasonably fair with a broad distribution of wealth but neither over-controlled nor under-controlled. In our system, as so eloquently and intelligently stated by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence and James Madison in our Constitution, the government's job is to provide the controls with a system of laws that are fairly enforced. These laws being drafted by the representatives of the people at large who choose their representatives. Further, the true feedback to achieve stability is the fact that these representatives of the people who are democratically elected by the governed can be thrown out by the people at the polls.
This works only to the extent that the people who go to the polls have accurate information and realistic beliefs for making their decisions. In this technological age, with its flood of mass electronic media, one would think having accurate information would be easy. But as we have seen, it is as easy to put out inaccurate information and those with the greatest wealth and power can pay to get whatever message they want sent to the masses.
The combination of this ability to control the message with the new knowledge from cognitive science about how to impress beliefs into minds with carefully framed mass messages, has led us to the situation we are in today where the stability of our capitalistic system is threatened. Specifically, we have people in those states with the worst health care, worst education, highest unemployment, greatest number of people living in poverty and which receive far more government money than they pay in taxes, electing those politicians who want more tax breaks for the rich, want to not improve health care, oppose education reforms, reject federal money to help relieve poverty, and who support economic policies that will only worsen the situation (but greatly increase the wealth of the few who are already wealthy). How in the world can this happen in our representative democracy?
It happens because those who have gained enough power have learned how to manipulate perceived reality by controlling the mass messages. They do this with framed messages that reinforce certain neural connections in the listener's brain thereby establishing preferred perceptions. This is well explained by Professor George Lakoff, professor of cognitive science at Berkeley in his book, "The Political Mind." One process is to frame a message around the religious values held by many in the largely southern impoverished states, and pound it in with the Republican talking points that are repeated over and over, and with blatantly dishonest campaigns such as the Swift Boaters. All of this is so willingly broadcast by news organizations and enthusiastically by Fox news. In the George W. Bush administration this was skillfully orchestrated by Carl Rove who I call the Brainwasher in Chief. Achieving political power by controlling the message of course is an age-old tactic, the propaganda of Stalinist USSR and now the controls over press in Iran and North Korea even to some extent China are recent examples.
Policies of politicians that, while beneficial to the very powerful and most wealthy are at the same time harmful to the State and its people, if implemented, will pose the greatest risk to the longevity of our capitalistic system. We are in a time now where the stabilizing process of democratic feedback that should prevent such implementation is being severely tested. Will our system work to overcome the negative forces of misinformation campaigns and restore balance to our democratic process?
Clearly, current regulation and laws need to be enforced and others changed or created to prevent the current situation from arising again. We see the power of the powerful being exercised largely through the rampantly out of control lobbying channels and through the control of funds for political campaigns.
