Capitalism vs Corporatism

[aid632007]

I have heard people say we don't have real Capitalism we have Corporatism my question I would like to ask is what is Corporatism ?

Ron Paul vs. Michael Moore on Larry King CNN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF8gQfGEvsc

[Lothario]

Corporatism is a state whereby corporations receive government subsidies and/or regulations that will always pose a barrier to entry for new market participants, thereby artificially limiting the competition for existing corporations and/or artificially assuring demand for their products and services. That's why there's such a thing as lobbyists - the friendlier a corporation can be with the government, the more success they are assured. It's a tragedy.

[Vessol]

It's a tragedy.

Eh, maybe. To me its really not that surprising. The State has always interfered in the market and always will continue to do so.

[raiha]

And corporatism is when govt also turns blind eye to tax evasion:


Top 10 corporations which paid no taxes

Here is Sen. Sanders’ list of the 10 worst corporate income tax avoiders:

1) Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings. (Source: Exxon Mobil’s 2009 shareholder report filed with the SEC here.)

2) Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion. (Source: Forbes.com here, ProPublica here and Treasury here.)

3) General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States over the past five years and, thanks to clever use of loopholes, paid no taxes.(Source: Citizens for Tax Justice here and The New York Times here. Note: despite rumors to the contrary, the Times has stood by its story.)

4) Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009. (Source: See 2009 Chevron annual report here. Note 15 on page FS-46 of this report shows a U.S. federal income tax liability of $128 million, but that it was able to defer $147 million for a U.S. federal income tax liability of negative $19 million.)

5) Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS last year. (Source: Paul Buchheit, professor, DePaul University, here and Citizens for Tax Justice here.)

6) Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year, received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS and, over the past three years, received a $134 million tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction. (Source: the company’s 2009 annual report, pg. 112, here.)

7) Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department. (Source: Bloomberg News here, ProPublica here, Treasury Department here.)

8) Citigroup last year made more than $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. It received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury. (Source: Paul Buchheit, professor, DePaul University, here, ProPublica here, Treasury Department here.)

9) ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, made $16 billion in profits from 2006 through 2009, but received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction. (Sources: Profits can be found here. The deduction can be found on the company’s 2010 SEC 10-K report to shareholders on 2009 finances, pg. 127, here.)

10) Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $11 billion in profits over the past five years, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent. (Source: The New York Times here.)

http://www.greenpartywatch.org/2011/04/30/top-10-corporations-who-paid-no-taxes/

[raiha]

Corporatism is a state whereby corporations receive government subsidies and/or regulations that will always pose a barrier to entry for new market participants, thereby artificially limiting the competition for existing corporations and/or artificially assuring demand for their products and services. That's why there's such a thing as lobbyists - the friendlier a corporation can be with the government, the more success they are assured. It's a tragedy.
+Rep...nicely put.

[Travlyr]

And corporatism is when govt also turns blind eye to tax evasion:

Top 10 corporations which paid no taxes

Forcing corporations to pay more taxes does nothing to help advance liberty.

[sratiug]

Corporations in the US are only chartered by states. There are no national corporations. The federal government has no power to charter corporations and thus corporations do not really exist excepting those chartered by your own state.

[awake]

Corporatism in my own opinion is the act of people or groups of people in the market using the state (force and violence) to advance their position in the market and handicapping or eliminating other people offering similar goods and services. Using the state to take what they would otherwise not have gotten.

It's just like walking around with a gun and telling any one who sells what your selling to stop it or you might shoot them, or short of that ordering them into following a bunch of regulations that benefit you and hurt the others. The difference is that a third party is doing it; the very people tasked to prevent this kind of behavior no less.

The corporatist essence is that the state sells this 'service' for money and votes, and market participants are compelled to buy it lest they become the target of the so called "protectors"; put another way, corporations (groups of individuals) are buying the government to attack their competitors, or in the very least, to leave themselves alone - a form of defense. This is the lobbyists role: to facilitate an attack or defense by buying the services of the "representatives". It literally is the stereotypical mob set up - pay up or else we can't guarantee that your property will be protected *evil wink*.

Some corporations learn to use the racket very well...The others are the victims.

The government monopoly disregards its contract with the people - the Constitution - to privilege certain market participants. Destroying equality before the law and creating unjustness by design.