Hard Truth of Capitalism: Clashes with National Security
Part 4
My rejection of undiluted market fundamentalism (a.k.a. Reaganomics or neoliberalism) was an outgrowth of my concerns for national security. During my time in the ultraconservative, constitutionalist John Birch Society (JBS), I perused copies of The New American and its predecessor publication American Opinion. One of the recurring themes in those publications (and Birch adjacent scholars like Dr. Antony Sutton, formerly of the Hoover Institute) were the trade deals between American multinational corporations and our geopolitical adversaries (from the 1920s to the 1990s). This was a topic rarely mentioned even during my undergraduate years as a history major at the State University of New York at Albany. Needless to say, I was simultaneously intrigued and horrified by the information presented to me in The New American and American Opinion. I asked myself the question: why would the largest capitalists trade with the very gravediggers of free enterprise? Wouldn’t such trade undermine the long-term interests of the Western alliance, which protected capitalism? Didn’t the titans of finance and industry realize that such commerce buttressed dictatorships disrespectful of human rights and private enterprise? During my graduate school studies, I was able to seriously dive into the connections and later motivations for the trade between big business and totalitarian, collectivist governments. My sources included multiple books, interviews/lectures, and journals/popular news media. The latter were accessed through the Gale, Wilson Web, Lexis Nexis, JSTOR, and Proquest periodical databases. Interviews and lectures were largely accessed via YouTube and Google Video searches. Lastly, accessing the books (both print and digital) were possible through NetLibrary, Questia, local libraries, and the World Cat/OCLC database. As the evidence was pieced together, I was able to ascertain the motivations for the commerce between our economic elites and our geopolitical adversaries. Over a sixteen-year period, I was able to determine that the JBS explanation for these activities proved to be inadequate. According to the JBS, negative corporate behavior was the result of a nefarious conspiracy of the Eastern Establishment banker and corporations allied to “socialist” politicians in both major political parties. However, the conspiracy narrative eliminated the role played by a generally deregulated capitalist system and sociopathic, greedy businessmen in encouraging such trade. It is significant that the JBS, like many “conservative” and libertarian organizations and politicians, were (and still are) for a largely “hands off” approach to regulating private finance and industry. In the eyes of Conservatism, Inc. much of the problematic behavior of corporations and the superrich in general were the result of “big government” and “socialism.” However, the facts gathered over a period of sixteen years of study, proved otherwise. This essay will review the motivations for big business collaboration with our geopolitical adversaries, and the strategies of the latter to exploit the greed of our economic elites. While studying the reasons behind big business’ economic cooperation with our geopolitical adversaries, I asked myself an additional question: If big corporations and the superrich were so wrong and immoral regarding their justifications for trade with our geopolitical adversaries, could they be trusted on other economic issues (such as union busting, free trade, and financial deregulation)? Over time, I emphatically concluded, “hell no.” Blind trust in these institutions became unwarranted and even repulsive in my eyes. While studiously avoiding a general anti-capitalism, I gradually accepted the substance of the critiques made by the leftwing and populist critics of corporate power. Simply stated, the facts lined up with the critics of the wealthy classes as opposed to much of their apologists within the free market Right. The purpose of this essay is to present the historical evidence behind my assertions outlined in this paragraph.
While a significant portion of our economic elite uttered naïve platitudes that trade with our adversaries (notably Putin’s Russia and Communist China) would lead to democracy and peace, the core motivation for such commerce was greed. Our largest corporations and investors were not ignorant of the massive human rights violations and aggressive intentions of our geopolitical adversaries. Used to getting their way, they just didn’t care and placed their parochial interests above national security and freedom. Serious evidence and observations made by even some of our Founders confirmed the dangerous sociopathy which exists within unrestrained capitalism which places profit above national security and any form of legitimate social justice. There was an element of globalism mixed in with such sociopathy. In a letter, Thomas Jefferson observed how “Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.”[1] The motto of Otto Wolff von Amerongen of Otto Wolff AG was “our job is not to rescue the Fatherland but to do business.” It was significant that Wolff was a staunch advocate for trade with East Germany and the Soviet Union during the earliest days of the Cold War.[2] This globalist ideology characterized the attitudes of many a corporate executive here in the US. Dow Chemical Company Chairman Carl Gerstacker recalled that he “long dreamed of buying an island owned by no nation, and of establishing the World Headquarters of the Dow company on the truly neutral ground of such an island, beholden to no nation or society.”[3] Cyrill Siewert, the Chief Financial Officer of Colgate-Palmolive flatly admitted in 1989 that “There is no mindset (at Colgate) that puts this country (the United States) first.”[4] General Electric CEO Jack Welch openly declared in 1998, “ideally you’d have every plant you own on a barge to move with currencies and changes in the economy.”[5] Lee R. Raymond, CEO of ExxonMobil, admitted “I’m not a U.S. company, and I don’t make decisions based on what’s good for the U.S.”[6] When Ralph Nader sent a letter to executives (in 1997) requesting that they open their next shareholder meetings with a the Pledge of Allegiance to the US flag, only one (Federated Stores) responded in the affirmative.[7] Combined with this globalism is a complete lack of concern for the public interest by many a wealthy elitist. The detachment from Nation and our shared destiny is palpable. Before the 2008 financial crisis, a common expression on Wall Street was “I’ll be gone. You’ll be gone.”[8] Combined with this anti-national attitude and disconnect from our shared destiny as a Nation is corporate sociopathy. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg noted to a friend in a private DM that “You can be unethical and still be legal that’s the way I live my life.”[9] When New York Magazine reporter Kevin Roose snuck into a party thrown by major Wall Street executives in 2014, he discovered a group of plutocrats cracking homophobic jokes, making light of the 2008 Great Recession, and bragging of their financial successes at the expense of Main Street people and businesses. As Roose reflected, “The first and most obvious conclusion was that the upper ranks of finance are composed of people who have completely divorced themselves from reality. No self-aware and socially conscious Wall Street executive would have agreed to be part of a group whose tacit mission is to make light of the financial sector’s foibles. Not when those foibles had resulted in real harm to millions of people in the form of foreclosures, wrecked 401(k)s, and a devastating unemployment crisis…Here were executives who had strong ideas about politics, society, and the work of their colleagues, but who would never have the courage to voice those opinions in a public setting. Their cowardice had reduced them to sniping at their perceived enemies in the form of satirical songs and sketches, among only those people who had been handpicked to share their view of the world. And the idea of a reporter making those views public had caused them to throw a mass temper tantrum.”[10] In light of this evidence, should we absolve the superrich from any responsibility towards harming our national security (under the excuse that they are naïve or fooled by our adversaries)? No, I would argue that many within the super wealthy are ill-intentioned, narcissistic individuals who have no connection to our country or people, unless there is some economic benefit involved. Such short-sighted greed and lack of empathy provides a fertile ground for our geopolitical adversaries to exploit these negative characteristics of the wealthy classes to hasten our country’s ultimate demise. Perhaps Saul Alinsky, the veteran leftwing activist, captured both the unhinged greed of business elites and utterly ruthless cynicism of socialists when he wrote in Rules for Radicals: “As for businessmen, I could persuade a capitalist on Friday to bankroll a revolution on Saturday that will bring him a profit on Sunday even though he will be executed on Monday.”[11]
Historically, a number of corporate executives admired the authoritarianism of Marxism-Leninist and fascist dictatorships. There was an element of hatred for organized labor and workers’ rights, which is ironic in light of the fact that these dictatorships were predicated on uplift for the proletarians. Occidental Petroleum founder Armand Hammer admired how the Soviet secret police (Cheka) under Feliks Dzerzhinsky executed railroad officials who were scapegoated for train delays. As a punishment, these officials were taken to a courtyard and shot by the Cheka.[12] In 1930, General Motors Executive James D. Mooney, a major patron for anti-union causes, praised Stalinist central planning which provided “coordination and driving power” and kept “the unions in line.”[13] Texaco Chairman Torkild Rieber was a sincere admirer of Hitler who was supportive of National Socialism,[14] which itself was an anti-capitalist, revolutionary ideology. Back in 1973, the head of Chase Manhattan Bank David Rockefeller stated “…the Chinese are not only purposeful and intelligent, they also have a large pool of cheap labor. So they should be able to find ways to get trading capital.”[15] Cheap, controlled labor under the thumb of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). After visiting China in 1973, Rockefeller reflected in the New York Times on how Mao’s dictatorship achieved “national harmony.” Rockefeller wrote how the CCP fostered “high morale and community purpose” along with “general social and economic progress.”[16] Code words for totalitarian control where all individualism is suppressed. Tim Nerenz, a Tea Party businessman who was a Republican US Senate candidate in Wisconsin, traveled to China and denied the existence of “slave labor sweatshops” in that country.[17] In good eugenics style, Nerenz characterized the poor and the underclass in America as “…the growing legions of loafing sacks who think the world owes them because they breathe; eaters, Henry Kissinger called them.”[18] Nerenz’s good faith could be called into question, given the audacity and cruelty of his statements quoted above. As the head of the Oldenburg Group Inc., Nerenz also has a financial interest in China. His firm profited from sales of heavy equipment to the PRC company Zhengzhou New Dafang Heavy Industry Science and Technology Company.[19] As the old saying goes, “Follow the money.” In an interview with Automotive News, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk stated “China rocks in my opinion. The energy in China is great. People there–there’s like a lot of smart, hardworking people. And they’re really--they’re not entitled, they’re not complacent, whereas I see in the United States increasingly much more complacency and entitlement especially in places like the Bay Area, and L.A. and New York.”[20] This is concerning, especially since Musk is a prominent adviser to incoming President, Donald J. Trump. Musk could affect American policy directions towards China and even Russia. Furthermore, Musk could push Trump to adopt anti-labor policies, replicating China’s authoritarian practices at American workplaces. Historian/political scientist Michael Lind recalled, “I was at a conference with a young 30 something tech CEO from Silicon Valley and he said, well, we pulled out of Europe, because in Europe you have to negotiate with the unions…so we’re doing everything in China now. And so I said, but, but why? And he said, because in China, they don’t talk back. The workers do whatever you tell them to, but in Europe, you actually have to negotiate hours and wages and things. And this was, I’m sure this individual was considered himself a progressive Democrat, was worried about climate change, you know, supported gay rights and trans rights and all of that. Uh, but he had that slave master mentality, frankly. That I want to be the unquestioned autocrat in my business, uh, okay. And no one can interfere with my discretionary power.”[21] One can reasonably conclude that a good number of big corporations and their superwealthy executives have absolutely no interest in political freedom, unless it enhances their influence and profits. Furthermore, it is clear that many a tycoon are attracted to authoritarian systems as long as labor is cowed, disciplined, and oppressed. Remember this point whenever a billionaire appears on TV, radio, or YouTube bleating about “freedom.” To them, “freedom” and “liberty” is simply a weak government and complacent society at their “beck and call.”
All sorts of relativist rationalizations were deployed by wealthy Americans and corporate lobbies to stymie opposition to trade with the totalitarian adversaries of the US. One US manufacturer called the American-Russian Chamber of Commerce in New York and stated that he decided not to bid on a business contract with the Soviets because he and his firm were sympathetic to Finland. (During this time, the USSR was at war with Finland). The Chamber countered, “Do you refuse to sell to a man because he beats his wife?”[22] In addressing General Motors’ investments in Nazi Germany, its President Alfred Sloan remarked that as an international business his firm “ought to conduct its international operations in purely business terms without consideration of the political ideologies or policies of nation-states.”[23] The internal politics of Nazi Germany “should not be considered the business of the management of General Motors,” Sloan explained in a letter to a concerned shareholder dated April 6, 1939.[24]
Faced with criticisms for dealing with communist totalitarian regimes, David Rockefeller noted, “We have found we can deal with just about any kind of government, provided they are orderly and responsible.”[25] “Orderly” and “responsible” can be translated as meaning authoritarian where labor is suppressed. Thomas Theobald, the head of Citibank’s international division, asserted (in regard to bank loans to the communist dictatorships in the Soviet Union and Poland): “Who knows which political system works? The only test we care about is: can they pay their bills?”[26] A Cleveland-based company conducted business with an Argentine-German businessman named Ricardo Staudt, who was the number two Nazi listed by the State Department as residing in Argentina. When the company in Cleveland became aware of this, their official comment was “the war is over and finished.”[27] When questions about conducting business with a serial human rights violator like China, Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, described that communist country as “a top-down country” that “behave(s) like a strict parent.” He then elaborated: “Should I not invest in the United States because of our own human rights issues?”[28] When asked by Megyn Kelly directly why the NBA would profit in a country “that’s engaging in ethnic cleansing (China)” NBA owner Mark Cuban said: “Because they are a customer. They are a customer of ours, and guess what, Megan? I’m okay with doing business with China.”[29] In 1979, David Rockefeller asserted, “Just because a country is technically called communist doesn’t mean a capitalist institution such as the Chase bank can’t deal with them on a mutually beneficial basis; and indeed we do deal with most of the so-called communist countries of the world on a basis that has worked out very well, I think for both of us.”[30] Again, massive human rights violations and aggressive intentions directed against the US are not causes for moral hesitation amongst the biggest corporations and their executives. They willfully ignore the militaristic war cries of our geopolitical adversaries and the unspeakable anguish of those tortured and executed by these very same dictatorships.
On other occasions, wealthy capitalists admitted their greed above anything else. In March 1939, General Motors President Alfred Sloan defended his firm’s investments in Nazi Germany, calling them “highly profitable.”[31] In the early and mid-1970s, foreign multinational corporations maintained a preference for the fascist dictatorship of General Juan Peron over his communist rivals. They had a motto: “Better a lower profit rate than the People’s Revolutionary Army” (a Cuban and Libyan backed Trotskyite Communist terrorist group).[32] Never mind that Peron was hostile to the United States and engaged in a brutal repression of opponents. After a Spanish company opened a nightclub in Cuba in 1991, its manager stated: “I’m a pioneer in tourism here and Cuba is a marvelous country touristically. We’ll make a profit much quicker here than we could in my country.”[33] No apparent concern was given to how the hard currency profits generated by this club would buttress the repressive, anti-US communist dictatorship of Fidel Castro. At a US-Soviet Trade and Economic Council (USTEC) dinner in Moscow, its President James Giffen Giffen dangled monetary gain as a hook to entice assembled American businessmen to export even more goods and technology to the Soviet Union. In his speech, Giffen stated “This is not aid, this is trade…What we’re after is profit.”[34] (Giffen was the president of the Mercator Corporation). While present at a meeting of Soviet trade officials and American corporate executives affiliated with USTEC, an admiral recalled how our capitalists “were bragging as if they had just sold a ton of frankfurters.”[35] While profit is the lifeblood of any healthy economy, it can also serve to embolden the enemies of the US and the economic freedom we represent. Money, weapons, and technologies sold by our wealthiest corporations allow our geopolitical enemies to manufacture the armaments needed to attack the US. Furthermore, money generated by such commerce also funds the espionage and propaganda apparatus of our adversaries.
Other corporations and rich Americans placed the interests of foreign governments above the national interest. Why? All because of self-interest taken to an extreme. General Motors President Alfred Sloan stated, “We must conduct ourselves (in Germany) as a German organization…We have no right to shut down the plant.” An FBI report dated from July 23, 1941 quoted General Motors executive James Mooney as refusing to take any action that might “make Hitler mad.” In the fall of 1940, Mooney asserted that he would not return his Nazi medal in the fear that such an action might jeopardize General Motor’s $100 million investment in Germany.[36] USTEC President James Giffen even believed that it was in the American national interest to convert the USSR into “an economic superpower.”[37] Tesla CEO Elon Musk has signed onto a letter which pledged his company’s commitment to China’s “core socialist values.” He described the American-Chinese trade relationship as that of “conjoined twins” and opposed efforts to decouple the US from China.[38] In June 2020, the popular videoconferencing platform Zoom shut down an account used by Chinese dissidents in the United States and China to host an online commemoration honoring the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. Zoom, which counted former Trump national security adviser General H.R. McMaster as a member of the company’s board, rationalized this by lamely claiming, “Like any global company, Zoom must comply with laws in the countries where we operate.”[39] Ads in the (US-Soviet Trade and Economic Council) USTEC Journal portrayed the East Coast of the US connected with the western border of the Soviet Union.[40] Investor Neil Bush, who also chaired the George H.W. Bush China-U.S. Relations Foundation, was closely tied with the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), which in turn was controlled by the Chinese Communist Party’s united front work apparatus.[41] In a meeting with the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), a unit of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, Neil Bush repeatedly asserted that it “doesn’t matter where” COVID-19 originated. Throughout the speech, Bush made statements which were incredible from a national security point of view. He said, “Who cares where it originated,” and then reiterated “Whether it originated in a lab or from a bat or from the United States or from wherever–who cares?”[42] These attitudes dovetail with the overall globalist ideology uttered by many a corporate executive.
Big corporations and wealthy individuals knowingly collaborated with Russia and China in their repression, aggression, and human rights abuses. Du Pont de Nemours & Company noted in a letter (dated February 19, 1932) to Secretary of State Henry Stimson concerning the construction of nitric acid plants in the USSR: “While we have no knowledge of the purpose of the proposed plant, yet the excessively large capacity contemplated leads us to believe that the purpose may be a military one.”[43] Hans Renstrom of Volvo stated that the facility he had seen in China “smacked of slave labor.” Renstrom stated that his company had been offered a supply of a “large number of criminals with labor skills” as “very cheap labor” if Volvo built a new factory in China. Renstrom recalled that: “I was revolted.” Several Japanese companies allegedly conducted business with Chinese prison factories and some Japanese banks lent money for a prison development in China.[44] American big business lobbyists begged the Chinese Communist rulers to temporarily hold off their aggressive moves against Taiwan until after the Congressional vote on Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) in the year 2000.[45] The multinationals also lobbied for China to serve as the host for the 2008 Olympics. They leveraged the Taiwan issue in order for Beijing to be chosen. The multinational corporations alleged that such a measure would buy eight years of peace with Taiwan.[46] Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson killed a Congressional Resolution which would have condemned China for its atrocious human rights violations, thus precluding Beijing from hosting the 2008 Olympics.[47] Ernst & Young, KPMG, Deloitte, and PricewaterhouseCoopers published ads in three Hong Kong newspapers which opposed the pro-democracy movement. They believed that the pro-democracy demonstrators would threaten corporate investments in communist occupied Hong Kong.[48] Google refused to work with the American military yet was more willing to work with the Chinese government in censoring China’s citizens and developing tracking software for the PRC authorities.[49] Nike, Coca Cola, Apple, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the American Apparel and Footwear Association opposed a proposed law that would have banned the importation of goods produced by Uyghurs enslaved in prisons.[50] Nike, Coca-Cola, Apple, HSBC, American Apparel, the National Retail Federation, and the US Chamber of Commerce attempted to weaken the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which sought to ban slave labor goods imported from Xinjiang Province in China.[51] The American remote-control maker Universal Electronics Inc. struck a deal with Communist authorities in the Chinese province of Xinjiang to transport hundreds of Uyghur forced labor workers to its plant in Qinzhou. Universal Electronics Inc. employed four hundred Uyghur workers in Xinjiang Province as a part of an ongoing work transfer agreement. These workers were allegedly transported under police escort to their workplaces.[52] Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft collaborated with the Beijing in censoring the Internet in China. Zhou Li, a systems engineer from Cisco’s Shanghai branch, reported that the Chinese People’s Police and the Public Security Bureau officers used Cisco equipment to stop any citizen while walking the streets. Cisco trained Chinese police in surveillance techniques as early at 2001.[53] IBM, Intel, Honeywell, Microsoft, and Motorola constructed military-related high-end research and development plants in China.[54] Corporations like the Carlyle Group and Boeing built satellites for China which allowed the ruling communists to enable communications between PLA soldiers on contested outposts on the South China Sea, strengthen police repression, and state propaganda efforts. As late as 2017, the State and Commerce Departments (despite the anti-Chinese Communist Party stance of the Trump Administration) allowed American companies to export these products to China.[55] American corporations in Xinjiang Province worked with the Chinese Communists in efforts to forcibly assimilate its Muslim population. These corporations included Kraft-Heinz, Coca Cola, and Gap, Inc.[56] American corporations such as Seagate Technology PLC, Western Digital Corporation, Intel Corporation, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company were heavily involved in Chinese surveillance efforts.[57] In 2017, the Treasury Department allowed American companies to export information technology products to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).[58] Honeywell knowingly transferred know-how to China for manufacturing castings and finished parts for multiple aircraft, gas turbine engines, and military electronics for the F-35 and F-22 fighter jets along with engine platforms for the F/A-18 Hornet fighter, C-130 transport aircraft, A-7H Corsair aircraft, A-10 Warthog aircraft, Apache Longbow helicopter, M1A1 Abrams tank, the Tomahawk missile and the F135, F414, T55 and CTS800 turboshaft engines.[59] One cannot claim that these companies and their executives (along with many others, no doubt) were naïve or blind.
Others admitted that they didn’t care if their goods were used for repression, killing, and military buildups directed against the US. In response to the activities of his company in the Third Reich, a representative of the German subsidiary of Dow Chemical replied, “We do not ask what happens to the goods we produce; the only thing that interests us is selling them.”[60] Dow Chemical used the same rationale concerning their sales to militarist-fascist Japan. Before Congress, Dow Chemical’s counsel Calvin Campbell testified that “Mr. (Hugh) Fulton (the chief counsel of the Truman Committee), we sell about 500 different products, the Dow Chemical Co., and we do not inquire into the uses of the products. We are interested in selling them.”[61] When confronted with evidence that exports from Dow Chemical were used in Italian Fascist chemical weapons attacks on Ethiopians, an executive from that firm callously commented, “We do not inquire into the uses of the products. We are interested in selling them.”[62] When fears were expressed that a $700 million loan disbursed by the First Chicago National Bank to the USSR would finance the Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) modernization program, a representative of that bank responded, “It could of course but we would hope not. We can’t control that.”[63] When asked about the uses of a loan disbursed to communist Bulgaria, Daniel Davidson, the head of the London branch of the Morgan Guaranty Bank nonchalantly noted, “For all we know, they may be buying uranium with it.”[64] In 1985, a major American computer manufacturer admitted in respect to his firm’s sales to the Soviet Union: “We have no illusions. Some of these are headed for the (Soviet) military.”[65] Cisco turned a blind eye to the Chinese Communist usage of its IT technology for repression, claiming that “our perspective is that it’s the user, not Cisco that determines the functionality and uses to which the technology is put.”[66] Loosely speaking, this is treason to the national security of the US and the values we publicly uphold on the world stage.
Conquests by Nazis or Communists were seen as opportunities by many a corporate capitalist. Texaco CEO Torkild Rieber believed that German victories in Western Europe would open up greater opportunities for American business in the Third Reich and Nazi-occupied territories. IBM’s boss Thomas Watson believed that his company would dominate the data market in a Nazi-dominated Europe. Texas oil industrialist William Rhodes Davis believed that a Nazi victory would allow his company to dominate the global petroleum trade. In 1939 and 1940, the German subsidiaries of Coca Cola and Ford expanded into Nazi-occupied territories in Western Europe.[67] The former editor of the CPUSA newspaper Daily Worker (and the CPUSA’s National Committee) Louis Budenz recalled, “…It was a Wall Street lawyer who admitted to me that many in Big Business were convinced that the United States should co-operate in making all Europe Communist, on the grounds that the United States could trade peacefully with such an entity. This man has wide business relations and political friendships, and he spoke for others beside himself in expressing that view. I do not mean to imply that all Wall Street is going pro-Communist; but I do mean to say quite definitely that in my experience many men connected with Wall Street look upon Soviet Russia more as a market than as a menace to American independence.”[68] Former CPUSA National Committee member/lawyer Bella Dodd explained in her book School of Darkness that so-called “progressive businessmen” were “those who were willing to go along on an international program of communism. The lure was attractive: expanded profits from trade with the Soviets. The price to be paid was unimportant to these well-fed, well-heeled men, who felt the world was their oyster. The price was respectability for communism at home and leadership of the Soviets abroad.”[69] This illustrated how big corporations threw their lot in with both sides during World War II and the Cold War. Lord only knows what opportunities they will seek out in a world dominated by Russia and China. (Heaven forbid!)
Even during World War II, American firms knowingly traded with Nazi Germany and militarist Japan directly or through intermediaries. By 1938, Japan received the vast majority of its scrap iron, machine tools, and strategic materials (vanadium, molybdenum, copper, fuel and special distillates) from the United States.[70] Even after the Americans enacted sanctions in 1940 certain critical products such as oil were exempted. During this period, Japan purchased American oil, drilling equipment, storage tanks, and other supplies.[71] General Motors factories in Nazi Germany produced bomber and jet fighter propulsion systems for the Luftwaffe. In 1938, Ford Motor Company opened a truck assembly plant in Berlin, whose “real purpose” according to US Army Intelligence, was to manufacture “troop transport-type” vehicles for the Wehrmacht. Subsidiaries of Ford and General Motors in Germany produced seventy percent of the Third Reich’s medium and heavy trucks and ninety percent of its armored half ton trucks.[72] American oil firms also sold massive quantities of oil to the Nazis throughout the 1930s.[73] Standard Oil assisted the Nazis in the production of synthetic rubber and high octane aviation fuel.[74] Bendix Aviation provided Germany with aircraft and diesel engine starters.[75] Decades after the end of World War II, the former Nazi Minister of Armaments and War Production Albert Speer admitted that “without the synthetic fuel technology provided by General Motors to IG Farben at the request of the Nazi regime, Germany would never have even considered invading Poland.”[76] America’s corporate involvement in building up Nazi Germany was summarized in a 1936 cable by American Ambassador William Dodd, “At the present moment more than a hundred American corporations have subsidiaries here or cooperative understandings. The Du Ponts have three allies in Germany that are aiding in the armament business. Their chief ally is the I. G. Farben Company, a part of the Government which gives 200,000 marks a year to one propaganda organization operating on American opinion. Standard Oil Company (New York sub-company) sent $2,000,000 here in December 1933 and has made $500,000 a year helping Germans make Ersatz gas for war purposes; but Standard Oil cannot take any of its earnings out of the country except in goods. They do little of this, report their earnings at home, but do not explain the facts. The International Harvester Company president told me their business here rose 33% a year (arms manufacture, I believe), but they could take nothing out. Even our airplanes people have secret arrangement with Krupps. General Motor Company and Ford do enormous businesses here through their subsidiaries and take no profits out. I mention these facts because they complicate things and add to war dangers. If you wish proof of this story, talk with our Commercial Attaché here, Douglas Miller, in the United States till early December.”[77] According to the head of the American Consulate in Germany George Messersmith, American firms allowed their capital in Nazi Germany to be “used for the maintenance of the German industrial program and in some important directions for German rearmament, which is obviously not intended for defensive but for aggressive measures.” Messersmith reported that American businessmen “are not blind to all of this…Perhaps they may yet find themselves in a position where they will consider it better policy to let the investments go to nothing rather than permit this capital and their organizations being used as a part of this tremendous armament program so definitely directed against the peace of the world.”[78] Even on the eve of the Pearl Harbor attack by Japan (December 7, 1941) and afterward, American corporations traded with Nazi Germany. In 1940 and 1941, American oil companies increased their exports of oil to Germany. After 1941, these exports were transshipped to the Third Reich through countries like Franco’s Spain. American firms like Ford and Kodak maintained control over their subsidiaries in Germany through nations such as Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland. Executives and representatives from US firms met with their German counterparts in Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland. The German officials who managed subsidiaries of American firms in the Third Reich also communicated with their head offices in the US through wireless communications technology supplied by ITT. Standard Oil and other American corporations shipped petroleum, tungsten, cotton, and ammonium sulfate to Germany through ports in the Caribbean and Spain.[79] The New York headquarters of the Chase bank were aware of the pro-German activities of its Paris branch and did nothing to stop them. The Paris branch of the Chase bank was complicit in financing the activities of the German Embassy in the occupied zone of France and handling the confiscated assets of Jews.[80]
Even in the years leading up to America’s entry into World War II, wealthy capitalists knowingly broke American export control laws in order to profit from commerce with fascist and communist countries. According to Arnold Offner, American firms trading with Nazi Germany “pursued private profit even to the detriment of public and national long-range interest, frequently using methods that were not only frowned upon by the government but illegal.”[81] As early as 1935, American businessmen knowingly imported German goods without being marked “Made in Germany.” Hence, these German goods would avoid the tariffs levied, thus garnering higher profits for both the participating American businessmen and the Nazis.[82] In a conversation with Charles Viar, former CIA Counterintelligence Chief James Angleton recalled how the Nazis were able to obtain copies of the insurance policies of large industrial corporations in Western Europe (which were also obtained by the OSS, using threats and bribes). These insurance policies contained critical information on these industrial plants, which were useful for targeting by Allied aircraft during their bombing raids during World War II. As Angleton reminisced, “Imagine my surprise when we captured the Luftwaffe’s archives, and found that the Germans had obtained the same targeting data in precisely the same way…In fact, they had not only obtained copies of the insurance policies for Western European firms, but American firms as well. They had the precise locations and specifications for American military industrial plants up and down the Eastern Seaboard, and had they developed a four engine bomber comparable to our B-29, the intelligence data obtained from American insurers would have enabled them to attack targets here in the United States.” In other words, American companies sold the Nazis American targeting data. When asked why these firms weren’t punished, Viar reported “Angleton shook his head” and said “In our society some people are more equal than others; and the corporate rich are the most equal of all. The insurance policies had been merely the tip of the iceberg, for America’s largest corporations had conducted a brisk and profitable trade with both Germany and Japan throughout the war. Some of it had in fact been sanctioned by law, which provided certain exceptions for trading with the enemy. Most of the rest had been quietly swept under the rug.”[83] Angleton had his finger on the pulse of the problem: “In our society some people are more equal than others; and the corporate rich are the most equal of all.” A Radical Civic Nationalist government would seek to limit the outsized influence of the multimillionaires and billionaires on our political system. American firms violated trade embargoes and neutrality declarations in respect to the civil war in Spain, the USSR (after the signing of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact), and the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, which they renamed as their puppet state Manchukuo. By 1938, American trade with Manchukuo experienced a massive uptick. American exports to Manchukuo largely consisted of machinery and trucks, which constituted strategic items necessary for prosecuting war.[84] Ford and General Motors provided massive funding for the development of a semi-state corporation in Manchukuo, which owned heavy industries and mines. American machinery equipped these plants, while its American directors assumed shares in this semi-state corporation.[85] The United States provided some credits to the fascist General Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War.[86] The Texas Oil Company also provided funds to Franco.[87] Standard Oil supplied petroleum to the Franco forces during the Civil War. Ford Motor Company, Studebaker, and General Motors exported twelve thousand trucks to Franco’s troops. DuPont exported 40,000 chemical bombs via Nazi Germany to Franco. It should be no surprise that in 1945, the Spanish Under-Secretary for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Jose Maria Doussinague noted that “without American petroleum and American trucks and American credit, we could have never won the civil war.”[88] Since the summer of 1939, the Soviets were still importing vital, strategic goods from American companies via Amtorg, the Soviet-American trading corporation based in New York. In exchange for gold, the Soviet purchased tin, rubber, and copper.[89] During the height of the Cold War, American firms reportedly broke trade laws to channel vital goods to the Soviet Union. Cyrus Eaton Jr., whose father was a pro-Soviet businessman, recalled that his family’s role in trade with Moscow and its satellites “is one of the best kept secrets as far as East-West trade is concerned and there’s a very good reason for that. In the early days, before it became fashionable, none of the big companies wanted to admit that they were doing business with the communist countries, so it was always disguised through an organization like ours. Part of the arrangement with major companies was that we kept it strictly hush-hush.”[90] Author Joseph Finder mentioned that in the early 1950s “The chairman of Republic Steel…while profiting handsomely from his clandestine partnership with the Soviet government delivered good Republican speeches to the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce and other organizations warning darkly as was then the fashion of the horrible Soviet military threat facing America.”[91] David Rockefeller admitted in an October/November 1977 article in the Journal of the US-Soviet Trade and Economic Council that “At this juncture in U.S.-Soviet governmental relations which, of course, have always had their litmus effect on business and trade, it is of interest to recall that at The Chase Manhattan Bank we can look back to an unbroken relationship with Russian financial institutions that straddles well over 50 years. In fact, one of my older Chase colleagues, now retired, recently reminded me that although the U.S. Export-Import Bank was not able to carry out its original mandate of financing U.S. exports to the Soviet Union in the 1930s, the commercial banking relationship of our institution was never interrupted even in the darkest days.”[92] Perhaps the Soviets were not prevaricating when an Soviet Amtorg official commented in 1947, “Believe it or not, American big business is our only remaining friend in the United States.”[93]
During the times of détente, Perestroika/Glasnost, and the “post-Cold War” era, wealthy businessmen colluded with the Soviets and Chinese to knowingly break embargoes and export control laws. Former Czechoslovak Major General Jan Sejna wrote how each week, “…secret meetings took place in Prague between the Soviets and the international financiers” concerning money laundering.[94] Former Novosti/KGB official Yuri Bezmenov recalled that he “noticed private American jets landing (at Moscow airport), the occupants hugged by high-ranking communist officials, and then whisked away in government vehicles. When he asked his supervisor about the Americans, he was told that ‘they are our friends’ and that it would be best if he didn’t inquire further about such matters.”[95] According to a former KGB operative that worked closely with Putin during the 1990s and a businessman who worked with “friendly firms” (Soviet front companies), Western European companies such as Fiat, Merloni, Olivetti, Siemens and Thyssen supplied military goods under the guise of medical equipment: “The medical equipment–it was a façade. Behind it, the firm produced very serious military equipment. It was the same with Siemens and with ThyssenKrupp. All of them were providing dual-use equipment to the Soviets. These friendly firms were not just fronts, the way things operate now. It was major European companies.”[96] According to Mertha, the purpose of the Khmer Rouge front company Ren Fung (in Hong Kong 1976 to 1979) was to “facilitate imports into and exports from DK (Democratic Kampuchea or Cambodia) with countries who did not wish to be associated with DK or which had trade restrictions leveled at Phnom Penh.”[97] American businessmen even violated the spirit of our trade laws and collaborated with the official Cuban Chamber of Commerce in circumventing the US embargo.[98] Antonio Villaverde, Secretary of the Cuban Chamber of Commerce, admitted in 1982, “Sometimes we say we know we can’t trade with you directly, but we know this company in a third country that can. A businessman shouldn’t be governed by political nuances. He’s just a businessman.”[99] Ricardo Escartin, the former first secretary in the Cuban Interests Section in Washington (and DGI official) conspired with American businessmen to violate the embargo on trade with Cuba.[100] Some American companies were aware that they were collaborating with Cuba in violating the embargo.[101] Many of the American businessmen contacted by the Cuban UN Mission (staffed heavily by DGI officers) arranged for trade agreements with Cuban front corporations located in Canada, Panama, Jamaica, and Czechoslovakia.[102] After the “end” of the Cold War, serial human rights violators and anti-American governments continued to use corporate allies to circumvent embargoes. And these corporations knowingly engaged in these activities. In 1998, Frank Kittredge, then president of the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC) and vice chair of USA Engage stated: “USA Engage was formed because a lot of companies are not anxious to be spotlighted as supporters of countries like Iran or Burma. The way to avoid that is to band together in a coalition.”[103] Even in recent years, big business undermined American policies on Russia and China. According to Peter Navarro (who is the Director of the White House Trade Policy Council under President Trump), “Wall Street bankers and hedge fund managers” conducted “shuttle diplomacy” on behalf of China in opposition to the Department of Defense and the nationalist elements of the Trump Administration. Navarro claimed, correctly, that these “globalist billionaires” (whom he referred to as “unregistered foreign agents” of China) attempted to pressure Trump “into some kind of deal” favorable to China.[104] Even after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, some of America’s most powerful corporations refused to adhere to sanctions imposed by President Biden and Congress. American oilfield service companies like SLB (formerly Schlumberger), Baker Hughes, and Halliburton maintained and even increased their profits after other firms left Russia. The Russians imported over $200 million of equipment from these firms since February 2022. Russian oilfields using imported American technologies generated over half of Putin’s revenues.[105] There should be no doubt that such trade bolstered the Russian oil industry, which in turn fuels Putin’s war machine. Banking giant JP Morgan violated US sanctions rules against Iran, Venezuela, and other countries which are under embargo by America. In fact, Venezuelan government-connected businessmen laundered money through JP Morgan.[106] North Korea (with the help of China) moved $174.8 million to major banks in New York (such as JP Morgan Chase and Bank of New York Mellon).[107] America’s banks, hedge funds, and private equity played a major role in sheltering assets for America’s geopolitical adversaries. According to Michel, Yugoslavia (under its Socialist Party dictator Slobodan Milosevic), Putin’s Russia, China (under its Communist Party), Libya under Muammar al-Qaddafi, and North Korea squirreled billions of dollars in funds into anonymous shell companies abroad. He commented that “…more often than not, these dictators and their cronies and their oligarchs have turned to the U.S. to do it.” Chinese Communist Party leaders funneled money into offshore havens in South Dakota. Iran, Russia, and China invested heavily in private equity and hedge funds. Since mid-2016, Saudi Arabia became Silicon Valley’s biggest startup funder. How was this facilitated? Through the implementation of free market neoliberal economics in the US during and after the 1980s. Michel wrote, “The U.S. has seen decades of deregulation across its economy, often pushed in the name of easing burdens on businesses. This ‘pro-business’ ethos, ascendant since the 1980s, conquered much of the American body politic, on both sides of the political aisle…that ethos infected all of the industries that have transformed into the linchpins of American kleptocracy. In many ways, those attempts to ease business operations—and to attract as much capital to the U.S as possible—are the core reasons that the U.S. transformed into the world’s greatest offshore haven. After all, deregulation didn’t just open the U.S. to a new world of clean, legitimate capital flows. It also opened America’s arms to as much dirty money as the world could provide.” America’s laissez faire business culture aided China, Russia, and other geopolitical adversaries in money sheltering/laundering. When a Congressional researcher posed as a Danish consultant seeking to set up an anonymous shell company, one American company service provider said, “Regarding what information is required. None! Hard for Europeans to understand we have a word in our Constitution which is privacy!” When a researcher posed as a Pakistani official, one American shell company service provider cursed them out for their brazen corruption and their direct approach. However, the same service provider then offered to help the Pakistani official, at the right price for more than $5,000 per month. The service provider advised, “If you have a serious proposal, write it up and we will consider it. Your previous message and this one are meaningless crap. Get a clue. Just how stupid do you think we are.” States which became havens for shell companies (like Delaware and Wyoming) resisted Federal oversight efforts. Wyoming’s Secretary of State Ed Murray claimed that his state “will not compromise the privacy of our customers.” Bipartisan efforts in the US Senate to shell banking operations and other laws which would have granted oversight over anonymous corporations and their finances were killed by the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee Phil Gramm (R-TX). Some of Gramm’s constituents were Texas based banks that were destinations for dirty money from Mexico and Central America. The drive towards increased deregulation under President George W. Bush further decreased the drive to implement “banking restrictions and oversight.”[108] Once again, laissez faire economics and “conservatism’s” worship of capitalism and businessmen has impaired our national security.
Some executives sought to throw their weight against regulators and diplomats who sought to control their advocacy and trade with communist dictatorships. Totalitarian dictatorships were quite cognizant on how to exploit the power and egos of the capitalist class. KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov revealed in a 1981 conversation with Erich Mielke, the East German MfS (Ministry for State Security) chief, “…in the end, the business people (in the West) will prove stronger than the rulers.”[109] When Steve Jobs of Apple Computer sought to build a compute manufacturing facility in the Soviet Union (summer 1985), he was told by the commercial attaché at the US Embassy in Moscow that this would violate “massive numbers” of export controls which kept high technology out of the hands of the Soviet Union. Jobs exploded at the attaché, telling him with much arrogance: “Who are you? You’re just a bureaucrat! You don’t know what you’re doing!”[110] According to the former American Ambassador to East Germany Richard Barkley, the East Germans sought to manipulate David Rockefeller in order to gain political advantages in the United States. Rockefeller used his influence and power to skip the State Department bureaucracy and convince Secretary of State Cyrus Vance to hold a meeting with the East German Foreign Minister Oskar Fischer. Barkley and other diplomats in East Berlin expressed concern about the nature of this meeting, since “the last thing we wanted to do was to endorse an East German viewpoint that if you can get to the industrialist or the capitalists, the political system will follow.”[111] In other words, Barkley believed that Rockefeller was playing into the hands of the East Germans and legitimizing the dictatorship in East Berlin.
In other areas, some of America’s wealthiest investors knowingly impaired our national security in other domains outside of trade with enemy governments. Starting in the 1980s, American business became hyper-focused on maximizing financial returns, even if that was at the cost of production and R&D. Unfortunately, this cult of financialization entered the realm of the weapons production industry. This was outlined in a report compiled by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment “Together, a U.S. business climate that has favored short-term shareholder earnings (versus long-term capital investment), deindustrialization, and an abstract, radical vision of ‘free trade,’ without fair trade enforcement, have severely damaged America’s ability to arm itself today and in the future. Our national responses–off-shoring and out-sourcing–have been inadequate and ultimately self-defeating, especially with respect to the defense industrial base.”[112] Other major corporations bluntly asserted how war is merely a tool to garner profit and not the promotion of liberal democracy abroad. Sadly, this applied to American firms involved in the Ukrainian economy. BlackRock recruiter Serge Varlay claimed that the war in “Ukraine is good for business, you know that right? Russia blows up Ukraine’s grain silos and the price of wheat is going to go mad up. The Ukrainian economy is the wheat market. The price of bread goes up, this is fantastic if you’re trading. Volatility creates opportunity for profit…So what are you gonna do if you’re a trading firm? The moment that news hits, within a millisecond, you’re going to pump trades into whoever the wheat suppliers are. Into their stocks. Within an hour or two that stick goes f*cking up and then you sell and you just make, I don’t know, however many mil. The Ukrainian economy is tied very largely to the wheat market, global wheat market, prices of bread, you know, literally everything goes up and down. This is fantastic if you’re trading. Volatility creates opportunity to make profit. War is real fucking good for business.”[113] Not only does this harm consumers and businesses worldwide with increased costs, but it also discredits American involvement in Ukraine, thus confirming the propaganda promoted by Russia and its American allies.
After reading through the evidence of corporate maleficence and sociopathy, one could ask: are our geopolitical enemies aware of these negative attributes within our wealthiest classes? Our domestic and foreign adversaries are aware of how capitalism without proper safeguards undermine the United States. Our enemies use and exploit the tools of capitalism to defeat the very system they seek to overturn. This may outrage my right-wing readers, but the hard truth is communists and fascists better understand the weaknesses and negative nature of unchecked capitalism than “conservatives” and libertarians. Leftwing community activist leader Saul Alinsky captured the essence of both the suicidal greed of capitalism and the ruthless power-hungry opportunism of communism in Rules for Radicals: “As for businessmen, I could persuade a capitalist on Friday to bankroll a revolution on Saturday that will bring him a profit on Sunday even though he will be executed on Monday.”[114] One of the areas where we do agree with Karl Marx is his prediction that “What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.”[115] Why? Because the shortsighted greed of many wealthy folks and corporations will ultimately undermine the very system of free enterprise. Falling wages, free trade, outsourcing, leveraged buyouts, and exports to our geopolitical adversaries all undermine the very system of capitalism that Radical Civic Nationalists seek to maintain. This was recognized long ago by the founding father of communism, Vladimir Lenin. Lenin wrote in 1920, “It is with the motive of extra profit that we must attract the capitalist. He will get surplus profit—well, let him have that surplus profit; we shall obtain the fundamentals that will help strengthen us; we shall stand firmly on our own feet, and shall win in the economic field.”[116] In 1921, Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin reported that the goal of the Soviet Union was to make “make use of the greed of the capitalists for profit and the rivalry between the trusts, so as to create conditions for the existence of the socialist republic, which cannot exist without having ties with the rest of the world...”[117] The founder of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Mao Zedong himself believed that “people who serve us, through greed…serve the party, serve the designs of the Comintern, serve the cause of the revolution.”[118] Decades later, the CCP press organs and leadership echoed the sentiments of Marx, Lenin, and Mao. The People’s Daily of China noted on March 16, 1984 “In order to make use of foreign capital, we must have dealings with capitalists who are only keen on looking for more profitable outlets for their investments…”[119] Our Axis fascist enemies viewed our wealthiest businessmen and commercial culture as short-sighted and suicidal. A representative of the militarist government in Japan noted, “We Japanese have no fear of any change in America’s foreign policy for Americans have no real morality but only pious phrases. What Americans have means so much more to them than what they are that they will continue to sell to Japan whatever Japan has the money to pay for, regardless of what Japan does with it after she gets it.”[120] In 1934, Hitler retorted to industrialist Fritz Thyssen (and Nazi fundraiser) that: “I never made you any promises…I’ve nothing to thank you for. What you did for my movement you did for your own benefit, and wrote it off as an insurance premium.”[121] There should be no doubt that Hitler and the Nazis displayed a similar contempt to the American corporations which supplied the Third Reich with profitable investments, international legitimacy, and technologies useful for the war effort.
During the Cold War, our communist adversaries were quite aware of the role the profit motive played in enticing corporations to trade with the Soviet Union, its Warsaw Pact allies, and China. The First Secretary of the Hungarian Working Peoples Party Matyas Rákosi recalled “America’s Western partners assisted the evasion of the American embargo and export controls in the hope of receiving the appropriate profits.”[122] In reference to sales of American technology to Poland, Warsaw’s Vice-Minister for Security Miroslaw Milewski remarked in 1974, “Those capitalists would sell their mothers and fathers for a little money.”[123] During the height of détente, the Soviet Politburo was briefed on the role of American corporations (as represented by the US-Soviet Trade and Economic Council or USTEC) in building Moscow’s military power. One such Soviet Politburo briefing (dated from January 21, 1978) described USTEC as being comprised of “’the biggest monopolist giants, such as General Motors.’ Some of them were willing to provide the Soviets with ‘badly needed products, including those of military significance.’” High ranking Soviet official Anatoly Chernyaev (who was a senior analyst for the Community Party of the Soviet Union’s International Department) reported, “Their cynicism: the multi-national corporations, members of the US-USSR Council, organize ‘positive results’ of opinion polls in the US in favour of the development of Soviet-American economic links…They pay good money to all these Gallups for a poll to produce the required result.”[124] Xu Jiatun, who was the member of the 11th and 12th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China from 1977 to 1987 and the director of the Hong Kong branch of the Xinhua news agency, wrote that a “businessman’s political inclination is normally linked to his business. He would side with whomever would support him.”[125] Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officer and military spy Meihong Xu recalled to visiting American academic Larry Engelmann that a PLA captain was told by his commander that American business delegations send technology “for money. This is the contradiction of capitalism. They are loyal not to a country but to dollars. This is the how they are different from us. We have our country. They have their dollars. And this in time will destroy them. We will give them enough rope, and, without realizing it, they will hang themselves.”[126] The communist Hungarian arms dealer Ferenc Nemethy revealed to the IMES (an East German foreign trade corporation) managers what ultimately mattered to Western businessmen: “There are only three important problems: money, money, money.”[127] Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev stated before an audience of American businessmen in December 1987: “Let’s think how to rid ourselves of these shackles. We want it to be profitable for you, we understand that co-operation does not succeed if there are not profits and an interest in it. Let’s think in such a way that it is in our interest to go into the American market with our goods.”[128] When writing about the Russian Foreign Intelligence (SVR) and Federal Security Service (FSB) leaders, defecting FSB officer Alexsandr Litvinenko noted that Russia’s leadership “have no moral restrictions. What they hate most of all is America, and yet, they love US dollars and enjoy using them.”[129] In response to overseas subsidiaries of American corporations (such as Motorola, Pelco, Visionics, Space Imaging, Apollo Security, and Hewlett-Packard) selling Iran the technologies of repression, one exhibitor at the Tehran International Police and Security Equipment Exhibition (2002) observed, “Americans are mad for money.”[130] In reference to the sale of American dual use technologies to Iraq during the 1980s, former Baathist insider Hussein Sumiada recalled “I was never sure if Americans needed duping. Money talks, and business is business especially in the arms business.”[131] Even our domestic communist leaders were quite aware of how unchecked capitalism paralyzes the long term interests of the wealthy elites. Writing in the CPUSA publication Political Affairs, Pat Sloan observed: “The fact is that some capitalists do let themselves be used to build socialism if it is profitable business, and even if it is contrary to some of their class interests. This is one of the contradictions of modern capitalism and imperialism.”[132] Sam Marcy, the founder and first head of the Workers World Party (WWP) wrote in its newspaper Workers World (August 1987) that the “…basic motivation on the capitalist side of the joint venture (in the Soviet Union) is maximum profit…”[133] In September 1988, Marcy also wrote “True, the capitalist class will sell even the rope used to hang them, as Lenin said…It is true that the strategic interests of the imperialist bourgeoisie would dictate a total boycott rather than any trade, but they are constrained by their own avaricious and predatory chase for superprofits. That has compelled the imperialist bourgeoisie to deal with the USSR in trade and the sale of some technology.”[134] Even in June 1991, Marcy brazenly asserted “It may be necessary (for a communist state) to get loans. A workers’ state has the right to borrow from whomever it can whenever it needs to. And we know that capitalism will do anything in the world, including selling rope to hang themselves, for profit. Maybe that’s what is involved. I would hope so.”[135] Caleb Maupin, formerly an activist with the WWP and ideological head of the Center for Political Innovation (another Marxist-Leninist group) stated how the “crowd of lower-level billionaires and millionaires grouped around Trump” seemed to “think a potential investing bonanza on the Korean Peninsula is in their ‘rational self-interest.’ They would prefer the UN sanctions be lifted, so they can go in and ‘make a killing.’”[136]
Radical Civic Nationalists agree with much of the left and the fascists in pinpointing the self-destructive greed within a capitalism devoid of moral anchors. We also understand that the wealthy classes and business community are divided over issues related to trade with our geopolitical adversaries and the social reforms necessary for stabilizing the free enterprise system. Communists, Islamists, and fascists sought to exploit these divisions and weaknesses inherit in the system of capitalism. Radical Civic Nationalists strenuously oppose the totalitarian suppression of independent thought, flagrant violations of human rights, and their destruction of the institution of private property. Communism, Islamism, and fascism are all fundamentally evil systems in theory and especially in practice. In order to preserve capitalism in the long term against the machinations of its enemies, Radical Civic Nationalists aggressively seek to highlight the ugly truths within the system of neoliberalism (market fundamentalism). This in turn will blunt the negative effects of capitalism’s self-destructive tendencies. Effectively addressing this challenge could only come about through profound political reforms. What would these reforms specifically look like? Radical Civic Nationalists begin with the following general principles:
1) An understanding that capitalism despite the sociopathic, cruel, and anti-national tendencies of its practitioners, is still the most optimal economic system for the United States.
2) Our Constitution will need to be amended to limit the power of the wealthy over the political process, given the fact that their attitudes often diverge from the preservation of the national interest.
3) Many wealthy corporations and individuals are not blinded by naiveté in their dealings with governments such as China, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. Instead, many are ill-intentioned possessed with a hubris and narcissism that is extremely toxic.
4) Radical Civic Nationalists see themselves as the expression of a true centrism, standing as a referee holding both the forces of laissez faire and anti-capitalism at bay.
5) Vocal billionaires pontificating on a whole host of political and economic reforms should be treated with an extreme skepticism. After all, if many billionaires served as staunch advocates for our enemies, why should their “advice” for domestic policies be taken seriously? As I discussed in the Hard Truth of Capitalism (Part 3) and this essay, many billionaires are callous, cruel sociopaths with little regard for average Americans. Why on Earth should they be trusted with providing “advice” on policies which affect the very average Americans they despise?
6) Ultimately, the purpose of these very harsh criticism of the superwealthy is their very survival against the very totalitarian forces which seek to despoil and physically eliminate them. My essay could be compared to the doctor prescribing a drug addict to “go cold turkey” from drugs.
Many intellectuals across the political spectrum realized that in order to ensure the survival of the US, our wealthy classes cannot dominate our political system. A political class not beholden to plutocratic interests will have to be at the top of the governing pyramid. As economist Joseph Schumpeter wrote: “…without protection by some nonbourgeois group, the bourgeoisie is politically helpless and unable not only to lead its nation but even to take care of its particular class interest. Which amounts to saying that it needs a master.”[137] Trade with our anti-capitalist adversaries is an example of the very wealthy undermining their class interest. Coming from the tradition of New Deal liberalism, President John F. Kennedy’s Special Assistant Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. wrote how the “…plutocracy thinks in terms of class and not of nation, in terms of private profit and not of social obligation, in terms of business dealings and not of war, in terms of security and not of honor.”[138] Entering from stage right, geopolitical analyst J.R. Nyquist wrote in The Origins of the Fourth World War, “…Capitalism needs a protector. Capitalism needs to be placed in a subordinate position if it hopes to survive.”[139] Under a Radical Civic Nationalist order, our ruling political class (along with our military and intelligence services) will have the capacity to say “no” to capitalist interests, when appropriate from a national security viewpoint. Sweeping lobbying bans and campaign finance reforms will ensure that our new nationalist political elites would be immune from repercussions by the wealthy classes. Our billionaires and multimillionaires need to have a seat at the political table. However, they can no longer dominate the seating arrangements. Political reforms to accomplish this task are outlined in my essay on Substack titled What is Radical Civic Nationalism? (Section Number 35, Parts A through E.) As a former advocate for libertarian economics, I was very leery of all critiques of corporations and the wealthy. In my eyes, it paved the way for the development of an overall anti-capitalism within American public opinion. As a conservative, I viewed such a potential development as extremely undesirable. However, I gradually revised my views over the years as I became exposed to new evidence starting in the 1990s. After reviewing the depth and motivations for corporate collaboration with our geopolitical adversaries, my trust and respect for the wealthy was severely damaged. My views mirrored that of former OSS veteran and CIA Counter-Intelligence Chief James Angleton, who remarked to Charles Viar (when describing the covert and open trade between American corporations and the Third Reich): “Never, ever trust international business…When it comes to international commerce, profit takes precedence to patriotism.”[140] My distrust for the billionaire elites is both reflexive and visceral. After reviewing the evidence above, why should any patriotic American trust a wealthy person’s opinion on foreign policy, economic, or political reform projects? Why should Americans be excessively deferential to the superrich? If the wealthy men & women could be so wrong about issues related to national survival and engage in quasi-treasonous acts, why should they have outsized influence in our political system? These are the hard questions we must ask of the wealthy, all in the name of preserving our free enterprise system and political liberty. It is my hope that this essay series The Hard Truth of Capitalism will help stimulate these discussions and influence sympathetic elements within the political/economic elites to embark on the reforms necessary for the long-term survival of the Nation.
What are your thoughts about this essay? Please feel free to comment below.
[1] Jefferson, Thomas. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Derby and Jackson: New York 1859) Volume 14 page 119.
[2] Dale, Gareth. Between State Capitalism and Globalization (Peter Lang, 2004) pages 219-228.
[3] Erika Marie Bsumek, David Kinkela, Mark Atwood Lawrence Nation-States and the Global Environment: New Approaches to International Environmental History (OUP USA, 2013) page 123.
[4] Mirengoff, Paul. “Conservatism’s Increasingly Uneasy Relationship with ‘Corporate America’” Powerline December 18, 2013 Accessed From: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/12/conservatisms-increasingly-uneasy-relationship-with-corporate-america.php#!
[5] Alice de Jonge, Roman Tomasic Research Handbook on Transnational Corporations (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) page 170.
[6] Gary S. Metcalf Social Systems and Design (Springer, 2014) page 17.
[7] Choate, Pat Dangerous Business (Manufacturing Policy Project 2008) page 45.
[8] Bruce Schneier Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust that Society Needs to Thrive (Wiley 2012) page 170.
[9] Ben Mezrich “’He Thinks We’re Going to Take a Swing at Him?’: Inside the Decades-Long Cage Match Between Mark Zuckerberg and the Winklevoss Twins” Vanity Fair April 30, 2019 Accessed From: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/04/inside-the-mark-zuckerberg-winklevoss-twins-cage-match
[10] Kevin Roose “One-Percent Jokes and Plutocrats in Drag: What I Saw When I Crashed a Wall Street Secret Society” New York Magazine February 18, 2014 Accessed From: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2014/02/i-crashed-a-wall-street-secret-society.html
[11] Alinsky, Saul. Rules for Radicals (Vintage Books, 1972) page 150.
[12] Charen, Mona. Useful Idiots (HarperCollins New York 2003) page 96.
[13] Katherine A.S. Siegel Loans and Legitimacy: The Evolution of Soviet-American Relations, 1919-1933 (University Press of Kentucky, 1996) page 131 and Michael Pierce “The Racist Origins of Right to Work” Labor Online January 12, 2017 Accessed From: http://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2017/08/racist-who-pioneered-right-work-laws
[14] Pauwels, Jacques R. “Profits uber Alles! American Corporations and Hitler” Labour/Le Travail Spring 2003
[15] “Rockefeller Opens Doors to Soviet, Chinese Banks” The Pittsburgh Press July 16, 1973 page 4.
[16] Rockefeller, David. “From a China Traveler” New York Times August 10, 1973 page 31.
[17] Nerenz, Dr. Timothy. “Chi Ni De Dou Xi, Obama!” August 14, 2011 Accessed From: http://timnerenz.wordpress.com/category/budget/
[18] Nerenz, Dr. Timothy. “Chi Ni De Dou Xi, Obama!” August 14, 2011 Accessed From: http://timnerenz.wordpress.com/category/budget/
[19] Rich Rovito December 16, 2011 Accessed From: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:z85MgKMXkNIJ:https://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2011/12/16/oldenburg-group-signs-accord-with.html&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
[20] Lora Kolodny “Elon Musk says ‘China rocks’ while the U.S. is full of ‘complacency and entitlement’” CNBC July 31, 2020 Accessed From: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/31/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-china-rocks-us-full-of-entitlement.html
[21] Podcast with Michael Lind, Author of Hell To Pay, How Wage Suppression is Destroying America Accessed From:
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Nice. I am currently reading your book The Nazi War Against Capitalism, it's been quite enlightening.