Capitalistic Democracy

The twin pillars of strength in this Country has been Democracy and Capitalism. A prime tenet of Capitalism has been a belief in the free market system. A lesser recognized but no less important tenet is the process of decision making in a free market system. This process contemplates that capital will follow profit and successful decisions in the marketplace. The more profitable that decisions made by management of a company prove to be, the more that shareholders will seek its stock. Recent history of corporate decisions and shareholder selection of companies belie these generally accepted tenets.

The market economy in this country appear to have created a class of management that perceives that it is entitled to significant compensation without regard to success It achieves this status because shareholders have too often been silent dupes in the world of high finance. Most corporate management have little fear of its shareholders and their decisions are not made on actions that will lead to long term profitability of a company but oin the short term benefit of the company management. This result is most evident in insurance industry, the finance and banking industry and the American automobile industry where historic institutions have been run into bankruptcy while management employees seek million dollar bonuses.

Many commentators complain that government bailouts constitute a road to socialism. They seem to overlook the corporate management that lead the American economy to the brink of insolvency.