"Most of Greensboro's social and economic misfortunes frequently talked about are not the product of “failed” free enterprise. The reason is free enterprise has been severely diminished in our community.
Greensboro City Council hand outs are just one manifestation of the extent to which government has weaved a spider’s web of commands over the small business community.
See Zack Matheny's lobbying for a Marty Kotis
Greensboro taxpayer funded hand out
at the expense of competing small business owners
The tangled web of corrupt government-private sector relationships is reflected in the size and cost of special interest lobbying activities connected with our local city government.
The City is paying Zack Matheny
to lobby for taxpayer funded largess
for the biggest campaign contributor, Marty Kotis
Crony interests influence the writing of 'news' stories, legislation serving oligarchs attempting to obtain anti-competitive regulations, redistributions of wealth, or taxpayer funded subsidies and protections from the realities of free market competition and trade.
Guess who?
Special interest-serving City of Greensboro and Guilford County tax dollars have affected the spending of millions of dollars of government expenditures over the last decade and a half. Our 1% work with and use those who hold high political office to plunder our tax base.
The Best Politicians Money Can Buy
But the symbiotic relationship between politicians and special interest groups of all types does not begin or end with the formal lobbying for legislative, regulatory and fiscal privileges.
Campaign and electioneering contributions get those elected or reelected who can be depended upon to direct the powers of government in ways that Kotis, Carroll and Melvin and friends desire and from which they hope to benefit.
In such a politicized market economy, working for and serving “economic” and “social” interests become the guiding principle of business decision-making. Not only does it lead to wasteful and inefficient economic business operations having less or sometimes nothing to do with cost-effective management and allocation of labor and resources to make better, newer and less expensive products, it also corrupts the individuals participating in these activities.
Straying from 'regulatory standards' is merely one way of “doing business” to advance other political goals such as “jobs” and “full employment” that are expected as part of the “partnerships” with local politicians.
The only thing expected from the business enterprises in these intricate political webs is: Don’t get caught. If you do, then your political partners become like Captain Renault, the prefect of police in the 1942 movie “Casablanca.” When Renault orders the closing of Rick’s Café, the owner asks him on what grounds. Renault declares that he is “shocked, shocked” to discover that there is gambling going on in the café. At which point the roulette coupé appears with a stack of franc banknotes in his hand and says to Renault, “Your winnings, Sir.”
The political partners who fostered and worked with our oligarchs to play its part in the “game” of government interventionism that has nothing to do with market-oriented enterprise, will sanctimoniously condemn the greedy and “selfish” conduct of profit-hungry businessmen if they get caught, which is unlikely as long as the News and Record, Yes Weekly, Triad City Beat and Roy's Rhino continues to shy away from investigative reporting.
Since it is a question of obtaining political favors for these enterprises, their owners must repay the politicians with favors.
Real Free Markets Mean Privileges for None
If what we have today is what is widely referred to as “crony capitalism,” the following points capture the essence of a real free economy:
Consumer demands determine how the means of production will be used;
Competitive forces of supply and demand determine the prices of consumer goods and the various factors of production including wages of workers;
The success or failure of individual and corporate enterprises is determined by the profits and losses these enterprises earn in free competition with their rivals in the market place;
Government is limited in its activities to the enforcement and protection of life, liberty, and honestly acquired property against, violence and fraud.
In a real free market, there is no place for politicians to offer privileges and favors, because there are none to sell. There is no motive or gain for special interest groups to spend huge sums of money in campaign contributions, because political benefits for some at others’ expense cannot be bought.
Wasteful and corrupting “partnerships” between government and business enterprises cannot occur because political authority is restrained from any task other than the securing of each individual’s right to his life, liberty, and peacefully acquired property."
