As a few corporate criminals are paraded before the press to show government concern for the kinds of deception practiced by some Enron officials, Vijay Prashad’s book, Fat Cats and Running Dogs, delves more deeply to reveal the true extent of their crimes. From schemes to control Bolivia’s water, Nigeria’s, California’s, India’s and Argentina’s electricity, natural gas pipelines in Afghanistan, Enron, beside the corrupt Mafia-like organization that it was, is emblematic of a particular stage of capitalism, according to Prashad.
This stage of capitalism is called neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is a period of “weak social regulation, strong repressive apparatus, and cultural conservatism.” The purpose is to hand over what was once held and regulated by the state for the public good to corporations, such as Enron, for private profits. If people complain put them in prison. Use the police and the military to destroy progressive movements. Or push a conservative ideology that justifies attacks on publicly operated services and on the people who support them.
For Enron, the privatization of publicly owned electricity and other energy producing facilities was the target of their corporate schemes. Enron used its financial leverage over governments and it bought political influence in both Washington and in whichever nation it happened to be operating, to pressure countries (and US states) to sell their public assets. Enron would then charge energy consumers exorbitant rates for what was once a much cheaper public utility. There seemed to be no limit to the corruption, price-gouging or environmental destruction that corporations would engage in to make a buck.
Political influence, bought and sold by Enron lobbyists, extended wide and deep in the Washington “sleaze,” as Prashad characterizes that crowd. The Bush family, including father and son, George, and brothers, Jeb, Neil and Marvin – no strangers to corporate corruption and fraud – were only the most prominent. Political support was further assisted by military support, as regular global US bombing campaigns, arms deals, CIA “economic espionage” and military aid attest.
Lest we think that Enron is the only great Satan and focus too much attention on a single company, Prashad warns us that these practices are systemic. Everywhere you look “Enronization,” aided by the coercive authority of what Prashad calls “IMFundamentalism,” or the set of structural adjustments imposed on countries that need capital to stay afloat, is the dominant ideology and practice of US imperialism. The main goal is to deliver to private corporations the public “commons,” as Prashad terms it. Health care, education, water, energy, land – whatever can be commodified and resold to the people is the main strategy of Enronization. All of these practices are protected by the US government and its military.
How do progressive people stop this trend? Part of the answer lies in the reasons for Enron’s collapse. Aside from the crooked deals that hid Enron’s financial woes, its problems were caused in no small part by the confrontation of Enronization with organized people’s movements. In places like India, Bolivia and Argentina, people’s opposition to privatization of public utilities and resources slowed Enron’s profit-making abilities just enough to force them into illegally hiding their losses. And though some politicians, such as Jeb Bush in Florida, pushed state employees’ pension funds into Enron stock to try to prop it up, resulting in the loss of over $330 million from the retirement fund of thousands of Florida employees, Enron’s problems were too deep to be salvaged.
A people’s movement such as those that arose in these countries, in Prashad’s view, is the first of a three-pronged solution. First, we should strengthen social control of public services for the public good, not profits. Second, we need to oppose the repressive state apparatuses such as police, prisons and the military industrial complex. Finally, our opposition to right-wing ideology that pushes jingoism, sexism, racism, violence, fear, national chauvinism and theocracy is decisive. A convincing blueprint for progressive resurgence accompanies Prashad’s solid analysis of the current stage of late capitalism. In today’s near-war condition of diminished civil liberties, diverted economic resources and rampant xenophobia, Prashad’s book is well worth reading.
Fat Cats and Running Dogs: The Enron Stage of Capitalism By Vijay Prashad Monroe, ME, Common Courage Press, 2002.
