Lincoln, Crony Capitalism, and Populism

 

Lincoln’s War established a permanent, centralized regime of crony capitalism for the formerly federal U.S. In the centralized U.S., real power is in the hands of big business and big banks that use government to protect and increase their own private profit and wealth.

Lincoln implemented Henry Clay’s “American Plan”, without giving it a name. At the time, however, free enterprise worked well in the U.S., and the tax money Lincoln shoveled to corporations merely added to their profits. It benefited America’s emerging “Robber Barons”, but there was a lot left over for average working stiffs and living standards rose in consecutive boom and bust business cycles.

Since Lincoln, the U.S. economy has been directed by congresses and presidents for the benefit of major corporations and plutocrats. These politically-connected plutocrats looted America with increasing efficiency and imagination and caused a political reaction to develop which we know as populism. From the late 1800s to 1935, public support for populism grew, and populism became a threat to the country’s plutocrats and political establishment.

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