The ongoing vilification of the term capitalism really gets on my nerves.  People have locked in their minds a mythology defining it as large amoral companies feeding resources and/or people into it’s gaping maw for no other reason than it’s own continuance. However,  at least in my definition of things, that is in fact not capitalism but instead is actually Corporatism.

Once the United States was a flourishing capitalist nation of shopkeepers, skilled artisans, and farmers envied the world over. Increasingly over the last one hundred years corporate giants have crushed competitiveness, destroying small business and individuals who worked for themselves. Today citizens are enslaved to a system where the individual is lubrication for the corporate cogs driving big government.

Corporatism is defined (or re-defined depending on your viewpoint) as:

“Corporatism, also called “neo-corporatism”, is a term referring to tendencies in politics for legislators and administrations to be influenced or dominated by the interests of business enterprises, employers’ organizations, and industry trade groups. In this system government decisions are strongly influenced by which sorts of policies will lead to greater profits for favored companies.”