The Corporate Elite and the Drug Enforcement Regime

2019 ◽  
pp. 68-106
Author(s):  
Horace A. Bartilow
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Principal Component ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Campaign Contributions ◽  
Corporate Board ◽  
Drug Enforcement ◽  
Corporate Capital ◽  
Corporate Campaign ◽  
Corporate Elites

The legislative deliberations of Plan Colombia and the Mérida Initiative also supported elite theories of the state and showed that corporate campaign contributions and the reciprocal relationships between corporate elites and the federal government also influence American counternarcotic aid flows. This chapter uses the Heckman selection estimator to ascertain whether these outcomes are also generalizable. First, it uses principal component factor analysis to create an index to operationalize C. Wright Mills’ concept of an interlocking directorate, which measures the interconnections among corporate board of directors for the corporations in the data set and their interconnections with policy think tanks and the U.S. government. The statistical findings provide evidence that corporate campaign contributions, corporate inter-locks with think tanks and the federal government, and an interlocking directorate systematically increased U.S. counternarcotic aid to eighty recipient countries. And since drug enforcement policy making toward Colombia and Mexico also demonstrated that congressional funding for the drug war is a source of corporate revenues, the chapter concludes by utilizes a time-series cross section statistical analysis that shows that increasing levels of counternarcotic aid flows increases corporate capital accumulation again confirming that the case study findings are generalizable.

Neoliberal reformers: Economics as class warfare

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 250-262
Author(s):  
Braham Dabscheck
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Nobel Prize ◽  
Business Groups ◽  
Review Article ◽  
The State ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
State Governments ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Jel Codes ◽  
Federal Level

This review article discusses MacLean’s study of the ideas of a group of economists and their embracing by an oligarchy of business groups to implement a Neoliberal agenda and its implications for American democracy. It mainly focuses on the Nobel Prize winning economist James McGill Buchanan and the industrialist Charles Koch. Business groups provided funds to Buchanan and others to train right-minded people in the precepts of Neoliberalism, established think tanks and institutes to disseminate their views, and ‘directed’ and/or provided advice and draft legislation for Republican politicians at both the state and federal level. Inspiration for how to achieve this Neoliberal ‘revolution’ can be found in Lenin’s 1902 What is to be Done?. The Neoliberal attack on government and statism is consistent with Orwell’s notion of doublethink. It constitutes a weakening of those parts of the state which are inimical to the interests of a wealthy oligarchy, the federal government and agencies/government departments who are viewed as imposing costs (taxes) on and interfering with (regulating) the actions of the oligarchy, and strengthening other parts such as state governments, the judiciary, at both the state (especially) and federal level and police forces to protect and advance their interests. JEL codes: B10, B22

Drug War Profiteers

2019 ◽  
pp. 19-45
Author(s):  
Horace A. Bartilow
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Drug War ◽  
Drug Enforcement ◽  
Plan Colombia ◽  
Oil Companies ◽  
Corporate Capital ◽  
Enforcement Policy ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
Reduction Strategies ◽  
Supply Reduction

This chapter is motivated by the following questions: Why do American policymakers continue to increase funding for a drug war that has failed to realize its objectives, and why do they consistently give greater priority to reducing the supply of illicit narcotics from foreign countries than reducing demand in the United States? In answering these questions, the chapter draws on theories of the state to highlight the role that corporate capital play in shaping the federal government’s budgetary allocations for drug enforcement. Congressional deliberations of Plan Colombia and the Mérida Initiative with Mexico serve as case studies to test pluralist, radical and elite theories of U.S. drug enforcement policy making. Radical and elite theories consistently explained the ways in which corporate power shaped the drug supply reduction strategies of Plan Colombia and the Mérida Initiative. Both theories also explain how these strategies justifies the provision of large government contracts to corporate members of the regime, how drug enforcement foreign aid is used to provide security for American oil companies that operate in Latin America, and how that aid is also used to market the defense industry’s military hardware to countries in the region to prosecute the drug war.

Embedded Corporatism

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Horace A. Bartilow
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Developing World ◽  
International Consensus ◽  
Drug Enforcement ◽  
Corporate Expansion ◽  
Foreign Governments ◽  
Drug Prohibition

This chapter introduces the theory of embedded corporatism to explain U.S. drug enforcement. It argues that drug enforcement is an international regime where the interests and power of American corporations are embedded in drug prohibition. The regime also includes corporate-funded think tanks, some members of Congress, civil society groups, and foreign governments. The power of American corporations within the regime facilitates domestic and international consensus around drug prohibition as a mechanism for corporate expansion and capital accumulation. The chapter demonstrates that democracies in Latin America have a higher level of human rights repression than countries in the developing world that are not democracies. Although GDP per-capita in the region is higher than other developing regions, income inequality in Latin America is significantly higher than the rest of the developing world. And while the United States is the supposed leader of the free world and the richest, its rates of incarceration are greater than those found in autocracies, and its level of income inequality is significantly higher than other rich OECD countries. It is argued that the paradox of human rights and democratization in the Americas along with widening class cleavages are the by-products of the embedded corporatist drug enforcement regime.

Federal Transfer Taxation: The Effect on Saving, Capital Accumulation, and Economic Dissipation

1996 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 269-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Economic Effects ◽  
The Public ◽  
Tax Revenues ◽  
The Gift ◽  
Property Transfers ◽  
Policy Forum ◽  
Gift Tax

The federal government levies taxes on property transfers at death (the estate tax), during life (the gift tax), and to grandchildren or more remote descendants (the generation-skipping tax). Referred to collectively as “transfer taxes,” these taxes attract little interest in the public policy forum because they produce little revenue—only 1% of annual federal tax revenues, and because most Americans have no first-hand experience with transfer taxes. However, transfer taxes have significantly adverse economic effects that are grossly disproportionate to the tax revenues they generate. Transfer taxes penalize success and the creation of wealth. The adverse effects of transfer taxes on saving and capital formation, therefore, are costs imposed on society as a whole.

Drug War Capitalism and Class Conflict in the Americas

2019 ◽  
pp. 185-208
Author(s):  
Horace A. Bartilow
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Class Conflict ◽  
Drug War ◽  
Drug Enforcement ◽  
Corporate Capital

This chapter argues that the drug war is a manifestation of class conflict in Latin America and the United States. The chapter is motivated by the following questions: Under what conditions is the drug war used to repress labor unions and, in the process, increase income inequality in Latin America? What political mechanisms in the United States create linkages among drug enforcement, income inequality, poverty, mass incarceration, and corporate capital accumulation? In answering these questions, the chapter discusses the relationships among U.S. counternarcotic aid, the repression of workers’ rights, and income inequality in Latin America and the relationship between drug enforcement and income inequality in the United States. The chapter estimates data for twenty-one countries from Latin America, covering 2003 to 2012 using a time-series cross section (TSCS) statistical model and estimates data for the United States, covering 2000 to 2012 using TSCS and structural equation modeling. The statistical results show that increasing levels of counternarcotic aid to Latin American governments increases income inequality when the rights of workers are increasingly repressed. And increasing levels of drug enforcement in the United States is associated with increasing levels of income inequality, poverty, mass incarceration and corporate revenues generated from prison labor.

The Effects of Capital Cost Allowance Measures on Capital Accumulation in the Canadian Manufacturing Sector

1976 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-322
Author(s):  
D. G. McFetridge ◽  
J. D. May
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Manufacturing Sector ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Capital Cost ◽  
Public Controversy ◽  
Equipment Investment ◽  
The Past ◽  
Canadian Manufacturing ◽  
The Subject

During the past twenty-five years, the Canadian federal government has introduced capital cost allowance measures eight times in order to change the direction or level of investment expenditures. Although the effectiveness of these measures has been the subject of a good deal of recent public controversy, no econometric studies exist which measure their impact. In this paper we examine the change in net machinery and equipment investment in the manufacturing sector of the Canadian economy caused by the capital cost allowance measures. We discover the timing and size of the impacts of the measures to be quite different from that which fiscal policy authorities currently believe.

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