US Role of Leadship Today: Is the US Up to It?

I was listening to Senator Christopher Dodd this morning on C-Span; and he made a most important historical point (in my opinion).

The US government and Big Business are naturally at odds.  This is because business wants to make the greatest profits it can.  It wants little interference; indeed, it seeks support and help from governments to do as told, i.e.., do its bidding.  Perhaps, this is why to this point Big Business has been locating here:  less taxes (when you take account of the deductions they're allowed).  Government, on the other hand, wants to maintain a fair playing field (see John Rawl's book Justice as Fairness).  It wants to maintain a tension between interested parties.  It wants no "slam dunk" winners--neither business nor the unions; nor the federal government itself.  The radio and many TV talk shows merely regurgitate the "Big Business" line of business being persecuted.

But this antipathy of commercial interests and government is by no means new.   It has frequently been cited as promoting the phenomena of globalization, practiced first in the Netherlands in the 17th Century, then England in the Nineteenth Century; the United States in the Twentieth Century.  Globalization enables Big Business to wheel and deal in the financial markets, while keeping in check the power of national governments to dictate national and international policy on behalf of their citizenry.  By moving money around from country to country--each of these mentioned serving the interests of international, powerful money groups--business maintains its position of "king of the mountain," i ,e,, the old divide and conquer principle.

If I am right in my analysis, we can understand why governments seek the money and power big business groups can offer them.  In a fictionalized account, Germany prior or during the Second World War is portrayed to have sought the support from international financiers for its war efforts, only to be turned down.  The book is entitled Dragon Harvest; and though fiction, it reads plausibly.  Author Upton Sinclair makes the further point that once Germany had been turned down, Roosevelt committed the US to supplying Britain with airplanes.

Today, what Big Business is demanding from the US governmennt for the sake of its derivative transactions is that banking institutions of substantial worth be able to make investments as well as become insurers and engage in banking transcations.  Senator Dodd wants transpareny of these transactions in order to insinuate a modicum of accountability.  Will the US stand up to Big Business and protect the US citizens and citizens around the world, including presently Greece, from its practices involving fraud and usury?  If not, perhaps China, as the major world leader will!