“The Protective system in these days is conservative, while the Free Trade system works destructively. It breaks up old nationalities and carries antagonism of proletariat and bourgeoisie to the uttermost point. In a word, the Free Trade system hastens the Social Revolution. In this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, I am in favour of Free Trade.”
Karl Marx, 1848.
Among all the political clichés and taglines, “the party of business” has long been the Republican’s defining description. In many ways, it remains valid. Considerably more small business owners identify as Republican than Democrat, while 63.8 percent of small business owners agree that President Trump’s economic strategy is working.
It’s become strikingly clear, however, that this support is no longer mirrored by the big corporate donors who once donated enormous sums to the GOP. They have abandoned the party alongside their establishment representatives.
These corporates have not simply disappeared from the political landscape, as illustrated by the astonishing amount of money they are now investing in majority leftist politics. In contrast to the conservative army of “small-dollar donors,” Clinton’s behemoth business backers helped her accumulate $1.2 billion dollars during the 2016 presidential campaign, double the amount raised by Trump.
Indeed, the Clinton campaign bagged 97 percent of all big tech donations, including sizable contributions from Facebook, Apple and Microsoft. The $300,000 given to the Make America Great campaign by hedge funds and private equity firms’ paled in comparison to the $42 million gifted to Clinton.
It should be noted that these same funders are still prepared to throw their financial weight behind establishment Republicans — giving considerable sums to candidates such as Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. Such concerning fundraising disparities have continued to gather pace, with Democrats outraising Republicans two-to-one in competitive midterm races this year.
Worryingly, big business is not just funding liberal politics — they’re actively engaged in the promotion of their Cultural Marxist agenda. Starbucks, Nike, Unilever, Wells Fargo and Bank of America are just a few of the megacorporations giving money to Planned Parenthood.
As predicted by one of history’s greatest conservative thinkers, Hillarie Belloc, our economy is fast becoming a collection of hegemonic private monopolies, so powerful they rival the democratic state, and so large they have eliminated effective competition.
Amazon now controls half of the entire ecommerce market in America, whilst Walmart’s net sales reached $481.32 billion dollars in 2017. For an increasing number, we have no choice but to make our living working for a global megacorporation
Those who value freedom should be deeply troubled.
Corporate advertisers have unapologetically attempted to define the parameters of socially acceptable expression. When Breitbart News dared to dissent, they were swiftly punished by the 2600 companies who pulled their advertising from the site, excluding them from the mainstream economy.
Similarly, examples detailing the blatant suppression of conservatives on social media are too numerous to detail. Considering 80 percent of all political information In the United States is accessed via Google and Facebook, only a fool would deny this is anything other than an immediate crisis.
So what is behind the big-business liberal embrace? Three things:
- Immigration: Globalist businesses love cheap labor. Greedy corporate bosses consider migrant workers cost-effective and easy to exploit. It is infinity preferable to employ a worker accustomed to poor working conditions, ill-equipped for collective bargaining and who poses little threat to their own comfortable position. As for any negative social consequences that might transpire as a result of uncontrolled migration — the wealthy can buy their separation, creating a comfortable and secure bubble.
- Individualism: As we’ve seen, when the GOP embraces liberalism, big donors fall in line. This is because corporate capitalism is entirely dependent on materialistic moral relativism and secular consumerism. Those who value God, family and community are less likely to spend every waking hour in soulless whitewashed megamalls. Interestingly, this is why big business was so hostile to Bernie Sanders, whose socialist theory also rejected their individualistic theology.
- To distract and divide ordinary people: For decades, “Republicans in name only” assured us that “greed is good.” It isn’t. The obscene gap between rich and poor poses an enormous threat to social cohesion and communitarian compassion. Are we really to believe a society in which NYC bankers race yachts and down champagne, whilst a hard-working Christian family in Alabama can’t feed their children, is what conservatism looks like? Big business has gambled that liberals will turn a blind eye towards their greed if they support their social culture war — it was a good bet.
First, we must rejoice that our party is once more controlled by ordinary Americans, rather than a concoction of elite special interests, then we must make a choice.
Do we champion localism and business built on the foundation of personal relationships, embrace economic distributism and create cooperatives and mutuals that will shift control of our economy back to the communities it exists to serve? Or do we continue to bow to the specter of big corporations, as they consume small and medium businesses, undermine family values, isolate and suppress conservatives and use their gargantuan wealth to elect liberal politicians?
David Sergeant is a conservative researcher in the U.K. House of Commons.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.
