International Journal on Criminology Volume 1, Number 1, Fall 2013 | Page 33

International Journal on Criminology
American political system puts elected representatives with more money at a significant
advantage. Concerned about its privileges, the powerful finance lobby only supports
Democrat and Republican candidates who have been won over to their deregulation
cause. These laws are thus sold to a financial oligarchy. We therefore see a transfer of
power from Wall Street to Washington—and this geopolitical swing is facilitated by the
questionable practice of “revolving doors” between the financial industry and the upper
echelons of federal administration. This practice creates infinite “conflicts of interests”
conducive to real instances of corruption, or at the very least to an osmosis of interests
and points of view between financiers and political/administrative decision makers. This
broadly criminal crisis brings up to date the new balance of powers in the United States
between politics (Washington) and finance (Wall Street); is the “military-industrial
complex” denounced by President Eisenhower (1961) being followed by a surreptitiously
imposed “political-financial complex”?17 Moreover, this is most likely a new balance of
power common to numerous countries across the world. The finance lobby is not content
to limit itself to part of the American political class. It has successfully attached itself to
academics,18 financial analysts, and finally journalists trapped by the complexity of the
subject matter and the majority of media’s membership of major capitalist groups. Fraud
has thus managed to disappear from mainstream analysis. Is that not precisely the perfect
crime—one where reality is ignored, or better still where the idea itself seems
inconceivable?
A predatory system remains intact
The predatory system behind this social disaster has remained intact, even following
the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law passed in the summer of 2010. Despite its bulk,
this law has proven to be a paper tiger whose rare binding standards for American finance
were steamrolled by the finance lobby during the legislation editing process. It is a far cry
from the New Deal laws which successfully stood up to the financial powers.
Ironically, or in a barely concealed logic of the system, the institutions and
individuals most responsible for this criminal disaster have themselves emerged from the
crisis stronger than ever. What, then, should we think of a system which ultimately
rewards the fraudsters so well? This is a troubling status quo, since this criminal
diagnosis was made by Americans themselves through Congress’s Inquiry Commissions.
This was clearly insufficient, suggesting that the “power of the word” (executive,
legislative, and media power) no longer carries any weight in the face of the “power of
the real” (money). Like the genie of the lamp, the players in globalized finance have
broken free with no-one now able or willing to discipline them.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
17. In 1956 American sociologist Charles Wright published The power elite which describes the
new American ruling elite, whose main characteristic is their capacity to circulate between three
echelons of power: The economy, politics, and the military. He denounces an immoral and
concentrated elite able to rely on “celebrities”, the product of mass media, and on “intellectual
tightrope walkers”. Nothing has really changed since then—at most, the addition of finance to the
triangle of power.
18. On the complicity of certain academics, well paid by the financial industry, and the conflicts of
interest affecting them, the 2010 documentary Inside jobs written, produced, and directed by
Charles H. Ferguson is currently the best reference. The real issue is in fact to establish cause and
consequence. Are they chosen because they profess “good” ideas a priori, or do they accommodate
them a posteriori because they have agreed to endorse positions which are favorable to the financial
industry?
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