In late 2009 the U.S. left seems both irrelevant and defensive. Read  the newspapers or the net and the discussion focuses on the latest comments from Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck. They dominate debate while the left rarely takes on the bold challenges that could move people to reassess the nature, tone and direction of public policies.

      Since public opinion revolves the definition of issues, here is my first suggestion. Focus all selected issues around the traditional distinction between the rights of capital versus the obligations of capital to the larger society. Don't get off the dime. Hammer away at rights versus obligations, and use as initial illustrations three key issues: Free markets, free trade; and the proper role of the Federal government.

Free Markets and Free Trade

      A crucial cornerstone of conservative and centrist beliefs is the existence of free markets and free trade. This is an absurd contention. Neither free markets nor free trade have ever existed yet the left rarely uses easily available facts to challenge assumptions that could crumble conservative claims as easily as squeezing a crisp cracker.

       Start before capitalism, on November 5th, 1761. As Eric J. Dolan explains in Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America New England candle manufacturers worried about the excessive competition for the whale matter then crucial to producing candles. Major players wanted to control the market by setting a fixed ceiling price but new and ambitious competitors could always bid more if they wished and thus raise prices for all players. So, the biggest manufacturers formed the "Spermaceti Trust". The manufacturers set a "maximum price" they would pay for the whale head matter and they also tried to deftly destroy potential competitors. They used "all fair and honorable means" to stop competitors from building new candle works and they literally put the screws to the competition by making sure that they never obtained the "screw press" technology needed to process the whale matter.

    The whale trust makes this point: Long before Marx and Engels, manufacturers understood the inherent and perpetual dangers of free markets. Too much competition threatened everyone and the best way to maintain profits was to achieve a business controlled market stability rooted in fixed prices and the destruction of competitors before they even existed.

   Move on to 1911. Under a capitalist system, industrialization greatly exacerbated the dangers of too much supply and no demand. Machines potentially produced an endless supply of  anything so, understanding their relative equality, General Electric and Westinghouse began to fix prices on light bulbs in roughly 1896. And, following the lead of the candle makers, the two giants did everything they could to prevent new competitors. Under orders from their crucial customers, Corning Glass limited its sales to "unapproved" manufacturers and the GE/Westinghouse agreements also included compacts to refuse newcomers the machine tool technology needed to produce light bulbs. By the late twenties, the light bulb cartel achieved such market control that Westinghouse paid GE a kickback if its sales achieved more than its precisely allotted share of the American market.

    Controlling supposedly free markets is never an aberration; it is a perpetual and systemic business necessity that continues through the Archer Midland Daniels global price fixing "scandals" of the late 1990's,  right down to Raj Rajaratnam, the billionaire hedge-fund manager now accused (in October of 2009) of insider trading at his Galleon fund. In this instance a literal "fat cat" allegedly received the essential information that turned fictional free markets for stocks into playgrounds for those who understood the way markets actually  work.

    The left has a simple task. Use a Mount Everest of controlled market examples to prove that free markets have never existed and then ask a crucial question: If capitalists must try to control markets, does the general public wants those market decisions made by executives like Archer Midland Daniels Mark Whitacre? As Kurt Eichenwald wrote in The Informant, Whitacre told participants at a global  price fixing summit that "Competitors are our friends. Customer's the enemy".

      The markets will be controlled. The question is by whom. Thus, the left's job is to underline the free market fiction and then begin a debate about the actual obligations of capitalists to the rest of us.

   Free trade is another easy target. Especially in agriculture, the European Union has more trade  restrictions than a maximum security prison. And, when critics point to the obvious contradictions, restrictions on trade become especially creative. The Koreans kept out American cars because they were allegedly too heavy for the fragile Korean roadways; and American producers kept out Mexican avocadoes by arguing -with a straight face- that the avocadoes contained "invisible fruit flies" that could threaten the health of Americans now addicted to guacamole and other Mexican delights. Finally, Mexican truck drivers who supposedly have a right to compete in the U.S. now discover that they cannot do so because their trucks are, like fruit flies, dangerous to old and new Americans.

        Again the left's job is to present the easily available facts and then hammer away at the rights versus obligations dichotomy. Decide that business has obligations to the rest of us and you then move on to the next issue: The systemic need for the Federal government to regulate markets after we have  a national debate about the obligations the Feds will champion.

      The left has been especially weak in failing to underline the incredible hypocrisies of those who make "big government" the people's biggest enemy. For example,  Jared Diamond notes in Collapse  that folks in Montana thrive on the notion of  a self reliance that always wants to keep the Federal government at bay. Meanwhile, for every dollar that Montana sends to Washington, they get 1.5 dollars in return. The difference between "talking head" nonsense and reality needs to be endlessly underlined.

    Take on senior citizens, another group that often denies the substantial assistance they receive. For example, I recently turned 65 and pay Medicare only $80 a month. Meanwhile, Medicare has spent more than $15,000 on my health care over the last three months. I'd say an 15 to 1 "return on my investment" is exceedingly generous yet the left lets too many seniors forget the essential and very beneficial role of the Federal government in providing health care to seniors.

    Other examples of  the Federal government's crucial role easily come to mind: The number of Americans employed in the defense industry;  the farm subsidies that "heartland" states rely on to receive assistance as generous as Medicare; the Pell grants that keep students at universities throughout the nation; the billions of Federal dollars used to build and improve everything from  interstate highways  to the private airports used by executives who avoid the "masses" as they hypocritically land on Federal funded turf.

   My conclusions: Use free markets and free trade as examples of  the chasm between reality and conservative "economic truths".  Focus on rights versus obligations. And proudly use the Federal government to defend consumers from their admitted "enemy":  Businesses who must control markets in the service of successfully screwing  the rest of us.