"Poverty Capitalism"

If there is any one article that everyone should read and think deeply about, it is Thomas Edsall's piece in the NYTimes (online) on the rise of what he calls "poverty capitalism," i.e., the privatisation of government functions that has the consequences of imposing huge financial costs on the poor.  One cannot possibly understand the realities of Ferguson, Missouri, for example, without understanding the depth of this problem.  Edsall ends his column thusly:

What should be done to interrupt the dangerous feedback loop between low-level crime and extortionate punishment? First, local governments should bring private sector collection charges, court-imposed administrative fees and the dollar amount of traffic fines (which often double and triple when they go unpaid) into line with the economic resources of poor offenders. But larger reforms are needed and those will not come about unless the poor begin to exercise their latent political power. In many ways, everything is working against them. But the public outpouring spurred by the shooting of Michael Brown provides an indication of a possible path to the future. It was, after all, just 50 years ago — not too distant in historical terms — that collective action and social solidarity produced tangible results.

 But  does anyone seriously believe that the United States today is capable of a revived Civil Rights Movement based on the notion of "the beloved community."  Our "community organizer" President in whom so many of us had genuine hope has certainly betrayed any commitment he might ever have had to genuine "community organizing."  And, alas, only the Tea Party is willing to demonstrate and engage in "uncivil" responses to people they (often correctly) view as exploiting ordinary Americans.  Perhaps 'poverty capitalism" is simply a fancier way of saying "Dickensian," for Edwall demonstrates how we have recreated debtor's prisons (in the control of "private" business with an incentive to think only of their bottom lines).  Who in the next presidential election will speak for these victims?  Will Eric Holder start examining legal theories suggesting that there might be limits on the "privatized state" and the betrayal of what we'd like to think are constitutional norms before one can be deprived of liberty or property?