SocialismThe idea that the private sector should do everything is yet another bad Republican idea. There are some things that the market does well, and there are some that it should not do. It should be clear that the market is not good for the environment. Republicans tend to be in denial about this, and, with corporate money backing, they continue to deny environmental damage from green house gas pollution, nor do they recognize that we have reached peak oil and need to look at the consequences. Unlimited growth is not possible, and, at some point needs to be restrained. Probably human population has already grown beyond the carrying capacity of the earth. Consequences are spelled out at http://www.seconnecticut.com/environment.htm The market has, at the moment, no mechanism or inclination to handle this crisis. Cap and trade might help, but that will have to be legislated sometime in the future. Conservation will be prudent on account of runaway energy prices. The market is not too good when there are few participants, as in monopoly or even an oligopoly. We used to have anti-trust remedies, but they are rarely used now. I think US media has serious problems that might be dealt with by being sure that there are more participants (you can count on your fingers the companies that control almost everything that you see or hear.) The Bush FCC has pushed mightily for further media consolidation. Bad policy, bad economics, and an information stream that probably no longer supports democracy. See http://www.seconnecticut.com/media.htm Privatization takes functions from public accountability. That's what 'deregulation' is all about. It is the corporate way of getting government off its back. What you get though, as you should have seen recently, are toxic products from Asia, suspect food from factory farms, drugs that have passed FDA through bribery, workplace procedures that are unsafe, and more. Particularly gruesome are privatized prisons, which are where some of the procedures that surfaced in Abu Graib and Guantanamo were developed. Also troubling are the mercenary armies, like Blackwater, that could morph into a praetorian guard. Bush has been keen to privatize Social Security, which a huge majority of Americans oppose, but it would be a bonanza for many brokerages. Regressive Republican policies have brought back another gilded age, like 1929. Growth went to the wealthy at the expense of the less comfortable. This is symptomatic of a banana republic, particularly when the growth is funded from offshore debt. Notice the dollar is now in freefall also. Can you estimate how much money has been used to bail out banks this year ? The global marketplace is NOT a level playing field. Where the US has laws against sweatshops, child labor, pesky environmental laws, many other countries do not. That explains some of the motivation to remove jobs from the US to really low wage countries. (Disney was paying too much in Haiti, so they moved their factory to Asia. http://ihscslnews.org/view_article.php?id=67 ) This is the point at which we want to start talking about healthcare. GM moved its small car manufacturing to Korea, and of course they now say that health care for their employees is unaffordable. All of their union employees were bought out. Solves that problem. Have you tried getting health insurance from the 'free market' ? How did that work out ? Any pre-existing conditions and they won't take you. Do you comparison shop for a medical or dental procedure ? Do you get full information about outcomes at your local hospital ? Can you have a free market in healthcare without such things ? If you watch the '60 minutes' news program on Sunday, you might have seen a group that normally works in third world countries set up a medical facility in a southern state (I forget which one) and they were overwhelmed with the crowds that waited for service. In an affluent country like ours that's disgusting. Among developed countries, public health care is the norm. It works well, and is not near as expensive as ours. Ours is rationed by excluding a large fraction of the population. Its outcomes are not too good either. See http://www.seconnecticut.com/healthcare.htm The Constitution, remember, is also to "promote the general welfare" and the functions that are best served by the public sector include health care, education, and vigorous regulation of the marketplace. Those bank bailouts are going to cost taxpayers plenty. (No, I don't think our public health is going to improve anytime soon, but there is considerable risk in that because the sick people that are not identified may become a problem for everyone.) There is such a thing as a common good, it seems that Republicans don't care to recognize it though. IThe best economy is a mixed one: the private sector should do what it does best, and the public sector likewise. As for heatlh care, I think recent history demonstrates dramatically that the private sector cannot handle the problem. The insurance companies should be out of the loop, and a single payer system implemented. (I know, it's not going to happen, but the system will continue to be inferior.) The Scandinavian countries are doing a much better job of taking care of their own, AND they are contributing their share to international aid. (See these comments on Finland and Denmark. Denmark is rated the happiest country in the world. ) Results matter. |