But Does Business Really Outperform Government?
There it was, 463 words into Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural address: “In the present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” With those words, spoken in 1981, a movement that had abscessed on the fringes of political chatter since the 1930s reclaimed power. The words meant nothing in themselves. Characteristic of Reagan’s copious plagiarism, they weren’t even new. They were a retread of the Harding-Coolige-Hoover slogan that “the business of America is business.”
Every “expansion of government in business,” Herbert Hoover had said, “poisons the very roots of liberalism — that is, political equality, free speech, free assembly, free press, and equality of opportunity.” That is, exactly the values reactionary Republicanism, aided by the courts it’d been packing since President McKinley’s day, clobbered as it turned the 1920s into “the most expensive orgy in history” (as F. Scott Fitzgerald would describe it in 1931, when the party was over), “the whole upper tenth living with the insouciance of grand dukes and the casualness of call girls.” That was before the orgies Reagan, that value-added conservative, unleashed in the 1980s, and that his dry-drunk ideological godson George W. Bush managed to squeeze in between two recessions. That they used government to underwrite their upper-class orgies while calling government names is among those elitist ironies men-of-the-people like Reagan and Bush chose not to consort with. It helps to live in the world of slogans.
But in the real world, is it really true that government is the problem, that business does it better than government? Not in my experience. Getting naturalized a citizen of this country was simpler than getting bogus charges taken off my cell phone account. Getting my passport or driver’s license or tags renewed has always been more pleasant and efficient than dealing with the cable company (long since abandoned). Filing taxes? Give me that over dealing with health insurers any day. At least with tax returns, I usually get money back. Insurers just garnishee my wages and shave years off my life. I envy my parents’ comparatively non-existent Medicare bureaucracy, and their complete freedom to choose what doctor they please — up to and including the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, which I’d have to pay for on top of the $5,000 I pay in private health insurance premiums for me and my family for often mediocre services and artery-clogging bureaucratic grief. Seems to me private-sector insurance is the problem here, and government the demonstrable solution.
What of government’s evil interference in my everyday life, the president’s spying on my email and phone calls abroad notwithstanding? Let’s see. This morning I made coffee. I took the clean water for granted. But if it weren’t for the city utility staying in compliance with the federal Clean Water Act — that horrible big-government intrusion — I might be having dysentery by now. If it weren’t for the Clean Air Act and smoking bans in most public places I might be coughing up a lung. The coffee maker, the overhead light in the kitchen and the computer that powered on this morning did so without a hitch. My family and I might have been toast a long time ago if it weren’t for the government-required wiring inspection.
For breakfast our eggs and milk didn’t give us all salmonella because somewhere along the food chain what’s left of our government inspectors made sure hens and cows pecked and mooed about cleanly enough, and federal regulation — that other nasty disease — compelled businesses from the farms to market to follow basic sanitary rules. And no, I don’t think they’d follow them if they weren’t made to. Amazingly, I didn’t have to dump out the family waste by the window. Just as my local government contracts with (and supervises) a company to take care of the trash and the recycling every week, it also pipes off the other stuff, treats it, and either recycles it or dumps it in environmentally acceptable ways. All that before 8 a.m. I could go on (or you could, at governmentisgood.com), but you get the point.
Then again, probably not if you’re among those Florida voters who opt to kill property taxes every chance you get then holler at the school board for closing schools, holler at your principal for firing your child’s favorite teacher and scrapping your other child’s favorite sport activity, holler at county government for cutting out bus service, code enforcement, library hours, roadside pick-up and road maintenance, holler at your local utility for fouling up the water, at your local park ranger for disappearing and at your local police department for reducing patrols in your neighborhood — then turn around and holler rote insults at the next “liberal” who suggests that taxes and government may not be the evil you make them out to be.
No, government isn’t the problem. Your votes are.
Tristam is a News-Journal editorial writer. Reach him at ptristam@att.net or through his personal Web site at www.pierretristam.com.
© 2008 News-Journal Corporation
We now see the end result when people vote for “regular folks” who don’t like Government. Putting people who don’t like Government in charge of it is like, well…no analogy needed here as most bright individuals can figure that out for themselves. If you haven’t, then you should read Dean Baker’s, “The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy use Government to Stay Rich, and get Richer”.
I’ve been through the privatization of government services on a few occasions. Whenever that happened, the quality of service has always gone downhill. After all why should a minimum wage employee who has no vested interest in the community care about the job that he does.
When government goes out of the business of regulation, the shady side of human nature takes over when it can. Big business does not care about people, only about making a buck; no matter how they do it!
As far as reagan goes; You could have guessed how bad of a president reagan would be after looking at his record of how he cared for his people when he was president of the Screen Actors Guild and governor of Calif. Seems that he made good use of government as a police state then.
When oh When will republicans quit acting like this joke of a man was a god.
Government is not the problem. Government is, however, the big prize for greedy sociopaths looking for immense windfalls. How much wealth could a government borrow, on the backs of it’s citizens, to fund no-bid contracts for useless goods purchased from lobbyists who can pay the government enough to guarantee the pleasure? The sky is the limit, dude.
If the people who make up the government say that the government is the problem, everyone else should have a look at where their loyalties were before they entered government. They call themselves politicians. You may call them shills. I call them industry operatives - and they are there for the world-class looting. And when they’re done, and the schools and hospitals and infrastructure have crumbled - they can proudly say they were right - the government let you down - government was indeed the problem. And enough people would believe them to vote for them again.
One must remember this fetish-izing of business’ non-existent capacity to outperform government in every area is a push back from the legislation enacted in the wake of the Robber Baron era. It part of a sustained propaganda effort to make sure that stuff like the Sherman Anti-Trust & the Food Safety Acts are never enacted again. It well past time that progressives get over their need to appear polite and start to use the same tactics and language that worked for them before (with a nod or two to modern realities).
Nice thoughts and nice comment, Pierre.
And if you get bad service back for your tax dollars, there are political remedies available to seek redress if you have the gumption to use them. Throw the rascals out, or force the rascals to re-write the rules.
But if you get bad service back for your payments into the private sector, you are free to exercise only your civic right to move on to another market competitor, and from there to another, and another, and another….. much like hunting for the cheapest price per gallon for gas.
That’s why “the invisible hand of the market place” is such an apt metaphor. You can’t see it, but it’s always nearby, coming to quietly pick your pocket again. Pissed off? Take comfort in the fact that we still live in a country where the rich and the poor alike have an equal right to sleep outside on park bench or grating.
“It’s every man for himself!” the elephant cried out, dancing among the chickens.
Bill from Saginaw
The government is to big the government is to small….
What would happen if all the good citizens actually participated in the governing process?
http://www.downsizedc.org/
Let’s find out.
Thank you Pierre.
This is the way to respond - call it out and name it.
The hypocrisy of those who espouse getting government out of our lives is almost unbelieveable. This article spells it out. We must all learn to recognize the double speak and call it out whenever possible. I was at a community gathering recently. A coalition of congregations was bringing a serious health issue to the attention of our community. No dental care for poor people, not one pediatric dentist in Tampa taking medicare, lack of dental care leading the severe heart problems in young, poor people and on and on. The Republican County Commissioner in attendance began with…”Government can’t do everything…” This is republispeak for the government will not do anything. Those who support this philosophy/attitude of little or no government….are committed to a society that has no interest or concern for the common good, a society of everyman for himself, a society that fails us all. I don’t know if this disaster can be turned around but we had better try. In Florida Jeb Bush (cut from the same cloth as his brother) succeeded in privatizing so much of that which is our responsibility to our citizens and the result has been a nightmare for children, for the elderly, for the poor. The Republican party and it’s arrogant attitude towards the people of our state has created an unlivable, shameful situation that we may never be able to recover from. I’ve lived here since 1959 and it has never been worse.
Until a few months ago, I was a reporter for a community weekly newspaper in suburban Chicago. As such, I was required to cover local municipal and school board elections. Whenever a candidate would bring up the notion that he/she believed the local government or school district should be run more like a business, I asked them what they meant by that exactly. They generally talked about how much more efficient the private sector was than government and, if they happened to have some sort of business background, they’d talk about how much better they’d be at watching the budget because of their business background.
It always puzzled me. I mean, if a product isn’t selling well, a business can discontinue it, right? Public school officials can’t just cut out the second grade if they need to trim the budget, so they cut “extras,” usually art and music. But voters seem to really like it when candidates at almost every level denigrate government and elevate the private sector, holding it up as the model to follow. (sigh)
This is something I submitted to Common Dreams a few months ago and I thought it fit this discussion as well. The idea being that efficiency, common sense and service to the humanity may well be vastly improved in both the government and private sector.
As a would be candidate running for president
of USA here is my platform.
Since corporations are (supposedly) better at
organizing and getting stuff done than
government, I propose that we remove all
taxation’s on them. In return for a license
to operate here they would be then obligated
to lift the underfunctioning portions of our
society without any excuse for failure to
meet that contract or any strings attached to
those whose material and social lives they
have improved and brought up to a humane and
comfortable condition. There would be a
strict criteria with everyday oversight and
monitoring with no exceptions or fiddling or
fudging as to what was or is meant. Any
corporation not meeting said criteria and
success of implementation would lose their
license to operate and all assets would be
sold in a bidding process to corporations who
are meeting the criteria. The areas of
responsibilities would include comfortable
housing, good nutrition, health, education
and training, in fact and indeed every and
all aspects to promote a prosperous, happy
population, not a tear in any eye. As has
been stated these services would be provided
with no strings attached for future
employment or pay-back, however all who would
receive these services would be given every
opportunity to work and produce for the
providing corporations if they wish or on the
other hand to enter into business or service
of their own choosing with all help readily
available. Should a corporation not meet the
essentials required and lose their license,
they would be given one year to come up to
snuff and there would be absolutely no
appeals considered after that one year.
Next, I would negotiate with our neighbors
both north and south on the North American
Continent to remove the borders and to make
North America one country so as allow people
to move around freely and find their most
appropriate place in the greater scheme of
things.
What do you think?
All one has to do is read the comic strip “Dilbert” to know with certainty that “business” has as many wide avenues to SNAFU as any government agency. Scott Adams, the brilliant and insightful author of that little classic, DID NOT serve in the bowels of bureaucracy to get all his inspiration. He worked at a modern corporation, and continued working there years after he “needed to” because in his words, “This place is such a rich source of new material.”
Concerning the mention of Reagan it could said the “privatization” of government functions usually leads to higher government spending and more money stolen in the process. The “conservative” promise is a con game used to divert public money into private hands. And the “deregulation” of certain institutions has nearly always resulted in outright theft once the guys in suits and ties take their share of the “profits.”
And how strange, Reagan and Bush both ran up record deficits (to be paid later) while using government as a way to transfer wealth from the poor many to the already rich few.
The “conservative” approach to banking years ago resulted in $Billions stolen via the savings and loan scandal, the recent deregulation of financial markets caused $Trillions in damage (but where did all those transaction fees go ?) And of course ENRON stole $Billions before stashing the profits in offshore accounts prior to bankruptcy.
Health care is another glaring example. The U.S. has the most expensive but NOT the best system in the world by far. In Japan an MRI will cost about $20 or less. Here the same thing might cost $2,000. In Taiwan, which has a combined private/public healthcare system with tight price controls, their administrative costs are two percent where they run about twenty-two percent here. But of course their doctors do not become multi-millionaires and health care is looked upon as a public service similar to the way many American teachers look at the career of teaching.
I most cases the mantra of eliminating “big government” has been used to clear the way for white collar criminals to rob the public once again.
Good article, but it sounds like something posted recently on CommonDreams. With apologies to the previous, but unknown poster:
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE RIGHT-WING REPUBLICAN
Article courtesy of PunkVoter.com
Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised. All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer’s medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance – now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry. In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor. Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn’t think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune. Its noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FDIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression. Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers’ Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans. The house didn’t have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification. He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to. Joe gets back in his car for the ride home and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservative are good. He doesn’t mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: “We don’t need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I’m a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have.”
I’ve many times said I’m tired of being spanked by the invisible hand, and that letting those who don’t trust government run it is as dumb as a bag of hammers in the rain.
We need to band together and start shouting up how privazation will put all of our resuorces in the hands of a few and that there’s a reason that monopolies are outlawed and that anti-trust acts were instituted. That these were the problems that brought about the last depression, and that FDR’s new deal is what brought us out of it, not the war (we see how well a war is working now right?).
When the right calls it “socialism” we can shout back “a word whose root is social, which is worse? that or capitalism, whose root is capital? Hmmm, social or monetary principles, I think Jesus would go with social.
We need to start taxing the wealth at about 50%, tell them to love this country or get out, like they do to me when I bitch.
We need to tax corporate profits more heavily also, and if hey leave then they are charged tarrifs on their goods. Sorry, that’s what it’s come to.
Otherwise this next depression will look like a bad schwarzenegger movie. They’ve been developing the crowd control techniques for some time now. Just take a look at the lates issue of Brigade Quartermaster, it’ll scare the hell out of you.
Q: “does business really outperform gov’t?”
A: a qualified “yes,” if business fires all the members of public-sector unions such as afscme and cwa and replaces them with part-time, minimum-wage workers, and cuts services to the bone.
one example: new jersey’s division of motor vehicles was privatized, and now people praise the new system for having speeded up the lines for license and registration renewals etc. to achieve this, however, the newly-created motor vehicle commission had to find savings elsewhere.
under the former system, all passenger vehicles had to pass a safety inspection every year; now a new car need not be inspected at all during the first five years of ownership, and cars newer than 10 years old need only be inspected every two years.
the privatization of the post office, in theory, should not have led to nearly annual increases in first-class postage and the removal of tens of thousands of mail drops from corners where they had stood for decades—in fact, we were told quite the reverse. but it did.
why do we keep believing this nonsense?
“the business of America is business.”
Not if you logically look at the decisions and policies that are constantly made. If this slogan were held as a doctrine of truth then we would never have supported Israel. Rather we would have supported the oil rich Arabs. We would not run up huge defecits in areas where there is no fiscal return. If we were truly a capitalistic country we would not have overly compensated CEOs stealing the profits owed to their stock holders. This is the great American lie that“the business of America is business”. The term neofeudalism come to mind as a more accurate description of current American policy. The gutting of state/public run agencies, in the name of privatisation, is the siphoning off of public money with its redirection toward the private wealthy. Privatisation is a word whose meaning would be well understood by the privateers of the 17th century.
Reagan’s record shows that rather than reduce government, he increased the size of government by redeploying government away from programs that benefitted all of the people into programs that benefit the wealthiest 2% of the population.
The Bush Regime has continued this redeployment strategy at an accelerated pace and with an ever increasing number of “private contractors”. Whereas there were more federal employees per capita when Reagan left office in 1989 than there were when he took office in 1981, this statistical trend will probably not characterize the Bush regime in 2009, unless you count “private contractors”.
“In 1992, the Pentagon, then under Cheney’s direction, paid Texas-based Brown & Root Services $3.9 million to produce a classified report detailing how private companies — like itself — could help provide logistics for American troops in potential war zones around the world.
Two and a half years after Cheney left his federal job, he began cashing in on the very contracts that he helped initiate.”
And just look at how much better our military’s being served by Halliburton and Bectel than by, you know, actual military personnel…
Grover Norquiest: “My goal is to cut government in half in 25 years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” As if it were, say, an alleged “illegal enemy combatant” chillin in Gitmo, eh Grove?
Economic power concentration equals economic instability. Economic power dispersion equals economic stability. You want economic stability? Then disperse the economic power - through localism.
The notion that business is more “efficient” than government has always been a ruse, akin to the exposed pickpocket pointing away from himself and shouting “thief!”
Why is this private efficiency con always, always in play? Because the government is the one large powerful segment of society over which we have potential control. So we are taught to hate government and worship private wealth in the form of business. The notion that government can *possibly* be of, by and for the people is supposed to be off the table, out of consciousness, beyond imagining. Who are the artists playing this con that never sleeps? Enormous private and unaccountable tyrannies called businesses or corporations. Reckless rhetoric you may think, but think again. If I ask in what organization does control proceed strictly from the top down, where judicial, legislative, and executive powers are one, where the least-most members may be forbidden to urinate under threat of banishment, where accountability is laughably, hilariously negligible does anyone think “hmmmm … government!”
“We” are the government and to the extent that we consciously acknowledge and practice this, concentrated private wealth and power are subject to us, not we to it. And so we are indoctrinated tirelessly that government of, by and for the people is a terrible, inefficient blunder wished for only by such fools as would tourniquet their own necks to tend to their nosebleeds.
Why has it taken almost 30 years for people to realize the fallacy of Reagan?
Why has the political system not given voice to alternative views?
Perhaps the problem is not to just blame Republicans.
Given the almost all members of congress and the executive are millionaires, if not multi-millionaires, they are the problem.
Where is American democracy? Representatives of the people?
eddievalgould, your idea is good because it imposes an ethical standard of behavior. It will scare liberals to death of course because they can’t handle any “imposition”. Never mind that their failure to impose an ethical standard is a choice to impose ethical chaos. After implementing your system people will identify its downsides, ignore its upsides, and declare the thing on balance “a failure”, and propose something different without any objective analysis. But which system is implemented is nowhere near as important as the ethical standard imposed, because with good ethics imposed, people can adapt to the quirks of most any system.
Before I left, the Honduran government, privatized Tegucigalpa’s water supply in the dead of night and without any debate.
So much for democracy when it really matters.
As a result, the price of water services went skyhigh and the service and availability plummetted.
Privatization usually goes hand-in-hand with deregulation. When a public asset is privatized, then the new owner wants to squeeze as much profit out of said asset as is feasible. This is when deregulation enters the picture.
To help raise the profit margine of the newly privatized asset, the owners organize and employ a lobby (or something that functions like a lobby) to deregulate…all in the name of cost reduction.
However, after deregulation, the owners of the newly privatized asset can now cut corners, pay off public officials, and use extracted profits to invest somewhere else rather than reinvesting in the privatized asset.
Regulators…I don’t need no stinkin’ regulators.
In fact, to keep the quality of privatized service high, available, and corruption free, government would actually have to construct a whole new public bureaucracy in order to make sure the new private bureaucracy did not externalize its costs to society and nature.
And that is a waste!
What can a conservative, corporate-sponsered government do to get citizens to clamor for privatizating popular public services. Starve them of government funds.
This starvation trick has been a favorite of conservative governments, for example, when it comes to England’s and Canada’s public healthcare systems…or the US’s public school system.
So, deregulate, privatize and starve public services. And wake up one day and wonder what the hell happened.
For more on this subject, read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. Government services are being privatized out of public control. If you don’t like the results, talk to the invisible hand. Voting offers more control to the public over the government than demand secures for the public in the marketplace.
The very idea of “running a government like a business” in a “democracy” certainly requires an Orwellian application of the term “democracy”.
I’ve done work for a number of “not-for-profit”s and “co-operatives” where providing services and making ends meet were the driving motivation. Where do most businesses put these items on their to-do list? Where should a government? Most businesses put them after profits and image. Most governments put them after getting re-elected.
Headlines could read “Trustworthy Men in Nice Suits raid Public Sector armed with nothing but Tempting Graphs.”
Let’s assume for for the sake of argument, that Regan is correct and ‘Big Government’ isn’t efficient. But if that’s the true, then why is Corporate America consolidating through merger and acquisition, in the same fashion, to create ‘Big Corporate’?
A major part of the problem is the brontosaurus-ation of human endeavor. Small is beautiful.
dmgreenaz April 29th, 2008 3:35 pm
A major part of the problem is the brontosaurus-ation of human endeavor. Small is beautiful.
~~
Which is perhaps why sometimes municipal governments seem to be the only ones that know we even exist…
hazmat
“A: a qualified ‘yes,’ if business fires all the members of public-sector unions such as afscme and cwa and replaces them with part-time, minimum-wage workers, and cuts services to the bone.”
This is nothing short than market dogmatism. Saying that business always outperforms government is entirely faith based and not a reflection of economic reality. The answer is it depends.
Let’s look at one obvious example, the US Heath Care System, it’s a total mess.
US health care expenditures in percentage of GDP (14.6%) and Per Capita spending $5,267, are 53% higher than any other OECD nation. Despite larger expenditures the US has lower utilization rates and resources per capita than many other OECD nations. Additionally 15% of the US does not have health insurance when almost all other OECD nations have universal health care. How are other OECD nations different/more efficient? Greater government involvement, either through single payer or socialized healthcare systems.
Also an issue would be how you measure performance. By performance you could mean maximizing profit, meeting social needs or minimizing externalities.
Is this a good phrasing for the issue?…
You can influence business- with enough money. But you can influence goverment- with enough people.
Please help me try to say something along the lines of ‘what do people with no money do?’ or ‘equitably speaking, what does everyone have… (an opinion?)’
I’d like to hear some hip slogans. Some bumperstickers that we can stick over every building sign that they are renaming after Reagan.
federal regulation — that other nasty disease — compelled businesses from the farms to market to follow basic sanitary rules. And no, I don’t think they’d follow them if they weren’t made to.
That’s the crucial issue. Is human nature fundamentally bad, so that higher ethics must be imposed on the majority by a righteous elite? No. Human nature is both good and bad and it thereby follows that any institutions we organize has better exert a net positive influence to reinforce the good and suppress the bad side of human nature.
The problem with the United States is that its institutions are being abused which exerts a net negative influence on the people, by accident and by design. Reverse this situation and the people will readily accept rules and regulations that improve their lives. Don’t try to change human nature, and don’t restrict the behavior of people, but enforce very strict controls on the institutions and all forms of organizations. Localism allows the people to enforce these controls.
Does the title of the article make sense? Are they two types of concrete objects that can be held aloft and compared and contrasted?
Moving quickly to the abstract, Government is defined by who controls it. Lockheed and General Dynamics control (own) more representation then a state full of voters. We don’t know how large the paychecks are, that they write to themselves. FEMA’s budget is partly hidden from your view, for example. Double standards? Conflicts of interests? Along with “kickbacks” these are descriptions of events in a fairy tale called Democracy.
Business and government have different aims.
A business entity exists to accumulate wealth. Laws, regulations, customs, expectations, zoning and whatnot press business to provide goods and services in exchange for accumulating wealth. A business entity spends as little as possible, and gathers in as much as possible to maximize accumulation of wealth.
If a business entity is not accumulating wealth, it goes out of existence.
Government provides goods and services. Getting and spending is still in there, but the main thing a government is supposed to do is to organize, provide, regulate.
But a gvt does not exist to maximize accumulation of wealth…(and I just sent in my income tax payment, and I can still say that…see how fair and objective I am?)
So, measure them differently…
Measure a business entity’s efficiency for its ability to make money.
Measure a gvt’s efficiency for its ability to provide the service of governance.
Do forget what a great job government and private business firms are doing in Iraq.
Oh, I forgot; the voters put that government in charge.
The business of America is to give everyone else “the business”.
A Summery of The Communist Manifesto
The communist Manifesto represents a misguided philosophy,which teaches the citizens to give up their RIGHTS for the sake of the “common good” but it always ends in police state. This is called preventive justice.CONTROL is the key concept.Read carefully.
1.Abolition of private property.
2.Heavy progressive income tax.
3.Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4.Confiscation of all property of all emigrants and rebels.
5.Central Bank
6.Government control of Communications and Transportation.
7.Government ownership of factories and agriculture.
8.Government control of labor.
9.Corporate farms,regional planning.
10.Government control of education.
Well if you were to put the “Commune” back in communism and replace all those “Government”s with “Communal” you might have something approaching the true goal of Communism.
The human race might not be ready for something that enlightened yet, though Kerala in India seems so far to be doing not too bad a job of implementing the dream. 97% literacy and they had the jam to kick out Coca Cola because it was using and polluting too much of the communal water supply.
It’s fine to admire what the U.S. Gov’t does well but it is not fine to allow the “good” to obscure the evil. Many of the “good” things were put in place in a different time. Recently, the gov’t has given us feedlot beef with all attendant problems like E Coli from Hades and trans fats, Telecommunications Act of 1996, No Child Left Behind, NAFTA, GATT, Patriot Act, etc. Pesticides and herbicides have been dumped into our water supplies despite the Clean Water Act. Coal plants were allowed to spew poisons for decades despite (or because of provisions in) the Clean Air Act. And now, in order to pursue that “safe food” objective mentioned here, they are outlawing raw food. And, in part, the financial messes of recent years are the result of gov’t policies–repeal of 1930’s regulations, lowering interest rates to save the stock market and punish savers, refusing to provide decent reegulatory structure (threatening Arthur Levitt with loss of funds for the SEC) Not to mention the debt that promises to destroy us all.
Democrats were complicit in all of this.
If we want to save gov’t, we have to cut back or we will drown.
Robert Reich was on npr the other day (so what else is new?) talking about the privatization of Social Security. If we all had our little private accounts, the recent stock market problems would have lost us collectively trillions. Just like a lot of 401Ks.
The government should what it does well, and the private sector what it does well. Unfortunately this admin believes the privste sector should be handed government programs along with the right to rape and pillage.
If it’s going to cost an arm and a leg for government to oversee private business and insist that they perform the job properly, then it doesn’t make any sense not to just do the job itself. And it will probably cost taxpayers less in the long run, especially if the tax breaks and subsidies for business are directed towards actually doing the job and providing the service rather than into corporate profits. Private business has had it’s shot, failed and should be relieved of the responsibility it obviously doesn’t want. Just too bad so much of the public commons in both Canada and the US have already been sold off and will now be unrecoverable.
workreno: communism may be misguided but capitalism ain’t so grand either, is it?
How far off is the fascist USA from the communist manifesto?
1. (private property) 10% homes foreclosed, what percent owned a home in the first place? 24% of Americans hold a college degree. I “own” a home that I will slave to pay triple what it is worth over the next 30 years.
2.(Heavy progressive income tax) Deregulation may be worse; look at the increases in living expenses with salaries stagnating in comparison. At least everybody gets medical care under socialism.
3.Abolition of all rights of inheritance (what inheritence?) Only the top wage earners in the USA leave inheritences. Most Americans die in debt or broke.
4.(Confiscation of all property of all emigrants and rebels) Patriot Act is gonna get you.
5.(Central Bank) How many are left? Aren’t the rich richer and the poor poorer? 1% of the USA owns half the wealth or something? What’s the difference?
6.(Government control of Communications and Transportation) The media is already in the hands of a few fascists. The roads are built and maintained by the feds. They threatened states with NCLB Act compliance or loss of fed funds for roads.
7.(Government ownership of factories and agriculture) Aggies are subsidized to the hilt and our factories are moving overseas.
8.(Government control of labor) Minimum wage, no-strike laws, Free Trade laws, welfare, workman’s comp, and more…
9.(Corporate farms,regional planning) What percent of Americans grow their own food? If the stuff ever hits the fan in the USA the fascists have us right where they want us.
10.(Government control of education) NCLB Act appears to be a ploy to overthrow most of the lower income school districts of the nation by 2014 and replace them with computerized educational programs that will comply with NCLB and make a pretty penny for the fascists. It will soon be even easier to control what the masses read, hear, learn…
Six in one; half dozen in the other.
If humanity has a shot at a brighter future, it won’t be through either capitalism or communism or some mixture of both. The only hope we have is some form of voluntary selflessness that rebukes the current carnival of modern materialism. It can’t happen until most of the world is educated. Good luck, eh?
I imagine a one-world culture that emphasizes the value of human life above the accumulation of wealth or material goods. Perhaps a science/philosophy/psychology based religion might emerge some day? Will Homo sapiens find itself?
andrew herman
I think we’re on the same page.
When the neo-nazis fold up their potsy scheme only the self sufficient and well informed will survive. The left and the right are false paradigm.
Power corrupts. It took, what, 15 years, from the time it became fashionable to run governments like a business until it became necessary to run governments like Enron.
Oh concerning #7 don’t forget the government bail outs in the auto industry, airlines,sub-prime mortgage(not the victims just the vultures)
I can’t see how anyone can cling to the hope that our loving masters (government)are going to save us all in the 11th hour.
Please watch:
http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=1070329053600562261
The privatization of government is merely socialized economics for the rich kids like Georgie and Dickie who can’t make it any other way. They are the true bottom feeders…nothing but scum sucking greed hiding behind self-righteous patriotism. When is this country going to get really pissed off? When are we going to wake up and scream out, ‘Rape! Murder! Theft!’ All I here from the f..king press are questions about Obama’s judgement. You have got to be s..ting me! We have a president who attacked another sovereign nation and turned it into a pile of crap and if you don’t think that he and his ilk are out to do it here then I have a health insurance policy just for you. We are taking a stab not to the back but to the heart. These bastards are staring the American people right in the face while they run the blade up the gut. I hope they are chased down to the ends of the earth. Their little ranchero in Paraguay better be well bunkered.
As a public school teacher I often heard from the public: “They oughta run schools like a business.” My response was “Which business? Enron? Montgomery Ward? K-Mart? Studebaker-Packard?”
“That which governs least governs best.”
go figure…you____ _____s.
workreno
Get big business off of the government’s back!
Bring democracy into big businesses, big military and big government.
Did you notice the two major organizations sold to us as our benefactors: big business and big military, are by their very nature totalitarian institutions?
“The communist Manifesto represents a misguided philosophy,which teaches the citizens to give up their RIGHTS for the sake of the “common good” but it always ends in police state. This is called preventive justice.CONTROL is the key concept. Read carefully.”
OMG, public enterprise inevitably leads to police state!!! Every nation with nationalized health care is doomed!!! Is this the absurd point you are making?
The Communist Manifesto isn’t really anything more that a very vague outline of what an alternative to capitalism could look like. Most of Marx’s work was dedicated to critiquing capitalism. The only rights given up are individual property rights. The property rights Marx was most concerned with was means of production, land ownership and concentrated wealth.
Have you actually read the Communist Manifesto?
Right before that bit you quoted it states
Marx was interested in democracy and can’t be blamed that people perverted his ideas. Ideally democracy should be as participatory and representative as possible, instead of the corrupt joke that passes for democracy in this country.
piece of shit won’t let me edit
“The communist Manifesto represents a misguided philosophy,which teaches the citizens to give up their RIGHTS for the sake of the “common good” but it always ends in police state. This is called preventive justice.CONTROL is the key concept. Read carefully.”
OMG, public enterprise inevitably leads to police state!!! Every nation with nationalized health care is doomed!!! Is this the absurd point you are making?
The Communist Manifesto doesn’t give more than a very vague outline of what an alternative to capitalism could look like. Most of Marx’s work was dedicated to critiquing capitalism. The only rights given up are individual property rights. The property rights Marx was most concerned with were means of production, land ownership and concentrated wealth.
Have you actually read the Communist Manifesto?
Right before that bit you quoted it states
Marx was interested in democracy and can’t be blamed that people perverted his ideas. Ideally democracy should be as participatory and representative as possible, instead of the corrupt joke that passes for democracy in this country.
The classic business model to “build a better mouse trap”, to come up with a truly revolutionary product, to create a breakthrough medicine or invention is rather difficult. Just what has the US got going for it now days? It has lost it’s industry, it’s natural resources are all but drained, even our service industries are being outsourced (if possible). Our top product of the last 10 years is the Ipod and it’s not even made hear. Oh, unless you want to count all those sophisticated weapons of death that are churned out from the dark underbelly of our psyche. Of course money is/was still being made by the manipulation of capital and the stock market monty game , with even this now collapsing. What to do? Blame everything on government, call for it’s down seizing, then take over government and rape it just like you (Mr. Masters degree in Business lassie fair capitalist) would do of any natural resource (timber, oil, etc.).
Now through your crony shills in government you privatize much of the government and sell (give) off the commons to your buddies. Nothing is immune: schools, prisons, postal, military, etc. etc. Now you walmartize these areas that used to provide a decent living wage to hard working citizens but were nonprofit, and create supercharged profits for the elite’s
(owners and top shareholders) and a scramble to the bottom for everyone else. The “pie” is now almost totally controlled by these new feudal lords with the crumbs falling down to the masses.
When said middle class country has been totally sucked dry, you (the economic masters), simply move on to the next country that still has any semblance of working class wealth left in it…. until in hopefully unending ponzie scam you work your way around the world and back again, in a endless “paint the Golden Gate Bridge” fashion.
Of course it won’t work, even if we create cloned sub intelligence drone workers who exist on pharmaceutical enhanced tweekies that cost 75% of their meager salaries (isn’t this almost the case now?) ……. because it is INHUMAN, IMMORAL and UNJUST! …. and just like death, karmic law always eventually catches up.
I propose a test of the main thesis: Let’s get the government out of the war-making business, turn Iraq over to Blackwater, cut off taxpayer funding, and see if they can turn a profit. If they’re truly “efficient” they should be able to.
I refer to privatization as the De-democratization of state function. The appeal of the popular rant,”Big Government” lies in its opposition to monolithic apparatus (which, quite frankly, appeals to no one I have ever met, no matter their political persuasion).
The unfortunate reality is that the massive machine still exists after privatization, the only difference is that you are now less able to control it via democratic process.
The ability of the market to speak is often spoken of by free market proponents - “Let the market choose - let the market do its magic - it will, by natural design, fall upon the ideal model.” This process of which they speak is merely an isolated, distorted form of the democratic function; a ghost of choice.
There is no argument against a small state which is more responsive to the people than it is to so-called special interests.
However, “conservative” proponents of “small state” generally eschew any responsibility to the people as a whole, opting only to accrue private wealth, the fortunate portion of the population being those whose needs fall within the profit window of industry. Even those fortunate to meet the requirements of business remain at its whim.
The argument of Big Gov’t and Small Gov’t is a false one. The corporate elites clearly do not favour a government whose pockets reflect a smaller stature, they simply wish for access to more markets and more public funds.
The real choice is between Big Government and Corporate Tyranny/Dictatorship of the Dollar.
The third option they wish to never acknowledge is a smaller and more responsive democracy.
Matthew
Montreal,Canada
Workreno, SHAME ON YOU! NONE of what you posted is contained in “The Communist Manifesto”. Thanks, but no thanks for the “summery [sic]”, wherever you got it. Just what we need: more deliberatively deceptive purposeful DISINFORMATION. The fact that we can even discuss the oppression and alienation of the working class by those who own the means of production is thanks to Marx. He did not tell us what to do about it, but believed that ultimately the working class (proletariat) would say “Enough!” and rise up against the bourgeois (business owning) class. Will they? Will you?
Workreno, SHAME ON YOU! NONE of what you posted is contained in “The Communist Manifesto”.
Worse than that, workreno posted a link to the paranoid swill of Alex “The Illuminati Hides Satanic Symbols On Starbucks Coffee Cups To Mock Us” Jones.
Given that Jones is one of his sources, I would assume he picked that list from
http://www.tommillington.com/newworldorder.htm
Which is the site that most NEW WORLD ORDER types cite for that summary of the Communist MAanifesto (which has unlikely been read by those repeating the list).
nellemason & horseytown:
On the wikipedia website the 10 points workreno listed were identified as the “10 Planks of the Communist Manifesto”. If you find fault with his posting then you might want to challenge the wiki post as well.
I read it 25 years ago and can’t remember exactly what was in there.
Any form of material extremism that lacks a foundation of selflessness and harmony with the environment will eventually lead humanity to its own destruction.
When will humanity discover its true beauty?
Walmartize is a great new verb that I intend to use regularly for the rest of my life (thanks ralph442).
If everyone who says he/she is not a racist honestly believes this, then humanity’s central problem is how to arrive at a consensus culture.
Powerslave, you’re a dupe and a parrot. When you vote for the party of permanent tax cuts and reallocation of wealth to the already wealthy, you can’t pay for schools, roads, healthcare, etc. The whole discussion here is about how shrinking the government diminishes services, and you pop in and defend Enron. I used to be more tolerant of idiots like you but now that your vote is ruining my country, no longer. Get your head out of the right-wing echo chamber and see how Republican policies are killing you.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying that Marx ,Nobel,Opinheimer and the like had evil on there mind as they did their deadly work.
I’m just looking at the effect their work had on mankind.
If I could choose only 3 years in history that I could be a part of I think I would choose 1936-1939 Spain.
The collectives showed us how a truly communal effort can be very good for all.
But as we know now ALL Parties, National Socialist(Nazi) Fascist, Democracies,Communist shared a common goal.
At all costs those Anarchist must be defeated.Because if the word gets out how much more productive their agriculture, factories,and services are …how will we set up here on the hill and rule over them.
Homage to Catalonia, Orwell and Chomsky on Anarchism are just 2 books that have swayed my views on Communism.
As far as Big Gov. funded health care I believe if you study Staling and Hitler you will find they too had that.
Look at the Big Brother Machine at work in England sure you get “free” health care along with banks of cameras watching your every move.
I believe the only way we can stop this fall is to LOCALIZE everything .
Some good info on that topic can be found in books like.
The Great Turning (from empire to earth community)
David C. Korten
The SMALL-MART Revolution
Michael H.Shuman
Oh Don’t forget to contact your government at:
http://www.downsizedc.org/
I’ve got to get back to work.
Peace all.
Thank you Skeezyks.
About workreno and andrew’s discussion on the dynamics of capitalism and communism:
Are they totally competing ideologies if the results are the same conservative dictatorships and private tyrannies?
Aren’t both forms of representative government?
If money/power corrupts, aren’t failures of both ideologies a direct result of centralizing power in the hands of a few representatives?
BTW, I agree in large part with these three:
2.Heavy progressive income tax.
3.Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4.Confiscation of all property of all emigrants.
It must be a different communist manifesto than the one I read some years back. Checking online at http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html, indicates that whatever manifesto workreno is talking about, it isn’t the one Marx wrote. Perhaps there’s a clue in the fact that it says it’s a “summery(sic)” and not a “summary.”
I have worked in private business, including for a BIG, world-wide mega corporation. There are a few things those supporting piratization, I mean privatization, always forget to mention. The corporation I worked for had plenty of problems and screw-ups, expensive ones too, but when they made them, no one outside a small, select group ever heard about them. Maybe a dip in the ledger but contrast that to the government, where if it makes a mess, we all know about it.
Another oft neglected aspect of business-run endeavors was already mentioned by Nyanna, the cost cutting, no more second grade, issue.
Then there is the, we are doing it for the money, so we really don’t care if it’s any good. Once we cash in, we’ll cash out and move somewhere else if we need to.
Another is, just what happens when the inefficient business can’t cut costs any more, and can’t raise prices any more? Bankruptcy. How many businesses have gone bankrupt in the past 10 years? You’d need a mighty big spreadsheet to list all of them. How about governments? Some have gone bankrupt too. But you probably could count on the fingers of one hand the number which have.
So handy for the supporters to forget these kind of details, of which I am sure there are many more examples.
Corporations - I worked for DEC (Digital Equipment Corp.) when the company was being disassembled. They didn’t go bankrupt as they still were selling the fastest chip on the market. It was a sprawling business so each of the different businesses were sold off. The end was that DEC ceased to exist even though it was international and employed 120,000 people. It was a very people oriented company to work for at the time. Those businesses each have been resold and resold. The workers however, are either looking for jobs or are popping up at other tech firms.
Corp. have their downside though. Very elite top people do not socialize with lower class, The lower paying positions are the first to be laid off while the elite are writing their own salary contract and bonus plans. One even left went to a competitor and came back a year later to write a new contract for himself with even larger pay and bonus. The corp had to layoff more people - whoops! laid off essential people with knowledge - brought them back as contractors. etc., etc., etc.,
Corporations - I worked for DEC (Digital Equipment Corp.) when the company was being disassembled. They didn’t go bankrupt as they still were selling the fastest chip on the market. It was a sprawling business so each of the different businesses were sold off. The end was that DEC ceased to exist even though it was international and employed 120,000 people. It was a very people oriented company to work for at the time. Those businesses each have been resold and resold. The workers however, are either looking for jobs or are popping up at other tech firms.
Corp. have their downside though. Very elite top people do not socialize with lower class, The lower paying positions are the first to be laid off while the elite are writing their own salary contract and bonus plans. One even left went to a competitor and came back a year later to write a new contract for himself with even larger pay and bonus. The corp had to layoff more people - whoops! laid off essential people with knowledge - brought them back as contractors. etc., etc., etc.,
re crooked7 4:06pm 4/29
i’ve been accused of a lot of things, but never before of being a market fundamentalist. if you had read my entire post before going off, you might have found we are basically in agreement.
just so i’m not misunderstood, let me restate for the record: i believe the ONLY way business can come close to performing such functions as education, health care, police and fire protection, maintenance of infrastructure, and public service in general, as if it were government yet still show a profit, is to drastically underpay their workers and to radically redefine quality of service downward. (this is based on several assumptions, the most important of which is that government is too open and transparent for crony capitalism to take root.)
OK?
I take information where ever I can find it .As far as the Alex Jones post after watching ENDGAME and others I purchased some books and did some research of my own.
As I’ve stated on other threads I am not a writer so please forgive my poor spelling for it has little to do with the topic of the discussion.
When I study my trade I read many different prospectives. You’ll will find many books on cabinet making, furniture,architecture,boat bldg. ,timber framing and many other related topics on my shelves and in my shop.
As well when I study the state of the world that I am part of I look through as many different perspectives as I can comprehend.
I watch, listin and read a lot of Amy Goodman,David Barsamian,Noam Chomsky,Howard Zinn,H.D.Thoreau,Thomas Paine,Thomas Jefferson , Jim Garrison,Fred Alan Wolf,Stephen Hawking,Masaru Emoto,E.O.Wilson ,Greg Grafin are just a small sample of those that have helped shape my views.
Read The True Story of the Bilderberg Group by Daniel Estulin
Research some of Alex’s outlandish claims for yourself don’t just call him names prove that there is no NAU,WTO,Trilateral Commission,New World Order, Fema Camps,Boheimian Grove, Waco (government killing women and children).
Please enlighten me for I only seek the TRUTH.
Oh’ and it might not hurt to shut your TV off either.
The next time some dimbulb says that government needs to run like a business, people should respond, “Like Enron? Like WorldCom? Like Bear Stearns?, Like Wal-Mart? etc.
RE: WmC
You are brilliant. That is an idea that I can get behind. Where would the warmongers be if they had to foot the bills?
A more peacable world I would suspect.
I’d like to comment further but as usual I’m now being “moderated” again.
Don’t mention the man behind the curtain.
hazmat
I said “market dogmatism” not fundamentalism. The question was “Does Business Really Outperform Government?” which you answered yes. Sounds rather dogmatic to me, unless what you really meant to say was that business can outperform government. Maybe I jumped the gun a little. Unfortunately there are a lot of simple minded people that believe markets ALWAYS perform better, which in reality this isn’t ALWAYS the case. These people never consider the possibility that performance can be measured in a number of ways such as meeting a social need that might not necessarily be profitable.
Workreno
“As far as Big Gov. funded health care I believe if you study Staling and Hitler you will find they too had that.”
This really is a pathetic excuse for an argument. You know, they probably had publicly funded fire departments too. OMG!!!! Publicly funded fire departments = Nazi Germany/USSR, we better privatize before we become the same. LOLZ
The majority of developed nations do have universal health care and haven’t transformed into police states because of it. Why don’t you study Nazi Germany before advising others too? Contrary to what you seem to believe the Nazi government was not nationalizing industries, in fact they were privatizing state owned industries on a massive scale. http://www.ub.es/graap/nazi.pdf
Don’t BS unless you want to be called on it.
O.K. Smart Ass view this vidio and keep up your Bull Shit .
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8674401787208020885
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free….
it expects what never was and never will be.”
Thomas Jefferson
Remember him?
crooked7: How are other OECD nations different/more efficient? Greater government involvement, either through single payer or socialized healthcare systems.
A government does not magically do the right thing. A government has to be drive to do the right thing. OECD governments do the right thing because they fear the rabble.
But here in the “Good ol USA” the rabble has no influence over the federal government. The government is out of control. The government does the bidding of godzilla corporations. So greater US government involvement in healthcare will be of, by and for the corporations and healthcare costs will continue to skyrocket, unless the people wake up and start doing their civic duty to reign in the capitalists.
Social Security and Medicare seem to be relatively efficient (still not as efficient as similar services in other countries) but there is no assurance these efficiencies will be preserved if Medicare is expanded to Medicare For All. Instead, there is a high risk that the capitalists will try to exploit the transition chaos to actually take the quality of the current Medicare for seniors/disabled down a notch or two. We should demand DOUBLE healthcare value, one way or another, in three years, triple in five. No ifs, ands or buts.
rtdrury
“A government does not magically do the right thing.”
Certainly! I agree 100%! I think the problem in the US is that we have an unresponsive government. The idea behind a single payer system is that the government uses its market power to negotiate with health care providers. Right now we have concentrated power on the supply side (health care providers) and a weak and fragmented buyers side, this means the suppliers are the price setters. A single payer system would give the government leverage to negotiate prices, however since our elected officials are essentially bought off by the health care industry this might happen. The government has the capability to use Medicare in such a way but refuses to do so. So yes it is not a magical fix, nothing even is, my point is nations with greater government intervention fare better than the US. This is why in almost every other developed nation the government plays a role as the single payer or the health care system is nationalized.
workreno
“‘If a nation expects to be ignorant and free….
it expects what never was and never will be.’
Thomas Jefferson
Remember him?”
Is this some form of argument? Who cares what Thomas Jefferson said, do you know what he had to say about other races and women? Maybe Jefferson was enlightened for his time but certainly not by today’s standards. How do you expect people to reply to such a silly argument? “OMG Thomas Jefferson quote, I surrender, you win.” Further more how does this even relate to the topic?
workreno
Also I have no interest in watching your video. If you can’t make an argument yourself, you don’t deserve a response. It is obvious you are incapable of forming rational thoughts and arguments and I have no interesting in wasting my time on such stupidity.
correction on previous post
A single payer system would give the government leverage to negotiate prices, however since our elected officials are essentially bought off by the health care industry this might NOT happen.
crooked 7 I don’t come here have arguments with people that are so obviously blind to rationalization that they refuse to view any evidence that may contradict the reality they have created in their own head.
Maybe if you spent a little more time reading, listing and watching more diverse conversation instead of making personal attacks on someone that you don’t even know, your word wouldn’t sound so foolish.
Oh by the way I did look at your “evidence of privatization”
I wouldn’t exactly call it the end all on the Nazis.
Are you advocating no one can make it without the loving help of Big Brother?
Let me put it this way I am certainly not holding all the answers in a jar on my shelf.
But I am fairly convinced that the big corporate/government that brought us to this point in time has nothing good to bring to the table for the working class.
The TRUTH will set you free…
workreno
“But I am fairly convinced that the big corporate/government that brought us to this point in time has nothing good to bring to the table for the working class.”
Yes I am sure most working class people agree with you that universal health care brings nothing to the table for them. I’m sure they are perfectly content with the unaffordability and unavailability of health care in this country. (sarcasm intended) People like you pretend you care about the working class, yet you have nothing to offer them, nor do you really care about thier problems. I’m not advocating “Big Brother”, in fact I haven’t advocated anything. I’ve made observations, nations that provide universal health do it cheaper and arguably more effectively than the US. You seem to believe that it is either “Police State” or “No State”. While I would love to have you address my statements, all you have offered are straw man arguments (ie USSR/Nazi comparisons).
CROOKed7
I don’t pretend to be of the working class .I am.
I myself am without health insurance as we speak do to injuries that have accumulated over years of LABOR.
I have addressed your issues ,but you’ve continue your rant rather than investigating the base of my views.
Let me give you a small example of how insurance/warranties/guaranties and all other similar scams work.Including any, give us the fruits of your labor and we will “protect ” you scams.
I,ll try to keep it simple for you.
When the factory warranty ran out on my truck I purchased an extended warranty.The seal on the rear axle failed.
This was a $25.00 part that took the mechanic 1 hour to replace.
I paid him the $150.00 deductible and he was paid an additional $500.00 from the warranty company.
Back when I could still afford some health insurance ( major medical) I had to have an operation to repair an injury.
This too took less than an hour.
The operation was billed at $5,500.00
My deductible was $5,000.00.
So I went to all the parties involved an negotiated the bills until they reduced my bills by an average of 40%
Of course these are not the kid of examples vampires enjoy seeing .
Going Local
creating self-reliant communities in a global age
By Michael H. Shuman
Might help you overcome your preditorial ideas.
Coward maybe it would help if you looked up:
Brave New India:Uprisings
by Arundhati Roy
she can explain modern “Communist” to you.
I think they need your wide view on the subject..
asshole.
workreno
Local collectives that control economic activities within the confines of participatory democracy isn’t on the horizon as of now.
The Basque regions of Spain possessed several of these local collectives based on their industrial complexes.
The medical, educational, pension funds, etc. were all locally controlled.
Unfortunately, these very efficient, democratically and community-based enterprises were bought up by large German firms after the Spanish STATE was merged into the EEU.
These locally-oriented, democratically run enterprises were protected by the Spanish state.
Now, these enterprises are part of a larger corporate bureaucracy. The democracy and local control are all gone.
balkiriv thank you for your points .
I agree with your statement
“Local collectives that control economic activities within the confines of participatory democracy isn’t on the horizon as of now.”
It took several generations of repression of the serfs by the bourgeois and elite to bring about the revolutionary changes of 1936 Spain ,but of course it wasn’t in the nature of the anarchists to “take command”.
This allowed Franco and his band of thugs to crush the idea of the “classless” society.
It appears as though Mankind though it’s corporate bureaucracies including the so call communist one has lead us down a path that will be very difficult to reverse.
This is why writers like David C.Korten (When Corporations Rule the World , and The Great Turning from Empire to Earth Community) state that it will indeed take several generation to bring about a kinder world where nations of greed driven men are not at perpetual war with one another.
I think the best we can hope in the current and next couple generations is to keep the KILLERS hands off the self destruct button.
This idea that we keep funneling all the money and power to the top is counter productive.
But as I stated the vampires love it.
workreno
My point has been that nations that provide health insurance to their populations do it better and cheaper than the US. The outcome of such intervention isn’t anything comparable to Nazi Germany or the USSR as you have previously suggested. In fact many European countries are much more democratic than the United States, yet you persist with these stupid characterizations. You don’t have health insurance? Join the crowd, neither do I. You complain about the cost of health care, deductibles etc yet you have no clue what gives rise to these costs.
Next time you see some one dying because they can’t afford a potentially life saving treatment be sure to tell them, “don’t worry, maybe some day after you are long dead, a revolution will occur and small scale collectives will miraculously fix everything” and see how they respond. Tell anyone this facing such a dilemma and see if you don’t get your sorry ass beaten. You accuse me of “preditorial ideals” (what you exactly mean I am unsure of), yet all you have to offer is the POSSIBILITY of some fairy tale utopia, where with no rhyme or reason problems are magically solved. You haven’t said anything about how we should go about solving these problems in health care coverage at this time and continue to ignore the very real economic realities. Grow up and stop being such a selfish prick. Sure there are alternatives to capitalism, but instead of preaching, why don’t you fight to empower working class people so they can bring about the changes they demand instead of playing the jerk that only cares about his/her “revolution”.
While you are so quick to point out Chomsky (who is a great thinker) you don’t have the slightest inclination that Chomsky, or any decent leftist, would find your lack of compassion abhorrent. Chomsky has in fact advocated universal health care on several occassions. Your ignorance is simply astounding.