Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Some comments in the ongoing debate regarding the candidacy of Elizabeth Warren got me to thinking about our political system and people’s reactions to it. Warren is criticized by the Right for obvious reasons, given her strong stances on managing the economy and controlling the excesses of the Corporate Culture. In a sense she offends their sense of political purity, but then that is but a given because she is a Democrat. We have seen though on the Right that such conservative stalwarts as Richard Lugar have gone down to primary defeat because he failed the Tea Parties test of what a “true” conservative should be. Richard Lugar failed the “purity” test even though his conservative history is impeccable. In my conception political purity conforms to “party line” thinking, punishing those that fail to adhere in all respects to the standards of a given faction’s concept of standards their candidates must adhere to in order to retain enthusiastic support. I use “faction”, rather than “party”, because our two party political system actually represents an amalgam of various factions imperfectly coalescing under the rubric of a “Political Party”.
From a Left, or even Centrist perspective, there has been both amusement and trepidation about how the “Tea Party” faction has exerted control over the Republican Party. Then too, there is the same reaction to the power exerted by Fundamentalist Christians, a group that at some points overlaps with the “Tea Party”. A human trait is to see the foibles of groups we define as “other”, while being oblivious to the idiosyncrasies of the groups we are aligned with. Liberals, Progressives, Radicals and even Leftist Centrists like to believe that they are immune from the turmoil that they see in their Right Wing opposites, yet the “Left” and even the “Center” also routinely define people in terms of litmus tests of political purity. This was highlighted by certain comments on the Warren thread where people who were seemingly in tune with her domestic policy views, disliked her positions on the Middle East and appeared to hold them against her. This has definitely been true with many progressives and/or civil libertarians in viewing this current Administration. My purpose here is not one of castigation for anyone’s perspective; rather I’m interested in exploring the phenomenon of the belief that political figures need to meet all of our expectations in their positions, or be unworthy of our support. My own perspective is that tests of political purity are self defeating because it is impossible for any particular political figure to be in perfect agreement with all that any of us individually believe and politics becomes oppression without the ability to negotiate. The process of real negotiation requires compromise. What follows is why I believe that is true. Before my discussion though, I think a definition of perspectives would be helpful. There are some of us, including myself to a certain degree, who believe that we are living under a corporate oligarchy and as such the common pretense that our national fate is in the hands of the majority’s vote, is but pleasant mythology. I wrote about this in my guest blog Published 1, March 17, 2012: http://jonathanturley.org/2012/03/17/a-real-history-of-the-last-sixty-two-years/ .One logical conclusion that can be drawn from believing that democracy is an illusion, is that voting is a wasted effort, since whatever person we choose will either be a corporate stooge, or unelectable. I can respect those who draw that conclusion since the evidence of its truth is quite convincing. My own conclusion is not quite there yet, even though I do believe that we are under the rule of a coalition of the Military Industrial Complex and of the Corporate Elite. The redeeming feature to me is that I don’t believe in the homogeneity of the “ruling classes”. I think that they are made up of various factions and roiled by clashing egos. In my estimation voting for politicians thus has value because the vote affects the competition among our oligarchs. There is a qualitative difference for instance between Buffett/Gates and the Koch Brothers, in the sense that the former believe in more humane social policies and the latter have a draconian social view.
If one believes that Democracy is completely illusory, then why bother voting, since voting is a futile exercise? The logical conclusion of such a belief is to disdain all of American politics and politicians as being tools of the Oligarchy. From that perspective it isn’t a question of particular policy, since almost every player in normative politics is not to be trusted. So the question becomes how do the people change things when the political process is believed to be non-existent? Obviously, if it is ones view that America politics is a total sham, then a massive uprising of the people would be needed to make change. How does that uprising occur? Will its’ nature be peaceful, or violent? While I know there are “militias” out in the hills of places like Idaho, are they capable of banding together to overthrow our current government, I think not. Violent revolutions always seem to breed unforeseen and unpleasant excesses, which make their original aims moot. So the question becomes how do we effect a peaceful revolution? The answer is simple, but the process itself is immensely complex. A peaceful revolution can come about when you are able to convince an overwhelming majority of the people that the current system needs change and that they need to refuse to cooperate with it. Think of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. When the media is in the hands of corporations though, the issue is one of how does the message of change come across to reach the populace? It’s a question I’ve pondered for years.
Back in the 60’s there was the idea of “dropping out” of a corrupt system. Its problem was that it was espoused by many and practiced by few. The truth was that for those “dropping out” the system didn’t miss their participation, nor would it now. A current conservative stratagem is to make voting harder, thereby limiting turnout of voters negative to their cause. We solve nothing by not voting. We could vote, but cast our votes for nascent opposition parties. This is not a bad premise in my estimation, even though in our loaded political system, minority party effectiveness is more limited than under parliamentary government. Let us think though about a minority party legislator’s ability to be effective once elected, since I assume that the process of gaining political power through organizing a minority party opposition would be slow and could be violently opposed. Think of the police reactions to Occupy Wall Street. However, OWS does show that the elite can feel threatened by a mass movement.
When we discuss the election of someone whose political views are outside of what the “mainstream allows”, we need to take into account how much positive influence they can have on the political process, if they are unwilling to compromise their “political purity”. Let us take the real instance of Senator Bernie Sanders, a socialist, as he does his job in the Senate. I believe that Bernie is the most ethical and perceptive Senator we have had in the Senate in a long time. He is also an effective Senator in terms of being able to not only put forth a progressive point of view, but to actually influence Senate activity. In order to be effective in the Senate, Bernie has had to compromise on certain issues and thus would certainly be seen from the orthodox socialist perspective to have sold out. In contrast let us take another man whose career I’ve admired, Dennis Kucinich. Dennis has been an aggressive/effective spokesman on a national level for unpopular, yet valid causes. Within the house though he has not been able to effectuate change simply because Dennis does not do compromise well
In today’s world a political change process is mainly effectuated in four ways:
1. Violent revolution, which is highly problematic at best.
2. Massive non cooperation with the system, ala Gandhi and King, which can be very successful based
upon the right circumstances.
3. Organizing and creating an opposition political movement, a possibly fruitful, yet hard process to carry
out with success..
4. Working within the system, imperfect as it may be, to effect slow change.
All of the above can be work to effect change in a given context, but one factor is a given no matter which method is chosen. To build a mass movement in a diverse population the need to compromise is paramount. This need to compromise is called “coalition building”. The Right has been effective at this for years when you think of the coalition between religious fundamentalists, lukewarm objectivists and outright corporatists. What would Jesus, Ayn Rand and even Adam Smith think of the ways their teachings have been presumably melded? In the past the Left also coalesced around certain issues, bringing together groups that were hardly homogeneous. However, from the 60’s onward building of coalitions on the Left has broken down. “Centrists” and “Liberals” became anathema to “progressives” and “radicals”. After all that he had accomplished Martin Luther King became an “Uncle Tom” in the minds of “Black Power” advocates for his refusal to entertain the concept of violence as a tool.
The Left coalition also began to break down in the 60’s over the issue of Viet Nam. Working class union members generally supported the war that was drafting and killing their children. The leadership of the AFL-CIO, who had striven to disassociate themselves from Marxism during the McCarthy era, had become part of the country’s establishment. As George Meany, the AFL-CIO President, began to play golf with Eisenhower and major industrialists, the Union movement swung away from its Left Wing roots. The fact that the labor movement was overwhelmingly “white working class” in an era where Blacks were demanding equal status also took its toll on the coalition between Big Labor and the Democratic Party. The AFL-CIO and Teamsters supported Richard Nixon in 1968..
The labor movement’s departure from coalition with the Democratic Party was to have devastating consequences for its strength. Their workers, doing well financially aspired to a scaled down version of the American Dream. The threat that competition with Blacks for jobs and with the Left’s critique of muscular foreign policy, helped drive white workers into the Republican Party. The fact that their leadership had become cozy with Management and Republicans led the way. The power of the labor movement waned until today it is a shadow of what it once was. The Left coalition forged under FDR and informed experientially by the “Great Depression”, began to fight amongst themselves. The battles increasingly became issues of “purity of political belief”. When a person’s political value is weighed on only specific issues that are politically “black and white”, coalition becomes almost impossible. Without the ability to coalesce “Movements” face severe limitations in their ability to grow.
I believe that in the desire for reforming our governance to work for the interests of all the people, all viable methods must be used. Of the four methods I list above I believe that only the latter three are really viable. A violent revolution in this country will only hasten the totality of oppression, since violent revolutions never seem to work out the way people have planned and that the people once having risen find themselves ruled harshly by those they so hopefully followed. Refute this premise if you will, but please don’t cite the American Revolution. While it certainly had violence it was a rebellion of colonies against an overseas colonial state. By revolution I mean the rebellion of a people in a certain geographical area against their own government.
Methodologically, none of the three methods can work without bringing together people of differing standards via a coalition that accepts deviation from a “party line”. This seems obvious to me since rarely do those who wish change agree on all issues. Are there “deal breakers” that cannot brook compromise? That depends upon the individual, the perceived threat and the current circumstance. I have my own deal breakers, certainly, but I invoke them in context of my reading of the perceived threat.
What do you the reader think of the argument I’ve made? If you disagree please let me know, since I understand that on any given subject I can be wrong and I am really willing to learn. If you agree with me then what are your “deal breakers”? Perhaps if you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
gENE h:
I think you should listen to some of Tom Wood’s video’s. He is an historian who writes about economic issues. He is pretty good too.
He speaks to most of the issues you covered.
We can argue this all day long but there have been other depressions in the 19th century worse than the one of 1932 to 1946 which lasted 6-18 months and did not cause any where near the misery the one in the 1930’s caused.
Keynes himself would not have approved of the level of spending we are seeing today as he thought stimulus money should be paid back once the stimulating had been done. How are you going to do that? Confiscate all the wealth in America? If you pay it back over time you run the risk of having to do it again at some future point because the cause has not been corrected.
“we aren’t frightened by labels” (Tony C.)
I am constantly amazed by the many visitors to this blog who don’t get that one simple fact.
“Gene is a full blown socialist even if he says he isnt, nothing wrong with that or course, it just doesnt work. If it worked I would be all for it being a pragmatist and a utilitarian myself, the greatest good for the greatest number is my motto.”
Too bad for you that you have demonstrated time and again that you niether know what the term “socialist” means nor your own “motto”, Mr. Selfishness is a Virtue. A Randian Objectivist claiming their motto is “the greatest good for the greatest number” is perhaps the funniest thing I’ve heard today.
****************************
skip,
“If you don’t know Gene, it was FDR and the Central bankers that stole the gold from the Citizens in 1933 under a Presidential executive order. Why would you want to give monopolistic power, via a central bank, to a group of the most powerful financial interest in our society and that’s waht happened in 1913? ”
See skip, this illustrates perfectly why talking to you like talking to a child.
You don’t even read what others say let alone understand it.
Firstly, I said, I also think the private segments of the Fed (and it has both public and private components) are a really bad idea and were from the start. Private enterprise has no proper role to play in a central bank.” Which is the exact opposite of your straw man statement above.
Second, your statement is historically factually false, economic drivel and commits the logical fallacy of begging the question. In 1913, the President was Woodrow Wilson. The creation of the Fed – which was the third central bank created by the way – was sheparded by the head of the bipartisan National Monetary Commission and Senate Republican leader Nelson Aldrich. Aldrich was a financial expert who originally opposed the idea of a central bank and even went to Europe to study the emergence of central banking there to gather ammunition against the practice. It was upon seeing the benefits of the German central bank in action that he changed his mind and pushed through the Federal Reserve Act. It was Aldrich – who was great buddies with J.P. Morgan and John Rockerfeller, Jr. – who was responsible for the private sector components of the thrid central bank. The question you beg is that going off the gold standard was either thievery (it wasn’t and that is a legal fact) or not necessary. Considering that most economic historians credit staying on the gold standard with exacerbating (that means making worse, skip) the Great Depression because it prevented the Fed from expanding the money supply to stimulate the economy, your notion that the gold standard or a return to it being a good idea is one of the many economic fantasies that Libertarians labor under. As a historical note, the first central bank was created under Washington’s administration at the urging of Alexander Hamilton. It was vigorously protested by both Madison and Jefferson. Ironic considering that the second central bank was created Madison’s administration because of difficulties in financing the national debt after the expeditures of the War of 1812. The seminal case of McCulloch v. Maryland 17 U.S. 316 (1819) decided under Madison’s successors tenure – Jame Monroe – upheld the legality of a central banking system. The second central bank was forcibly dismantled by Andrew Jackson who managed to reap some short term benefits from his actions, but in the long run helped create the Great Depression by removing a centralized brake for banks and the money supply and contributing to the later Great Depression.
Your opinion that the abdication of the gold standard was theivery and that a central bank is unneccessary is both wrong and manifestly uninformed.
Enjoy the ignorance that is the Libertarian Economic Kool-Aid.
@skiprob: You are probably getting ripped off by your developer then, because you are paying the taxes that would entitle you to free road maintenance, through your gasoline purchases, and then relinquishing that entitlement to pay your developer for maintenance on top of that.
It is my understanding that developers are not “forced” to turn roads over to the government, they petition to turn roads over to the government so they will not be responsible for the maintenance, and cannot be sued by residents for failing to maintain them (or causing injury through a pothole accident or whatever).
In fact, in a similar development where my sister owned property, she DID sue the developer for failing to maintain the main road into the development (a long section of it was washed away in a big storm), and she won both actual damages and punitive damages of several thousand dollars.
@skiprob: And I did NOT say that, YOU said that and attributed it to me. Do not start lying. If I say anything, I say the oil companies, car companies, and tire companies are all making profits on OUR public works, because they would not be as large or profitable as they are without US creating the roads that enable their business model. I say they would not EXIST without us, and they should be taxed so we get our fair share of their profits.
They do indeed have a vested interest in roads, and they should be taxed to help pay for the maintenance and creation of roads.
Tony, my townhouse development provides our own roads. We pay for it through out maintenance fees. Why the government did not force the developer to turn over the roads in our development, as they usually do to developers, is unknown. So most roads are built by developers/private enterprise and than forced to turn them over to the government. thinking that the businesses would not care for the roads that their property wa on is like saying people won’t paint their building unless forced by government. Your thought on monopolies in this situation make no sense. From what I have observed, people generally shop the best price and quailty when government intervention is not involved as we did with out road in my development.
@skiprob: First, those entities did NOT provide the roads, they had a good four decades to provide the roads and failed to do so. Second, if they DID provide the roads, the roads would be privately owned toll roads, and because any road is pretty much a natural monopoly as the shortest path between two points, we could expect monopoly pricing, which by current standards is about 35c per mile, and somewhere between 10 and 25 times what we pay now per mile in taxation. It would be the equivalent of paying an extra $6.70 per gallon in gas, or $4000 per year per driver.
You do not seem to comprehend basic arithmetic.
@skiprob: . For instance a central bank … is the 5th platform of Communism.
Ahhhh, run away!!!!
I am joking, of course. You seem to think that empty keywords should frighten us. Grow up. We are not afraid of Communism, we just do not think it will work, because it is fundamentally incompatible with human nature. If it was a workable idea, we would embrace it. It isn’t.
Just like religion, not everything in Communism is inherently toxic. As a whole both are just silly blather, but in parts they can be just fine. For example, I am an atheist, and I think much of the Old Testament is morally repellent. But in rejecting religion, I do not reject the idea that murder, theft, and lying for personal gain are morally repellent, they are.
Claiming something is part of Communism does not mean anything, we aren’t frightened by labels.
Mike Spindell:
Oh, and you guys on the left dont keep spouting the same old tired mantras?
You think libertarians and Objectivists were holding blacks, gays and women down? I would say you dont know much dont much about either philosophy.
You guys on the left want your political freedom but you dont want economic freedom, you are the inverse of China.
Bron,
Just how many blacks and latino’s were heroes in “Atlas Shrugged”?
@Bron: Your own philosophy makes you wrong. If trains are the most cost effective means of transportation, people are free to use them.
If people used them, rail companies would try to grow. They have long stopped any serious attempts at growth, therefore, we can conclude they have reached the limit of their economic niche.
If free roads had anything to do with that, it just proves my point that free roads are delivering a large economic benefit. Which actually does not DEPEND on the role of rail or waterways, it only depends on the price of tolls on private toll roads, which is a decent proxy for what private enterprise roads would charge. (We could also figure the cost of roadway, as a capital investment, and apply standard business principles of cost recovery and profit within the lifetime of the asset to arrive at a typical price. However, that price works out higher than the 35c per mile cost of privatized toll roads, which have higher than normal traffic to compensate.)
Based only on that, roadways deliver about $1T in return to the people as a direct profit. Indirect benefits, like availability of goods from further away, have economic value but are not included. In the case of roadways, since they are typically paid for by gasoline taxes, the cost per citizen is actually pretty proportional to use by the citizen.
So what your saying Tony is that the oil companies, through gasoline sales, the car companies through car sales, the tire companies through tire sales, the auto parts companies through auto parts sales etc. have a vested interest in roads and would very likely provide roads. You would think that the oil companies would be able to provide lower cost roads since they are the providers of the asphalt. Private enterprise could provide the roads as they did originally in many parts of New England.
I wonder since centralized sewage and garage have created such problems that private enterprise can provide a better alternative as well?
@skiprob: Any profit motivation in the ultimate enforcement of law or the protection of citizens is de facto rule by strongman and mercenary, the people with the most money have the most protection. A law is not a law if it is not uniformly enforced regardless of the wealth of the participants. If you have to pay to be protected from murder or theft, and you are not protected if you cannot pay, you are simply being extorted by a strongman.
Murder of the destitute, homeless and penniless can still carry the death penalty in this country. If you are murdered and die in debt with negative assets and zero insurance, your murder is still prosecuted, and the guilty are still punished if found guilty. If your life savings and all of your property are stolen from you, the theft is still prosecuted even if you cannot pay for it.
Now, if in a contract you agree to have any dispute settled by arbitration, which is something I have done myself, that’s fine: That is an agreement over money and terms, it is not a replacement of the law. All contracts are subordinate to the law and cannot agree to something that breaks the law.
Tony C:
“@Bron: No, you are wrong again. Rail and water are only cheaper for long haul point-to-point shipping; the vast majority of road usage, including interstates, is NOT for long hauls, it is for short hauls of a few hundred miles or less.”
No I am not wrong, the context is just different. I agree that trucks should be used from the freight yard to the local area, actually they need to be because you cannot get rail service everywhere.
@skiprob: These gov agencies end up worrying about the same thing businesses do. Where are we going to get our next paycheck?
No, they do not. Businesses have to worry about making a profit, government agencies do not. Businesses have to worry about pleasing investors, government agencies do not. Businesses have to worry about survival, government agencies do not. Businesses have to worry about cash flow and financing, government agencies do not, a government agency has unlimited credit (subject to the approval of citizens or representatives of the citizens), and can make up a shortfall or loan with higher pricing or higher taxes in subsequent years, as needed.
As for the “next paycheck,” if a government agency finds it has more workers than it needs, it can lay off people just like a business can. Or it can allow the workforce to decline by attrition; stop hiring replacements for those that quit or retire. There is no reason to assume the USPS cannot reduce its work force if the volume of mail declines, say due to the Internet. The people, through Congress, can mandate that.
You are wrong. A for profit organization is managed to maximize one value; the amount of profit to the owners. A government agency should be managed to maximize the same value, but the owners are the people, and the profit is in the amount of services rendered and the good done on behalf of the people. Both can be managed using the same techniques, including controlling payroll costs, making operations more efficient, reducing the costs of goods through negotiation.
The difference is that instead of ending up in the pockets of a few, the profits end up on the pockets of the people. Congress, as the representative of the people, is responsible for representing the owners and managing the business; they are the board of directors for the government agencies. For those that think the board is incompetent, stop voting for them.
Until you are ready to concede that although taxation may be necessary, it is still theft.
I will never concede a blatant lie. Taxes are not theft. You pay them voluntarily. You have the right to not earn anything. You also have the right, unless you are in prison, to renounce your citizenship and leave the country.
All taxes are paid voluntarily just like you pay for food voluntarily. If you REALLY want to (and some people have) you can buy rural land outside of any municipality, and grow your own food, feed for chickens, and generate your own solar or wind power, pump your own water, and have zero income and pay zero taxes. Hell, you can even make your own bio-diesel and not pay gasoline taxes; we will still let you use our roads for free.
Taxes in THIS country are 100% voluntary. They are not taken from you by force, or theft, you owe them as a fee for earning money in this country. If you do not want to pay the fee, then don’t work. Just like if you think the price of a burger is too much, don’t buy it.
Businesses do not complain that when they pay for rent, supplies, delivery, A/C, insurance, alarm services and janitorial services that those payments are inherently THEFT. They are a fee for services and infrastructure. That is what taxes are, they are not THEFT.
Which makes the rest of your commentary moot.
Yea that’s right Tony; Government agencies never get hit with budget cuts or just total elimination. Ask the bureaucrats in Greece and Spain, where the next checks are coming from as Citizens are no longer willing to fund the excessive spending of their government because the bonds they issued as collateral are losing their value, because the government is unlikely to be able to pay the interest on them. Just wait until this happens in this country. Yea that’s right it already is in a number of places.
“Taxes are not theft. You pay them voluntarily. You have the right to not earn anything.”
Yea, I have the “Right” to let myself starve to death. Tony, are you actually thinking about what you are writing????
You’re living in the matrix as one of my friends likes to say. I know what we all believe government is supposed to do. You do not have to expand upon what we were taught in elementary school.
What you need to do is learn about how the system “really works”. You idealistic beliefs on government are absolutely naive. Wakeup.
Just because “you” believe that certain expenses in society are necessary, therefore taxation is necessary,” taking money from one person that it rightfully belongs to and giving it to someone it doesn’t rightfully belong to, is still what the legal system calls theft”. If A is unethical and B is thought to be necessary, thus we need to do A, A is still unethical, despite B being thought to be necessary.
Add in the fact that B is really, desired but not really necessary, makes A absolutely unethical. For instance, the roadway bridge is really less effective that a railroad bridge. Most of the railroad bridges were built by the railroads, not government. Road bridges are not really necessary, their just desired so that our wives and girlfriends can more easily get to the malls.
Oops. I had an edit mistake, I said a “few hundred miles” or less, I meant a few dozen miles or less.
@Bron: No, you are wrong again. Rail and water are only cheaper for long haul point-to-point shipping; the vast majority of road usage, including interstates, is NOT for long hauls, it is for short hauls of a few hundred miles or less.
The product hauling railroads have pretty much built out, already, they are only efficient between cities, and it is not economically feasible to build a railway for a short distance, the pricing cannot amortize the loading and unloading, starting and stopping costs.
Because we DO allow markets to compete, whenever rail is noticeably cheaper than roadway, rail is used, and that is as it should be: The highway system is NOT used if it would cost significantly more than rail. That is fine, in my philosophy of limited socialism, I would not begrudge a private for-profit alternative to any public service. I would not subsidize it, I would not forgive taxes that support the public service, but if they can do better, more power to them. I do not mind FedEx, or private schools. I will not give VOUCHERS, I do not believe in supporting private enterprise with taxes (and I feel the same about Obama’s insurance mandate, I think it is unconstitutional.)
The highway system is far more convenient and more flexible in schedule and delivery than rail, so a little more expense to enjoy those benefits might be paid. But we do not MANDATE that businesses use road instead of rail, they make their own economic decisions, and they CHOOSE road instead of rail.
Your argument is simply wrong; you do not think things through.
But you are right about some roads, I am pretty sure a private toll system would not work for all roads, especially local roads.
Tony C:
Shipping costs in expense from highest to lowest:
Highway
Rail
water
The interstate system has actually cost us more money for shipping.
Within the continental US it is cheaper to ship a ton of freight by rail than by road.
What was that you were saying?
Cooperation for mutual benefit does work, it is called a free market. Socialism is coercion it is not cooperation.
@Bron: [socialism] just doesnt work.
On the contrary, it does. We have a system of public highways and roads in this country that have contributed about 1000 times their cost to economic productivity, in reduced costs of shipping, mobility of consumers, the widening of markets for products to essentially the entire nation. furniture made in Oregon can be sold in Florida or anywhere in the country, really. If the roads were all toll roads and had to pay for their own maintenance and just tried to earn the typical markup of other companies, that simply would not be true: Shipping would add so much to the cost that Oregon manufacturers could not compete with local manufacturers, that had to ship less distance. The market would be fragmented, there would be no economies of scale to reduce production costs.
The Post Office is a bit of socialism that works too. Oh, I know, you will tell me how they are always running short of money, but you do not realize that is how a government office SHOULD run: The post office works at COST, that is why the stamps are 48c or whatever. If you added all the overruns to their budget, they would be delivering letters for 50c instead.
Compare that to a for-profit postal service, FedEx, and $11 a letter. The US Postal Service sets a budget based on previous years and expected costs, but in the face of inflation and unexpected costs, it overruns its budget and estimate of costs. It does not try to build in a profit margin, so it has no buffer to work with like FedEx, and does not charge whatever the market will bear like FedEx.
That is precisely how we WANT the USPS to work, we want it to provide a service at cost, and its overruns are expected symptoms of it operating at cost. The same is true for Medicare and Medicaid, overruns are expected and as long as the reasons for the overruns are legitimate care expenses (i.e. not waste or fraud), they are not evidence the system is a failure, but evidence the system is a success and its managers are not padding their budgets.
Socialism for products and services that virtually everybody benefits from will work just fine (and that includes health care). It obviously works, even in theory, because everybody can get the product or use the service at COST without any mark-up whatsoever: It could not possibly be cheaper. No privately produced for-profit road is going to be better for me, or cost me less to use, than the taxes I pay for public roads. No privately produced for-profit post office will have the range and service of the USPS for 50c per letter. As has been recently demonstrated, no privately produced for-profit insurance comes even close to matching the cost structure of Medicare or comes even close to devoting as large a percentage of premiums to coverage.
Socialism is just a co-op, it is disintermediation so we get a discount on the product by not paying any middle men profits. If roads were privately owned and for profit, 100% of the profit taken by all the owners of all the roads is money that would be out of OUR pockets. Tolls on for-profit roads can exceed 35c per mile. Gasoline taxes (combined federal and state taxes per gallon) that support road maintenance and building average 49c per gallon (the max is 68c in Connecticut).
Here is some data on cars from the US Department of Transportation.
The average car in America gets a little over 20 mpg, so the 49c tax divided by 20 is about 1.5c per mile. In Connecticut, 3.5c per mile. That is about what we pay in taxes for our road system, about one tenth of what we would have to pay if all roads were for-profit toll roads. Perhaps even less, since some roads are natural monopolies and would charge much more per mile in a free market economy.
Just to put that in perspective, if we just added the for-profit difference of 33.5c per mile to a gallon of gas, the cost of a gallon would rise by $6.70, to over $10 per gallon.
The average vehicle drives 11,850 miles per year; that is 592 gallons worth of travel, and that means for-profit roads would cost the average driver about $4000 more per year than it costs them now.
Multiply that by the 250 million vehicles registered in this country, and it is one Trillion dollars in economic benefit, provided by free public highways, roads, and Interstates, every year.
A claim that limited forms of socialism do not work is simply ridiculous on its face, it is equivalent to claiming that cooperation for mutual benefit cannot work.
Tony. How can any entity that is antithetic to another end up working in any other way than adversarial. These gov agencies end up worrying about the same thing businesses do. Where are we going to get our next paycheck? However, business cannot, or at least there not supposed to go to government and say give me some money. That is what govenrments do. Business must go to the general public and actually sell something to somebody to at least break even on their costs to stay in business. Government must either tax Citizens or Businesses. There are over 115 different taxes in the Country for gov. to do this.
Until you are ready to concede that although taxation may be necessary, it is still theft. Just because the theft is determined by political means, that doesn’t make it right. So the majority has the right to steal from the minority. Still not right. Once you look at it this way, then you can start to observe some of the negative ramifications the system creates. We see the outcomes all the time. We see the no bid contracts and government waste. We read about another government bureaucrats being procecuted every day in the news. Selling Senate seats. A Congressman getting caught trying to get his cash out of a safe during Katrina in New Orleans. How many Ilinois Governors have gone to jail. Half the County Commission has gone to jail in West Palm Beach. Every major law enforcement agency in the country has had numerous members of it’s force indited for police corruption in some manner; drugs, police brutality, evidence tampering, murder etc. etc. etc.
I know that people in the private sector are bad also but lets consider the big picture. 170 Million people have been killed by their own governments in the 20th century alone. This does not include military combatants which would add millions more to that list. Why do you think that most of the major attrocities throughout history have been perpetrated by govenrment or religion when they are combined?
First, it’s a power brokerage cartel. Secondly, they have the legalized power to steal, coerce, imprison and conficate property and they do it eligallya lot more than what we want to believe. I know at least 5 people who were framed by goverment and were absolutely innocent. You write like an attorney so perhaps you can give us an analysis of why the legal system is so full of corruption. Third, government is a protection racket for the ultra wealthy and their cronies. How may poor black guys are in jail and how may rich jewest bankers are in jail for laundering all the drug money???? Somebody is laundering all this drug money yet when was the last guy you rmember being procecuted for this.
Socialism although it feels like it would work, is really a devious system designed to steal money for the majority and filter it to the various enterprises of the wealthy. The military industrial complex is the favored recipient today if you haven’t been paying attention.
Bron & Skip keep repeating timeworn mantras to support their beliefs in the “free market Fairy”. They consistently fail to understand what socialism really is, so they can label everthing they discern as heresy from their zany religion as their bogeyman socialism. They of cOurse have the right to have theor beliefs, but the might make a better case if they understood what they were talking about.
Also said that things were better when he was young, but I wonder if black people, gay people and most women feel the same. I’m 8 years older than Skip and I know that as bad as things are now they were worse then, except for the economic situation of the 99%.
Skiprob:
Gene is a full blown socialist even if he says he isnt, nothing wrong with that or course, it just doesnt work. If it worked I would be all for it being a pragmatist and a utilitarian myself, the greatest good for the greatest number is my motto.
The liberals and progressives have it all wrong, you free up the economy and allow the market to do what it will always do [think China], make money and then you have money to spend on social welfare programs to help the people that truly need help. It is really pretty simple but for some reason liberal/progressives dont want to do that, I guess ideology prevents them from being utilitarian pragmatists.
If a company’s executives get out of hand and defraud people just shoot the sons of bitches like they do in China, free markets baby but you perpetrate fraud then bam. Transparent markets are in everyone’s self interest so you cannot have people telling tales and distorting the market. Same goes for politicians who accept bribes, shoot them. And if the federal reserve chairman prints too much money or artificially raises or lowers interest rates, taking the savings of the people, shoot that bastard too.
You will have to shoot a couple of dozen or so until they realize free markets are the way to go, it has been a long time and people have forgotten what a free market does. I bet you only have to shoot a half dozen executives, two dozen politicians and 2 fed chairman before they get the idea. You have to break a few eggs to make an omelette.
Being a utilitarian pragmatist makes it ok to do this because it is all about the greater good and what are 32 lives when 300,000,000 are at stake?
Also, your “economics” in your response to Tony are ridiculous. Our Founders only official stance on the economy involved the recognition of personal property (which makes Communism the only form of economy that is prime facie unconstitutional), the establishment of currency and the ability of Congress to regulate commerce. There was no official economic form endorsed by the Founders in our founding documents. We could nationalize all kinds of stuff tomorrow and adopt full-blown socialism (which is not what I advocate no matter what Bron might tell you) and as long as the Takings Clause requirements were met, it would be perfectly constitutional.
skip,
I’m pretty sure I don’t care what you think of my arguments.
“So give me the answer to this question at law. Under your guidelines, is a central bank a good or a bad law? And back it up with the evidence.”
I think that’s practically irrelevant to the discussion of good or bad political systems. A central bank is a tool. In the modern economy, a necessary tool but that is not the issue with political systems or laws and a topic for the discussion of global economics. The laws that regulate said bank are relevant though. I think right now the collusion between the Fed and Wall Street in covering up the crimes of Wall Street shows that the laws that regulate the Fed have severe deficiencies in both Federal oversight and constraint of Fed actions. I also think the private segments of the Fed (and it has both public and private components) are a really bad idea and were from the start. Private enterprise has no proper role to play in a central bank.
“I had asked you to tell me if drug prohibition is a good law or a bad. You wouldn’t answer that one either. ”
Actually I answered that question twice, skip. Neither time you bothered to read it or understand it. My stand on prohibition laws is well known around here. I’m not repeating myself because of your willful ignorance.
Also, that you derived no greater understanding from the distinction of what actually constitutes oligarchy is of no concern to me, skip. I’m not trying to convince of you anything perhaps other than you are wasting your time. You’re a true believer. Thanks, but I already got one. It is, concurrently, your time to waste and you are wasting it here by your own admission. We’ve already got a resident cheerleader for the Libertarian cause. While he occasionally gets drive-by supporters, he and they never have managed to win one single argument in favor of the majority of the Libertarian platform. That’s because people with substantive knowledge of the law, political science, economics and psychology or any subdivision thereof can quite easily spot the inherent flaws in Libertarianism. I don’t call it the perpetual motion machine of political science for no reason, skip. The idea of people accepting laws without enforcement, privatizing all social services and deregulation of business leads to bad ends for a society. Laws without enforcement are suggestions. Privatizing social services puts a profit motive into systems where profit is antithetical to providing services. Deregulation of business breeds corruption and fraud and encourages greed above all other considerations.
Don’t get me wrong.
I think most Libertarians hearts are in the right place in decrying dysfunction and corruption. It’s a real problem. It’s too bad all your solutions suck and have disastrous consequences in real world application. If you think corruption is a problem and don’t see the nexus between the current level of dysfunction and corruption, business deregulation, campaign finance and expanding corporate personality? You should really get a different hobby because your causal analytic powers in the areas of law, political science, economics and psychology or any subdivision thereof are as out of whack as they can possibly be. As to the minor planks of the Libertarian platform? Some of them are very attractive to both self-identifying conservatives and liberals both, but that does not change that the major structural components of Libertarianism are an accident waiting to happen.
Gene, first, how we determine the usefulness of a specific law helps us to understand how best to create or more importantly improve on our socio-economic system. The specific laws enacted determine specific outcomes. For instance a central bank which you believe necessary in modern society, is the 5th platform of Communism. So, what laws you embrace can have catastrophic consequences on your society as the Central bank has. You just don’t obviously understand it. Read “The Creature from Jeckyl Island, a non-fiction by G. Edward Griffin. Great history book for those who want to understand the true economic history of the 20th century.
So your dead wrong again on the relevence of specific laws and how they effect us within our political system.
If you don’t know Gene, it was FDR and the Central bankers that stole the gold from the Citizens in 1933 under a Presidential executive order. Why would you want to give monopolistic power, via a central bank, to a group of the most powerful financial interest in our society and that’s waht happened in 1913?
Sorry I missed you specific post on if drug prohibtion is good or bad. Please provide it so that all the posters can see it again, just in case they missed it to. Your wrong on the Central Bank so your probablly wrong on drug prohibition as well.
What makes you believe that “only” government can enforce laws. People use private mediation companies all the time to solve their differences at law. The Law Merchant, our UCC was created specifically to stay out of the slow and highly biased government courts. Government doesn’t have to be the final arbiter. Matter of fact, since it does such a poor job, we need to get at least one private system in place ASAP.
The rest of your post is deny and criticize, deny and criticize. It’s always half of your posts. If you really believe you positions, give me at least something other than your opinions. Some facts would help.