David Akadjian of Daily Kos saw the question, “Name a single thing the government touched the free market didn’t do better?” He took that as a challenge and came up with a list that I hadn’t thought about. The challenge is appropriate because the GOP keeps saying let the market or market forces deal with the problem. We don’t need government to do it. Here is Akadjian’s list:
* Justice. “In a justice system run by capitalists you could pay to be above the law.” A principle of deciding whether markets can take the issue: “Do you want service that is the same for everyone?” If so, the market solution isn’t good.
* Checks and balances on power. “How would you break up a monopoly if there were no government?”
* Education. A second principle: “Is there a conflict of interest between the goal of the organization and profit? In education, the way to make the most money is to deliver the least education.”
* Military. “One: what happens if someone else wants to pay them more? And two: what happens if the military decides they can make more money by getting rid of that pesky democratic government?”
* Police and fire departments. Do these for profit and what could go wrong? Extortion. Payment to look the other way. Traffic cameras as a way to raise money.
* Public parks. “If we sell off public parks, quite simply we wouldn’t have public parks.”
* Protecting the environment. If a resource is available for profit it will get used up. An example is overfishing resulting in ocean dead zones.
* Health care. Again, that conflict of interest. “The way to make the most money is to deliver the least health care. In a for-profit system, this means you have to heavily regulate it against abuse. Or you have abuse. Either way, it’s harder to achieve better outcomes for less.”
* Putting a man on the moon. “There’s no profit on the moon. Only cost.” In the 1960s no single business could invest that amount of money without expecting returns.
* Infrastructure. “Infrastructure is a service that everyone uses. If it’s built for profit, only those who can afford it will use it.”
* Social safety net. “Social Security does great at what it was designed to do: Be a minimum safety net for everyone.” If it were investment accounts the poor don’t have anything to invest.
* Pure research. “Pure research tends to be seen by the bean counters as nothing but cost.” In addition, established industries protect their profits, which can be a problem for us all if the established industry is coal and the infant industry is solar.
* Standards. Some companies thrive on incompatibilities. Others thrive on shoddy products.
Akadjian says his list isn’t complete. Another he mentions, but doesn’t describe, is dealing with poverty. He ends by saying:
What I like to tell people is that every successful economy in the world is a blend of capitalism and socialism (typically under a democratic government). A blend of public sector and private sector. Every. One.
We create markets and we can create them any way we want. Anyone who tells you, “We need to let markets work,” doesn’t want you participating.
Commenters add more examples of things that should not be privatized:
* Postal service.
* Prisons. Again, a conflict of interest – the way to the most profit is to imprison the most people.
* Elections.
* Utilities.
* Libraries.
* Tax collection.
* Disaster relief.
* Border patrol and immigration.
* Public transit.
* Weather prediction.
* Human rights.
Commenter learn adds:
There are many problems with “free market” thinking (and false assumptions) — the worst is that “markets” function based on price — which means any discussion will be forced into monetizing concepts David cited in this article… enlightenment, aesthetics, loyalty, discovery… those things have their own intrinsic value — but if you let other people frame the discussion based on price, you’ve already fallen into the wrong mindset
For example, the whole focus on education now is about “what kind of job (salary) you can get”… not what can motivate a student to want to learn
Markets are useful mechanisms for allocating things for profit — but not for allocating what society is made of.
I’ll conclude with a list of consequences of privatization from one of my posts in 2013.
* Worker pay is cut to the point they are underpaid or are in poverty. Workers are insufficiently trained to properly handle the job.
* Corners are cut so that quality of product or service is compromised or safety to worker, client, society, environment, or economy suffers.
* The contractor accepts only the least cost clients.
* The contractor concentrates on extracting money out of the contract to maximize profits, not to provide better service.
* The contractor no longer worries about competition, competence, or going out of business and acts accordingly.
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