The Government Stinks, Let’s Privatize

by Jim Coufal

Confidence in government is low, and often deservedly so, leading many to believe private industry woulds do a better job of governing us, thus the interest in Trump and other industrial leaders. A quick look is all it takes to see this is not necessarily so.

First, government is noted for such things as the role of money in politics, apparently without seeing that the money comes from wealthy individuals and corporations intent on protecting their interests, not ours or even the countries (read on). Witness the recent convictions of U.S. Senator Dennis Hassert (fraud and child abuse), and State Senators Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos (fraud).

Distrust in government comes about because of officials lying, falsifying signatures, fraud, conspiracy, racketeering, money laundering, tax fraud, personal use of money, sexual misconduct, and more.. The recent examples noted above are just continuations of what has gone on throughout our history. So are the six government executives who resigned or were forced to resign during the Obama administration. Under G.W. Bush 11 resigned, 12 refused to testify under oath, and 8 were sentenced. Under Nixon, at least 11 executives resigned or were convicted, while Nixon himself resigned. Reagan was the great showstopper. One study found, “”By the end of his term, 138 Reagan administration officials had been convicted, had been indicted, or had been the subject of official investigations for official misconduct and/or criminal violations. In terms of number of officials involved, the record of his administration was the worst ever.”

What kind of things are these scandals connected to? There is the sending of $12 billion in cash to Iraq for unknown purposes, but it is known most of it was lost to corruption and waste, enriching both criminals and insurgents. There is the yellowcake forgery, whereby “ Just before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration presented evidence to the UN that Iraq was seeking material (yellowcake uranium) in Africa for making nuclear weapons.”  It was later proved false, but too late, we had another war. Earlier there was the Iran/Contra scandal.  Bush also initiated a process to allow warrantless searches. And so it goes. Wouldn’t privatization be better?

At the international level, Noam Chomsky said, “We cannot gain a realistic understanding of who rules the world while ignoring ’masters of mankind,’ as Adam Smith called them: in his day the merchants and manufacturers of England; in ours, multinational corporations, huge financial institutions, retail empires, and the like. Still following Smith, it is also wise to attend to the ‘vile maxim’ to which the ‘masters of mankind’ are dedicated: ‘All for ourselves and nothing for other people’—a doctrine known otherwise as bitter and incessant class war, often one-sided, much to the detriment of the people of the home country and the world.”  Witness income iniquity. Witness the trade agreements passed by governments, bought by the corporations, empires, billionaires and other masters of the world.

The Public Interest Research Group Education Fund reports In 2011, states lost approximately $39.8 billion in tax revenues from corporations and wealthy individuals who sheltered money in foreign tax havens. Multinational corporations account for more than $26 billion of the lost tax revenue, and wealthy individuals account for the rest. At the end of 2011, 290 of the top For- tune 500 companies using tax havens collectively held $1.6 trillion in profits outside the United States—up from $1.1 trillion in 2009—according to Citizens for Tax Justice. These are corporations that often report net profits in the billions.

Princeton researchers very recently looked at who really rules in the U.S. They drew data from  over 1,800 different policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, and concluded that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of, or even against the will of, the majority of voters, voters who often vote against their own interests having been fed a diet of fear through the media controlled by the rich, corporations, empires, and other “masters of mankind.” The United States is an oligarchy, not a democracy. It is not ruled by the people, for the people.

With our privatized health system, we have the most expensive health care of any developed country—-rated only 37th best in actual care—and research finds medicare more cost effective than the private sector. Many jurisdictions have tried privatizing water, which becomes more expensive. There have been failed privatized water system from California to Rhode Island. Think of Nestle Company which buys water at 1/100 of a penny per gallon and sells it to you at $10/gallon. Do you want to drive on privatized roads? Our bloated prison system is largely the result of a failed war on drugs and the privatization of our prisons. The long quote following indicates the tie between private prisons and corporations.

“The private contracting of prisoners for work fosters incentives to lock people up. Prisons depend on this income. Corporate stockholders who make money off prisoners’ work lobby for longer sentences, in order to expand their workforce. The system feeds itself,” says a study by the Progressive Labor Party, which accuses the prison industry of being “an imitation of Nazi Germany with respect to forced slave labor and concentration camps. The prison industry complex is one of the fastest-growing industries in the United States and its investors are on Wall Street. This multimillion-dollar industry has its own trade exhibitions, conventions, websites, and mail-order/Internet catalogs. It also has direct advertising campaigns, architecture companies, construction companies, investment houses on Wall Street, plumbing supply companies, food supply companies, armed security, and padded cells in a large variety of colors.”

Private companies are also responsible for oil spills, strip-mining, soil and water pollution, proposals to mine the Grand Canyon National Park for uranium, and other such things, at the same time that they lobby for legislation to allow such actions and/or to protect themselves from lawsuits. The gun lobby was strong enough to get federal legislation passed against lawsuits, and the chemical industry to get  similar protection for its products.

Long ago Dwight Eisenhower warned the nation against the military/industry complex. As in let’s start a war, so we need more weapons, industry gets rich, the military gets bloated, and citizens get killed. It may seem out of place in discussing privatization, but it appears that duo has become a triple; industry/military/religion. Religion gets involved because historically it was corporations that encouraged and funded the Christian fundamentalist movement, which in turn supports corporations and their policies. Further, religion gets $70 billion in tax breaks each year.

It appears that privatization is likely to be worse for the people than government is. If we want a government of the people, for the people, and by the people ,we the people must be heard in force. Currently, the place to start is to look past the fear mongers at the presidential candidates and who represents best “we the people.”