But an awful lot of Americans think they will be trust fund babies someday if they side with the rich. They don’t have any plan for this (maybe buying lottery tickets) but they are sure it will happen just the same. So they are okay with making other people poor and the poor can starve but this will make them better off (they‘ve read the talking points and can be heard on the radio if they can‘t read). Selling off public assets is fine with them as they think this will cut taxes. It won’t of course as the government will pay to rent them back for twice the cost and other public resources will simply be lost forever.
Every time I hear someone talk about “privatizing” a government service or contracting it out, this is exactly what I think. We’ve still got to pay for it. But instead of having some kind of control, we just become renters and the landlord holds all the cards. Yeah, that makes sense.
The advantage of privatization is that the politicians can award lucrative contracts to family, friends, political cronies, etc., while stuffing kickbacks into their own pockets. A much better use of public funds than paying some silly old municipal employees who in turn pay taxes and spend their earnings on goods and services that create income for other average folks in their communities.
See, it all makes perfect sense if you just know the proper way to view it.
**sigh**
That quote so hits the nail on the head.
Well, Gwyneth Paltrow did say Americans are exceptionally stupid.
Besides converting “capital goods” that belong to all into cash cows for the few, privatizing – more aptly described as looting the patrimony of the people – has the effect of making goods and services that are available to all on a basis of need into privileges of the rich from which all others are excluded.
Privatize a public road and the poor who used to be able to use it freely now find they can use it only if they submit to extortion by the new owner.
Some will not be able to.
In like manner, privatize a public university and higher education becomes a privilege of the rich.
Privatize a fire department and the homes of the poor will be abandoned to burn down.
Privatize the police and no one will protect the poor from naked violence.
Privatization reinforces inequality and privilege in two ways.
Not just one.
Exactly!
Every time we privatize anything the share of those who are not capitalists in the whole wealth of society is diminished and the share of the capitalists increased.
And that is why the country is on a privatization binge.
spot on
Of course, if a public highway is already a toll road inequality is enhanced in the second way, though not the first.
And yet a third way.
Costs of upkeep borne by users proporionate to use are not born by the rich, taxed to cover them, proportionate to wealth.
And that’s why the PA turnpike is still a toll road and the state Republicans want to either toll or privatize the PA stretch of I-80.
Don’t even get me started on toll roads and bridges. We went to Berkeley in May and had to cross the Carquinez Bridge on the way in and out. No toll on the way in. Coming out? Five dollars. FIVE dollars. When I lived there thirteen years ago it was a buck. And it doesn’t appear that there is anything like a frequent user discount.