Governments have been on a prolonged orgy of deregulation and privatization of services that had previously been delivered under strict controls or public ownership.
The perfect example of this is the energy sector. From California to Alberta to Ontario, the two richest Canadian provinces, electricity has moving into unfettered private hands.
The ideology behind these changes is a simple one that is, on the surface, the embodiment of the "American Way": free enterprise!
This ideological manifestation of free enterprise includes the conviction that the private sector does everything better than the public sector, that they can deliver the goods cheaper and more efficiently and that everything should be decided by the natural forces of the open marketplace.
These convictions are held with almost religious fervour by most North Americans. However, they are pure poppycock!
Yes, government can be horribly inefficient and wasteful at times. Yes, the forces of competition have created some marvels of productivity in some sectors under some conditions.
This is far from constituting an axiomatic truth, however.
Some examples: Chrysler has gone through repeated bouts of laying off thousands of workers across North America because they did not properly react to market conditions and produced far more supply than they could sell (inefficient private enterprise); NASA continues to plan and execute missions that span enormous distances, produce astounding results and operate within very precise parameters in spite of having had to reduce the cost of their operation to a fraction of what it once was (highly efficient governmental body); California is finding that the unregulated private energy producers cannot meet their demand and are producing inadequate supplies at grossly over-inflated prices (disastrously inefficient and bloated private enterprise).
So why are North Americans so misguided when in comes to assessing public versus private performance? We are labouring under some mistaken assumptions.
The first assumption is that private enterprise is inherently more efficient, lowers costs and improves delivery. This assumption credits the forces of competition with producing these magical results. What this assumption fails to consider is that the cost of a product must also bear the weight of a profit margin when it comes from the private sector, while public agencies are not so burdened. Competition will only produce greater efficiency when the competitor is more efficient, which is not always the case. Inefficiency is a natural human trait stemming from the fact that we have other concerns besides our work (such as family, health, leisure, emotional needs, etc.) which all detract from our productivity, whether we are in government or business. Competition does not eliminate these factors unless you are competing with a perfect machine, which does not exist.
The second erroneous assumption is that the free market is some pure crucible which produces the best results in all human endeavours. The market is no such thing. Look, for example, at the stock market, the most influential manifestation of market forces. The stock market operates on a herd mentality, rather than by some scientific principles or immutable laws. Investors are, for the most part, not savvy interpreters of the direction of human social evolution. They are more akin to wildebeests grazing on the open savannah. As long as there is grass and water (i.e. profits) to be had they are content to amass in the open and consume to their hearts content. As soon as there is a hint of a predator around (i.e. economic uncertainty) they bolt hither and yon in a chaotic, panicky flight that leaves each to their own device and the weakest to the mercies of slavering carnivores.
In some things and in some sectors of the economy letting the vagaries of the market herd decide is bad economic policy. In some things and in some sectors letting private interests and enterprises have control is a recipe for disaster. Electricity is one such sector.
Free enterprise should mean that every person is free to pursue any legal enterprise they wish, not that the act of pursuing an enterprise confers additional freedoms not enjoyed by other members of society. Therefor, regulations need to be in place to control enterprise just as laws are in place to control individuals. This is not a limitation of freedom but rather an acknowledgement that one person’s freedom ends where that of others begins.
Public control of some economic sectors and regulation of free enterprise in others? Sounds suspiciously like socialism, the great bugaboo of American politics.
Well, consider this: the longest serving American President in the 20th century, the one with arguably the most profound accomplishments to his credit (ending the Great Depression and winning the biggest war in history) and likely the most beloved was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Americans may not like to believe it but, FDR was a socialist. Look at his policies.
(This is the fourth installment of the Gather 30 Day Countdown. Only 26 more days to go!)
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Comments: 39
NASA? Please. 2 out of the 5 space shuttles ever built had fatal catastrophes on launch. Even if you look at it as 2 out of 113 or so missions, that's still not a great track record. And when you look at all the failed launch attempts and numerous other errors, it's not pretty. And the Lisa Marie Nowak fiasco has certainly called into question the rigors of the astronaut screening process. I used to live a couple of miles from Johnson Space Center and knew dozens of people who worked there -- I think it's cool what they do, and I think we need to be doing it, but let's hold them up as an example of the human spirit, ingenuity and persistence -- not government excellence. And the findings of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board? Columbia Report Faults NASA Culture, Government Oversight:
California's power problems are because the heavy regulation of those energy providers didn't allow them to properly ramp up for decades, and now they're having to make huge capital investments at current prices, rather than 20 years ago when they should have been building out the capacity.
Thought-provoking, but I think when looked at closely, your choice of examples actually make a stronger case against your position than for it.
NASA has had problems? Sure they have. Exploring space is difficult, complex and dangerous stuff. Two catastrophes in 113 missions? Not bad in my book. How has the private sector done? O catastrophes? Great. Oh, wait, also 0 missions. Not so good.
Is NASA "an example of the human spirit, ingenuity and persistence"? Sure it is. And all that is happening in a government created and run organization.
Everything we do is done by humans. The question is whether or not corporate (private) organizations are ipso facto better than government (public) organizations. The commonly held opinion is that they are. My point is that this is not demonstrably true.
Why does government interference in the market mean higher prices or scarcity? Simply put the markets are a force of untold numbers of people, expert in some small field working for self interest...government 'experts' on the other hand make decisions based on what? Political need, they don't have the same rationale for producing and selling in the market and they are protected from their failures. Remember the gas crunch in the 70s? That came about because of government meddling in supply and demand. Government likes to set prices and subsidize favorites, does this work? In the tiny run yes, but it distorts markets and increases prices and shortages. The market punishes failure but government subsidizes it. Look at the this brewing mess on ethanol and food/feed prices going up across North America never mind the ecological problems of increased corn tillage. Government decided to force an energy guzzling technology on the market that is economically a disaster at all levels...can't be transported via pipeline (need more trucks) takes a food source and tried to convert it into another product-an expensive one so where does corn now increasingly go, into fuel production. It costs more energy to make than it generates. The vast majority of vehicles in the land cannot use it.
Human nature being what it is, self interest is still the strongest correcting force out there. Government's blundering attempts to replicate free will/interest in the market have never succeeded.
No kidding FDR was a socialist. Some Americans don't want to admit it but its true. I seriously doubt though he has any right to title of most beloved president in our history. In history/economics/Constitutional studies he is being buried as a great disaster to our republic finally. His policies prolonged the Depression until a war came along to "bail" us out. Look at unemployment numbers,tax revenue,GDP production, business startups/failures, farm production etc...he fails miserably when those are trotted out. The truest big government/socialist in our history also came the closest to destroying the American dream for ever.
Lastly look at across the board prices for both raw materials/finished goods. In inflation adjusted dollars they are all down and have gone down pretty consistantly for decades with blips for oil especially. Deregulation works, look at telephone and airline ticket prices and how they've gone down.
The market works, despite the creeping socialization of the US economy it still is the world powerhorse. If more deregualtion happened, it would only be stronger. You offered no examples of how government regulation works better than millions of free people following their own needs and desires by their purchases/actions.
I agreed with pretty much everything, except for saying FDR was a socialist. FDR was an American social progressive, who saved America's butt from it's own insensitivity and greed. He was no more socialist then Lenin was democratic.
You rightly point out that the "free-markets" are not free from schewing influences. Our current models are filled with overbearing advantages for the established and the deep-pocketed. Thank God government stepped in during the food manufacturing controversies of the 1900s when certain makers of grain products had been mixing sawdust into their products for profit's sake.
BTW - Private enterprise has been mostly banned from creating space missions. Consider the guy who has created a re-fillable shuttle craft and how he is beleagured and under promoted (SpaceShipTwo). Private enterprise in space makes the military nervous, but it would make the world a better place; especially for industry.
Thanks for this.
Charles: So what would you compare NASA to? We don't have a better example of human space exploration. Clearly this government run agency has done amazing things. Could the private sector do better? Well, we don't know, do we, because they haven't. One thing is clear: the private sector wouldn't do it at all without a profit motive (nor should they), but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. Stephen Hawkings has famously advised that mankind must find extra-terrestrial homes in the next hundred years to avoid the great risk of the demise of the species due to one or more of many possible threats to life on Earth (manmade and natural). Private business will never do this. Only government can.
The gas crunch in the 70s was caused by Arab formation of OPEC, curtailing production and driving prices up.
FDR was much loved by the people of his time, who had just had the experience of the market model of depression relief under Herbert Hoover and threw the bum out. They went on the re-elect FDR for the rest of his life, something no other president can say. People cried when he died. I doubt Bush will be grieved so. To say he came closest to destroying the American dream is revisionism and nothing more.
Bill: Thank you.
Elinor: I agree with less bail-outs.
Dave: I think you have me a little wrong. I am not saying the socialism is preferable to free-market or private enterprise.
I am saying that the axiomatic conviction that private enterprise is inherently more efficient and better than the public sector does not alway bear out. There are areas where private has done better and areas where public has done better.
I believe in a mixed economy. The collapse of Communist Russia is very different than the success of socialist Sweden. (Americans have been very misled about the nature of left wing politics, equating all of it with Stalinist Russia. This is a hang over from the McCarthy years that you need to get over. I mean, really, why is communism a banned political ideology in the USA? Is that democracy?)
Margaret Thatcher was not universally loved in the UK. Northern England and Scotland never felt they had benefitted much from her policies.
You really don't want to discuss health care as an example of free-market success. America pays more for health care per person and gets less coverage overall. So that is not a shining example of a free market success story. Canada's socialized health care, while not perfect, covers everybody pretty well.
Cuba, despite being very poor partially due to their communist economy and also partially due to the ridiculous isolation imposed on them by the USA, has a pretty good health care system, even helping other Latin American countries. A pretty good argument for socialized health care.
Dave: I am not familiar enough with the American system to give you examples. In Canada there are numerous examples of how social programs help the middle class. There is the Child Tax Credit, which puts money in the pockets of many lower-middle class Canadians raising children. There is also the new Child Care subsidy which goes to all parents of children below school age to help with the cost of daycare. Aside from these direct payment benefits, there are many social programs which help the middle class (and even businesses) greatly like: the public education system (this is a socialist concept, by the way) and public health care (which is so beneficial that it is considered a competitive advantage by many American businesses who choose to manufacture in Canada).
Your point about waiting lists in Canada for surgery has truth to it, but it is not the whole story. Sure, there are and have been some types of surgery for which waiting lists got too long (and which government is trying to address with mixed success). However, the US also has waiting lists. Let's face it: no one gets surgery the very minute their need for it is diagnosed. That means everyone goes on a waiting list. Maybe the waiting list is a week or two long and maybe its a month or two long. Obviously, the longer the worse it is. But when you say 50,000 people on a waiting list (a number that would have to be documented for me) this does not mean that these same 50,000 people are always waiting. Rather it means that on one week the were something like 50,000 people waiting and the next week some thousands of those people have had their surgery and some new thousands have been added to the list. The question isn't how many people are waiting but how long they are waiting. In the US there are waiting lists and, let's face it, the wealthy don't wait as long as the middle class and the poor aren't even on the list because they have no coverage. Don't tell me that Americans like the way they are treated by HMOs because all we hear about them up here is that they pick and choose what services they will cover you for. Your comment about Cuba sure applied to America, the difference is that America is very wealthy and certainly could afford to cover all its people (with a little socialistic reform).
I believe in a mixed economy. I think there are some things that should be left to private business and the free market because of the efficiencies that they can (though don't always) generate and because government has no role in those areas other than to regulate to protect workers, consumers and the environment from malfeasance. Examples would include production of all consumer goods and most consumer services. On the other hand, there are areas where the public sector is a better choice. Examples would include education, child daycare, health care, resource management and exploitation, law enforcement, some sectors of transportation.
In reverse order:
You're right that wealthy Canadians, and others, go to the US to jump queues in their own country and to get top of the line treatment (although in most respects Canadian medical care is top of the line), but you claim that public health care costs more is not supported by fact. Canadians pay less per capita for more comprehensive coverage than Americans do for less.
Yes, the wealthy drive better cars, eat at fancier restaurants etc., but tha does not compare to necessities like health care or to services which benefit all of society by improving the individual, like education. I have no problem with better consumer goods, housing conditions, vacations and what have you for the wealthy. There is your incentive. But it makes no sense for a wealthy countries like Canada and the US to let any of their citizens be sick when there is treatment available, to be hungry when there is a surplus of food or to be homeless when we can build decent, basic accommodation for all.
I would challenge your contention that even the poorest in America can receive timely medical care. Emergency service perhaps, but not full medical care. Not from many things I've read on the subject.
Public education is always criticized for being a disaster. I know that some American schools have particular problems relating to violence and weapons screening and the like (but you need to divest yourself of the NRA to get past that one), but I would contend that the schools are doing better than you credit them with. I have neices and nephews who are products of those schools in different states and they are well schooled. In Canada I have been involved in school board studies and programs and one Royal Commission made it clear that every generation claimed the schools had deteriorated since their day yet objective results such as drop-out rates, graduations etc. showed improvement from generation to generation consistently. I think there is a large degree of looking at the past through rose coloured glasses at work here.
I would contend that poverty has increased more as a result of the Reagan and Bush tax cuts and related program cuts than it ever did due to the Great Society initiatives. We'd have to compare statistics on that one.
Finally, it comes down to taxes. And this is the big reason most Canadians and even more Americans disagree with leftist politics. No one wants to pay more taxes. Of course, no one wants to pay more for anything. Look at the hue and cry over rising gas prices. If you could buy the same car for $20,000 instead of $30,000 you'd take it. But the fact is you don't get the same car, you get less.
Bottom line is this: taxes are the price of civilization and, just as with everything else, you get what you pay for.
History has proven SOCIALISM DOES NOT WORK. It failed in the USSR in if failing in China right today. IT ALWAYS FAILS because it takes away the incentive to work. The welfare rolls in this country should have told you that.
If this is an example of what I will get on this web site I'm outta here.
Colonel George Wright
The most misguided assumption is that the free market is anything other than a theoretical abstraction (an "ideal type" in Weberian lingo) or, to put it more stongly, a myth, as Polanyi's argued Trade and Market in the early Empires and, much more recently, Lakoff's discusses in Whose Freedom?: The Battle Over America's Most Important Idea (see his chapter, Economic Freedom).
If you look closely at any economic system you will find at its basis a social contract. All complex economies, from the earliest states to the present, are governed by regulatory structures.
It's important to emphasize that regulation (like "law," of which it is a part) can be good or bad. But the absence of regulation is an impossibility.
Colonel George: FDR has consistently been ranked as one of the three greatest presidents of the USA in surveys of academic historians. There is also no denying the historical truth of how much he was loved by the American public at the time he served. The fact that he is the only president to serve more than two terms, and was elected to four, says volumes about that. Sure, there must have been those who hated him and I bet they loved Eugene McCarthy, too.
No one "let" Russia have half of Germany. Russia took it by virtue of having been the army that conquered Germany at the end of the war and were all over Germany first. The US managed to get Berlin, deep inside Russian occupied Germany, designated an international city. Let's not be too revisionary in our view of history, shall we?
It's funny that you say "socialism" is failing in China. China, while still calling itself communist, long ago became a state-run capitalist nation (or a capitalist dictatorship). Even if that is not the case, China can hardly be said to be failing. Their economic growth has outpaced America's for close to two decades now, their economy will likely eclipse the American one within a generation and they are the creditor financing your Iraq fiasco. If that's a failure, I'd like to see you define success for them.
If this example of free and open debate, in my experience very welcome on Gather, is not to your taste then perhaps your decision to depart is wise.
Amy: Terrific point about regulation. It reminds me of a very important point about corporations, the very institutions that supply-side supporters are always wanting to get the government off the backs of: a corporation is a creation of government. Without government to write the laws that define what a corporation is they simply do not exist.
However, they also tend to concentrate it. Which is where government comes in with socialistic redistributive programs, paid for through taxation, that spread that wealth around a little and alleviate the extremes of poverty the concentration of wealth creates.
The private sector was frozen out of the space race by government. This was done by making any private industry in space illegal, if private enterprise had been allowed rights to the ores in space or on the planetiods, do you think that they would not have gone there in droves? But like one writer above mentioned the military and NASA did not like competition out there so it didn't happen. Could it? Hell yes, reject the notion that space/the objects out there etc are "Man's Common Heritage" and let private enterprise go...
OPEC did not control enough of the oil back in the 70s to cause the shortages. The shortages came because of government interference with the profit motive, there was enough oil on the market but 'windfall profits taxes' and heavy regulation (like not drilling off Florida while allowing Cuba to do so) caused market fluxiation and US wells to be capped. Do some checking before making blind statements based on wishes rather than facts of the time.
Cute Alex, I just learned to read and stayed awake in my economics classes. Amazing what you can find out there if you take off your blinders.
Sorry Rory, you still have shown no national success stories that are of the mixed economy mode. Socialism lives off its capital not profits. The socialist/mixed economies of the world are stagnant. Their best and brightest leave for other lands and they add little to either the world economy or man's growth.
Your perception of what is occurring in society could not be more accurate, and your speech I find to be quite impressive. Society needs more more regulation and less freedoms in certain areas, because I am convinced, that people do not really take care of themselves or their fellow man(human) into consideration. When corporations receive profits, they do not put them back into the corporation. They are used to inflate the salaries of the CEOs running them and to give "perks" to those that further their particular cause. You never see a corporation turn around and reward their employees with pay raises, i.e. cost-of-living increases, either in salary or in pension benefits. Which brings me to another issue: Pensions. This is becoming an article of the past, due to corporate greed. It costs corporations much less to offer its employees 401(k) programs (usually procurred through insurance companies) than to devise their own pension program which they would have to pay to moderate. Most people do not have healthy spending habits. By this I mean that corporations are banking that their employees will drain their retirement plans by age 65 so that there will be such a distinction in class by the time all of us "baby boomers" reach retirement age. I can attest to this first-hand because I am in an industry where the government intervention has allowed employees of all companies; private and corporations, to unionize. Thus, through being a union employee that I was for so many years, I am vested for my pension (which I will receive in addition to Social Security) and for my health care benefits (in full). My pension is an actual "pension"; not a 401(k) plan, which means that I cannot touch it until age 65 (possibly at 62 with penalties). So therefore, when I reach age 65, I should be set and not depending on anyone or being a burden to anyone in my old age. Since there are so many "immediate grattifiers" out there, I am sure that most people have spent their retirement money by age forty and resolve themselves to have to work until death, or be a burden to friends and family. Also, if corporations would give the profits back to their employees in the way of benefits, they would not be in such a hurry to donate tons of money to homeless services in all the states as a way of looking altruistic. I honestly don't think most corporations care about their nationalistic pride when making those decisions. I am convinced those decisions come from hiding income from the federal government as donations that will relieve them from tax. Their tax monies go to so many things, such as our transportation and roads, that are useful to everyone (including corporations) and need our tax dollars, that donating to charities to save on taxes personally disgusts me. Either way, government has allowed me (and millions of others) to save ourselves from ourselves. By that I mean that since those assets cannot be touched until the appropriate time, I still have time to get vested with a second pension or increase the pension base that I already have, and I will not have spent that which was meant for my older years or withdrew that money with good intention and was not able to pay it back. Government will have allowed me to age/die with dignity.
As for national success stories, there I will definitely disagree with you. Sweden, as I've said before, was led by social democrats for 44 years (pretty long in comparison with most political parties holding power in any functioning democracy, indicates a high level of public approval of their policies). Though there are problems experienced by Sweden's economy coming out of that period, the facts are clear: a small country with a population less than half of Canada's and with significant transportation obstacles vis-a-vis their southern European competitors, has maintained a standard of living that compares well with any other country, including America. They manufacture quality automobiles and many other fine products. This is without question a leftist success story.
Canada is also quite socialistic, at least compared to the US (though not to European countries) and has often been cited by the UN and other global agencies as "the best country in the world in which to live". Our slippage from that position has actually come during a time of more conservative governance that has dismantled some of our social safety net.
West Germany, prior to reunification, was also run by social democrats for years and was a leading economy and a free society in the world. Clearly your contention that there are no national success stories of mixed economies does not hold water.
Cathy: Thanks for your kind remarks. I am also thankful for your raising the issue of unions, a much maligned force in this neo-conservative age, but one without which the working people of the capitalist nations would be nothing more than economic slaves, as they were before unions forced such advances as minimum wages, a 40 hour work week, safe working environments and employee benefits on the corporations.
The selling of the "free market" ideology has been one of the great successes of the advertising industry. In historical fact, the middle class of America was built by the G.I. Bill, federal housing programs, progressive income tax, and labor unions. The middle class of America is being dismantled by the policies pushed by "free-market" ideologues.
Adam Smith himself, the man who first described the "free market" as the source of the wealth of nations, also described necessary basics to the operation of a really free market. One of them is social norms of morality: fairness, honesty, respect for human life and dignity. You cannot promote an attitude of "the only moral obligation of business is to maximize the profit of the shareholders" and expect to maintain moral norms in your society. That attitude will inevitably lead to the same moral decay that conservatives so often lament.
You cannot have a free market when there is a huge imbalance of power between the parties bargaining with each other. It is the proper role of government to weigh in on the side of the parties with the least power -- children, consumers, employees, the sick -- to ensure open information and fair bargaining.
Markets are historically unable to quantify all costs, like the impact of manufacturing on the environment, or the need for an educated workforce to keep industry going. Social processes -- the public processes we call "politics" and "government" -- are necessary to address these "externalities."
Some things, like health care, simply can't be effectively handled by the market. All attempts to make the health care system act more like a "free market" make it worse. If the income of doctors is tied to how many tests, operations, and medication they deliver, then they will be motivated to maximize their profits by prescribing expensive tests, operations, and medication even when unnecessary. If insurance companies get to control what the doctor prescribes, they will be motivated to maximize their profits by disallowing expensive treatment even when it is necessary. Americans have the worst health in the Western world, and pay the most for it. This will continue to get worse until we start basing our health care policies on what actually works, instead of on ideological theory.
Recommended reading: Everything for Sale, the Virtues and Limits of Markets, by Robert Kuttner.
Very well said, very well researched and very, very true.
The free market should basically be about the production, marketing and sale of widgets.
People do not exist to serve the economy. It should be the other way around.
And Good Luck/Bon Chance on dealing with the kneejerk mentality in the US with its "Competition Is Always Good" ... "If you love the God of Greed, Then Honk and Privatize" ... and "We *Heart* Reagan-omics" mindlessness.
I worked in the national utility industry for many years-- on staff at utilities all over the U.S. and as an analyst with utility industry associations. The froth-at-the-mouth and Privatize Everything motivation of so many rabid, mostly Republican types in our country met its Waterloo with Enron, Dynergy and the Great California Blackout of 1999/2000. Mindless Privatization by GOP politicians running CA in the 1990s, slavish de-reg of the CA utility grid, blatant greed & malice by the Enrons gaming the system ... it all ended with dumping the single state with the 29th richest GDP in the world (!!) down to Banana Republic and Broke System Ops Third World Energy Status.
Europeans and others saw what mindless privatization did to the richest single Golden State of CA. And they stopped deregulation of their energy industries dead in the water!
Still, we hear Reagan clones trying to make their Laffler Curves and privatization schemes work after repeated failures. Now we get to hear Bushies call nationalized community-based systems (like energy revenues in Venezuela) by names used for Satan and the Devil. (Think Hugo Chavez. :-O)
These free-marketeers and privatize everything types never quit; They have no short- or long-term memory cells and, in too many cases, are just self-centered Greed Heads. "People do NOT exist to serve the economy. It should be the other way around." Kudos, Rory M.
You led me to recognize something about this conversation string. By my count, the men commenting on this article work out to be 4-3 against my position. The women are 5-1 in favour of it. Hmm.
Clearly conservate and progressive mindsets are deeply ingrained in people's thinking. Conservatives will interpret data in one way and progressives will interpret the same date in a completely different way. I don't think either side is lying or being in any way disingenuous. I think we are really measuring things against a different set of standards.
The prevalent atmosphere of political debate in society has generated a lot of rancour over these differences and, while there is a hint of that in some of this conversation (and I include myself in that), for the most part we have all remained civil and respectful of each other. I thank all involved for that.
If that were not enough, we have the example of Russia, where everything was done by government, until recent years, and none of it was done well. We have the example of East Germany vs. West Germany. We have the example Hong Kong vs. mainland China. We have the example of North Korea vs. South Korea. Those are just some of the obvious examples.
I mean, how naive and outright ignorant can a person be to believe that a government - any government - can do a better job than a private company using a free enterprise system in a country with a democratic system of govenment? You'd have to have been living under a rock for the past 100 years - or longer. You have to have ignored every lesson learned in the past century. You have to have been totally out of touch with business. In other words, you have to have been a writer, and nothing more, which is what I suspect about Mr. Bancroft.
When Americans, who have access to example after example of the free enterprise system working all around them, have opinions like this writer's, it's time for us to start doing some reverse immegration. If someone can live here and still have opinions like this, I say, let's send him back and give someone else a shot who won't be this blind and dense. And please, let's at least get him off here and get someone on who has been alive within the past thirty years - at least since Reagan - whom, obviously, Mr. Bancroft has never heard of.
Waitsel Smith
That is what I mean by being ignorant and naive. I'm not trying to insult Mr. Bancroft. I believe he has chosen to write about something he has never personally experienced, which is unfortunate. On the other hand, I have experience the free enterprise system by owning my own business for the past eleven years. I have also worked in corporate America for over twenty years, and I have worked for the government. I have seen all sides of the coin. I have learned how business people think and how that translates into their work ethic and work habits; and I have learned how government employees think and how that translates into their work ethic and habits. I have seen both groups of people do the same job and I can tell you that the 4 to 1 theory holds up.
There is a reason for the slogan, "Good enough for goverment work." The government isn't competing against anyone, so they don't have to try to do a good job. In private business, you are competing against hundreds of other businesses, so you have to do your best. If the government fails, which it often does, there is no one to take it to task. If a private business fails, it has to answer to its stock holders or owners.
When the government fails, its answer is to ask for more money. That has been the government's answer to our failing educational system for years. We spend more and more on our government schools, and we get less and less in return. Yet, they keep asking for more. In the private education sector, including home schooling, they spend a fraction of what public schools spend, yet they not only compete, but run circles around government educated students.
It's easy to sit and write an article about something you know nothing about. It's something else entirely to get out there and do something, to prove your opinions. I prove my opinions about the free enterprise system every day in my business, Mr. Bancroft. What do you do?
Waitsel Smith
I did not say China was frailing, I said the socialist/communist form of their government is failing and rapidly becomming Capitalist. BTW there is no such thnig as a Government run Capilist society or Capitilist dictatorship.
Finally - Since when were Privitilization and Deregulaition declared dirty words? They are what Made this country along with Capitilization.
Don't you dare question my knowledge of history especially that which I LIVED. Sure I was young back then but that didn't make me unaware and I had a lot of first person testamony from my elders.
FDR was the ONLY president to ever run for a third term. The American people saw the error of having a president serve more than two terms and passed a law restricting the president to two terms.
Waitsel, I do wish you had chosen to express your opinion without having to try and denigrate those who disagree with you. When someone basis their argument on remarks such as "naive and outright ignorant" and "you have to have been a writer, and nothing more" and "blind and dense" they do not strengthen their argument but rather weaken it. Unfortunately, it seems to be a tactic for far too many right wing commentators to try and slander the reputation of their opponent in debate, rather than try to construct logical points of opposition. Perhaps that in itself says a lot.
First of all, Waitsel, my name is not "Mr. Bancroft". That is the name of the lovely little town in which I live, known also as "Ontario's Most Talented Town". I'm sure you knew that it was not my name and this puts your repeated use of it in the category of a pejorative. It was not a particularly clever one, either, as it makes no reference to any aspect of my person or argument and is too obscure to mean anything to any other readers. As a result, in the end it says more about you than it says about me.
For your information, I worked in private enterprise for fourteen years before starting to work in the public sector fifteen years ago. Despite your unsupported claim for this mythical "4 to 1 theory", of which I've never before heard or read mention, I have worked for large, internationally successful corporations that were very wasteful. How? Well, they had lots of incompetent middle managers who spent most of their day trying to cover their ass, rather than being productive. They also had a lot of indolent senior management who ripped the company off blind for personal benefit and spent their entire workday trying to justify their existence by claiming credit for the work of subordinates. I would wager that many of the people who read this conversation string will recognize these character types as being common in the private sector, just as they are in public sector.
To revert to comparing communist Russia, Germany, Korea and China with their capitalist counter-parts indicates to me that you either didn't read large portions of the original article and subsequent comments, or you didn't understand them. I have not been advocating communism and I acknowledge the shortcomings of that system. In fact, I see capitalism and communism as the extremes on the economic spectrum, and I support a middle ground of a mixed-economy, social-democratic model.
Your claim that government schools are out competed by private schools at a fraction of the cost is not borne out by any study, statistics or analysis I've ever read, and I have had a lot of involvement in the education system as a supply teacher, a volunteer and as chair of a couple of study committees and member of others. Private schools at the high end, the ones only the wealthy can afford, sometimes do excell but at a much higher cost per student than the public sector. The smaller private schools, many of which are religiously guided, often have been found to fail to meet the minimum standards that the public system sets and, especially in the sciences, sometimes teach pure unadulterated bunkum.
I assume from your proclamations of your success in the business world that you probably have some intriguing insights to offer to this conversation. It's a shame you did not take the time and trouble to elaborate on any of them and wasted your efforts on a character assassination of someone you don't even know.
The "decision", if it can be called that, to have Russia take central Germany was not something either Britain or America wanted (they agreed on that at Malta), but they could neither prevent it nor could they get to Berlin ahead of the Russians, who broke the back of the German army at Stalingrad a few years earlier and began the long string of defeats which Hitler then faced until the end of the war. The Russians were going to Berlin no matter what anyone had to say about it.
Hess was never convicted of being a communist spy but of perjury in relation to the charges of spying. His reputed status as a Soviet agent is much in debate today and it is often his role at Yalta that is pointed to as evidence that he was not a spy.
You're right that Russia did not like Germany. The Nazis had signed a non-aggression pact with Stalin and then broke it, invaded the country and tried to destroy Stalingard specifically because it bore the name of the leader. If this kind of thing had happened to America I'm sure you would have responded much as the Soviets did: with courage and tenacity and firm commitment to make the Germans pay for what they had done.
To say that there is no such thing as a capitalist dictatorship is ludicrous. Chile under Augusto Pinochet was just such a thing, supported by the United States because it was capitalist. Iran under Shah Reza Pahlavi and the Phillipinnes under Ferdinand Marcos are two more examples. There are plenty of others (Batista's Cuba, Somoza's Nicaragua, much of Latin America through most of the 20th century). Capitalism is an economic system. Democracy is a poltical system. Communism is also an economic system. Dictatorship is another kind of political system. While it is true that communism has more often been married to dictatorship, they are not necessarily one and the same thing (communist parties have run democratically in many countries and even formed part of coalition governments throughout Europe). Capitalism is allied with democracy in the USA, Canada and much of Europe, but has certainly co-habited with dictatorship in much of the world.
As for the declaration of privatization and deregulation as dirty words: I did that in the article above. That is my point.
Colonel, with all due respect I will question your knowledge and that of any other individual whenever I choose. That is the essence of a free society: the right to question and to express one's disagreement and opinions. Being 48 years old I did not live through either of the world wars, though my father fought in the second and my grandfather fought in the first. My father was an avid amateur historian who read voraciously (probably in the neighbourhood of 10,000 books in his lifetime) and specialized in the history of WWII, which he had served in. I learned much from him. I have also read a fair bit about the period (amongst other periods of history) for myself. Let us not forget, a lot of history is subjective and there are many books which contradict others written on the same subject. What you have read and what I have read may not agree any more than you and I do. In a free society we are able to decide for ourselves which version of events we will embrace.
I would say also that it was not Americans at large who recoiled from FDR's stunning electoral success and restricted future executive officers to two terms, but rather the Republican party who were smarting from a generation out of power.
Bush may have solved that problem by breaking US power in Iraq for once and for all. As much as it might cause a lot of well intentioned Americans angst to think their role as leader of the free world may have come to an end, I think it might be better for you down the road to be free of that burden.
I have every intention of staying in Canada. I like it here.
YOUR WORDS: "I mean, how naive and outright ignorant can a person be to believe that a government - any government - can do a better job than a private company using a free enterprise system in a country with a democratic system of govenment? You'd have to have been living under a rock for the past 100 years - or longer."
The above is a perfect example of "psychotic projection" in which we drown from right-wing Fake News Outlets like Faux Fox. YOU have obviously "been living under a rock" for the past 7 years to not see what has happened to the "democracy" of the US and the Top 1 Percent Get EVERYTHING restructuring of the US economy.
Another projection is assuming that anyone who disagrees with you is, not only "ignorant," but has no business experience. Uh. Duh-oh!! Read back a couple comments. I worked in the utility industry for over 20 years. And it was the investor-owned electric utility industry ... you know, those Wonderful Folks Who Brought Us Utility De-Reg, the Crash of California and Nice Guys like Ken Lay and Enron.
You diminish the level of discourse on this board, W. Smith. Project away!!
I looooved your citing disbelief in evolution as one of the extreme mental hazards of home schooling. It's true! Thought you might appreciate this zinger from a recent airing of "Stephen Colbert's The Colbert Report" ...
"Sixty-eight percent of Republicans don't believe in evolution. But, then, only FIVE percent of monkeys believe in Republicans."
:-O Stephen Colbert, 6-18-07
(He doesn't seem himself as part of the Executive Branch) We are very close to being a dictatorship. Isn't this the meaning conveyed when President Bush says the people of this country should not have any say in policies? When he says
"politicians" should not decide policy? (Note: He's not a polician? What should we call him?
I find it troublesome that so much emphasis is put on the Stock Market to show the health of our economy. The GNP is the REAL indicator, and that doesn't show up to be very healthy. We have a huge trade deficit -- yet neither Congress nor the President is willing to address this; we have a huge war debt -- that under the current president will only grow, because he refuses to see that US CITIZENS are being killed in Iraq, resulting in older people who lose their children, wives and
husbands lose their spouses, and countless children are orphans and will never know the joy of having a dad and grandfather for their children.
Deregulation (getting back to your subject) drives up prices and usually keeps supply low, although the potential of having plenty to meet the needs and desires of everyone is there.
Caution: beware of the policies that lift the qualifiers for Social Security, Medicare, and that make socialized medicine a reality -- in response to Michael Moore's movie
SICKO. He fails to look at all sides of the issue, from what I heard about the movie.
Yes, Cheney is a very scary dude. Under the Bush administration America has strayed dangerously close to fascism. Resisting this tide is the most important battle facing Americans today, far more important than fighting terrorism.
Remember, less than 3,000 people died in the attacks of 9/11, almost a quarter of them were not even Americans. Almost 4,000 Americans (and counting) have died in Iraq plus many more in Afghanistan. Given that Iraq was a war of choice with no demonstrable connection to the 9/11 attacks, which is the greater danger?