In the United States, socialist is a label (to paraphrase Bertrand Russell) that the advocates of laissez faire, or antisocial, capitalism apply to those who attempt to deny them what they believe is their single inalienable principle of liberty,that the fortunate be unrestrained in their exploitation and oppression of the less fortunate.
There are certain industries which, by their very nature, are natural monopolies. Electric power, water, and sewage are the first to come to mind. Telephone service in the days before cell phones is another. Fire protection, public transportation, and law enforcement are other examples that have proven they work best as public services rather than private enterprises.
In every one of these instances, they have proven to provide better service to the public as a whole if they are run by a government entity� ��"or are so tightly regulated by the government that they may as well have been run by the government� ��"than as private enterprises. The privatization of electricity, water, and telecommunications under Prime Minister Thatcher proved disastrous to the pocketbooks of the British people. The savings and loans debacle, Enron and the artificially induced blackouts in California that cost Governor Davis his job, together with the recent meltdown on Wall Street, demonstrates the evils of deregulation in this country.
Capitalism works if, and only if, it has a broad competitive base at every level, and in every category to work from. By its very nature, capitalism has a tendency to eliminate competition in the name of market share, economies of scale, and shareholder dividends. In order for competition to be maintained, government has the vital function of preventing excessive consolidation and collusion in a given industry or market in the name of protecting the consumer from predatory business practices. Government may do this by using antitrust actions or restrictive regulation of a given business or industry. If this fails to curb the corporate malfeasance that is causing harm to the general welfare of the people, a government is left with no choice but to take over that industry in order to protect the nation's citizens.
Now we have the uproar over President Obama doing a webcast to America's school children; talking about the need to stay in school and get a good education, in order to maximize their chance at achieving the American Dream. There seems to be a group of Americans from the neo-Calvinist, authoritarian Right, who are scared to death that somehow President Obama will in this short webcast, succeed in indoctrinating all of these children into the joys of socialist doctrine.
We condemn most strongly in others what we despise most in ourselves.
The authoritarian Right would love to indoctrinate all of our children into their world view. They would love a group of compliant wage slaves, forced to work at or below a subsistence level, scared to death that their job will disappear tomorrow if they do not accept every demeaning or dangerous demand that their employer places upon them. This is much of the reason for the outsourcing of American jobs to foreign countries over the last thirty years. If they could teach us from kindergarten on to accept our place and not complain when the � ���"elect� �� � take advantage of them, the world would be a much simpler and happier place.
For the � ���"elect.� �� �
I suspect that this opposition in reality has two motivations: one racial, one financial; both of them closely related to one another.
The racial is obvious: the authoritarian right does not want President Obama to succeed. If he succeeds, it means that one of their main premises� ��"a hierarchical structure being necessary for society to work� ��"is false. If this black man from humble roots realizes his potential to become one of our great Presidents, it overthrows all of the arguments for an aristocracy based on birth. The heirs of the Mellons, Morgans, DuPonts, Rockefellers, Coors, Fords, Lodges, Bushes, etc., will be shown to be the drag on the American economy and soul that the majority of them are, and no longer receive deference due solely to their family's wealth. The authoritarian right will lie, cheat, murder, and steal to stop the President from succeeding. Because by his succeeding, he gives their Know-nothing followers an indication that there might be an alternative to their lives of � ���"quiet desperation;� �� � caused by the � ���"evil� �� � government showing preference to anyone but � ���"white, Christian males.� �� �
The financial is a little less obvious. Health care reform, the Employee Free Choice Act, re-regulating businesses (especially the financial sector), ending the war in Iraq and Afghanistan: every one of these will hurt the authoritarian right's bottom line, while helping to strengthen and rebuild America's middle class. If President Obama succeeds in keeping most of his campaign promises, it would eventually undo the financial gains the wealthiest one percent of Americans have realized over the last thirty years, including a doubling of the percentage of the nation's wealth that they hold: from twenty to forty percent. If the President follows through on his campaign promise of real change, it will enlarge and enrich the nation's middle class, and encourage all of the liberal and progressive folks out there to see that power in our country is returned to its rightful repository: We the People; not They the Rich.
Only by attacking President Obama (not to mention every other liberal and progressive) on every single action which he undertakes, while offering no alternative other than to keep things as they are, does the authoritarian right have any hope of maintaining its premise that the nation needs the steady hand of a wealthy (white) elite (namely them) at the helm, if the nation is to survive and prosper.
My great-grandpappy used the material that argument is made out of to fertilize the back forty.
It is time to see that the means for a strong and dynamic middle class is once again made available to every citizen of this nation.
It starts with the right to healthcare. When more than half of all bankruptcies in this country are the result of medical bills, and thirty percent or more of the population has inadequate or no medical insurance, the system is broken. Perhaps a purely socialized system such as we find in Great Britain is not the best answer for us; even though 52% of the British people rated their National Health Service as providing good service in a recent poll, and over 70% rated it as satisfactory in a poll two years ago, we do not have to settle for such relatively low numbers. A single payer system, such as our Medicare program, or a regulated non-profit system for health insurance providers, like they have in Germany, France and Japan� ��"that includes negotiated costs� ��"might be better suited for the American mindset.
Combined with this is the need to provide better healthcare access in rural and blighted urban areas. In order to do this, we need to rethink our entire healthcare professional training system. Qualified individuals are avoiding medical, dental, and nursing school because they have no desire to be $100-250,000.00+ in debt when they start their careers. Doctors aren't interested in becoming general practitioners, internists, or pediatricians because these front-line medical specialties do not pay enough to get them quickly out of debt.
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