The government does SS, medicare, medicaid, public education, infrastructure, voting, law enforcement, defense, food and drug safety, regulation of industries, the net, etc. etc.
The government does many things well. It does many things badly.
The latest 'free market' allocation boondoggles all include the 'free market' lobbying of said government into:
Custer Battles
Bechtel
$300 million in rotting trailers for Katrina
Katrina
Wilma
Iraq
Medicare
Bankruptcy bill
50% of the wealth owned by 2% of families
These are the 'free market' allocations of both political power and resources. They stink to high heaven. They are inefficient, ineffective and downright stupid.
If nothing else the Bush administration and Republican dominated government shows how poorly the 'free market' allocates resources. It allocates resources like a snowball rolling downhill. The bigger snowballs get bigger and bigger and bigger because they were bigger to begin with.
It's ridiculous. Human society doesn't work this way. Reality doesn't work this way.
King George has privatized medicare by making it impossible to negotiate for drug prices because the bill was written by pharmaceutical companies for their advantage. Ditto what he tried and failed to do with SS.
Iraq is largely a private war. It not only has mercenaries but it also uses private companies to drive trucks, do KP, etc. The result is billions unaccounted for, wasted, misallocated from bodyarmour to refrigerated dessert cases.
People aren't meant to live alone, defending only themselves and their interests from a frightening world. We're meant to live together, to help each other in times of need and cooperate. We're not tigers and eagles, we're gazelles and zebras....we're herd animals. |
