Can we re-create the government?

[charles brough]

No problem! We just privatize it---as Milton Friedman-based economists in government have been trying to do. The Bush Administration followers of the Chicago School economic cult tried unsuccessfully to privatize social security, the postal system and Medicare. Their idea of an ideal state is one in which the road system, for example, is all private corporate built and owned . . . and paid for by multiple toll booths. Already, they have privatized prisons which can be made cost-efficient by mistreating prisoners.

 

In-government followers of the cult---Ronald Rumsfeld and General Brennon specifically---succeeded in mostly privatized the U.S. Army. There are almost as many mercenary troops hired to guard as there are government troops in combat in Iraq. Construction projects done in the past by the Army are now hired out at high cost. All this makes wars in which masses of people lose their life temptingly profitable---and hence desirable---to business.

 

So, why stop there? Why not go all the way and even privatize the Federal Park system? It could pay for itself by increasing entrance fees and logging permits. We can even hire private firms to monitor and regulate other privatized government services. To see that there is no collusion between over-sighter and the over-sightee, we could hire still others such companies to monitor, regulate and audit them. Enron-like companies would fight for a contract to do that!

 

If this does not seem like an improvement, much less an ideal, it is nevertheless what it has done with Iraq. The intent was to set up a bustling, modern state by taking government assets, and turning them over to corporations. For example, the Western world's oil companies now have Iraq's oil reserves and facilities through a complicated series of America-imposed legal regulations and contractual arrangements (N. Klein, The Shock Doctrine, Holt & Co, 2007)

 

Do we want this for ourselves? Did we the people know about all this and authorize it? Or did our corporate state do it on its own?

 

It might not be the best way to bring “democracy” to the world.