Cross-posted at my site, Brad's Brain
Privatization is the sanitized version of what Republicans, and some Democrats, view as a saving grace for America. Because of their hatred of government, they axe social programs and farm out a great deal of what used to be overseen centrally. They do this far more often than you even realize, and they want to do it more. They funnel your tax money to these private companies, which in return pay little to no taxes back and are free to regulate themselves. Which they don't do.
But, hey, that's the free market, right? Companies are looking out for profit, and thus they'll be more efficient than government. Or so goes the argument. But let's take a step back here, a big step, about 1500 years and look at a prior attempt at free market ideology.
Rome collapsed, partly from within and partly from without. It was unwieldy already, spreading from Britain to northern Africa, so control of many areas had already been ceded to local interests, with little centralized authority. After the "fall" local groups gained more control, by which private groups, often involved in only one industry, developed networks of hierarchical control. They were little, autonomous units trading amongst each other under the eye of no government. And with pretty good reason it was referred to as the Dark Ages, a period with little in the way of progress (such as those that came from Greece, Rome or the Renaissance) and even with little history available of what actually happened.
This, unfortunately, may be where we're headed. Of course technology has advanced well beyond that, and we will leave vast records of our "society." However, these new fiefdoms, corporations, have gained power in unprecedented ways and are functioning as little governments, usually taking, or being given, that role by our own government.
The CCA, Corrections Corporation of America, is paid to run more than 60 prisons on a for-profit basis, and they farm out the prisoners' labor, paying them one dollar a day, keeping the rest. Ordinarily this money would go back to help the common good, but not in the world of privatization. There are many more companies just like them, most of them with as terrible a record of actually running prisons as CCA. The Republicans badly want our schools to be run on a for-profit basis, which, based on the health-care system's massive failings, does not bode well for learning. And must I even bring up the military, where companies like Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, et al. bring in their own troops, armed and deadly, and answering to no one. Let's call them Dick Cheney's SS.
Gone are the ideas that America was founded upon: the common wealth for the common good. We all pay for the basic infrastructure which keeps the society running, and those who use that infrastructure more, the rich, and especially the corporations, pay the most because they've benefited the most from the good of the nation. Instead we are left with a massive machine, siphoning money and services from the bottom, delivering them to the top, while at the same time, taking what gives all Americans a voice, the government, and selling it to the highest bidder. Or not even taking bids.
Welcome to George W. Bush's America.
Republicans make the asinine assertion that people can spend their money better than government, when that is entirely irrelevant and is meant only to sucker in those either incapable of or ill-inclined to rational thought. It's a false choice. Government is the people. Remember that line, "of the people, by the people, for the people?" Government makes the choices of how we spend the wealth of the society for the common good. And giving, yes, giving, that money and that government control to corporations will never prove to be in the common good. It's feudalistic at best, fascistic at worst.