Privatizing the Public Good

Privatizing the Public Good

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Honest economists will tell you that the financial solvency of Social Security can be guaranteed well into the next century. So why does the President insist on adding private retirement accounts into the reform mix? Because their purpose is not to save Social Security but, like a Trojan horse, to destroy it. Personal accounts are part and parcel of Bush’s domestic policy agenda: an assault on the very concept of The Public–its goods, services and trust.

Social Security, which provides a public good: the minimum financial security of retirees, is only the latest example. Faith-based initiatives were the privatization of government social welfare programs to religious institutions. Vouchers were the privatization of public education to religious schools. Drilling in the Artic National Preserve is the privatization of public lands for corporate profit. Even national security, the ultimate public good, has been partially privatized: “Security contractors” (mercenaries in the old parlance) were interrogating prisoners at Abu Ghraib, before the scandal broke.

Privatization shouldn’t be confused with free enterprise. It is not capitalism; it is crony capitalism–the diversion of tax-dollars from the government to private individuals and institutions. Faith-based initiatives divert tax revenues to private religious institutions. Personal retirement accounts will divert a significant portion of payroll taxes to Wall Street in the form of management fees.

It should be no surprise that Bush and Cheney are proponents of privatization, because they–just like the oligarchs of Russia–have been its beneficiaries. Cheney’s fortune was made at Halliburton, which profits handsomely from the outsourcing of Defense Department functions. Bush’s fortune was made from the sale of the Texas Rangers, whose value was significantly enhanced by Arlington city taxpayers.

In this light, the Armstrong Williams scandal is not an aberration: It represents the partial privatization of White House public relations. The victim in this case is the public’s trust in the independence of the press. But the public shouldn’t expect an apology from the Bush Administration. Hate means never having to say you’re sorry.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

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The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

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Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

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