One of the core differences between the Democratic and the Republican Parties is their conception of the proper role of government in our country. Both Parties tell us, of course, that they are against waste in government. But Democrats believe that there are also many very important roles for government in our society. Republicans on the other hand, at least since the early 1980s, with the presidential candidacy of Ronald Reagan, have infused their rhetoric with complaints of “big government”, and have gone to great lengths to privatize activities that have long been considered to be necessary functions of government.
The origin of the need for democratic government is located in the Constitution of the United StatesThe Democratic Party belief that there is an important role for government in our society is noted in the preamble to our
Constitution, which established the United States of America as a country. Specifically, the preamble to our Constitution prominently notes “to promote the general welfare” as one of the main reasons for its existence. Closely related to this purpose is the need to establish justice, secure the blessings of liberty and defend against crime (“insure domestic tranquility”). The only other reason for the existence of our country mentioned in our Constitution’s preamble is to “provide for the common defense” – upon which Republicans and Democrats agree.
But Democrats and Republicans definitely do not agree on the need for our government to promote the general welfare. Democrats understand that need and fight for it. Today’s Republicans demean the idea of government promoting the general welfare by referring to efforts in that direction as “big government”, Socialism or Communism. They believe that promoting the general welfare is a private matter that government should keep out of – hence their effort in recent years to privatize everything, from Social Security to education to our prison system, and even our elections.
Republican “free market” ideologyThe Republican belief in privatization is based largely or totally on their faith in “free market” ideology. That ideology says that everything or
almost everything works better, is more efficient, and is fairer when it is driven by a free market than when it is “dictated” by government. The rationale for this ideology is that in their quest for profits corporations are simultaneously motivated to produce quality products, and everyone benefits as a result. In other words, the corporate quest for profits happens to be a good thing for everyone.
Under some circumstances they are correct. For example, the entertainment industry is a good example of an activity where free market principles work well. The more entertaining the product produced by the industry, the more people will want to purchase it and the more money they will be willing to pay. The industry produces a quality product, they make a big profit, the people get what they pay for, and everyone is happy.
Why free market principles don’t work well in certain circumstancesDemocrats agree that there are many functions for which free market principles indeed work well and are therefore best left for the private sector to handle. But they also understand that the belief by free market ideologues that free markets always work best is an absurd simplification of a complex issue and is dangerously naïve for a democracy. They recognize, in other words, that there are areas where the free market principle does not serve society well, and therefore where various levels of government involvement are not only justified but required in order to serve the public interest. Among the many related reasons for the failure of free market principles to serve society well are six that I can think of:
1) Activities that are an intrinsic function of governmentSome activities are an intrinsic function government, in that they would not exist except for the existence of government. The running of our elections and the maintenance of our prison system are two such activities.
It is so important that these kinds of activities be done well, that making a profit from them should be either of no consideration at all, or at the very most it should pale in comparison to the need to do the job right.
Furthermore, the desire to make a profit from these types of activities can and often does present a serious conflict of interest. The need for profits often drives a corporation to cut corners in producing their product, especially when cutting corners won’t reduce the price that they can obtain for the product. Worse yet, corporations may have a financial interest in the societal consequences that their product is meant to determine – for example, they may have a financial interest in election results or in the configuration of our criminal justice system.
2) Activities where pertinent third parties are totally unrepresented in the transactionAs we all know, industries often produce materials that get into our air, water or soil, which have the potential to damage our health. Common sense would tell you that, for the protection of the citizens of our country, there should be limits on those activities, and corporations should be financially responsible for their consequences.
But the free market provides neither for those limitations, nor for accountability on the part of the corporations that pollute our air and water. Free market interactions in this situation operate between the corporations and those to whom they sell their products. The great majority of people who buy those products do not live or work in the areas that are most affected by the polluting activities of the corporation. Therefore, the people who are most adversely affected by these activities have no representation in the free market transactions that allow them to take place.
The only means to correct for this injustice is government intervention. Indeed, such was one of the major purposes of the
Environmental Protection Agency, created in 1970. But in recent years the Republican free market ideologues have worked hard to dismantle government protections in this area.
3) MonopoliesIt has long been recognized that corporations have a tendency to form monopolies, which
reduce competition and raise prices. That is why, beginning with the
Sherman Anti-trust law of 1890, and continuing with President Theodore Roosevelt’s
trust busting efforts, the U.S. government has had a long and justified history of intervening to prevent unfair monopolistic practices, especially with regard to services that are essential to us, such as gas and electric utilities.
4) Scarce resources which are essential to American citizensOne particular scarce resource that is essential to American democracy is the public airwaves. Essential information is transmitted through the public airways, and therefore their use is intimately tied up with our First Amendment rights to a free press, which is essential for the workings of democracy. This fact was recognized as early as 1934, with the enactment of the
Federal Communications Act and the
Fairness Doctrine in 1949, which required that radio and television stations must act in the public interest in return for being granted free licenses to use the public airways. Given the fact that democracy itself depends upon the free flow of information, it should be obvious that control of the airways must remain open to public representation and not allowed to be taken over by powerful corporations with no public obligations. Government should have an obligation to ensure that use of the public airwaves is conducted in the public interest.
5) Situations where free market principles cannot operate because of lack of essential informationIt should be obvious that free market principles can operate effectively only when all parties to a transaction have enough knowledge to evaluate the relevant product. In today’s increasingly technological world that is not always possible. An understanding of this issue is what led to the creation of such government organizations as the
Food and Drug administration and the
Consumer Product Safety Commission. The point is that the American people have neither the scientific data at their disposal, nor the expertise to understand that data, that would be required to make effective decisions regarding the purchase of drugs, medical devices or many other consumer products that may pose a safety hazard. Thus, they need a government, elected and committed to their welfare, and with the necessary scientific expertise, to make decisions on the safety of those products and to prevent the sale of dangerous products. The free market cannot ensure that only safe products will be sold and bought.
Though this is not widely recognized, the same principle applies to medical care in general. Few people have the ability to effectively evaluate the medical care that they receive, and attempts to do so are terribly time consuming. Sure, we can decide what doctors we like and what doctors
seem to be competent. But such evaluations are superficial at best. Especially when we develop medical conditions that require the services of doctors with whom we have no previous personal knowledge, government provided information and/or assistance
could be of great value in helping us to make decisions that are more consistent with healthy lives and that could save us a great deal of money.
6) Services which are required for the public’s welfareThere are some services that are so important to the public’s welfare that it makes very good sense for government to provide those services, in an attempt to ensure that all Americans have reasonable access to those services. Examples include
Social Security to ensure a reasonably decent retirement for American citizens,
Medicare to ensure decent medical care for our elderly citizens, and government provision of
public education to ensure that all Americans have a reasonable opportunity to make something of their lives. Giving control of these activities to the private sector will ensure that profits are put ahead of universal accessibility and affordability.
The consequences of free market ideologues running our countryOur current Bush administration is composed almost entirely of free market ideologues who have worked assiduously to make “big government” a pejorative term of the worst magnitude, as an excuse for privatizing numerous functions that have previously been considered to be important areas of government responsibility. Simultaneously, our Republican Congress has acted as a rubber stamp for much of the Bush administration’s agenda, to the great detriment of our country.
Part and parcel to this effort is corporate deregulation and
massive tax reductions for the rich and powerful – and ONLY for the rich and powerful. The reasoning is that if government is not needed, then neither are taxes needed to support government. The one major exception to this rule is the hundreds of billions of dollars that we are spending on the Iraq War, with the consequent
deaths of close to three thousand American soldiers,
tens of thousands of Iraqis, and a national debt that will burden our country for generations to come – but with the one consolation that the Bush administration’s corporate friends have made out
like bandits on this war.
Largely as a result of these efforts, the
wealth gap in our country has expanded to levels unprecedented since the 19th Century, with CEOs now making
431 times that of the average working American, and the
poverty rate in America increasing substantially during the Bush administration. Numerous specific activities of the Bush administration (and also of the Reagan administration) and its Republican free market ideologues in Congress have led to these disquieting results. I will discuss these activities and consequences under the same headings that I used in the previous section.
1) Activities that are an intrinsic function of governmentOur elections are now being privatized, with government turning over more and more of its responsibilities for running elections over to private companies. In many states and counties computers count our votes,
with little safeguard that their counts are accurate, and
no opportunity to verify those counts. When voting rights groups, following surprising election results, have voiced their concerns about the need to inspect the machines to make sure that the vote counting was done properly, those companies have responded indignantly that inspection of their machines would be a violation of their
“proprietary” rights. And the free market ideologues who have taken over our government have accepted that reasoning. How anyone can honestly believe that a private corporation has the right in a democracy to count our votes in secret is beyond my comprehension.
Our prison system is also becoming more and more privatized. The corporations that run our prison system sometimes use state or federal prisoners for
slave labor, and they even
lobby Congress for tougher criminal penalties, which of course would increase their business and profits. Thus, our criminal justice system is coming increasingly under the influence of corporations aiming to make a profit out of it. Does anyone believe that this kind of activity promotes justice?
And we even have our military functions being sold, not to the highest bidders, but with no-bid contracts meted out to corporate friends of our current administration. The result has been billions of dollars of
fraud,lack oversight, and the provision of
unsafe food and
inadequate equipment to our soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
2) Activities where pertinent third parties are totally unrepresented in the transactionThe results of the belief by free market ideologues that government has no right to regulate the polluting activities of corporations can be seen in the
Clear Skies Initiative, the
Energy Act of 2005, and the failure of attempts to promote
improved fuel efficiency of our cars. Probably the worst effect of all this, unless a Democratic Congress is able to turn things around very quickly, are yet to be seen. And worst of all is the likelihood that
global warming (unless measures are taken very soon to impede its progress) will produce catastrophic damage to our planet, including the massive flooding of coastal cities throughout the world, that will make Hurricane Katrina and the attacks of September 11th look like child’s play by comparison.
3) MonopoliesThe increasing wealth gap and poverty rate in America have been already mentioned. Specific examples include the lax regulation that led to the
energy blackouts in California in 2001 and policies that allow
price gouging by oil companies.
4) Scarce resources which are essential to American citizensRonald Reagan’s veto in 1987 of Democratic legislation meant to enforce the moribund Fairness Doctrine, and the
Federal Communications Act of 1996 passed by a Republican Congress, effectively deregulated the telecommunications industry, and the current Bush administration has ignored whatever regulatory mechanisms remained. Consequently, the telecommunications industry is now controlled by a small number of wealthy and powerful corporations to an extent never before seen in our country. The results have been
corporate control of almost all the news we receive on radio and TV, with the consequent creation of such monstrosities as Rush Limbaugh, FOX News, and ABC’s recent “docudrama”, “
The Path to 9-11”. All of this demonstrates that our First Amendment Rights to a free press are
in serious danger.
5) Situations where free market principles cannot operate because of lack of essential informationOur FDA has come under
tremendous corporate influence, with the result that such dangerous products as
Vioxx are approved for marketing. Consumers of medical products are given
little voice in today’s FDA.
The inability of Americans to evaluate the health care that they receive is largely responsible for
inflation in the cost of health care to the point where numerous Americans are effectively priced out of the health care market and a single illness has the capacity to drive American families into bankruptcy. Yet, Bill Clinton’s health care plan that was intended as a partial remedy to this problem was vigorously attacked and
destroyed by corporate interests whose profits would be threatened by such a plan, and by the free market ideologues in their pay.
6) Services which are required for the public’s welfareLargely as a result of George Bush’s contempt for public health programs, infant mortality
has risen during his administration for the first time in 40 years. Republicans in Congress have defeated even
a veterans’ health care benefits plan which was sponsored and fought for by Democrats. And they have
voted against every plan to increase the health benefits of the American people brought up by Democrats during the past several years. One of the most unfortunate results of all this is 46 million currently
uninsured American citizens.
De-funding of public education in America has resulted in a situation where more and more children are
unable to afford a chance at higher education, and a lack of public funds for primary school education has resulted in a
deterioration of our public school system. If Republicans maintain control of Congress this fall, the
attack on our Social Security system is likely to erase the prospect of a comfortable retirement for millions of Americans.
The failure of the Bush administration to fund the
rebuilding of levees that would have prevented thousands of deaths from Hurricane Katrina, and its
non-response to the emergency itself is emblematic of the contempt of today’s Republican Party for the idea that our government should exert itself to protect American citizens.
The bottom lineThe free market has its place in contemporary society and so does a government that is responsible to the people who bring it into existence. The Republican effort to demonize “big government” beginning in the early 1980s has resulted in a situation where extremist “free market” ideologues in the Republican Party, maintained in power by a system that is
increasingly controlled by big money interests, have systematically dismantled government programs that have long benefited the American people.
Whether or not our current Republican Congress really believes in their absurd and extremist free market ideology, or whether they simply pretend to do so because of the millions of dollars they receive from their corporate benefactors is beside the point. The bottom line is a continuing and an impending disaster for the American people.
And lastly, I will end with some evidence that suggests that those ideologues don’t really believe in the extreme ideology that they advocate and foist on the American people: Recently, Republicans in Congress voted down an amendment that
would have required the federal government to negotiate prices with Medicare, and they also have
made it illegal for Americans to obtain cheaper generic drugs from Canada. Is that free market ideology in action? Or would those actions be more accurately characterized as sucking up to the pharmaceutical industry for the millions of dollars showered upon their campaigns?
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