The fun thing with governments in a democracy is that it’s still a free market of ideas and you vote with your vote, instead of voting with your wallet which increasingly has little meaning when dealing with these billionaires.
It takes an enormous amount of buy in. Democracy is a fragile system even at the best of times. It takes a lot to take people who disagree with each other to talk and haggle with each other long enough to make sensible things happen. And it can feel world-ending when your choice loses.
In times of crisis or uncertainty (like these past 10-15 years) some people might think they need a strongman to lead them. The problem with strongmen of course is that they surround themselves by yes-men and they never seem to know when to stop. I can sympathise with the people who want this, but I can’t say I agree with the impulse.
The regulatory parts of the government that don’t get gutted by the conservatives every couple years do better than the corporations. If the FDA and EPA were allowed to have their teeth back, things would be in a much better place overall. The trick is to strip out corporate interest and influence from government.
Compared to capitalist corporations, unironically yes. It also has the distinct advantage of not being explicitly profit driven by design.
The government might not be able to build Estonia-level broadband infrastructure to the whole country overnight, but put it in the hands of capitalists and you get Comcast, and I think I speak for all of us when I say fuck Comcast. Put it in the hands of government, even a local city government, and you get Chattanooga municipal gigabit on a publicly owned fiber network that’s faster and cheaper than pretty much anything you can get anywhere else in the country. Imagine what the USPS could be if we’d given it an ISP division in 2006 instead of doing the IRL Postal Act of 2006.
A friend who used to work at DOE said there were 3 phases of power plant production. First, a government entity takes over the construction, and builds a system that will meet demand for 30 years, at the expense of the tax payers. Then, the infrastructure is sold to private corporations, who promise cheaper rates. The corporations ride the robust design for the full remainder of the 30 years, doing as little maintenance as possible. They then take the earnings and leave the debilitated system, which is picked up by a government entity, who begins doing the work necessary to build a system that will meet demand for 30 years, at the expense of tax payers…
Yeah, because the Federal Government is so good at efficiently running things
So efficiency is what you care about?
The only thing capitalism actually tries to do efficiently is make more profits.
The fun thing with governments in a democracy is that it’s still a free market of ideas and you vote with your vote, instead of voting with your wallet which increasingly has little meaning when dealing with these billionaires.
Turns out, people get quite angry when the person they voted for doesn’t win.
Then, you end up with people wanting to change how democracy works.
people get angry when the person with the most votes doesn’t win (which has happened 3 times in living memory) and then want to change how it works.
It takes an enormous amount of buy in. Democracy is a fragile system even at the best of times. It takes a lot to take people who disagree with each other to talk and haggle with each other long enough to make sensible things happen. And it can feel world-ending when your choice loses.
In times of crisis or uncertainty (like these past 10-15 years) some people might think they need a strongman to lead them. The problem with strongmen of course is that they surround themselves by yes-men and they never seem to know when to stop. I can sympathise with the people who want this, but I can’t say I agree with the impulse.
The regulatory parts of the government that don’t get gutted by the conservatives every couple years do better than the corporations. If the FDA and EPA were allowed to have their teeth back, things would be in a much better place overall. The trick is to strip out corporate interest and influence from government.
Compared to capitalist corporations, unironically yes. It also has the distinct advantage of not being explicitly profit driven by design.
The government might not be able to build Estonia-level broadband infrastructure to the whole country overnight, but put it in the hands of capitalists and you get Comcast, and I think I speak for all of us when I say fuck Comcast. Put it in the hands of government, even a local city government, and you get Chattanooga municipal gigabit on a publicly owned fiber network that’s faster and cheaper than pretty much anything you can get anywhere else in the country. Imagine what the USPS could be if we’d given it an ISP division in 2006 instead of doing the IRL Postal Act of 2006.
well spoken.
A friend who used to work at DOE said there were 3 phases of power plant production. First, a government entity takes over the construction, and builds a system that will meet demand for 30 years, at the expense of the tax payers. Then, the infrastructure is sold to private corporations, who promise cheaper rates. The corporations ride the robust design for the full remainder of the 30 years, doing as little maintenance as possible. They then take the earnings and leave the debilitated system, which is picked up by a government entity, who begins doing the work necessary to build a system that will meet demand for 30 years, at the expense of tax payers…
oh yeah privatized healthcare is so cheap and effective