Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Dear George,   A tidal wave of progress is sweeping the country, creating in its wake a powerful undertow that is dragging the unfortunate, the uninformed and the unwashed out to sea.  This wave is privatization, a polite way to describe a Corporatist profit center.  It is a scam that ranks right up there with the scam that is the Corporatist’s Star of Bethlehem:  the Doctrine of Personal Responsibility.   The latest beach to be eroded by this wave is America’s municipal water companies.  Our water infrastructure is crumbing and municipalities are facing billions of dollars in expenses to upgrade them.  Come now the Corporatists who promise to relieve municipalities of this burden by privatizing their systems and reducing expenses by spending not a dime on system upgrades.    Privatization is a time-honored tradition in this country.  There was a time when our fire companies were private enterprises.  A homeowner contracted with a company for its services and attached the company’s plague to the front of his house.  When a fire broke out, every volunteer company in town responded.  There followed a traditional ritual in which competing fire companies would punch each other out to see who could get their fire wagon closest to the burning house.  If the house displayed no plaque, or the wrong plaque, the firemen ordered out for several buckets of beer and threw a keg party while they watched the house burn to the ground.   A prophet of our new age, Mayor Gary Podesto of Stockton, California, touched on the upside of privatization when he told his constituents, “It’s time for Stockton to enter the 21st Century in its delivery of services and think of our citizens as consumers. (Emphasis mine.)”[1]    There you have it in a nutshell:  consumers, not citizens.  A citizen focuses on community, a consumer on ego.  A citizen focuses on common welfare, a consumer on instant gratification.  A citizen feeds the poor; a consumer feeds himself on the latest gourmet fad.   It all boils down to putting our faith in the Invisible Hand of the Market.  I know this is a little too abstract for you, so let’s do an exercise in visualization.  Place you elbow on your desk, with the forearm perpendicular to its surface.  Make a fist.  Now, extend your middle finger heavenward.  There you have it, Big Guy, the invisible hand of the market.   Your admirer, Belacqua Jones [1] http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/50994 8:09:59 AM    comment []

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