Originally posted by: MovingTarget
I don't really see how an official state or national bank is socialist, so long as others are allowed to exist and do business. We used to have an official Bank of the United States for a significant portion of our history. Where systems like this work, emulate them. Where they don't, throw them out. Sticking to OMGTHISSYSTEMISBADNOMATTERWHAT! due to idealogy is just plain dumb. We are supposed to be more pragmatic than that.
The government is able to run businesses competently, and I'd go so far as to say usually more efficiently than the private sector that has, off the top, two handicaps to efficiency - the overhead of 'profit' to add to the prices and take out of the budget for any useful purpose, and the freedom to waste without the culture of 'be responsible with taxpayer dollars', but for all the dropped jaws at that comment, think for a moment - does your local DMV work environment match your local corporate office for comfort?
Government agencies are a different matter than 'government-run businesses', which range from the military - who somehow manages to pay soldiers a fraction of what Blackwater and other private firms do - to the post office to the Teneessee Valley Authority to Social Security to Medicare to the FDIC that takes over banks and usually opens them the next business day without interruption of service (as shown in a good recent 60 Minutes segment) and more.
Then I asked, but does the govenment innovate? Not usually - but it did put a man on the moon using amazingly primitive technology, it did have the Manhattan project - it can't begin to match businesses who are largely innovaters, but that's not usually its role. But it can hire experts and innovate at times, too.
The bottom line IMO is that there are areas that just work better in private hands - it's the entrpeneurs who more effectively meet market needs when there's a market (includeing many markets where the 'need' is of pretty dubious importance); there's an energy in private companies generally that's not easily duplicated in the government-run businesses - though again, there was plenty of energy in areas of better governments like FDR and JFK.
But I'd say there is benefit to market-driven needs being serviced by private companies generally - even if there is a cost for that, such as the private companies' bad behavior in pursuit of profit that is less likely when 'the bosses' are the Congress elected to protect the public interest, so it's less likely to see behaviors like private companies pursuing the right to avoid insurance regulations by creating Credit Default Swaps, or to use environmentally harmful practices to reduce costs.
The government does better than many on the right understand in providing 'essential services' and 'economic infrastructure', though. Do you really want 'the Fed' to go completely private and for-profit, without obligation to the public interest? Do you really want water to become a private commodity even if there's a risk it might cost you 5 times as much because a company can find a way to charge that much, and some people may not be able to afford the water they need? Do you really want to pay private companies to use your local roads, instead of paying taxes? Do you really want consumer protections to be in the hands of people who are out for profit, not elected officials' agenda?
The right needs to come to recognize that it has a blinding ideology on the issue of what the government and the private sector run, beyond any rational basis.
The discussion of the idea of the government getting more involved in ensuring core banking services are available by perhaps a partially nationalized banking industry should discuss the pros and cons - maybe it's a terrible approach and maybe a good one - not the sort of ideological "IT'S SOCIALISM!!111!" response that many would provide.
We don't let the economy fail because of a 'road crisis', or a 'telephones don't work' crisis; why should we let the economy be held hostage by the threat of a lending crisis?
This post isn't to actually discuss the idea of the government more directly delivering such core banking services, but just to say that such questions deserve rational points.
We already burden private business and citizens with the huge costs of an inefficient, expensive, for-profit healthcare and insurance system (the #1 cause of bankruptcies).
There's a growing agreement on the need to change that, including among the private sector and the healthcare system.
The government is capable of doing terribly, as well. There can be bloated bureacracies, political corruption, a lack of 'customer priority'. Consider the Pentagon for just one agency with some flaws in its spending. We all know the difference between calling the average private company, and the average government agency, though it's not magic, it's part of the government's lower costs, generally.
When I've looked at various government-run organizations expecting to find waste and efficiency, I've come to be surprised and find the opposite regularly.
They have a limited use, but the hysteria from the ideologues against the government doing anything is more ignorant than accurate.
There used to be debates on questions, 'should there be private, competing currencies', 'should there be any public education'. Today those are not too controversial.
Facebook
Twitter