We'd All Be Much Wealthier If We Acted Like a Society

[madokie]

—Instead We Prop Up the Private Wealth of a Small Number of Elites

Congress is in recess, but you'd hardly know it. This has been the most do-nothing, gridlocked Congress in decades. But the recess at least offers a pause in the ongoing partisan fighting that's sure to resume in a few weeks.

It also offers an opportunity to step back and ask ourselves what's really at stake.

A society -- any society --- is defined as a set of mutual benefits and duties embodied most visibly in public institutions: public schools, public libraries, public transportation, public hospitals, public parks, public museums, public recreation, public universities, and so on.

Public institutions are supported by all taxpayers, and are available to all. If the tax system is progressive, those who are better off (and who, presumably, have benefitted from many of these same public institutions) help pay for everyone else.

Interesting read: http://www.alternet.org/economy/public-goods-and-privatization

[grilled onions]

1. They Forget The "We The People"

There are two kinds..."we" as in the 1% and "wee" as in the rest of us. Isn't it odd(not really) that it's what "wee" use like public schools,public library,public parks,Meals on Wheels, Head start, as well as the biggies, social security, medicare, food stamps etc use that always get's caught in the financial door? It's always what they want to remove. They would rather hit the monthly check that the elderly receive than accept a yacht tax. They would rather shut down public schools than accept a raise in corporate taxes.
Greed is running this world and ruining it too.

[CrispyQ]

2. It's a sad state that we are in.

Another snip...

In subsequent decades -- through the Great Depression, World War II and the Cold War -- this logic was expanded upon. Strong public institutions were seen as bulwarks against, in turn, mass poverty, fascism and then Soviet communism.

The public good was palpable: We were very much a society bound together by mutual needs and common threats. It was no coincidence that the greatest extensions of higher education after World War II were the GI Bill and the National Defense Education Act, or that the largest public works project in history was called the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act.

But in a post-Cold War America distended by global capital, distorted by concentrated income and wealth, undermined by unlimited campaign donations, and rocked by a wave of new immigrants easily cast by demagogues as "them," the notion of the public good has faded.

Not even Democrats still use the phrase "the public good." Public goods are now, at best, "public investments." Public institutions have morphed into "public-private partnerships" or, for Republicans, simply "vouchers."

I knew a lot of well to do dems who voted for Reagan. They were happy to be told 'greed is good.' Some of them are very well to do now & I suspect vote republican.

[madokie]

3. "The system isn't broken. The system is fixed." So very true

I know a lot of used to be good democratic voters who were reagan democrats who are now pukes to the n'th degree. Greedy bunch they are

[mick063]

4. The value of human life is diminishing because of greed.

A primitive group of hunter/gatherers realized the important contribution of each member of the clan. Indeed, at times, the survival of small clans was in peril if any of a number of key figures were not in good health.

Everyone is a replaceable part now. Everyone. Individual value to the clan is relatively insignificant.