Public Libraries As Profit Centers, Privatization of Govt. Services: Prisons, Schools, Toll Roads...

[appalachiablue]

Last edited Wed Dec 29, 2021, 08:13 AM - Edit history (1)

- Where The $$$ Goes: Public Provision v. Private Contracting.
_________

- 'Neoliberal Parasites Now Want Public Libraries as Profit Centers for Wall Street,' Daily Kos, Thom Hartmann, Dec. 28, 2021. - Ed.

It happened 56 years before Ben Franklin walked out of Independence Hall in Philadelphia and told Elizabeth Willing Powel, the wife of Philadelphia’s mayor and one of the most influential women in the nation, that they had just created “a republic, if you can keep it.” On July 1, 1731, Franklin and his 12 Junto Club associates incorporated the nation’s 1st public library. At the time, most books were imported and extraordinarily expensive, but Franklin & his associates believed the effort would pay off for the nation. “[T]hese Libraries have improved the general Conversation of Americans,” he wrote, “made the common Tradesmen & Farmers as intelligent as most Gentlemen from other Countries, and perhaps have contributed in some Degree to the Stand so generally made throughout the Colonies in Defence of their Priviledges.”

Public libraries caught on and spread across the nation; literacy and thoughtful political debate followed them.

And now neoliberal parasites are trying to turn these public goods into profit centers for Wall Street through privatization. Librarian & author Caleb Nichols at Truthout.org writes about “a for-profit, private company that has been quietly infiltrating public libraries since 1997…” the latest alarming part of a larger trend. By 2006, the Economic Policy Institute noted, “43% of all employees who do the government’s work are actually employed by private businesses.” Today that number is almost certainly well over 50%. This privatization binge started in America during the Reagan administration, when Republicans embraced neoliberalism instead of classical economics and committed to turning all government functions over to their wealthy private-sector donors. Ridiculing and slandering those who devote their lives to the service of their country, Reagan cynically proclaimed, “The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.”

But privatization is one of the biggest cons ever perpetrated on the American people, run not by “the best minds” but by the greediest.

Their sales pitch is that if government will use its extraordinary and singular power to tax people, and then hand that money over to private corporations, they will serve the public better and cheaper than the govt. could do. The main way companies that prey on tax dollars do this is by paying their workers crap wages after they’ve voided union contracts, slashed benefits, and ended pensions. The result is devastating to communities, while the services- as seen with all the scandals around privatized prisons, power companies and schools- are substandard and no longer accountable to public scrutiny. When local services are privatized & wages slashed, the good pay that used to recirculate in the community now goes as profits to a distant city where the privatizing corporation is headquartered, or even overseas into tax shelters. Public sector govt. jobs often define the “good job floor” for local wages and benefits, so other local employers will follow suit and cut wages and benefits, further devastating local economies. Following widespread privatization, poverty creeps across communities like a slow-spreading but relentless fungus.

Many privatized workers now qualify for public benefits like food stamps and Medicaid as well as local forms of assistance, subsidizing the corporation while draining even more resources from the community/govt.

As In The Public Interest notes: “A 2009 study on the effects of outsourcing on food service workers in K-12 public schools in New Jersey found that contract companies cut workers’ wages by $4-6 per hour following privatization. Many workers completely lost their health insurance benefits. [Now] food service contractors have the highest level of employees & their children enrolled in New Jersey FamilyCare, the state’s Medicaid program.” With impoverished workers now spending less money in the local economy, small businesses struggle to survive and are more easily pushed out by giant concerns that promise jobs but demand millions in tax breaks and abatements, a process called “Wal-Martization.” That, in turn, cuts tax revenues that support local government entities, particularly schools, libraries, police, and fire, making them even more reliant on their corporate predator “partners” who will eventually say, “You can’t afford the payments any longer, so just give us the whole thing.”..

When Reagan was pitching privatization of public services, he was also pushing the idea that Americans were “rugged individualists” who should take care of their own families and communities.

But how do you take care of your own community when it’s turned its tax dollars & functions over to a private corporation owned by a hedge fund on Wall Street whose executives stash their money in foreign tax shelters?...

- Read More + Comments,
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/12/28/2071520/-Neoliberal-Parasites-Now-Want-Public-Libraries-as-Profit-Centers-for-Wall-Street

[Bear Creek]

1. Greed

My experience with privatization is that the ones who take over wrench every cent they can from the business and the people who work there. Then they hold their hand out and cry a little story to get government funds.

[The Jungle 1]

2. There is a perfect example of what this post is stating.

All you have to do is look at what Reagan did to healthcare insurance and hospitals. He allowed them to operate as for profit enterprises. Our healthcare system went right down the shit shut. Healthcare insurance companies do not care if you are sick they just want their profit. They take around 30% of every healthcare dollar. Yet people still think Reagan was great. It was called deregulation and was a total failure.
Wonder when that trickle down thing is going to start working.

[area51]

6. +1 n/t

[ShazzieB]

8. Is that how that started?

Holy fucked up Healthcare, Batman!

Sad to say, I wasn't paying close enough attention to politics in those days. I know Reagan was awful, but I'm not as clear on all the deets as I'd like. I feel like I'm constantly learning new things about the evil he did.

[appalachiablue]

11. DK Commenter: David Koch 1980 Campaign, Libertarian Party Platform:

Here are just a few excerpts of the Libertarian Party platform that David Koch ran on in 1980:

“We urge the repeal of federal campaign finance laws, and the immediate abolition of the despotic Federal Election Commission.”
“We favor the abolition of Medicare and Medicaid programs.”
“We oppose any compulsory insurance or tax-supported plan to provide health services, including those which finance abortion services.”
“We also favor the deregulation of the medical insurance industry.”
“We favor the repeal of the fraudulent, virtually bankrupt, and increasingly oppressive Social Security system. Pending that repeal, participation in Social Security should be made voluntary.”
“We propose the abolition of the governmental Postal Service. The present system, in addition to being inefficient, encourages governmental surveillance of private correspondence. Pending abolition, we call for an end to the monopoly system and for allowing free competition in all aspects of postal service.”

“We oppose all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes.”
“We support the eventual repeal of all taxation.”
“As an interim measure, all criminal and civil sanctions against tax evasion should be terminated immediately.”
“We support repeal of all law which impede the ability of any person to find employment, such as minimum wage laws.”
“We advocate the complete separation of education and State. Government schools lead to the indoctrination of children and interfere with the free choice of individuals. Government ownership, operation, regulation, and subsidy of schools and colleges should be ended.”
“We condemn compulsory education laws … and we call for the immediate repeal of such laws.”
“We support the repeal of all taxes on the income or property of private schools, whether profit or non-profit.”
“We support the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency.”
“We support abolition of the Department of Energy.”

“We call for the dissolution of all government agencies concerned with transportation, including the Department of Transportation.”
“We demand the return of America's railroad system to private ownership. We call for the privatization of the public roads and national highway system.”
“We specifically oppose laws requiring an individual to buy or use so-called "self-protection" equipment such as safety belts, air bags, or crash helmets.”
“We advocate the abolition of the Federal Aviation Administration.”
“We advocate the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration.”
“We support an end to all subsidies for child-bearing built into our present laws, including all welfare plans and the provision of tax-supported services for children.”

“We oppose all government welfare, relief projects, and ‘aid to the poor’ programs. All these government programs are privacy-invading, paternalistic, demeaning, and inefficient. The proper source of help for such persons is the voluntary efforts of private groups and individuals.”
“We call for the privatization of the inland waterways, and of the distribution system that brings water to industry, agriculture and households.”
“We call for the repeal of the Occupational Safety and Health Act.”
“We call for the abolition of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.”
“We support the repeal of all state usury laws.”
www.commondreams.org/...

If republycans capture our government, expect the end of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP etc.

These people are true sociopaths. Through tax exempt orgs (like Heritage) they scout, research, select, train and pay for sycophant sociopaths to carry out their instructions.

They (the kochs) lost in 1980. They tried buying congresscritters for the next two cycles. It didn’t work.
They then came up with the brilliant plan to buy state legislators. Much cheaper. In 1990 they used the census to begin their purchase of state legislators, then through gerrymander wgich lead to their owning congresscritters. By 2009 they began the astroturf tea party which morphed into the koch family freedom caucus.
The koch family are the greatest threat to humans and the planet on the planet.

[ShazzieB]

13. Welll, I already knew that Libertarians suck and that the Kochs suck.

But thanks for the additional evidence.

Not sure how any of that relates to my question about Reagan, though. I guess I need to do some research.

[appalachiablue]

14. The privatization of hospitals & heath care

Last edited Wed Dec 29, 2021, 07:23 PM - Edit history (2)

under Reagan was a start, a major one as we see. The GOP went in a new direction with President Reagan in 1981, by adopting the Libertarian ideology of the Kochs and Milton Friedman's Chicago School of Economics philosophy according to Hartmann. Deregulation, privatization, etc., and the wealth will 'trickle down.'

Naomi Klein's book, The Shock Doctrine covers the drastic changes implemented quickly in Chile, Argentina and other countries in Latin and Central America using the Chicago School Economics agenda. Pensions, social security, affordable college education, and other social programs were ended almost overnight.

[lonely bird]

3. Reagan was the best example of his own thesis.

He was a simpleton who spoke lines shoved into his mouth. The country and world would have been much better off without him.

[Probatim]

4. Lower wages make people work harder.

Non-unionized teachers at charter schools actually teach better than union teachers because they make less money and can be fired without cause - those are incentives, not detractions to teaching.

At least that's how it's been explained to me.

[bucolic_frolic]

5. Don't get me started

Book selection, publisher's recommended lists, association lists .... soon you can't get the books you want, and anything that doesn't fit the mainstream model is tossed as too old or not circulating.

Hopefully digital books will archive just about anything, on demand. But even there, if there is no financial interest in lending the figital format - if library doesn't pay a fee for subscription - it's gone.

[llmart]

7. Privatize public libraries???

HELL NO!

Of course they want only those with money to have access to ideas and education. We can't have poor people educating themselves because an educated populace can't be easily duped and manipulated.

I grew up poor and the library was my salvation. As an adult with a comfortable financial situation I still always supported public libraries and schools and went on to work in both at one point in my career. Now I volunteer in a public library.

[ShazzieB]

9. I used to be a librarian.

If I know anything about librarians, I can promise you they're not going to take this lying down!

[Javaman]

10. read my sig line. nt

[appalachiablue]

12. DK Commenter: Chile, Argentina, Latin, Central America

We only need to look at Chile, Argentina and other Latin American, Central American countries to see what we did to them. I think Naomi Klein spelled it out pretty well in her book, Disaster Capitalism, The Shock Doctrine, as to how these same people would like to proceed in the USA.

In those countries, this obliteration happened overnight. I knew they couldn’t do it here, but they are working on it, piece by piece. I don’t know what it will take for Americans to wake up and fight for any democracy we still have.

[niyad]

15. KNR and bookmarking. For later.