> > > > Okay and you would also want to police department to come if you had > > someone break into your house. And you would want the potholes in your > > streets and highways fixed to keep your car from being damaged. You > > probably like to walk in parks that are kept up. > > > > All these things are "socialistic" programs to maintain the commons.
I am not so sure about that. Fire and police. parks and recreation, education, (and healthcare to an extent are services, fueled primarily by labor. They are not "capital" intensive -- a point I will return to. The above services can be private or public. We have a mix. While many are public there are vast numbers of private and public tennis and golf clubs,recreation area, private security forces, private schools. One for mis not intrinsically superior to the other in the quality of service provide or the efficiency with which it is delivered. Look at many public schools, low quality and high cost. But neither form, above is explicitly capitalistic or socialistic. Usually those terms refer to the ownership of capital. Technology is capital, Factories are capital. Chip fab plants are capital. people use capital to produce things, typically far more efficiently than by own labor exclusively. To be against capital is, well, insane, IMO. This cap / soc split is who owns the capital, and who makes the decision to invest in what type and how much new capital. And often this can lead to how to price the products and services that capital helps create. Fire dept and police, and many other public services, are labor intensive not capital intensive and tend to fall outside of traditional capitals and socialist models. in many cases, there is a "if everyone doesn't get it, we are all screwed" phenomenon. If I have fire dept service, and my neighbor doesn't his uncontrolled house fire might burn my house down. Ditto for police, public health, even the military etc. And education, if we have a bit part of society that is quite uninformed, has low critical thinking skills, has difficulties with abstract concepts, is a easy mark for logical fallacies, etc, then we are all screw2ed -- particularly in a democracy. So it makes sense to have universal service. These public services have little to do with capitalism or socialism. And some things, which everyone needs, and is much more costly if there are multiple producers -- like electric service -- could be, one would think at first glance, prime candidates for being socialized -- particularly given they are highly capita intensive. But the vast majority of electric service is provided by investor owned utilities. They are Highly regulated, but the capital belongs to private investors. And by having much capital available from private financial markets, investor owned utilities can pay for most things upfront and not charge customers upfront -- but rather over the life of the power plant etc. In contrast, municipal utilities -- aka socialized -- while often quite effective, have less access to capital markets and tend to have to charge customers much more upfront fees for capital expenditures. So, the public ownership of capital is not necessarily superior, in terms of quality of service, equity or or pricing models. Should all capital intensive industry be socialized? it would have some benefits, but also some downsides. Intel or Google as socialist enterprises? Not sure we would we much innovation. Or the emergence of new technologies if all capital intensive new technologies had to go through layers of bureaucratic controls. However, these firms are publicly owned -- that is any one can buy shares and in concept influence capital investment policy (far from ideal, and needing improvement, but governance of publicly traded companies is improving.) When I see calls for the end to capitalism, I tend to think they are referring to large companies that exist within, and take huge advantage of corrupt or feeble political systems -- such as we now have in the US, Europe and much of Asia. Calsl for a total end to captialism is not a particularly articulate, informed or well thought out view, IMO. > > You wouldn't want a privatized fire department who would let your house > > burn because you didn't pay them their yearly fee? Or a privatized > > police department to tell you to get lost because you didn't pay up as a > > burglar with a gun makes his way towards the room you're in. > > > > And Arizona already has a health care program. You probably avoid that > > so you can enjoy paying expensive premiums to a private insurer? > > > > Nobody is saying everything has to be socialized. It makes no sense for > > the family owned corner grocery or gas station to be socialized. The > > latter is the mistake some countries made in implementing socialism. > > "That government is best which governs least" ........ >
