Irrespective of the election on November 4, 2008, the demise of capitalism as we have come to know it, will confront a new and irrepressible version of socialism.
This will not be your grandfather’s socialism. It, as will America’s capitalistic bent, will be limited.
Rampant and unregulated capitalism over the past three decades has exhibited unbridled greed and exploitation until economic realities nearly choked it to death.
Wall Street and its foreign counterparts are often described as ultra-casinos. That comparison is quite valid. Investing in stocks and bonds always carries risk. You are betting your money on a horse that may or may not be a thoroughbred. You can examine and investigate every aspect of that horse’s history, but nothing will protect your wager if your bet goes lame. To base a nation’s economy precipitously on that kind of constant risk is insane.
No collection of regulations and commissions will ever stem the tide of the pursuit of wealth and the influence of those charged with the power of the purse. On the other hand, the entrepreneurial spirit that innovates, invents and fuels the engine of American ingenuity and productivity must be allowed to grow.
So, how may we encourage positive business practices and progress and at the same time provide our citizens with an assurance that their tax dollars and personal well being is protected from unscrupulous market schemes and financial predators?
The first priority would be to consider those facets of our economy that have a common purpose to the benefit of all American citizens; those products and services that are constant and have a national scope.
Those areas of common concern are transportation, education, health and energy. Leaving those necessary and critical aspects of the national economic fabric to private enterprise is ludicrous. In speaking to a senior Vice-President of Standard Oil some years ago at their San Francisco headquarters, I brought up the subject of “free enterprise.” He quickly corrected me. “There is no such thing as “free enterprise.” There is only private enterprise.” That premise remains the foundation on which most American enterprise is built.
TRANSPORTATION
Ronald Reagan, formerly a dedicated Democrat and Union enthusiast became a rabid Republican and Union provocateur during the McCarthy era and his rise to become Governor of California, finally arriving at the Presidency. As a popular President and regarded in some quarters the stalking horse for large corporate interests, deregulated just about everything. The airline industry has yet to recover from Reagan’s firing of thousands of air controllers and allowing the FAA to fall behind in technologies that put today’s airline passengers in jeopardy. The most successful airlines in the world are national airlines vaunted for their superior customer service and state of the art carriers. Europe and Japan have comfortable, modern and speedy rail service that accommodate millions of their citizens daily and are operated by the state. Is that socialism or a way to provide everyone safe and sensible transportation?
HEALTH
Health insurance and pharmaceutical companies have raped the public at large for generations and whenever they are challenged as to profitability and public safety, they cry out about the rising costs of care and the expense of research and development.
Rising costs are the result of medical professional’s expectations for the worth of their services and the debt acquired during schooling and internships leading to their status a skilled practitioners. The cost of new technologies and growing population demands are pressures difficult to deal with.
The pharmaceuticals don’t refer to the majority of the research and development being done in the laboratories of universities and colleges throughout the country. Their grants to the academic community for all this research is hardly comparable to the amounts they assign to any given prescription drug when reaching the market.
Nearly every industrial and progressive nation in the world has some form of guaranteed health care that covers their entire population. Medical professionals are educated and compensated by a universal system that respects and rewards the important service they provide to society. They are paid at rates in consideration for the level of skill and service each attains. Drugs are provided at base cost in generic form and for those who cannot afford it, health care is provided at no cost. That, coincidentally, is far more efficient than having to deal with the impoverished after the fact as homeless, ill, hungry or mentally disturbed individuals. Is that socialism or the humanitarian approach?
EDUCATION
Public education should be the best education available and afforded to all. The teachers, professors and administrators in a public education system should be the best in their field and compensated as such. This public system of education should be without expense to all citizens and their children. Pre-school, kindergarten and grades 1 through 12 should be free of cost. Upon graduation from high school, all graduates wanting to advance to the collegiate level can opt for two years of community service, military service, national service or the Peace Corps.
These opportunities will broaden the learning curve for our young people, take them to places and introduce them to new experiences hastening their maturity and focus on what they want out of life.
For that two years of service to our communities and nation, these young people would enter college and proceed to an undergraduate degree tuition free. For those who wanted to advance to graduate schools, medical schools, science and technologies, they would agree that upon receiving their graduate degrees they would serve an additional two years in national service, providing their new knowledge and skills in areas of the country (or world) that most needed them. This period of internship at their specialty would hone those skills and enlighten every generation of students becoming professionals with a social conscience.
For those who would prefer not to go into local or national service in return for an education, they would pay their way, depending on private sources of funding.
The administration of this system would be left to the States with guidelines and standards set by a national consensus. The States would determine the funding for their students and their faculties. Under this system, no one is denied and education, every individual can reach their full potential and the national interests are well served. Is that socialism, or just common sense?
ENERGY
All of the oil, gas, coal, water, wind and sunlight that abound are natural resources. As natural resources, they belong to all the people. Discovery of a natural resource does not entitle the discoverer to claim it exclusively. It does entitle the discoverer to a stake in that natural resource’s development and ultimate applications. The public at large will also share in the discovery and development of any natural resource by leasing the location of that resource to the discoverer. Obviously, wind and solar are ubiquitous and free for all to use as are most of our water resources.
The “robber barons” of the late 19th and early 20th centuries bequeathed their ill gotten gains to heirs who “gave back” in token amounts while an unsophisticated populace gaped at their excesses with ignorant admiration. Those days are over.
The regulation of energy resources would come under the aegis of the States because of geographic and climatic variations. Is that socialism, or an equitable and democratic approach to share our enormous wealth?
The New Capitalism
That’s it. Transportation, Health, Education and Energy. Those are large sectors of the economy and transcendent in their impact on the daily lives of all of us. Everything else would remain in the free market or private enterprise arenas.
A Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or Sam Walton or Warren Buffet would be free to amass as much wealth as their imaginations conjured. Agriculture, real-estate, manufacturing, housing, the entertainment, retail, construction, utilities, financial, hospitality industries, and all manner of commerce could prosper with only market forces determining their worth.
No one would be limited by the inability or affordability of travel. No one would be stifled by the expense or availability of health care. No one would lack an education and all the opportunities that implies. No one would be hostage to the selfish exploitation of sources of energy to serve their basic needs.
As the richest nation on earth, we should turn our attentions to our own democracy and its growth and set the example for others who may be disposed to follow our model. It is not our destiny to “enforce Liberty” on other cultures. It is our opportunity to demonstrate how flexible and advantageous a real democracy can be in improving the quality of life for all its peoples. We have the wealth, the resources, the intelligence, the imagination and a marvelous diversity of people to accomplish anything. All we need now is the will.
And how, you ask, do we pay for all this?
The next chapter will answer that pertinent question.
Capitalism Contained / Chapter II
TRANSPORTATION
The premise of the first chapter placed four principal sectors of America’s economy into the public venue. What “Public” means is that the cost and maintenance of any public venture is shared by the entire public. Control and operation of these public instruments may be Federal or State responsibilities.
Does that mean an increase in individual and business tax rates? To some degree; yes. What should also be understood is that the broad application of taxes and fees will be far less than any individual or group expends today for the same services.
Let’s start with transportation. Public transportation in the United States for many years gone by was a non-profit enterprise. Passengers on street cars, busses and subways paid minimal fares for getting from point A to point B. Those fares were calculated to cover the cost of operations and maintenance. There were no share holders or company profit margins to satisfy. As long as revenues and expenses came out even, that was OK. There was no need for competition and the systems worked just fine. The same approach can be taken today. What we have to change is the public’s addiction to the automobile and the price of gasoline might just be the cure. Make public transportation accessible and practical, nearly everyone will use it some time if not every day. The savings to people, families and municipal infrastructures will be enormous. A National Transportation Agency would oversee a domestic and international airline fleets, operating under the same concept and would oversee a nation wide rail system employing state-of-the-art, high speed trains providing an economical and comfortable way to cross the country.
With careful management, this transportation system would pay for itself and rarely need any grants or additional funding from the Federal government. Union workers would be mollified by the knowledge that as long as they did their jobs well, they would most likely have their jobs for life. Transportation: paid in full.
HEALTH
Health care, like any entitlement program, begs for money and more money as our population grows and medical procedures expenses ascend to unmanageable levels. In 1938, during the Great Depression, the United States population was about 134 million. Today, 2008, we have reached the 300 million level. What would FDR have projected for Social Security for that number and the added knowledge that we would be living well beyond ages 75 and 80? Of that 300 million, nearly 136 million individuals filed income taxes along with another 4 million small and large businesses. Of the businesses and larger corporations, very few paid any income taxes. Their accountants use every shred of those balance sheets to result in a zero-sum conclusion at the end of any fiscal year. In other words, American big business always breaks even.
Health benefits are a huge part of individual, business and corporate expenses. They are also deductions. And yet, the American family cannot cope with the cost of medical care. Medicare recipients are required to add supplemental coverage in order to avoid catastrophic expenses; particularly as senior citizens.
Doctors and hospitals struggle to keep pace with demand and operational expenditures. It has all gotten out of hand.
A health insurance plan that offers somewhat more than an HMO will cost an individual in excess of $500 per month; $6,000 per year. Double that for a family of four. Those estimates are on the low side when you consider that a person losing or leaving their job may want to maintain health insurance under the COBRA plan and that usually runs about $600 per month.
Those who oppose a universal health care program point to the enormous cost of a national system that would certainly raise taxes considerably. Would those taxes exceed our current health insurance expenses? Absolutely not.
If everyone contributed equally to a national health care program, the expense would be reduced significantly. Doctors and health professionals would receive compensation in consideration of the amount and level of service they provided.
That means that the medical profession would be well paid, but perhaps not to the degree that they might afford a yacht or a Rolls Royce. Sorry about that. It also means that doctors and clinics need not worry about overhead or acquiring new technologies. It means that hospitals would no longer concern themselves with revenue streams or insurance squabbles. Private hospitals and care would be available to those who preferred to pay for those upscale services.
Those who wanted special treatment or some elective procedures, not critical to their personal health, would simply pay for it through a private arrangement with their physician. There are ample models for universal health care: Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland and even here in the United States, Medicare is a marvelous program for seniors that might be adapted for everyone. Each of the above nations has a unique approach and not everything is free; but everyone, no matter their economic means, is covered. Nearly 150 million Americans are employed, in business or gain a living by independent means. If each of these entities contributed $4,000 per year to a national system, we come up with 600 billion. Considering that companies would no longer be saddled with health benefits and that not everyone gets sick or has an operation every year, this would bring enormous relief to all.
EDUCATION
With savings attributed to public transportation and universal health care and added stimulus to the economy, there is no reason for Public Education not to be the best education and available to all at no cost.
More funds for pre-school, elementary, middle school and high school could be provide to insure the quality of learning and a high standard for teachers and administrators. County and State sponsored institutions of higher learning would admit all qualified students under the provisions outlined in the first chapter of this proposal. Private colleges could adapt those opportunities for their students or require tuition fees as they do now. By assuring access to the best education possible, this nation guarantees itself a highly skilled work force, superbly efficient management and generations of creative and productive people to compliment American initiative and innovation.
ENERGY
In the field of energy, the United States should take a leadership position by the following:
Immediately agree to the Kyoto Protocol
Establish a “Manhattan Project” concept to create Hydrogen technologies
Provide tax incentives for the immediate adaptation of wind, solar and geo-thermal power alternatives
Pass legislation that will require automobile manufacturers to abandon the internal combustion engine in any form by 2020.
Curtail fossil fuel acquisition for lubricants, plastics and other materials; not to be used as a fuel.
Encourage and aid emerging nations to adopt environmentally safe sources of energy for their own industries and developing commerce.
Partner with countries like Brazil in applying organic alternatives for energy solutions.
These policies would significantly reduce the cost of energy in the coming decade and completely absolve the United States on any dependence for foreign oil. We could never be held hostage again for our thirst for oil. Our hunger for energy would switch to a much healthier diet.
Our nuclear power capacity must be very carefully handled. The problem of waste radiation has not been dealt with intelligently. What most of the public doesn’t realize is that the half-life of those plutonium rods inside a nuclear reactor can be 30,000 years. Nuclear waste management is the sticking point to an otherwise clean source of energy.
Clean coal? No such thing. Coal, like oil, is a fossil based fuel (fossilized plants) and has no place in the energy scheme.
Again, these new sources of energy and conservation practices save money and auger a higher quality of life.
SUMMARY
Taken all together, these four segments of our economy all compliment each other and result in a better traveled, healthier, smarter and environmentally responsible nation that would be an example on how a free society can continually evolve and improve without sacrificing individual liberties or creative initiative.
We know that “the Devil is in the details.” Nevertheless, these broad concepts can work if we can overcome our reluctance to change and the avarice of the high and mighty. Where there is will, there is a way.
