America is peculiar in that we worship the private sector and elevate it to iconic status, assuming without question that it can always do a better job of anything than the government. The flip side of this is that disdain for the public sector knows few bounds, a popular anger enflamed by exploiting politicians who craft careers out of “running against Washington.” Left unexamined is their ardent, fanatical eagerness to become and/or remain part of the very institution they rail against in every campaign.
The Crash of 2008 should have served as a corrective to this privatization cult, but how soon we forget. The Romney campaign is pinned to the proposition that the private sector, if only it were once again unleashed from unreasonable government constraints, would lead our economy back to the promised land. This is a delusion worthy of the 16th century’s Holland Tulipmania, France’s 18th century South Sea Bubble, and our own Dot-com and Housing Bubbles of recent vintage. Call it the triumph of hope over experience. Experience shows us that the private sector, left to its own devices, cannot do it alone.
The 1929 crash and ensuing Great Depression should have settled the matter forever. The laissez-faire state failed and, for a time, became obsolete. Governments worldwide realized that they must play a role in the economy. Now Mitt Romney wants to bring us back to the good old days of Cal Coolidge and Herbert Hoover and their reprise under George W. Bush.
How did government evolve from being the solution into becoming the problem? Why, today, do we see the sons and daughters of the people who benefited so greatly from the economic juggernaut created by the G.I. Bill and the Interstate Highway System advocating for a hamstrung government that must be prevented from doing anything?
While the private sector can do some things better than the public sector, that is by no means universally the case. The government does a pretty decent job, for example, keeping us safe and secure. When the Bush administration outsourced some Iraq military operations to private firms like Blackwater, the results were disastrous.
The feds also do an excellent job delivering Social Security, veterans’ and healthcare benefits to tens of millions of Americans. It is doubtful that the private sector could come close to this consistently efficient, 80-year track record. Medicare, for all of its faults, spends only 3 percent of its revenues on administration; private insurers spend 20 percent.
America is peculiar in that we worship the private sector and elevate it to iconic status, assuming without question that it can always do a better job of anything than the government. The flip side of this is that disdain for the public sector knows few bounds, a popular anger enflamed by exploiting politicians who craft careers out of “running against Washington.” Left unexamined is their ardent, fanatical eagerness to become and/or remain part of the very institution they rail against in every campaign.
The Crash of 2008 should have served as a corrective to this privatization cult, but how soon we forget. The Romney campaign is pinned to the proposition that the private sector, if only it were once again unleashed from unreasonable government constraints, would lead our economy back to the promised land. This is a delusion worthy of the 16th century’s Holland Tulipmania, France’s 18th century South Sea Bubble, and our own Dot-com and Housing Bubbles of recent vintage. Call it the triumph of hope over experience. Experience shows us that the private sector, left to its own devices, cannot do it alone.
The 1929 crash and ensuing Great Depression should have settled the matter forever. The laissez-faire state failed and, for a time, became obsolete. Governments worldwide realized that they must play a role in the economy. Now Mitt Romney wants to bring us back to the good old days of Cal Coolidge and Herbert Hoover and their reprise under George W. Bush.
How did government evolve from being the solution into becoming the problem? Why, today, do we see the sons and daughters of the people who benefited so greatly from the economic juggernaut created by the G.I. Bill and the Interstate Highway System advocating for a hamstrung government that must be prevented from doing anything?
While the private sector can do some things better than the public sector, that is by no means universally the case. The government does a pretty decent job, for example, keeping us safe and secure. When the Bush administration outsourced some Iraq military operations to private firms like Blackwater, the results were disastrous.
The feds also do an excellent job delivering Social Security, veterans’ and healthcare benefits to tens of millions of Americans. It is doubtful that the private sector could come close to this consistently efficient, 80-year track record. Medicare, for all of its faults, spends only 3 percent of its revenues on administration; private insurers spend 20 percent.
My experience advising and working both in and with government and Fortune 500 corporations taught me that there were efficient, well-run organizations in both the public and private sectors, as well as government agencies and major companies that were terribly mismanaged. The U.S. Coast Guard, for example, has been one of the best-managed outfits in the world; similarly the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. On the other hand, the Departments of Labor and Housing & Urban Development are basket cases. On the private side of the ledger, there is a Fortune Ten energy company that, but for gushing oil wells that generate massive cash flows without any corporate effort, would be hard-pressed to find its collective way to the rest room and back without help.
We live in a gray world, full of ambiguities and variables that defy absolutes. Black and white, either-or solutions do not exist and are the redoubts only of demagogues and fools. Complex societal problems need simple solutions, but not simplistic ones. There is a difference.
“Rants” is a series of political and social observations written by part-time Canandaigua resident and Canandaigua Academy graduate Richard Hermann. Email him care of Messenger Post Media at messenger@messengerpostmedia.com.
