Privatizing Our Democracy - John Nichols

Recently I found the U.S. Postal Service provided better service at a far lower cost than a private company had done. A serious investigation demonstrates the same point. But we have failed to make that point to the public. Most people tend to accept any suggestion that a public activity is flawed or inefficient. We must give a better defense.

In the early 1990s both Mayor Goldsmith of Indianapolis and Mayor Reardon of Los Angeles decided to privatize to make their cities more efficient and clean. By the end of 1990s, both are saying, "We tried it, and it didn't work." They found it more inefficient and more costly, and they went back to working with municipal unions.

For an international example: In New Zealand a conservative party brought in a privatization program that resulted in mass homelessness and a wider gap between rich and poor. After a major crisis a rebirth of the "left" occurred, and now a coalition of "greens" and trade unionists are taking back their postal service and rail and airline services with better cost and service delivery efficiency. When we are better defenders, the other side begins to crumble.

Why are we so bad at arguing against privatization? We have been hit by political and media messages that privatization is not just efficient and a panacea-but is inevitable. In Great Britain Margaret Thatcher made the expression "There is no alternative" so common that it became an acronym-TINA-and in time people bought into it. TINA is definitely the way we in the U.S. are going. If you oppose it, you are considered backward and ill informed. We need to deconstruct the image of inevitability.
Why do they tell us it is a good idea? Because they are bought and paid for. Privatization is about greed, about allowing an individual or a corporation to make a buck doing what the public does better.

There are three points we must understand. First, campaign finance is the #1 vehicle by which privatization occurs. There is only one way-by paying a politician who will carry out your will.
In Wisconsin after a Fond du Lac company got the contract to build a prison, we learned that each of 4 executives of the company had given $10,000 to the Governor's campaign for office. Pay a million to make a billion!

The second is the disengaged and dysfunctional media. Think of the Business section of the newspaper, then ask where is the section on the worker, on the environment, on the public sphere? It isn't there! A newspaper sees its role to be generally unquestioning, even supportive, of business advancement. This must be challenged. I recommend Robert McChesney's new book Rich Media, Poor Democracy.

Finally, we need a critique of privatization that alerts citizens to the greatest danger-the undermining of democracy itself. Thomas Jefferson envisioned a country of small farmers and small business: he didn't envision a nation of big corporate chieftains and the rest of us consuming whatever we were given. Jefferson and the other Founders believed that this should be a nation of citizens, not that someone would tell us what to think and how to respond, not that there would be powerful forces defining the parameters of our lives. But we have become consumers rather than citizens. Privatization of services, of government, disempowers citizens. We have been taught that government is some sort of separate entity that we cannot control. We need to reassert the notion that government is us, that we, as citizens, have control. This doesn't mean a socialist commonwealth in which everything is owned by the gov't. In the 1930s the Wisconsin Progressives were opposed to big corporations and had questions about big government. They liked small farmers, small business, strong unions, and government strong enough to tell big corporations, big chains, and big powers to get out or accept the regulations we put upon you.
We need to see that the natural extension of privatizing public services is privatizing democracy. In the U.S. democracy today, money flows in, voters flow out. Next year's election in the United States will cost 2 billion and yield the lowest turn-out in history--36% even with all world's troubles. The powers that be will buy the power they need and foster an evolution upward toward plutocracy, diminishing what America was supposed to be.

The single greatest struggle of the post-war era will take place November 30 to December 3 in Seattle when the World Trade Organization will hold its ministerials. The WTO is the most powerful pusher of privatization on the planet and the least democratic institution. Its 134 member countries will discuss how to expand the power of WTO so it has more ability to privatize.
In the little country of Moldavia, the parliament voted-in an act of pride-not to privatize their State-owned wine industry. One hour later the IMF withdrew a $1 million loan to Moldavia, within 2 hours the World Bank had put a $30 million loan on hold, and the European Union had put a $15 million loan on hold, all because they were failing to recognize the new realities of the neo-liberal, post-communist world. By the end of the day the government was in crisis and may fall, bringing the collapse of a democracy, brought on, not by the people who overwhelmingly elected a parliament who kept their little winery in the public sector, but by outside forces pushing a vision of efficiency which has nothing to do with the winery, but has to do with trying to force the selling of public assets, all so that the government will be invested in a global economy and less invested in doing things in its own local, sustainable, efficient and democratically-controlled manner. This is emblematic of what is happening all over the world. If a practice is anti-competition, it can be outlawed.

Another example, in the U.S. we must stand up for the steel industry. We must have control of production, but, if protective legislation is passed, we will be in violation of WTO parameters on trade. Farmers, for another example, do not want a non-elected corporate drive for Free Trade over all. Hundreds from around the world will be going to Seattle. Their goal should be Citizenship above all, and protection for the environment and for workers rights, child labor laws, and health care. This will be a passionate discussion of democracy.