Michael Moore’s newest documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story, is scheduled for wide release in early October.  From the reviews that I’ve read, it is an excellent movie, and Moore goes straight to the point of our modern social ills: capitalism.  That being said, I urge everyone to see it, and to convince everyone they know to do so as well.  The fact that a good, thoughtful, and sound piece of media is getting such wide release and positive publicity, from someone in the popular consciousness, is something I never expected to see.  That said, after I see it I will have much to say.

To make this short, his conclusion is that we need to replace capitalism with a democratic economic system, and shows examples of worker-owned factories.

In the mean time, for those looking for proposals for what democratic economic system we should have, here’s a short bibliography for you.

Here is a list of some models of decentralized, participatory planned socialisms.

The three biggest models right now are:
(1)   The Parecon model, whose primary theoreticians are Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel (and which is associated with Z Communications, including Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn).  Z Communications has a space on their site specifically for it at http://www.zmag.org/znet/topics/parecon, where different theorists working to develop its implications in economics and in the wider society.  Their whole model is founded upon their argument that resources should be distributed according to effort, tempered by need.
As for books:
Michael Albert has a book called Parecon from 2004 which is a great summary of the position; it’s available at http://www.zcommunications.org/zparecon/pareconlac.htm.
Robin Hahnel has another book from 2005 called Economic Justice and Democracy: From Competition to Cooperation, and I personally like it better than the Albert book. . . it has some really important discussions of egalitarian intentional communities as well as a good presentation of their overall critiques of capitalism. 
More of their books are available online here:  http://www.zcommunications.org/zmi/readparecon.htm
(2) The Cottrell/Cockshott model:
The original model is presented in Cottrell and Cockshott’s book Towards a New Socialism, published in 1993, and is fully available at their website: http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/.  In addition, many of their subsequent essays expanding on the book are available there, too.  You might especially enjoy their advocacy of direct democracy, and rejection of representative government as a hidden extension of class rule masquerading as democracy.  They propose how direct democracy can be feasible given our current technology (even as of 16 years ago).
 
(3) The Adaman/Devine model: 
Of the three primary models of participatory planned socialisms, I know least about the proposal of Adaman and Devine.  I only know that it’s grouped with the Parecon and Cottrell/Cockshott models as a fellow model of democratic, participatory planned socialism.  It’s initial book is Pat Devine’s Democracy and Economic Planning: The Political Economy of a Self Governing Society (1988), and expanded in the articles “Socialist Renewal: lessons from the calculation debate” in Studies in Political Economy 43 (spring): 63-77 (1994); “A response to Professor Foss” in Studies in Political Economy 49 (spring) 163-8 (1996); “The economic calculation debate: lessons for socialists” in the Cambridge Journal of Economics 20(5): 523-37 (1996); and “On the economic theory of socialism” in New Left Review 221 (Jan-Feb): 54-80.
 
Finally, (4) Science and Society Vol. 66:1 has a series of articles by all the major proponents of democratic, participatory planned socialisms, expanding their theories in certain ways and/or addressing critiques.  Additionally, each article is followed by comments from some of the other theorists, and then replies.  Albert, Hahnel, Cottrell, Cockshott, Adaman, and Devine are all here, as well as some other advocates of such an economic system.

This is a lot of reading, but as Moore’s movie was meant to critique the system and propose guidelines for solutions, not the solutions themselves, I wanted to fill that in a little, for all of us.  Again, go see the movie when it’s widely released, and comment on my blog with what you think.

In Solidarity,

The Practical Utopian

Apparently, two of the three largest American cigarette companies are going to sue the FDA for being willing to do its job fully.  The FDA passed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in June regulating cigarette marketing, and allowing the agency to reduce nicotine in tobacco products, block labels such “low tar” and “light,” and ban candy flavorings (according to an AP article, found at the bottom of this update).  The companies are suing with the argument that such legislation imposes on their freedom of speech.  The lawsuit does not challenge FDA authority over tobacco.  The Food and Drug Administration, after all, is supposed to regulate and products sold as food or drugs.  Pretty simple.  But according to the article:

“The companies say in their lawsuit that the law, which takes full effect in three years, prohibits them from using ‘color lettering, trademarks, logos or any other imagery in most advertisements, including virtually all point-of-sale and direct-mail advertisements.’  The complaint also says the law prohibits tobacco companies from ‘making truthful statements about their products in scientific, public policy and political debates.’”

Truthful statements?  Oh, I’m sure they make some.  But that doesn’t stop misdirection, or unimportant ‘truths’ from clouding the important facts of the matter.  All in all, the stronger truths are that (1) cigarettes are addictive, and (2) cause lots and lots of painful deaths.  What ‘truths’ could they advertise that could combat those? 

Tobacco representative: “Uh, um. . . well, tobacco is a plant, and not all plants are bad for you.”

Media: “. . . Are you nuts?”

. . . Well, okay, that portrayal was inaccurate.  This is, after all, American media, and so the media response might be more like this:

Media: “. . . Well, you sure do have a good point.  The debate over whether cigarettes are healthy or not rages on.  This is perhaps why the newest Idiot Poll shows that 15% of people think the U.S. government is trying to fatten us up so they have a food source after the zombie apocalypse, and %35 aren’t sure.”

Well, perhaps I should take this issue more seriously.  But cigarette companies are hideous leeches on the populace, and this lawsuit is doomed to fail if there is even an ounce of common sense left in our judicial system.  FDA standards, positively, create consumer protections that are important, and negatively, create a bar that is low enough to allow our consumption of deadly or dangerous items, while creating a barrier of entry into these markets to protect monopolized industries.  My point here is this. . . many governmental regulatory standards are relatively meaningless anyway.  They are oftentimes better than nothing, but all-in-all regulation only gets so far as to ban only those items that both almost necessarily result in death and are inessential to an industry.  If the FDA truly regulated industries, they would at leastforce cigarette companies to spend some of their outrageous fortune developing tobacco plants that have carcinogenic chemicals and nicotine removed, in the same manner than Monsanto developed seeds with the ability to reproduce removed.  Giving the FDA increased control, however, is a start in the right direction.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_tobacco_lawsuit;_ylt=AqoHZu__1LEed5Cb_ronKAqs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTM0NGRlbDl0BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkwODMxL3VzX3RvYmFjY29fbGF3c3VpdARjcG9zAzgEcG9zAzUEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl9oZWFkbGluZV9saXN0BHNsawNtYWpvcmNpZ2FyZXQ

The following review contains spoilers, just so you know.

Revolutionary Road, the 2008 movie with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet based on the novel of the same name by Richard Yates, is a film about the American Dream.  The movie centers around Frank and April Wheeler, the model couple for their community, who just moved into a house on Revolutionary Road, and have recently discovered that their American dream has fallen flat.  Frank works at Knox Business Machines and, obviously, hates his job completely.  His wife, April, stays at home with their two children (after failing an attempt at becoming an actress), and hates her life equally.  The movie begins with a massive argument between the two, flashes back to happier days when they first purchased their house on Revolutionary Road, then resumes in the present with Frank at work, obviously unhappy.  After being chided by his boss at work, he takes a young secretary out for drinks.  He tells her a ‘joke’ . . . that his dad worked at Knox as a salesperson his whole life and hated it completely, and while Frank vowed to never end up like his father, he is also a salesman at Knox.  Frank sleeps with her.  He comes home, only to find that his wife and children threw him a surprise birthday party.  Some short time later, April thinks of a solution to the monotony and meaninglessness they feel in their lives. . . remembering comments Frank expressed about having been to Paris, she proposes that they pack up their things, Frank quits his job, and they move there, with her supporting them through secretarial work while Frank finds both himself and what he actually wants to do. 

Frank and April are both unhappy because of the alienation they experience in their lives.  Alienation is the term used to show that two things which are naturally joined (and should be) are artificially separated from each other.  Karl Marx, the German economist and philosopher, names four types of alienation that the modern worker experiences under capitalism.  The worker is (1) alienated from what he makes when he is working (because he made it but does not get to choose its use or destination. . . his ‘boss’ does), (2) alienated from the act of working itself (he does not choose what he does, how he does it, or why he does it), (3) alienated from his human nature (because Marx saw humanity as naturally and rationally capable of choosing their actions, and thus their lot in life, and your boss takes control over your work), and finally (4) alienated from community, because he doesn’t see anyone’strue essence, and because he is thrust into competition with others (and controlled by his ‘boss’).  Frank feels all these things.  He hates when his boss tells him what to do, and feels powerless over what he does.  He knows he is capable of more in his life, and that he doesn’t want to work for Knox, and he doesn’t feel a kinship with his fellow workers because he rejects the role that they seem so comfortable in. . . he sees himself as no one special or worth having a good life, and sees everyone else likewise. 

April is also alienated.  She wants more for her life than her role as a wife and mother of two.  Engels, Marx’s longtime collaborator and friend, wrote that the origin of the monogamous nuclear family, the type of family April and Frank have, is the first source of the oppression of women.  April does not want to be resigned to household labor–the 1950’s American Dream does not work for her, and she is alienated from her true self.  She proposes moving in order to have a fresh start, to let herself be liberated from the home, and Frank be liberated from the alienation he experiences at work.

Their friends seem unsupportive of their moving (though likely from jealousy) and we are shown their private conversation where they try to convince themselves that they are happier than the Wheelers’ possibility of moving.  Shortly afterwards, they receive their first visit from John, and his parents Mr. and Mrs. Givings (Mrs. Givings was the Realtor who sold them the house on Revolutionary Road).  John had just been let out of a psychiatric ward, and is extremely blunt, but the Wheelers remain patient.  Frank and John discuss that the former feels hopeless in his life.

As Frank and April start preparing for Paris, they are far more happy in their lives and relationship.  Soon after, Frank gets awarded an opportunity for a raise and promotion.  He comes home, neither having taken the job nor telling April, and he and April have sex in their kitchen, happy in the path their relationship is taking.  Later, April tells him she is eight weeks pregnant; she suggests that she could have an abortion in the next month, which Frank is unsure of (thinking of his promotion, which he still hasn’t told April about).  He tells her about the promotion sometime later, when they are out with friends and he loudly mentions it . . . and April knows that he’s been rethinking the Paris move in favor of the job. 

Arguing later about abortion and the move, it is revealed that they moved to their house on Revolutionary Road because of April’s last pregnancy, and April didn’t want another part of her life determined by pregnancy. [The following sentence spoils the end, so highlight it to read it.]  Their relationship continues to degrade, and eventually April has an abortion (after the 12 week safety deadline), dying in the process.

Again, Revolutionary Road is all about the alienation felt by people in the capitalist system.  Frank and April never reached their potential, and so they wanted to have a chance at a new life.  This alienation caused a major rift in their relationships, shown most clearly when they were preparing to move, and their relationship was never better.  They have debates with each other throughout the movie, usually beginning with April realizing their possibilities and the limitations of their present circumstances, and Frank arguing that they aren’t special people, and by implication deserve as alienating a life as everyone else.  The exchanges of dialogue and events in this movie show many different factors that hold up the capitalist system.  The beliefs of any particular period are referred to as the ideologies of the time, and generally speaking, any ideology that is widespread tends to be one that supports the ruling class (because more people have to support the status quo than not for it to continue in any particular time period).  The belief that Frank has that only ’special’ people deserve lives that aren’t meaningless, and that they aren’t ’special’ people.  This type of belief resigns people to the fate of bad lives and bad jobs because they feel like such things are parts of life; the difficulty is they are avoidable parts of life, and that no one deserves to resign to a bad life.  But Frank is less sincere than he is using such beliefs as justification for his decision to abandon a happy future for one in a job that he hates for more money.  This shows a phenomenon that Marx discusses, picked up by Erich Fromm, in the distinction between having and being.  Having and being are two modes of life, or orientations towards existence and values.  Capitalism supports having over being; one defines oneself not as a free actor, but a free consumer, whose identity is formed through purchasing objects rather than performing actions and making choices that express one’s sense of self.  Marx advocates being over having, where consumption is considered only a means to one’s ability to make said choices, and express oneself in a way that benefits the self expression of others.  Frank chooses having (through increased consumption ability) over being (i.e. a happy life where he is able to live his dreams).  April would have chosen the opposite.  One key feature of ideology is that it places limits on what possibilities can be thought of as real possibilities, and it was this feature of ideology that caused Frank to choose having over being. 

Revolutionary Road also shows how the family stifles change; once one becomes enmeshed and weighed down by familial obligations, one is more dependent upon the rewards of class society.  April knew this, and it is for this reason she wanted an abortion. 

Ultimately, Revolutionary Road shows the futility of trying to escape the system as an individual, rather than change it.  As individuals, so many factors can disempower a person, from having children to facing the uncertainty of a new life, and no escapist solution can change the source of the alienation: capitalism.  April had the heart to be a Revolutionary on Wheeler Road, and her plan to escape to Paris would have made progress towards that end.  But if she wanted true meaning in her life, she would have been better off seeking systemic solutions to eliminating the alienation of others.

After a solid month of visiting various friends and family members, I am now ready to start blogging more regularly again.  With all vacations, I emerged appreciating life more. . . which means I am going to take a break from reading classics of libertarianism for at least this week.  Today, I am going to do a brief review of Hannah Arendt’s Antisemitism, and proceed to draw out some of its implications for a Marxist theory of racism.

Arendt’s book is not about Marxism in any way;  it is an account of antisemitism, the ideology, itself.  The history of the phenomena, as Arendt explains it, begins with the slow development of the nation states in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  Individual Jews became strongly associated with the state in these periods, as Jewish bankers became often the sole source of financing for state activities.  This gave European Jews both inroads into the inner circles of the state (without themselves gaining actual political power) and a corresponding dependence on the state for their protection in a society which is otherwise hostile towards them.

After the French Revolution, nation states emerged large enough to require more capital than any individual Jewish banker could supply.  Consequentially, the combined wealth of the wealthier Jews provided financing for state activities, which accorded special privileges to the Jews.  At this stage, wealthy Jews were fully integrated into the state as a sort of ‘financial arm.’  This period ended with the nineteenth century rise in imperialism, where capitalist expansion involved the direct aid of the state.  Early in this period, bourgeois businessmen saw the profitability of financing state activity and displaced Jewish bankers as the dominant source of state revenue.  This removed their long-standing state function, leaving them relatively unprotected yet with large remaining sums of useless wealth.  Additionally, despite the fact that Jews gradually lost their state function, and with it what social power they had (which, in reality, was shared only by rich individual Jews, not distributed to Jews as a group), their prior position as the prime source of financial revenue, and integration into political circles in every European country, connected them directly in the mind of most classes in society to the state independent of their actual position or power.  Thus, as discontent grew against the state, discontent grew against Jews as a race as representatives of the state.  Thus, the rise of Antisemitism, in short, is really a reaction against ‘the state’ which became a reaction against European Jewry.

This process shows its implications for Marxist theories of race after a few facts are introduced.  Jews became enmeshed in banking as a result of Christian prohibition of usury in the middle ages.  Jews were religiously persecuted, and commonly forbidden from traditional occupations, while in those same Christian regions usury (the reception of interest after the loaning of money) was prohibited to, essentially, everyone except the Jews.  The obvious consequence is that, in order to make a living, Jews had to engage in loaning money and receiving interest, a practice that was actually looked down upon rather than empowered (as is the case with modern financial capitalists).

The religious persecution of Jews (rather than racial persecution) resulted, thus, in the system of Jewish banking, that itself led to the process Arendt describes.  This gradually codified into persecution of Jews by race, and throughout this process the finance capitalist Jewry were essentially forced into this degraded class status until its power and profit potential was realized by the bourgeois;  at that point, the Jews could no longer serve this function, and they lost the only protected class status that any Jews had attained.  In short, the fact that Jews were Jews, first religiously then racially, forced them into subjugated economic positions, then forced them out when those positions were no longer subjugated.   Racism, here in the form of antisemitism, seemed to be a tool to force a group of people into a subjugated (yet functionally necessary) economic class.  This insight, though undeveloped, might be the foundation for a strong Marxist analysis of racism.

This is a continuation of my August 12th book review of Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom, which can be found below.  We last discovered that the foundation of his argument for a connection between capitalism and freedom depends upon whether or not individuals have a right to private ownership of the means of production.

Morality exists in general because people’s actions have physical effects in the world, and as such we need to consider our actions in light of these effects. The relevant standard is the impact of our actions on the things we affect, and how important this impact is on those thing, i.e. according to its impact on their well being. Rights cover those elements of well being that are so important that they must be protected. Minimally, we can be said to have, then, a first right to life; life is the background condition for any other rights or moral categories, and in the absence of basing an argument on a strong metaphysics, life is the essential element to well being. Life is not, however, its own purpose; it is just the precondition for the realization of other purposes. Our ability to act with relative freedom, i.e. our actions do not intrude first upon the right to life of others, and secondly upon their own freedom, is a necessary component of our well being as well. Consequentially, we further have a right to freedom. It has been argued by many that rights to private property are justified as, for example, a necessary precondition for the rights to life and freedom. These conceptions, however, justify only property use, not ownership, because so long as one has the necessary goods when they are needed, one’s rights to freedom and life are perfectly met. There are other attempts to justify private property ownership rights, but I will not cover them at this time. At any rate, ownership of the means of production (raw materials and tools) are direct limitations on the freedom of action and welfare of others, as they take away the means to achieve ends. They take away property use rights from others, and as such they limit the ability of others to meet their own needs, while overextending one’s own rights (in that property use is the only prerequisite of rights being met). We thus do not have a right to private property ownership in the means of production, but do have a right to free use of the means of production. Capitalism, in its absolute private ownership of the means of production, in fact violates the legitimate right to property. Consequentially, capitalism in fact violates rights rather than than guarantees them, this violation of rights is protected by coercive force. In short, Friedman’s entire argument that capitalism protects political freedom is false.

What about economic freedom? Economic freedom, the freedom of exchange, is essentially meaningless with Friedman’s conception of rights. The freedom to exchange goods it not necessarily contested under socialism (for example, socialists would not likely object to, say, a barter fair, and they most certainly would not object to an exchange of services). It is the specific sub-component of ‘economic freedom’ that involves production for exchange that is contested, and primarily because it involves the exploitation of labor, tendency for the accumulation of capital to override social values, and inability to meet human needs except by accident. Were no exploitation present and production geared towards meeting human needs it would be less objectionable. In fact, these conditions are impossible under capitalism, as capitalism presupposes and is founded upon exploitation and producing for profit, not needs. This aside, socialists object not to exchange per se, but capitalist production for exchange; thus, capitalism only differs necessarily from socialism in terms of economic freedom in that socialism rejects the components of economic freedom that violates rights, whereas capitalist apologists such as Friedman defend it.

His argument that freedom of exchange protects political freedom in that it restricts the means at the disposal of the state, thus preventing centralization and consolidation of power, has at least once central problem; it artificially separates the government from its citizens, which cannot be done in a democracy. Now, American democracy is not truly democracy but representative democracy, which is not democracy at all. In theory and practice, representative democracy replaces popular rule with quasi-popular choice of rule by an elite. In a real democracy, however, the government is the people, and thus removing the means from the ends of the populace through capitalism is an imposition on democracy. Friedman’s argument, then, is no more than an explicit argument showing how capitalism thwarts democratic self-determination through empowering a property-owning elite.

To summarize the preceding points, (1) Friedman’s case for capitalism being a necessary condition for democracy as well as economic and political freedom rests upon a notion of private property ownership rights—specifically private property ownership rights over the means of production, tools and raw materials. (2) Property rights are legitimate insofar as they contribute towards freedom and well being, but this supports private property use rights, not ownership rights, and specifically discounts ownership of the means of production, as it impedes freedom and well being. Since private property use rights mean no more than an individual has a right to use the property he or she needs (and here I will accept that private goods which aren’t the means of production have value attached to them that may be more for one particular individual than others, a picture of one’s own children for example, and so I will prima facie hold no qualms over ownership of private property that is not the means of production, at least insofar as my case against Friedman doesn’t require it, so I don’t need to go that far), private ownership of the means of production violates the use rights of others, as well as their freedom and well being. Consequentially, (3) capitalism in fact violates the legitimate range of economic freedom, and as it involves the coercive and illegitimate state defense of private property in the means of production, capitalism rests on coercion, and thus violates political freedom as well. It further (4) undermines democracy through its separation of political means from political ends, in essence holding democracy hostage. If government is to satisfy the purposes that Friedman sees in it, namely “”the maintenance of law and order to prevent coercion of one individual by another, the enforcement of contracts voluntarily entered into, the definition of the meaning of property rights, the interpretation and enforcement of such rights, and the provision of a monetary framework” (27), the government ought to be socialist, devoid of illegitimate coercion because of its recognition of the proper definition of property rights.

Now, Friedman’s support of the connections between capitalism/freedom and capitalism/democracy have been undermined. He makes arguments on more specific sociopolitical issues later, and while many if not all of his points are rendered illegitimate and the questions themselves meaningless after the collapse of his notion of rights, I will proceed to advance additional arguments against them, each on their own terms. I may refer to something pointed out before, such as problems with private ownership of the means of production, but not simply make statements such as “Friedman says x, but since his conception of property rights has been rejected, x is wrong/meaningless”. In other words, I won’t reject his additional arguments by fiat.

In his chapter on Monopoly and Social Responsibility, Friedman argues against what he calls a “monopoly in labor,” referring to workers increasing their class power through unionization. Friedman argues that “if unions raise wage rates in a particular occupation or industry, they necessarily make the amount of employment available in that occupation or industry less than it otherwise would be. . . [and] the effect is an increased number of persons seeking other jobs, which forces down wages in other occupations . . . [making] high-paid workers higher paid at the expense of lower-paid workers.” (124) He thus argues that “unions have therefore not only harmed the public at large and workers as a whole by distorting the use of labor; they have also made the incomes of the working class more unequal by reducing the opportunities available to the most disadvantaged workers” (ibid). While it’s nice hearing Milton Friedman be so concerned here with inequality and disadvantaged workers, his argument presupposes that it is legitimate for capitalists to fire workers in order to preserve profits. His argument is saying this: when unionized workers work to raise wages, their boss has to pay more to employ them, and consequentially the only way the boss can maintain his profit margin is to employ fewer of the workers. It is a sad but true fact that the average American union is relatively conservative, and limits its demands to higher wages, reaching out too little to non-union workers, and rarely if ever fights for the workers outside its own union. However, Friedman’s argument neglects that, while the negative effects of unionization he shows seem believable, they are so only because of the capitalist’s decision to fire workers to maintain the rate of profit. In short, it is the choices of capitalists that might produce greater inequality between workers and harm the public at large. True, without maintaining the profit margin capitalists will be pushed out of the market, but this only shows that capitalists, too, are alienated, and capitalism, not individual capitalists, is the problem. A bit more work remains to be done in the process of reviewing Capitalism and Freedom, and so I will return to this post in short order.

My last review:http://practicalutopian.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/book-review-milton-friedmans-capitalism-and-freedom-part-i/

A recent Huffington Post article alerted me to a paper by UC Berkeley professor Emmanuel Saez, showing that income inequality is greater as of 2007 than ever before in American history.  In fact, as of 2007, the top 0.01% of Americans took home 6% of total U.S. wages.  Why is inequality important?

In addition to the obvious fact that inequality between individuals affects their life chances and ability to satisfy their goals and meet their needs, it also represents something.  Inequality between people represents the valuation of their human worth.  If all individuals’ worth is absolute, i.e. independent of anything they do and wholly because they are, then there would be no inequality.  Look at it this way–if the worth of individuals were equal, and independent of what they’ve done, there would never be any reason for unequal distribution of wealth.  If you doubt this, try to think of a way it could be differential (except for accident, and in case of such an accident, equal valuation would likely result in immediate rectification of such momentary inequality).

But it is cannot be said that inequality represents society’s valuation of different individuals’ worth, because society does not choose the distribution of income or the distribution of property. In all societies but the very earliest communal ones, certain classes have had control over the means of production (i.e. tools and raw materials), and these property relationships have been protected by force and justified by the ideologies of their time.  In class societies, including our own, only the dominant class have the ability to determine who gets what job and what they get paid.  Ideological defenders of capitalism claim that supply and demand determine everything, from jobs (where social demand for a job creates it) to income (where the social valuation of the job determines how much it gets monetarily rewarded).  This picture hides a number of factors.  First, it hides that only ‘effective demand’ gets met.  Effective demand is demand backed by the money to compensate the supplier.  Thus, production under capitalism is not intended to meet needs.  Commodities are produced only when, and insofar as they might realize profits for their ‘owner’. If capitalism meets needs, then, it is purely a coincidence.  An accident.  Thus, jobs aren’t necessarily created because the jobs are socially valued or needed, but because their existence makes money for capitalists.  Same goes for income; capitalists pay employees as little as they can get away with while maximizing profit.  They will thus supply however much they think they can get a profit from, and the more money an individual is willing and able to pay to get a good or service, the more suppliers will fight to produce for that market, regardless of the good.  When an economist explains production and jobs according to supply and demand, they really mean to explain it in terms of money, but that directs the question towards one of inequality and needs, which is precisely what a capitalist economist wants to gloss over and assume away. 

Additionally, discussion of ’supply and demand’ does not address the ‘rate of profit’.  Capitalists mark up the product from its cost of production, but that does not explain how the amount of this markup is determined.  In more competitive markets, profits tend to be lower, and in more monopolized markets profits tend to be higher, but in neither type of market does supply and demand strictly determine the rate of profit.  They tend to be unofficially standardized according to industry, but the process of their standardization has nothing whatsoever to do with supply or demand.  We cannot really explain anything but the most inconsequential facets of our economic system with the concepts of supply and demand.  It is only useful to tell us that the more suppliers per demands, the more relative power potential consumers have, and the fewer suppliers per demands, the more relative power suppliers have.  They don’t themselves explain the creation of jobs or the distribution of income, they only implicitly relate to the concept of power, and they certainly do not reflect need or the will of society as a whole.

Distribution of income, then, reflects the valuation of human worth according to the dominant class in a society, the capitalists in our own.  More specifically, it rewards them according to the function they serve for the dominant class, and how hard it is for capitalists to fill those necessary functions.  Inequality exists, then, because the capitalists (considered as a whole) devalue the worth of the people towards the bottom of the income ladder (relative to the perceived value of their social function), and value the worth of those towards to top more.  This generic formula rings true for labor; the very top tends to consist of capitalists themselves, and class conflict can generate income and benefits for labor with some independence from the valuation of their labor by the capitalists themselves.  This is so because class-conscious laborers can unify as laborers to restrict the supply of their labor, thus giving them greater power, or unify as citizens to enact legislation which will produce similar effects.  In the absence of strong class consciousness on the part of labor, any laborers wages and benefits are as low as capitalists can get away with.

Thus, this inequality is purely the product of class in American society.  It is a combination of the (1) class power of capitalists over society, (2) low valuation of the human worth of those towards the bottom of the economic latter (where laborers, as we have shown, have no inherent worth to capitalists, but only instrumental value), and (3) low class power, revealing their relative absence of class consciousness and unity. It does not reflect nature, or inequality of ability.  It is the result of class society, of capitalism, and the only way out is not a welfare capitalist state, but a postcapitalist (decentralized, democratic, participatory and planned) socialism.

Huffington Post: “Income Inequality is at an All-Time High” – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/14/income-inequality-is-at-a_n_259516.html

After reading two quite good posts on the Left Solutions blog against Ayn Rand, I decided that my next book reviews will be about some classics of libertarianism.  I expect to review Friedman, Rand, some Hayek, Nozick, maybe even some Rothbard.

Today’s book review is a classic of Libertarian thought, and a very influential defense of capitalism, Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom.  It’s major theme is, in the words of Friedman, “the role of competitive capitalism . . . as a system of economic freedom and a necessary condition for political freedom” (4) and its minor theme “is the role that government should play in a society dedicated to freedom and relying primarily on the market to organize economic activity” (ibid).  As the first two chapters lay out his theoretical position most explicitly, and contain the bulk of his arguments, I will concern myself most explicitly with these chapters, and draw from the last four chapters, The Distribution of Income, Social Welfare Measures, and Alleviation of Poverty, as well as the Conclusion, where appropriate.

Friedman begins through asserting that “only certain combinations of political and economic arrangements are possible” (8), and that “a society which is socialist cannot also be democratic, in the sense of guaranteeing individual freedom” (ibid).  He specifies that capitalist economic systems are not necessarily democratic, but that capitalism is a necessary prerequisite for democracy.  Friedman continues by arguing that (1) “freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of freedom broadly understood” (8) and thus an end in itself, and (2) “economic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom” (ibid). 

Economic freedom, to Friedman, essentially means freedom of exchange, i.e. the ability to buy or sell without legal restriction.  He considers it a necessary component of freedom because a restriction of it is a restriction of a range of choices and actions.  Political freedom means “the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men” (15).  Friedman considers economic freedom as a means to political freedom because “it separates economic power from political power and in this way enables the one to offset the other” (9).  Markets more specifically secure political freedom because they remove “the organization of economic activity from the control of political authority, [and thus] the market eliminates this source of coercive power. . . [enabling] economic strength to be a check to political power rather than a reinforcement” (ibid).  Concentration of power, he argues, is most dangerous to freedom, and there is no zero sum law of economic power or fixed quantity of total economic power, whereas he sees the quantity of political power being essentially finite and thus more prone to concentration. He notes a general correspondence with the emergence of democracy and the emergence of capitalism, and a short time later argues that “collectivist economic planning has indeed interfered with individual freedom” (11).

After that partial digression, Friedman elaborates on the connection between economic and political freedom.  He argues that “the basic problem of social organization is how to co-ordinate the economic activities of large numbers of people” (12) and that there are two ways of doing so, either (1) “central direction involving the use of coercion” or (2) “voluntary co-operation of individuals” (13).  The latter, he claims, is based on the premise that “both parties to an economic transaction benefit from it, provided the transaction is bi-laterally voluntary and informed” (ibid).  Consequently, he deduces, competitive capitalism brings co-ordination without coercion.  It is worthy to note here that his elaboration that “co-operation is strictly individual and voluntary provided: (a) that enterprises are private, so that the ultimate contracting parties are individuals and (b) that individuals are effectively free to enter or not to enter into any particular exchange, so that every transaction is strictly voluntary” (14).  In his model, viewing all ‘economic freedom’ in terms of exchanges, the buying and selling of goods and labor power are always mutually beneficial, never the product of coercion, and necessary components of freedom.  In fact, he claims that “the central feature of the market organization of economic activity is that it prevents one person from interfering with another in respect of most of his activities” (ibid).  The selling of labor power is uncoerced in that “the employee is protected from coercion by the employer because of other employers for whom he can work” (14-15). 

This voluntary model of organization by markets is contrasted against “action through political channels,” which “tends to require or enforce substantial conformity” (15). Here he claims that the market is “a system of proportional representation” where “each man can vote [for his consumption choices]” (ibid). 

Finally, Friedman argues that competitive capitalist societies have an easier time accommodating the avocation of socialism than socialist societies have allowed the avocation of capitalism. First, he argues that “in order for men to advocate anything, they must be in the first place able to earn a living” (16), which is problematic under socialism, he claims, because of governmental control of the job market.  Whereas in socialist societies, the state would have to subsidize subversive literature, Friedman argues that in competitive capitalism all one has to do is find a rich benefactor, or prove that one’s literature will make the publisher (or other media source) money.  The ability in competitive capitalism to find rich benefactors, Friedman argues, shows “a role of inequality of wealth in preserving political freedom that is seldom noted–the role of the patron” (17).  He further defends the costs borne in capitalist society to advocate radical change, arguing that “no society could be stable if advocacy of radical change were costless . . . [and that] it is important to preserve freedom only for people who are willing to practice self-denial” (18).  His only caveat is that “what is essential is that the cost of advocating unpopular causes be tolerable and not prohibitive” (ibid).

The role of government, then, is to provide “for the maintenance of law and order to prevent coercion of one individual by another, the enforcement of contracts voluntarily entered into, the definition of the meaning of property rights, the interpretation and enforcement of such rights, and the provision of a monetary framework” (27).  These questions are large, and Friedman places a notable caveat on what he believes to be the extent of democratic determination.  He writes that “the use of political channels, while inevitable, tends to strain the social cohesion essential for a stable society.  The strain is least if agreement for joint action need be reached only on a limited range of issues on which people in any event have common views” (23).  In other words, the more important the issue, the more Friedman sees it being destructive of democratic unity, and thus “fundamental differences in basic values can seldom if ever be resolved at the ballot box” (24) and inevitably result in conflict.  Here, again, he embraces the market for not requiring conformity on these base issues.

Now that we have laid out Friedman’s basic stance on the relationship between economic and political freedom, let us back up and consider his arguments as a whole. To recap, Friedman considers (1) ‘economic freedom’ as the freedom to engages in exchange independent of political authority or coercion, and (2) ‘political freedom’ as, more generally, freedom from coercion. Viewing freedom, generally speaking, as the overriding moral and political value, Friedman argues that the freedom to exchange, i.e. buy and sell in a competitive market, is a necessary component of freedom in that it is a subset of choices and actions that one ought to be able to engage in without experiencing coercion. Economic freedom is thus and end in itself. He also argues that economic freedom is central to political freedom because of (a) its controlling the means to politically determined ends, limiting governmental power, and (b) the ability for unpopular and radical perspectives to find voice in the market.

 

Friedman’s case rests on a number of assumptions, any of which would undermine his argument, but taken as a whole entirely demolish his case. Friedman’s conception of freedom is the absence of physical coercion. Friedman is right in his overarching perspective that governmental action involves or implies the use of coercion by necessity; the background of governmental laws is their ability to enforce them, and the concept of legitimate government implies its legitimate monopoly on the use of force within its boundaries. He simply sees the range of legitimate coercion extending only to protect the rules and preconditions of free market capitalism—contract enforcement and the definition and enforcement of property rights. He claims that the scope and definition of property rights is a question taken for granted, and properly subject to democratic debate, while simultaneously arguing for the inability for democracy to work in substantial value discussion (like debate over property rights) and presupposes the legitimacy of private property rights throughout his argument. Without the presupposed legitimacy of private property (or at least private property in the means of production) no individual would have the right to produce independent of social agreement, or for that matter restrict distribution of goods; his conception of economic freedom, which he claims to be a necessary component of freedom, is contingent upon the legitimacy of private property in the means of production. He further continually emphasizes that the ability to exchange, economic freedom, is an individual freedom, and thus placing constraints on individual exchange opportunities seems as though it would inherently violate his account of freedom. Thus, while he overtly recognizes that definitions of appropriate property rights are subject to democratic determination, his argument for economic freedom, and thus his argument that competitive capitalism supports freedom and is thus desirable, depends upon private property in the means of production being legitimate. If private property is not legitimate, then the coercion with which the government protects it is illegitimate, and economic freedom in the sense that Friedman intents violates political freedom. So the question becomes “Do we, as individuals, have a right to private property in the means of production?”

 

 

This review is continued at: http://practicalutopian.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/book-review-milton-friedmans-capitalism-and-freedom-part-ii/

Left Solutions: Ayn Rand, sociopathic politics – http://leftsolutions.wordpress.com/ayn-rand-sociopathic-politics/

My August 5th post on single-payer health care outlined why I thought single-payer health care ought to pass and become America’s new health system.  Its now appearing obvious that American legislators are in bed enough with insurance companies to make any important reform let alone the revolutionary change to single-payer health care difficult.  A Business Week cover article from August 6th, called “The Health Insurers Have Already Won” begins with an assertion in their first page that insurance companies will emerge more profitable regardless of any likely outcome.  It is the combination of Blue Dog and moderate democrats with republicans that is so quick to sell out American citizens for their corporate taskmasters. 

Representative Jim Matheson from Utah and Representative Mike Ross from Arizona, opposing progress and affordable health for millions on behalf of the Blue Dogs and corporations, are working to thwart any proposal which would set up a public option to compete with the private sector, a major component of the Obama Administration’s plan to reduce costs among the private sector.  The perspective of the leaders of the Blue Dogs can be easily seen.  Ross had been bought completely by UnitedHealth, stating that “”If United has something to offer on cutting costs, we should consider it.  We need more examples that work, and everything should be on the table.”"  Ross wants everything on the table, and he’s worried about cutting costs in the health insurance industry.  What compassion!  Yet he also says that “We have concerns about a public option if it’s not done on a level playing field [with the insurance companies]“. 

Ross seems sincere, right?  I mean, he’s so concerned about everyone that he wants to help us all and help insurance companies, because they sure have been hurting in these hard, hard times. 

The National Coalition on Health Care states:

National Health Care Spending

• In 2008, health care spending in the United States reached $2.4 trillion, and was projected to reach $3.1 trillion in 2012.1 Health care spending is projected to reach $4.3 trillion by 2016.
• Health care spending is 4.3 times the amount spent on national defense.
• In 2008, the United States will spend 17 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health care. It is projected that the percentage will reach 20 percent by 2017.
• Although nearly 46 million Americans are uninsured, the United States spends more on health care than other industrialized nations, and those countries provide health insurance to all their citizens.
• Health care spending accounted for 10.9 percent of the GDP in Switzerland, 10.7 percent in Germany, 9.7 percent in Canada and 9.5 percent in France, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

In other words, Americans spend more than anywhere else despitethe fact that 46 million are uninsured.  Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO reports that “profits at 10 of the country’s largest publicly traded health insurance companies rose 428 percent from 2000 to 2007, while consumers paid more for less coverage.”  You know, now that I think about it, maybe Ross and the blue dogs are more concerned with sacrificingAmericans for insurance companies than he is about being fair to everyone.  He actually bragged about how the Blue Dogs “held the [health care] bill hostage in committee for 10 days” and prevented consideration of a single-payer health care option, as reported by the Huffington Post. 

It appears that the major argument given by the opposition (Blue Dogs and republicans) to every sane and reasonable healthcare plan (those with public options) is that the creation of a public option, competing with private insurers, would underprice them and drive them out of business.  Then again, if they are so concerned with cutting costs and putting everything on the table, what difference does it make?  In other words, a public option can reduce prices for Americans in a way that private insurance either can’t or won’t.  Tens of millions of Americans have no health insurance because they cannot afford it (I assume there can be no other reason).  Despite that, the Blue Dogs oppose any public option because of its increased ability to make healthcare. . . affordable?  Seriously, their primary objection is that public options will be able to lower their price to such affordable levels that, it is estimated (although controversially) that “88 million people, or 56% of those withemployer-provided coverage, would desert private insurance for a government-run program.”  If private insurers could not compete with a public option, isn’t that a sign that the public option is vastly superior to the private insurers?  I mean, I thought that sound logic went something like this:  “Millions of Americans can’t afford Option A.   Option B costs waaaayyyyless than Option A ever could, with the same coverage.  Because they could afford B waaayyyyy more than A, they’d probably switch from A to B because they like it more.  Consequentially, we should endorse B.”  The ‘argument’ given for supporting private insurers which, even according to the terms of the argument, are wholly unable to meet American needs, is that a public option, undercutting private ones in price, “would destabilize the marketplace and potentially kill the private insurance industry”. 

I suppose the correct response is “Who cares?”  Even those arguing for private insurers and againstpublic options do so from the premise that public options have greater potentiality to be affordable, so there is no reasonable objection to public options.  The healthinsurance industry is already in an oligopoly state in the market, and so arguments that a public option would destroy the competition are meaningless.  It’s not a competitive industry.  It’s massive profit margins and insufficient coverage are results of its lack of a need to be competitive.  Someone concerned withcompetition should welcome a public competitor, and realize that the true result of competition, that private insurers unable to compete might go out of business, is fine.  As for me, I’d rather have Americans have an affordable public option than a number of high priced private options.  We deserve to be able to afford the surgeries and medical care we need.  We deserve to not have to watch our sick children wither and die from our inability to pay for treatments.  We deserve to not have to choose between our children dying now because we can’t afford treatments, and our children dying later because the treatments put us permanently in debt.  We finally deserve democratic say over these issues, and if we have representatives we deserve those who will consider their citizens, rather than lie to their faces about the options before them, and stab them in the back with UnitedHealth’s knife. Stop protecting private insurers from competition!  Stop sacrificing American health for the profits of your capitalist friends! 

My post: http://practicalutopian.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/on-single-payer-health-care/

Business Week: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_33/b4143034820260.htm 

NCHC: http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml

AFL-CIO: http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/05/27/health-insurance-profits-soar-as-industry-mergers-create-near-monopoly/

From today forward, I will post regular, weekly updates three times a week (and, in light of important future news, occasional analyses of important current events.  Mondays I will blog about something important in the news.  Wednesdays I will post about a book or article I am reading or have read–it could be a straightforward review, an analysis of some part, or even an application to something happening in the world.  Fridays I will blog about something philosophical–it could be about a specific philosopher or work of philosophy, an analysis of a concept or argument, or an argument of my own.  There is certainly going to be some conceptual overlap; expect my analyses of current events to pull from literature or to contain arguments, my ‘book reviews’ to contain references to news or philosophical argument, and my philosophy to pull from others’ philosophies.  My point here is to mention that I will be posting regularly, and expect for certain something about current events on Monday, something about a book or article on Wednesday, and something about philosophy on Friday.  Additionally, I check every comment and reply whenever possible, so if anyone has a suggestion of something in the news that deserves mention, a book that should be looked at, or a philosopher or philosophical argument that should be analyzed, as well as any other comments (or criticisms/rebuttals, for that matter), feel free to post.

Today, I want to take some time to explain Marx’s theory of history, referred to as either historical or dialectical materialism.  Some make a distinction between historical and dialectical materialism, but for the purposes of this blog post, I will only be referring to the theory as ‘historical materialism’. 

In Marx’ s Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, he summarizes historical materialism as follows:

“In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production.  The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.  The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life.”

I’ll stop quoting here, and explain.  In short, Marx is saying that economic structure of society is the driving force behind society (including other institutions, such as religion and the state).  But Marx’s conception of the economy is much more complex than our own.  Nowadays, when we reference ‘the economy’ in public discourse, we’re contrasting the realm of private exchange with the forms of the public sphere, because in capitalism the state and other public institutions ought to be removed from the exchange process (so they argue). It should be mentioned, however, that capitalism is the first economic system in human history where the realm of exchange is notembedded in the public sphere (for this point, see Karl Polyani, the Great Transformation).  But to Marx, the ‘economic structure of society’ consists of ‘the relations of production’ that men fall into ‘independent of their will’.  What does he mean by that?

A society is successful for its members and as itself if it survives, i.e. if at least as many people enter society (from birth or from outside it) as exit it.  Society is thus successful if it can, at the very least, secure its members sustenance and promote their reproduction.  Engels confirms this in his book The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State  in his First Preface.  He writes that “the determining factor in history is, in the final instance, the production and reproduction of immediate life.” This basic condition, that society is successful when it helps its members, overall, to live and reproduce, is contingent upon two factors, the forces of production (also referred to as the means of production) and the relations of production. 

The forces of production, generally, consist of the tools and technology at man’s disposal to produce what he needs, as well as the raw materials and natural resources needed to produce or meet needs.  For example, in early hunting-based societies, people needed spears, eventually bows and arrows, in order to meet their needs.  These were forces of production.  But in the process of society’s organizing to meet needs, different individuals begin to serve different functions in the productive process.  These relations are what Marx refers to as the relations of production, and they are the origin of class society.  Different classes are groups of people with different relationships to the forces of production, and these are expressed in the form of property rights (and not necessarily pure private property rights, as exists in capitalism today). The dominant class is the group of people who have ‘rights’ to the things people need in order to produce their sustenance.  They use the power their ownership confers to get nonowners to produce in their stead; i.e. the actual producers or laborers produce are given the tools and resources to produce by the ‘owner’ of those tools and resources, and are then required to produce more than their own sustenance.  This excess production, which serves no needs for the producers is surplus value given to the owner of the forces of production.  This condition, where individual laborers are forced to work for another class because of the monopoly over the forces of production that another class has, is referred to as exploitation.  Marx notes that, historically, the only time in our human past without these exploitative class relationships was primitive communism, and ever since all economic systems have been class systems.  These relations of production are what arrange production that meets man’s needs.  This is what Marx means when he refers to the economy as “the totality of the relations of production”, and people fall into these roles independent of their will because people are born into society, where class structures are already formed, and given the advantages the dominant class has in keeping their position safe, it is far easier to be funneled into the exploited class than the dominant class.  Furthermore, when Marx claims that the superstructure (i.e. the state, religion, etc) is, essentially, subservient to the economic structure of society, he is merely saying that these ideological forms must, overall, support the economic structure, i.e. must allow more people being able to survive and reproduce than not.  For example, if the state in a society kills all the workers, then society collapses, or if the dominant religion in a society believes that it is impious to have children, then society stops reproducing.  These superstructural features cause society to fail because they work against the two things it needs to do to be successful.  The superstructure, then, is dependent upon the economy in the sense that it must promote, overall, the survival of society.  Engels clarifies this in a letter written September 21, 1890, where he says:

According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life. Other than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase.

In other words, elements of the superstructure are constrained by the economic system, and the dominant ideologies are ideologies of the ruling class, who both have the means of promoting ideologies and, in legitimating their class domination, have the need for it.  Additionally, elements of the superstructure (like, again, the state, religion, or moral and philosophical theories) exhibit some independence from the economic base, because they are not wholly determined, and can quite often remain after changes in the base, regardless of their essential obsolescence.

If the ruling class holds the means of production, and therefore people’s ability to survive, backed by the coercive power of the state, and supported by superstructural ideologies that hinder social change and support the status quo, how is change possible?

Marx states that society changes–marked most determinately by a massive change in the economy, i.e. the class structure–when “the material forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or . . . with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto.”  This is because “no social order is ever destroyed before all the all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society.”  What this means, in essence, is that social revolutions occur when the productive potentialities of the existing forces of production is limited by the existing class structure and relations of production.  The organization of society, in other words, stands in the way of its potentiality for meeting society’s needs; its organization is standing in the way of its success, as we mentioned earlier.  When this occurs, a revolution must occur if society is going to continue on, rather than die out.  In the Communist Manifesto, after the famous quote that “,” Marx proceeds to argue that “Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.”  In other words, class struggle ends in either a change in the economic system such that solves the contradictions of the old, or everybody loses and society dies out.  In short, Marx’s point here, I argue, is to show that societies reach a point in their development where they must either have a social revolution in their class structures or they will dwindle and die, and not the common misconception that Marx thought that successful changes from one economic system to another are inevitable.

The House of Representatives is now going to vote on a single-payer health care proposal, thanks to the advocacy of Anthony Weiner, a Democrat from New York.  Is it going to pass in America?  Let’s focus on saying that it should pass.  Here’s why.

Time Magazine reported in its August 10th special issue on health care that it is projected that health care expenditures will exceed 20% of the GDP of the US by 2018.  Currently we spend about 17% or so of our GDP on Health Care, yet we rank behind 18 other industrialized nations in deaths that could have been medically prevented.  According to the group Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), “Single-payer national health insurance is a system in which a single public or quasi-public agency organizes health financing, but delivery of care remains largely private.”  The PNHP points out that Americans spend over twice what other industrialized countries spend on health care, yet over 45 million are uninsured and many more are inadequately covered.

The PNHP points out the primary reason why for-profit health insurance systems necessarily cost more than single-payer public options:

Private insurers necessarily waste health dollars on things that have nothing to do with care: overhead, underwriting, billing, sales and marketing departments as well as huge profits and exorbitant executive pay.

This is one of the main reasons why the arguments for the efficiency of capitalism and the “free market” in lowering costs are false in every industry:  as corporations become larger and their industries tend towards monopoly or oligopoly (one or a few dominant firms controlling the majority of a market), they have more power to set prices independent of “supply and demand,” choosing high profit margins over controlling cost for the consumer, and beyond that their costs become inflated with hidden charges for services, increasing levels of unproductive employees (such as advertisers and management), and even costs incurred through their lobbying efforts to thwart the public interest.  Health insurers make higher profits when they charge as much as they can get from desperate consumers, and pay out as little as possible.  Our nation is expected to spend 1/5 of our GDP on inadequate health care because, as a very privatized health care society, we allow these companies free reign, and accept arguments that serve to deflect attention from our real problems and their real solutions.

The PNHP site has a variety of links supporting and explaining single-payer health care, and I would direct anyone wanting a greater understanding of the option to that site.  Single-payer health care is more rational and efficient than our current system and would help our nation in a variety of ways.  It should pass.

The single-payer health care proposal would provide comprehensive health care to all individuals while leaving them choice among doctors, and give the public democratic control over health priorities and policies (subject to the limitations of the American system of government, of course) while leaving the individual seeking health care and their doctor absolute autonomy.  In fact, the PNHP states the following as two further key features of single-payer health care.

• Ban on For-Profit Health Care Providers
  Profit seeking inevitably distorts care and diverts resources from patients to investors

• Protection of the rights of health care and insurance workers
  A single-payer national health program would eliminate the jobs of hundreds of thousands of people who currently perform billing, advertising, eligibility determination, and other superfluous tasks. These workers must be guaranteed retraining and placement in meaningful jobs.

The PNHP points out that the profit motive is harmful in health care, and the same logic shows by extension that the profit motive is harmful to any consumer in any area, specifically those that directly affect human welfare.  Single-payer health care is the answer to our health problem in America, and it is our only answer.

As a radical, however, it would be irresponsible for me to stop my analysis or advocacy there.  Single-payer health care, as proposed, is the system of health care that would exist in a socialist society (save for certain steps like democratic worker control), but truly socialized industries cannot peacefully exist with an otherwise callous capitalist society.  Private industry will continue to have political influence, continue monopolization, and thus have ever increasing power over our society.  The whole capitalist class will have an interest in secretly undermining the single-payer health care system because health care is so absolutely profitable.  Years later, in societies like America where the working class sees the ruling class interests as its own, and becomes easily persuaded and easier pacified, aspects of privitization may start to creep in (such as the gradual privitization of the Swedish ‘welfare capitalism’ model, including its single-payer health care).  The move to single-payer health care does not replace the need for socialism; quite the contrary.  We need single-payer health care to pass, and from then on we have a reference point to show the superiority of a socialist-style industry.  This will only work if we remain diligent in refusing to allow any privitization to creep in.  Let us be active in our advocacy of single-payer health care, and loud in our voice, so that the Obama administration and congress cannot help but know the true will of the American people: We Want Single-Payer Health Care.

PNHP: http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single_payer_resources.php