The Obvious--and Unspeakable--Cure for the Economy

Think monorails, bullet trains and trolley cars. Think the abolition of the privately owned automobile. Then think clean air, freedom from petrofuels and economic rebirth. Go ahead, city-dweller, look outside your apartment window and find that there are no vehicles parked on the street any longer. Suburban and rural America, look a bit farther and see that where once there were highways clogged with automobiles, the former roads have become the paths of monorails and bullet trains. The air is clean, and it is quiet now. Peace and reason have been restored.

I have watched them all, all the talking heads on C-Span, CNN, Charlie Rose; I have watched Paulson, Bernake, Greenspan, Krugman, even the two Greenbergs, "Ace" and "Hank". All of them talk of a credit crisis, of investing in banks which will in turn give loans to "small businesses" and "individuals." On the one hand, we are told that a depression has been averted. On the other hand, there are tough times ahead, a recession that can last--depending on which head is speaking--anywhere from eighteen months to five or more years. It should come as no surprise to any U.S. citizen that thirty or forty percent of our GDP has come from "finance" over the last few decades. While the scam lasted, those astute enough to have ties to the financial world were accustomed to getting 35% returns on their investments. Unlike the robber barons of old, however, the creators of the vast fortunes that were accumulated left no monuments akin to the libraries, museums and other public venues that we associate with the older barons. Instead, what we became used to was disinvestment in the social good, an almost infinite imagination for waste of the nation's treasure through the purchase of cheap goods, so-called McMansions and gas-guzzling SUVs.

Ultimately, there will be only one remedy for the crisis--government investment in infrastructure. It is a notion that is often pooh-poohed since "it will take too long to matter." The obvious objection to government investment in infrastructure is that it smacks of socialism. Those old enough to remember or educated enough to have learned about the Great Depression can recall the WPA, Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration, which put thousands of Americans to work and helped to build infrastructure which the nation still utilizes today. The WPA, of course, was described by conservatives as socialistic (if not communistic) in nature. Although one can currently get away with talking about "nationalizing" banks and other institutions, this term, until lately used mostly in sentences that also contained the words Venezuela and Chavez, became acceptable since it was the richest elements in the country that were the beneficiaries. Of course on the spectrum of acceptability, nationalism is more acceptable than socialism in the United States--for now. Note, however, how little time it took for the former term to work its way into the public consciousness when no alternative seemed available. I would predict that a similar fate awaits the notion of socialism. The counter-revolution led by the Reaganites, the Thatcherites and the Friedmanites will prove, fortunately for the fate of the nation--and the planet--to have been short-lived. And for the same reasons; the planet can not survive the planned obsolescence and other capitalist schemes driven by greed at the expense of public health and safety.

To be continued...