Can prosperity and “equality” coexist?
By Herbert London and Alexander G. Markovsky, FPM
This is in response of criticism to our article “Economy of Mass Prosperity,” published by the Washington Times and Israpundit in June, which advocates privatization of the nation’s infrastructure.
It is almost a cliché to suggest America is a divided nation. There is a split among many blacks and whites; rich and poor. But the fundamental difference is between those who have not learned from history, convinced that socialism is too extreme for the American psyche, and the other that clandestinely believes that socialism, in fact, has already arrived and is making sure that America can no longer live without it.
The socialists declared three primary points:
- Capitalism is not capable of mass prosperity.
- Privatizing infrastructure will make every road/bridge/rail crossing in America a never-ending toll booth.
- Privatization will further contribute to economic inequality.
The argument that capitalism is not capable of mass prosperity is so ludicrous that even the arch-foe of capitalism, Karl Marx, disagreed. And Marx did not just disagree, he wrote in The Communist Manifesto:
“The bourgeoisie [capitalists] has been the first to show what man’s activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, or Gothic cathedrals. The bourgeoisie draws all nations into civilization. It has created enormous cities and thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarcely one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together.”
Since those words were written 150 years ago, free-market capitalism proved to be an endeavor with no end. It has undergone the Second Industrial Revolution and is in the process of a third, the Digital Revolution, which, with the introduction of advanced technologies, computers and the Internet, continues opening up entirely new vistas creating wealth and prosperity for all.
The concern that privatization will make every road/bridge/rail crossing in America a never-ending toll booth ignores the reality. The never-ending toll booth is already here. The infrastructure owners, the state and local governments, have been treating infrastructure as a revenue stream. Being a monopoly, they are in a position to manipulate supply and demand to justify the imperative of constantly raising taxes (property, gasoline and other general local taxes), user fees and tolls, ostensibly for building and maintaining highways while neglecting the assets’ maintenance and repair. The nation’s decaying infrastructure is a direct consequence of the product being sold regardless of quality and costs.
Anyone traveling the New Jersey-Manhattan corridor has experienced the effects of the state monopoly, spending endless hours in traffic and paying exorbitant tolls every few miles.
And there is no greater symbol of government monopolistic power than the Washington Bridge, built in the 1930s with taxpayer money. Its owner, the New York and New Jersey Port Authority, charges $15 for each trip, collecting $1.5 billion annually. In any other circumstance, with this revenue it would be easy to warrant constructing another bridge to relieve transportation congestion.
Unlike private enterprise, governments have neither incentive nor expertise to keep projects on schedule and within budget. Since there is very little risk of borrowers going bankrupt, lenders love it. Whatever is spent will eventually be covered by the taxpayers, with interest. The Central Artery/Tunnel Project in Boston, Massachusetts, known as the Big Dig, is the poster child for government waste and inefficiency. It was eight years behind schedule and the cost ballooned from an estimated $2.6 billion to nearly $15 billion. The whole system is rotten with conflicts of interest, ineptitude and corruption.
The government as law enforcer and protector of consumers from the inherent flaws of the capitalist system should not be allowed to be part of the same system – to own and operate for-profit enterprises. In those mutually exclusive capacities the government is in a position to abuse its power with impunity.
And finally, “inequality,” the argument socialists have never tired of invoking since the dawn of capitalism. Not surprisingly, the illusory ideas of economic equality became the guiding principle of the Democratic Party that during Obama’s tenure transformed itself into the Social Democratic Party. What the followers of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin refuse to admit is that equality can exist only in poverty; wealth by its very nature is always unequal. Our free society should celebrate inequality as the greatest and most consequential aspect of the human condition, and the ultimate expression of our freedoms; freedom to innovate, freedom to succeed, freedom to enjoy the fruits of our labor.
Inequality is the locomotive of progress.
Winston Churchill asked, “Is it better to have equality at the price of poverty or well-being at the price of inequality?” At one point Americans rejected the former and embraced the latter recognizing it almost reflexively. Those days are gone as born again socialists pursue quasi Marxist sentiments that are driving America to the phantasmagoria of equality.
Alexander G. Markovsky is the owner and CEO of Litwin Management Services, LLC. He is the author of two politically charged books, “Anatomy of a Bolshevik” and “Liberal Bolshevism: America Did Not Defeat Communism, She Adopted It.”
Herbert London is president of the London Center for Policy Research and author of “Leading From Behind: The Obama Doctrine and The Retreat From International Affairs.”
I feel that the authors may be eminently qualified to help design many of New York’s transportation facilities. Bus stop seats, when available, for only three people, that freeze in the winter and scald in the summer, Subway doors that close on the disabled, seats that are two small for adults, dirty, cramped elevators with no ventilation always going out of service. Clearly designed by people who have never had occasion to use them or speak to anyone who has. Welcome to Oz.
Monty Python- Architect Sketch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyL5mAqFJds
http://www.history.com/topics/child-labor
My only problem with Obamacare was that it penalized many of the people it purported to help. The Scandinavian and Canadian systems work very well for most people most of the time.
I went to the emergency room this week and I learned — not that it affects me yet — that there is something called LTR days: people on medicare get only 90 days of treatment, it was explained to me.
What we have in the U.S. is the worst of both worlds. There should be a basic free safety net for all but there should also be available inexpensive insurance of all kinds, companies being able to compete across state and national lines, and a variety of alternatives. No penalties.
Typo: the Washington Bridge and the George Washington Bridge are two different bridges.
This description also contains a refutation of the author’s argument. It’s a free bridge, incidentally.
“This article is about the bridge connecting the Bronx and Manhattan. For the bridge connecting New York and New Jersey, see George Washington Bridge…The Washington Bridge carries six lanes of traffic, as well as sidewalks on both sides, over the Harlem River in New York City between the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx, connecting 181st Street and Amsterdam Avenue in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan to University Avenue in the Morris Heights neighborhood of the Bronx. Ramps at either end of the bridge connect to the Trans-Manhattan Expressway and the Cross-Bronx Expressway. The bridge is operated and maintained by the New York City Department of Transportation. It once carried U.S. Route 1, which now travels over the Alexander Hamilton Bridge…Starting in the 1940s, ramps were built to connect the western end of the bridge to the 178th Street and 179th Street Tunnels leading to the George Washington Bridge. This allowed traffic to and from New Jersey to bypass the congested local streets of Upper Manhattan.
The Alexander Hamilton Bridge was planned in the mid-1950s to provide a direct connection between Robert Moses’s proposed Trans-Manhattan and Cross-Bronx Expressways and to accommodate the additional traffic resulting from the addition of the six-lane lower level to the George Washington Bridge. The completion of the Alexander Hamilton Bridge in 1963 diverted much of the traffic away from the Washington Bridge.
The Washington Bridge underwent reconstruction from 1989 to 1993…”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Bridge
The Author does not understand what Marx wrote. Here is a good explanation:
“…Marx argued that the capitalist bourgeoisie mercilessly exploited the proletariat. He recognised that the work carried out by the proletariat created great wealth for the capitalist. The products created in the factory (the material outcome of the workers’ labour) were sold for more than the value of the labour itself i.e. more than the workers’ wages. For instance, the factory worker may get paid £2 to produce a yard of cloth. The capitalist then sells the cloth for £5. In this way, the capitalist, who controls the process of production, makes a profit. But the worker does not benefit from this added value, and fails to benefit from the fruits of his/her own labour…”
http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/21cc/utopia/methods1/bourgeoisie1/bourgeoisie.html
“…