Is "Privatizing" just a tool of the "Elite" Class?

[charles brough]

Seems to me that the IMF and the Bush administration have had a common goal. It was to eliminate all government social welfare because they thought we are represented by the San Francisco's vulgar Gay-Rights parades, grossly obese minority women towing a long string of illegitimate children in the food stamp line, gang members on motorcycles, flower children, nudists, vegetarians and animal-rights extremists!!

This makes them (in their own distorted vision) "superior", an elite, the affluent, "Upper Class." These arrogant snobs never go anywhere near the slums and always drive around only in the affluent areas of their cities. They are spoiled by their luxuries. And they do not care about any class other than their own. The rest are just "the workers."

What I say is that we the middle class are not for all the radical causes of the 1950s and 1960s but for a moral way of life which fanatic Classist privatizing Capitalists in government and the IMF refer t, with contempt, as "liberal."

We are liberal, Our political-economic goals of state provided education, retirement and health care is what they call "socialism."

[Haech]

Well there are some econometric data that indicates that privatization worked for liberal economies like Hong Kong and Singapore and the South American Miracles. I can't recall the exact source, but several minutes on wikipedia should do the trick. I'm as liberal inclined as the next person, but there are justifications for privatizing and using markets as tools. This view is well articulated by the works of Milton Friedman.

The problem is when privatization is taken to excess. I hate to frame things like a class struggle because that isn't what economics is about, so lets just say privatization as a mechanic is favored by some political groups even when the justification isn't there. My hero, Krugman, has written tons about this. Google his critique of the life of Milton Friedman for an informative, not to mention fun, read.

[charles brough]

Originally Posted by Haech

Well there are some econometric data that indicates that privatization worked for liberal economies like Hong Kong and Singapore and the South American Miracles. I can't recall the exact source, but several minutes on wikipedia should do the trick. I'm as liberal inclined as the next person, but there are justifications for privatizing and using markets as tools. This view is well articulated by the works of Milton Friedman.

The problem is when privatization is taken to excess. I hate to frame things like a class struggle because that isn't what economics is about, so lets just say privatization as a mechanic is favored by some political groups even when the justification isn't there. My hero, Krugman, has written tons about this. Google his critique of the life of Milton Friedman for an informative, not to mention fun, read.

A good read on that subject is the works of Naomi Klein, "Disaster Capitalism" I think the title is. She shows "the other side of" Milton Friedman's work. I agree with you that some functions do well in corporate hands---like picking up trash and garbage. . . The problem of "Big Government" is as bad as "Big Business." Government is wasteful and overlapping, and business is aimed at profits at the expense of all else. I think what works best is government regulation---if business is not allowed to lobby Congress and the regulators themselves!.

[Lumber Joe]

Originally Posted by Haech

Well there are some econometric data that indicates that privatization worked for liberal economies like Hong Kong and Singapore and the South American Miracles. I can't recall the exact source, but several minutes on wikipedia should do the trick. I'm as liberal inclined as the next person, but there are justifications for privatizing and using markets as tools. This view is well articulated by the works of Milton Friedman.

I doubt that you can get convincing results on that issue though econometrics, but just from commonsense privatization and letting budget free from burden of subsidizing caused intensive economic growth. Tatcher era is a good example of this.