This then is how a conservative, free market America will work. Privateers create their own demand in collusion with legislators who are funded by the privateers.
This of course, perverts the role of the legislators who are representatives of their constituents. "Representing" the interests of the private sector is legal, but ignoring the rest of the population has a foul smell. The biggest problem?
The private prison system already introduces bad incentives into the policy-making process because people stand to make money from a more punitive, rather than a more effective prison system -- and in Arizona with SB 1070, we're seeing how that dynamic works as applied to illegal immigration. This isn't new; private prison companies have been in the business of detention for years -- but SB 1070, and the possibility that other states will follow Arizona's lead, is nothing short of a bonanza for an industry that profits from a harsh, ineffective immigration system.
Free marketeers are asking us to trust that their motives will match up with what's best for the population. This is but one example of how they don't. If the Republicans succeed in their quest to repeal government services of all types there will surely be more examples like this, or of the family in Tennessee whose house burned to the ground while firemen watched, or health care denied or dropped because of the profit motive.
What a wonderful world it will be when our roads, our health care, our community safety, our zoning laws, our public lands, city parks, community centers, our utility infrastructure, and our public education system all come under the loving care of CEO's and corporate privateers who will turn all of these into money-making bonanza's. I wonder.. where will the money come from and where will it go? That great sucking sound you hear? That's what's left of the wealth of the working classes swooshing into corporate coffers.
Yes, what a wonderful world...
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