Privatization and Supply Side Economics

So, the Nazis were already using the word "privatization."  I didn't know that.

 

Thanks for this.  Very interesting.  I must praise myself for having figured out, by observation, and by reasoning, what was already being discussed in the scholarly and semi-scholarly literature.

 

Will keep and forward to selected true-believers in supply-side economics.  To review, I allege that supply-side consists of four main elements:

 

1.  Free trade (guarantees that jobs in high labor rate countries are lost, and replaced by jobs in low labor rate countries; also allows the elite ownership class to avoid labor and environmental protections once their factories are rebuilt in low labor rate countries);

2.  Flat tax (or, what we have now, "near" flat tax; this guarantees that wealth sorts to the top, and it is allowed to stay there);

3.  Privatization (puts former government or public utility monopolies or near monopolies in the hands of a wealthy elite);

4.  De-regulation (allows all of this process to proceed without hindrance; however, it also builds in massive instabilities which are inherent in unregulated free markets)

 

Supply-side was created about 1981, in order to provide a theoretical justification for the policies that the Republican leadership at the national level was about to put in place.  Academicians who argued for the "new" supply-side doctrines were given promotions, easy book deals, paying board appointments, and lucrative speaking engagements.  The prime exponents of supply-side were Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, and Larry Summers.  Keynsian economics fell in to eclipse after 1981.    Its exponents were ignored. The supply-side policies eventually promoted conditions that brought on the Crash of 2008, although I am not aware that anyone has said this publicly. 

 

Supply-side, which favors an elite, is the natural ally of fascism.  Keynsian economics, which favors the majority of people, is the natural ally of socialism.

 

Supply-side is not actually "new."  It is an ancient way of organizing an economy.  Kiss the ring, and receive your monopoly business.  Stop kissing the ring, and your business will be taken away from you.