Steven Cohen, writing at Huffington Post (“We Need to Respond to the Attack on Public Service,” June 13), writes that “the profound and intensifying attack on government and public service” is cause to be “frightened.”
Let me start by saying I’ve fallen afoul of many libertarians by defending public sector employees like those in Wisconsin against reflexive charges of parasitism. If they’re engaged in a legitimate function like teaching kids or delivering mail that would still exist on a voluntary basis even in a stateless society, and the state currently crowds out voluntary alternatives, they’re no more blameworthy than the workers in Soviet state-owned factories.
And I’ve argued that public sector unions frequently empower such workers against those at the top rungs of the state, and might be a useful tool for genuine privatization — i.e., Proudhon’s vision of devolving state functions into voluntary social relationships. That means, instead of the right-wing “privatization” agenda of auctioning off government functions to crony capitalist corporations, mutualizing them as consumer cooperatives owned by the recipients of services. Anyway, I’ll proudly back a teachers’ union local against a superintendent of schools, any day of the week.
Nevertheless, the term “public service” really activates my gag reflex. Like “statesmanship” and “reaching across the aisle,” it belongs in the kind of drinking game you play when you see managerial centrist hacks like David Gergen, Chris Matthews and David Brooks gathering to feed on a cable news talking head show.
On any given day, if you follow Radley Balko’s blog, you can see stories of “public servants” planting evidence on suspects, launching no-knock home invasions in which they shoot pets and wave guns at children (all over the peaceful ingestion of substances the state decided to “forbid”), and sending people to prison on testimony from jailhouse snitches coerced into perjuring themselves. The “public servants” in the prison guard and police unions lobby the state for ever more draconian and invasive extensions of the Drug War. The “public servants” in airports subject their public “clientele” to degradation and humiliation on a daily basis.
Every “public servant” in the Oval Office in my lifetime has launched wars of aggression that murdered innocent civilians by the thousands or hundreds of thousands, and the “public servants” in the military-industrial complex spend hundreds of billions maintaining garrisons in an empire of thousands of bases around the world, all to “defend” us against countries on the other side of the world that couldn’t possibly project military force more than a few hundred miles beyond their own borders. And all these wars are case studies in the kind of “public-private partnership” Cohen lionizes, fought in the interest of the esteemed Generals Motors, Electric and Mills.
Cohen does admit that the federal government is “too far removed” from much of what it deals with, and recommends federalism — decentralizing a large part of policy to local governments — as a remedy. Most of us on the Left have seen the sausage-making process in action in local government, especially as regards Cohen’s much-vaunted “infrastructure,” and it ain’t pretty. The average local government may be “responsive” to the Rotary Club yahoos who run things (they’re real fond of phrases like “public service” there, as well), but certainly not to us. The typical local government is a showcase property of local real estate developers, and its primary function is to provide below cost roads and utilities to the new cul-de-sacs and big box stores that spring up at every cloverleaf of the new government-subsidized freeway.
Cohen’s red herring about the big ideological war between “capitalism” and “communism” is beside the point. It presupposes some sort of rivalry between government and business, when in fact big government liberals have been — in the words of Roy Childs — “the running dogs of big businessmen.”
As far as I’m concerned, most of the rivalry between the so-called “public” and “private” sectors in American political discourse is about as genuine as that between the “good cop” and “bad cop” in a police interrogation room. What’s referred to as the “private sector,” by the sort of right-wing corporate apologists who typically pass themselves off as “libertarian,” is so state-cartelized and state-subsidized that the boundary between the giant corporation in the monopoly capital sector and the giant government agency is, at best, quite blurry.
The big business interests to whom self-proclaimed “free market advocates” like Dick Armey want to hand over the country are virtual creations of the state.
So Cohen’s aside that he “taught management to future public managers for about thirty years” sets off alarm bells for me. I’ve worked in both the “public” and “private” sectors, and seen deskbound parasites in both places downsize service staff while sending themselves to cushy management retreats. One pointy-haired boss is pretty much the same as another.
In fact Cohen is an advocate for just the kind of government-corporate collusion that has defined actually existing capitalism for the past 150 years or more. He argues that “[T]he economic powers of the 21st century will be those that figure out how to develop a productive and sophisticated relationship between government and the private sector.”
That’s certainly true, all right. The “economic powers” we have right now — several hundred transnational corporations that dominate the global economy — owe their size, if not their very existence, to a “partnership” with government. It’s the kind of partnership where government subsidizes their basic operating expenses and allows them to externalize the inefficiency costs of large size on taxpayers, severely limits price and quality competition through regulatory cartels, and enforces so-called “intellectual property” laws as entry barriers from behind which privileged corporate pigs can extract rents on artificial scarcity.
Just look at Cohen’s examples. There’s the USDA-agribusiness complex, which (parroting Cargill propaganda) he says made America “the world’s breadbasket.” And of course, beloved of all true liberals, the Interstate Highway System — built under the direction of DOD Secretary Charles “What’s good for General Motors” Wilson, and which is now the basis for the big box “warehouses on wheels” business model that has destroyed Main Street.
In short, government at all levels provides the kind of “public service” you have a hard time escaping if you don’t want it. It’s understandably popular with the “public” of corporate fat cats and coupon-clipping rentiers. But whoever the customer is for such “public service,” it’s not you and me.
Translations for this article:
- Portuguese, “Serviço Público”? Estou Tirando Meu Time de Campo.
Citations to this article:
- E.D. Kain, On So-Called “Public Service”, The League of Ordinary Gentlemen, 06/15/11
Excellent, Kevin!
Boy Howdy! That's the cool thing about fascism–the participation rate is Outstanding, once you get folks nice and scared. Whether it's that useless parasite scum that scoops my union dues or the thumb-sucking "manager" that wants 10 hours' output every 8 hours makes small enough difference, and whether they are nominally from the gummint or the so-called private sector makes none at all.
Without big business or big government there would not be a digital network for you to transmit your believes.
Kevin wrote, "Let me start by saying I’ve fallen afoul of many libertarians by defending public sector employees like those in Wisconsin against reflexive charges of parasitism. If they’re engaged in a legitimate function like teaching kids or delivering mail that would still exist on a voluntary basis even in a stateless society, and the state currently crowds out voluntary alternatives, they’re no more blameworthy than the workers in Soviet state-owned factories." – there are private alternatives to teaching and package delivery. Haven't you heard of home schooling or private tutors or private schools? The main purpose of government school teachers isn't to teach little Johnny to read, but to shut up, sit down and follow orders. So since there are 'voluntary alternatives' to these activities I guess Mr. Carson will now agree that these people are parasites as they could find alternatives outside of the State to make a living, right??
And you know this…how?
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I've never seen someone so brazenly miss the point.
Well done.
“Anyway, I’ll proudly back a teachers’ union local against a superintendent of schools, any day of the week.”
Why? Neither of them exist for the benefit of your child or mine.
Last school year I taught a world history class for a tiny non-State funded college (it lost accreditation and hence funding back in the nineties, and has not regained it, mainly because of funding issues, ironically). Let me assure you, I wasn't doing it for the paycheck. I've also had a fair amount of experience with small, lower middle-class and below private schools and homeschooling groups (as opposed to the white-flight private academies that are supported by well-off people); I can also assure you that such operations are not being done for profit, nor are they likely to accrue any. A couple weeks ago I bought a nice used desk from a private, alternative education model high school that has gone under for want of funds. I could go on. We live in a system of near-monopoly by the State in these things; while alternatives exist, they are thoroughly marginalized either at the top (white-flight academies) or the bottom (marginal, alternative, even fringy operations). The former are very limited markets for teachers; the latter are pretty much impossible to make a living in, even the minimum wage worker sort of living.
This is not to deny the atrociousness of compulsory education and State near-monopolization of it (from preschool to post-grad). However, if you want to make a living teaching- which is not in and of itself any sort of vice- your options are severely limited, through no fault of your own. This fact should not preclude efforts to break out of the system and establish working, viable alternatives outside of State control and the dominating paradigms of statist education.
"The main purpose of government school teachers isn't to teach little Johnny to read, but to shut up, sit down and follow orders." That's right. John Taylor Gatto has documented this well. The worst people I've ever known besides cops have been teachers. There were a few nice ones too but the historical reality is that the government education system is one of oppression.
I guess my disagreement with articles like this put me in the 'agorist' camp rather than 'mutualism'. I'd personally like to see 'public education' fall. I don't even care if it's replaced by nothing. It's the root of so much of our problems. After people go through it they're rendered unable to dissent or think for themselves for the rest of their lives.
Agorism and mutualism aren't exclusionary, brah. You can be an agorist and a mutualist at the same, just like you can be a syndicalist and a mutualist at the same time (and STILL be an agorist!). This seems to be a trend lately, of self-professed "agorists" confusing a tactical means to achieving our goal with political economy.
For the most part I agree with your assessment of how "students" turn out after 12 years of public school. But there are exceptions. Take my three kids, for instance, all public skooled. They'll all get right up in your face at the drop of a hat. If anything, they're even MORE independent minded than their old man.
It is possible for a parent to counteract the effects of public schooling. Look at all the young people who have flocked to Dr. Paul's banner over the past few years, most of them are the product of public schools and they're obviously able to think for themselves.
"I'd personally like to see 'public education' fall. I don't even care if it's replaced by nothing. It's the root of so much of our problems. After people go through it they're rendered unable to dissent or think for themselves for the rest of their lives."
I have seen plenty of agorist blame their own insurrectionary incapabilites and analytical shortcomings on the state. In Denmark we have free higher public education. People are in general critical of the state and market and any naïve proposals or de-ontoligical approaches. Like bad US remakes of good European films; libertarianism became distorted when it reached the shores of US. Proudhon had a systemic approach. By choosing to work with people Carson has proven to be a genuine revolutionary. Agorists are harmless reactionaries. Pin pricks. Public employees do not represent a detour from the real struggle (between labour and big capital). In fact they are the only class that can bring an entire economy to its knees. Whats the root problem then? Unbalanced property.
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"If theyre engaged in a legitimate function like teaching kids or delivering mail that would still exist on a voluntary basis even in a stateless society, and the state currently crowds out voluntary alternatives, theyre no more blameworthy than the workers in Soviet state-owned factories."
How does Mr. Carson know what services would and would not exist on a freed market? Perhaps the school system as it exists today would vanish entirely and the plight of public sector teachers' unions is indeed more harmful than good?
Labor militancy is great and at this point I consider myself a supporter of the movement brewing in America, but there are instances where being an Anarchist I will find myself against the public sector in favor of local autonomy..
Take for example the New York Teachers Strike of 1968. New York wished to decentralized the public school system. While the Black community welcomed the move because they sought independence from the White-dominated system, the Socialist Teachers Union saw the move as a threat to collective bargaining. While I support collective bargaining, I undoubtedly would have taken the side of the African Americans who wanted to do away with the previous system.
I wouldn't be surprised if something like this happens again. Independence is a central factor to ACE (African Centered Education) schools, especially organizations like CIBI, (Council of Independent Black Institutions) while maintaining the status quo runs rampant in the agendas of certain teachers unions. These examples refer to education, haven't researched enough to make a similar warning about other parts of the public sector.
Libertarians who use the Internet are as hypocritical as Protestants who use the Latin alphabet.
You are too kind to government teachers. They may do some things – teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic – which would be done in a free market. However, government schools teach subservience to the State; they teach politically-correct attitudes. Project D.A.R.E. even goes so far as to teach children to snitch on their own parents. Civics, history, and economics courses may claim to be unbiased, but usually prefer government solutions to every problem. Rare indeed would it be for a government civics course to proclaim "that government is best which governs not at all."
The great national project of this century should be an effort to develop a smart-grid, renewable energy system to provide clean power for a growing economy. That project is not even on the national agenda in the United States. Perhaps it will be invented in China instead.
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