The above image recently popped up on Facebook, which is where I saw it. That graphic suggests, of course, that some of the complaints we have about how our society operates - about how our society isn't working the way it should - are related to the fact that our access to the essentials we depend upon require us to navigate an economic system based on "profit."
The utilities that bring heat and light into our homes are profit-making businesses. So are the health care providers upon whom we rely when we are sick. This little graphic, above, even suggests that what we so often think of as our system of "national defense" is actually an activity that has one major purpose - making lots of money for "defense contractors," what former President Dwight D. Eisenhower called the "Military-Industrial Complex."
The graphic provides us with a pretty good critique, it seems to me. The system we rely upon to defend our health doesn't really care about our health all that much. The utilities that provide us with the ability to heat our homes, and to take hot showers, don't really care whether we freeze or not. Those who provide essential goods and services care mainly about their own profits. Note, however, that is what they are supposed to do. That's the way we have set things up! Let's call our system "capitalism," at least for purposes of discussion, since that is what the graphic calls it. I do note that the graphic seems to object, actually, only to "predatory" capitalism. Many, however, think that all capitalism is pretty much"predatory," since that's an inherent problem with a system that ensures that people will get what they need only if someone else can make a profit providing it.
For purposes of discussion, let's agree that if there are problems with the way we have set up our economy and society, we should be trying to think of alternatives. After all, if we believe in "self-government," then we should always be willing to talk about and debate alternatives to how we are governing ourselves now. The big question, though - at least it seems to me - is how could we set things up differently? We could establish a system in which "the state" would operate the businesses that we have decided are really vital to us, with the expectation being that the enterprises we ourselves would own would then deliver their goods and services to us "at cost." No profit to the producers. Maybe that would work! Most people, I believe, are not very much convinced that this kind of "communism," or "state socialism," or whatever name we'd choose to apply, would really work to make things any better.
Currently, our way to try to deal with the problem identified in the graphic is to have our national government regulate the business corporations upon which we depend, in an effort to prevent them from abusing their positions of economic power. That system more or less started in a big way after the Great Depression, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt leading the charge. That system of government regulation is now, sometimes, criticized as putting a "Deep State" in power. That criticism comes, mainly, from those who favor a lot less regulation, i.e., those who own the businesses that are making the profits that the image above is calling "predatory."
Thoughtful persons should be able to see, I think, that even if there are problems with our "regulatory government," and I do think that there are, firing most of the people now involved in the regulatory effort - which is what is proposed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, and their Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) - is going to cause a lot more problems than it solves, and it certainly won't eliminate the critique made by that graphic image. In fact, it will probably make things a whole lot worse.
Maybe there really isn't any good alternative to the kind of regulatory government we have now, to curb the excesses of profit-driven corporations, but here is one thing that we might want to think about. If the profit-based nature of our current system leads inherently to "predatory" behavior, and if our current system of governmental regulation of profit-driven corporations does not seem satisfactory, let's consider whether we could broaden the "ownership" of corporations. They could still pursue profits, and the government could still apply democratically-enacted limitations to regulate then, as now, but who would get the profits would change.
Currently, it is assumed that the "owners" of privately-held corporations should get the profits that the corporations makes. Everyone in the society is also supposed to get their "cut," which is what "taxes" are really all about. A corporation gets taxed on its income, so if it is making profits, the government (small share) and the owners (big share) get the economic benefits that come with those profits. Workers and customers, of course, both play a key role in helping to produce the profits, but they get no share of the profits themselves - at least not directly. What if they did?
What if there were a direct payoff to workers when the corporation for which they worked made a profit? And what if customers who helped produce the profits got a share of those profits, too? This would spread the "ownership" interest from corporate stockholders to just about everyone. Just about everyone would be tangibly rewarded when a corporation did well, and made a profit. There would be a "common cause" involving not only the corporate owners, but the workers and the customers - and of course the government, which would still be able to tax the corporations.
That would change the dynamic, wouldn't it? Wouldn't that kind of approach help reduce the concerns outlined in the graphic at the top of this posting?
Is there a truth there, in that graphic? I think there is. Has our system of governmental regulation, on the New Deal foundation, helped eliminate the problem. I think "yes," but there are lots of complaints.
It is worth talking about some new angles on the problem. Or, that's what I think, anyway!
Let's keep our mind open to another "New Deal," coming soon to an economy near us!
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