Why Can’t Government Do Good Things?

Mr. Trump and his ilk bemoan the cost of taxes, although at least fifteen countries (advanced countries) in the world pay a larger percent of their income in taxes than we do.  I won’t recite the benefits that those countries supply to their citizens.  The point is that the men Trump employs consistently are trying to destroy what the average man would consider good government.  They are always the villains, destroying caches of water left in the desert for exhausted refugees fleeing on foot ( ICE is responsible for this atrocity. )

Government is capable of good things.  For example, we will take a historical incident– the emergency that the country faced after Pearl Harbor, in December 1941 (and secretly, before that) was a military emergency but it justified a complete mobilization of our country’s energy.  This involved using the labor of every person available.  Propaganda films made at the time showed a psychologist testing a group of men and putting every one of them into a job that fitted his abilities and particular needs, rather than rejecting some and employing others.  This type of policy is unthinkable in a capitalist entity because there is an apparent loss of profit involved in employing everyone who applies.

This (capitalist) type of thinking is short-sighted, however.  First, the advantages gained in testing each applicant and determining their most efficient operating modes, so to speak, will easily overwhelm the cost of hiring every applicant.  It is axiomatic that a happy employee is an efficient employee.  What could make one happier than going to a job that one is most efficient at?

In addition, the priorities of a government in war are different from those of a capitalist company.  At war, one would want the greatest power regardless of profit, whereas in capitalist competition, the greatest profit is the goal.  Thus, using the labor of every person who wants to work is the way to maximum overall power but only using the most efficient applicants will yield maximum relative profit.

It is these qualities which make the situation of present-day national governments so marginal.  Many nation-states are failing, have failed, or are on the verge of failing– in part because they have been forced to accept loans from banks or other countries and the obligation to service those loans is beyond their power to support.  There have arisen a group of capitalist companies that rival in size and power national governments.  These companies are “too big to fail” partly  because they have become bigger than governments.

The issue in our current government is that the business men who have taken over are attempting to dismantle the entire government (aside from the military) because of their interest in profit rather than national power.  They are ham-stringing government because it is to their competitive advantage to do so.

Democrats everywhere must mobilize to prevent the destruction of good government!  It is time to stop paying attention to the distraction that is Mr. Trump’s personal behavior (past and present) and Twitter attacks.  The true issue is the business men in power who are trying to dismantle good government.

(the photo is from yesterday and shows an almond tree in blossom across the road from our house– spring is already here in the San Joaquin Valley)