Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

Social Security is Not for Sale

Marc Batko | 02.09.2004 14:19 | Social Struggles | World

The market is a tool effective after fundamental political questions are answered: What kind of society do we want? Are education, health care, housing, water and land public goods available to everyone or privileges?

SOCIAL SECURITY IS NOT FOR SALE

The Market as a Tool

by Marc Batko

Alan Greenspan, the 78-year old head of the Federal Reserve, has “served” 5 presidents and is acclaimed as “hard-working”. Recently he gained headlines warning that social security and medicare are in fiscal trouble. People must expect to work to age 70, he implied.

If social security raised the income cap, financial problems would disappear. Presently no social security tax falls on incomes over $86,000.

Are solutions repressed? Does the state have a social nature or is the state only a security- and power state?

Mainstream consciousness accepts the uncontrolled market economy as total, absolute and without alternative. According to Adam Smith’s theory of the invisible hand, the unrestrained market brings optimal production and distribution. Everyone pursuing self-interest is said to bring the common good. In reality, basic rights become privileges when the market is not balanced and tamed by the populace. Water, land, education, health care and electricity become privatized and unaffordable for the large majority. In truth, the neoliberal myths bear bitter fruit. Self-interest is legitimated and the common good narrowed or distorted to system support.

The market is a tool that is effective after fundamental political questions are answered: What kind of society do we want? How can we protect people from comodification or idolatry? Should the economy serve people or should people serve the economy? Should society strive for egalitarianism or the survival of the short-sighted? The market that efficiently optimizes production can blindly destroy its own foundation (nature) and unconsciously privilege those with better starting conditions. The social market economy, the basis of the German social system, embeds the market in a larger system and vests persons and communities with rights of social protection.

The messianic vision has always been powerful in mobilizing people for a better life. The vision where the wolf and lamb eat grass together, where a child leads them, where everyone is safe under his or her fig tree and no nation knows war any more can help us make the “quantim leap” from the greed model to the justice model.

In Germany, social democracy is atrophying as the equality theme is replaced by equal opportunities. The unemployed are blamed for unemployment. While only one job exists for seven jobless, prime minister Gerhard Schroeder echoes the reactionary evasions of Helmut Kohl. “There is no right to laziness”, Schroeder repeats.

Corporate tax evasion has caused state deficits. Corporations play off communities and states and receive subsidies and tax write-offs. In Germany, corporations receive subsidies while relocating to Poland and Malaysia to profit from lower wages. In the US, CEOs receive 418 times the salary of their lowest employees in 2003. In 1960, the relation was 40 to 1.

The truth that increased purchasing power creates full employment is hardly heard amid the neoliberal trickle-down mythology. Corporations stylize themselves as natural laws or as suffering servants. Sins of the market do not exist, only sins against the market. That corporations have responsibilities as well as rights seems blocked in mainstream and elite consciousness.

The social risks of old age, unemployment and sickness cannot be simply renamed personal responsibilities. If this happens, social polarization and helplessness result. While few profit from the increased productivity, millions must choose between food, housing and health care.

The draft of the European Union constitution contains a new right, entrepreneurial freedom, that trumps other rights (cf. “The God of the EU Constitution” by Ulrich Duchrow on www.portland.indymedia.org). How can the corporation be brought under the rule of law? How can the “personhood” of the corporation be removed? How can states and communities free themselves from being hostages to “deadbeat” corporations?

Here are some starting points for a social and future-friendly market economy.

1) Creating a social net is the precondition for sharing working hours. A future of sharing and solidarity requires sharing work time, lifelong learning and treasuring disposable time.

2) Domination by capital and neoliberal logic can distort education to apprenticeship and conformity.

3) Social polarization and division of society occur when government only enforces the interests of the rich.

4) Mending our own pockets, confronting hemorrhages (military obsolescence, corporate enrichment, corporate tax evasion) and discovering the stories in ourselves are revolutionary.

5) Cooperation and competition can coexist. Cooperation, not violence, is an anthropological constant (cf. Gottfried Orth, “Cooperation, not Violence” on www.mbtranslations.com).

6) Public goods must remain public. The community or the commons has a sovereignty over water, land, electricity, health care, housing and education. If they are privatized, basic human rights become privileges. Human life is then sacrificed on the altar of the total absolute market. Long-term necessities are sacrificed to short-term constraints.

7) The state has a social nature and isn’t only a power and security state. We face the distortion and rewriting of history and obstruction of free flow of information. The empire wants to destroy memory along with imagination, vision and personal development.

8) Nature like children has rights in itself and is the foundation of future life. Neoliberalism reduces nature to a sink, an external or a free good.


Let there be peace and let it begin with us. By involving and not distracting one another, we become people of hope. In discovering the stories in ourselves, in focusing on the free person rather than the free market, we make absurd the “endless” stories of office buildings. Our growth in vision, imagination and wisdom could be unlimited; the growth in material things is limited and frustrating. Our story of interdependence and liberation must not be drowned out by Toyoto time or Labor Day sales.

Marc Batko
- e-mail: mbatko@lycos.com
- Homepage: http://www.mbtranslations.com

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech