Starve the beast

How to do gummint.

In the world according to ALEC, competing firms in free markets are the only real source of social efficiency and wealth. Government contributes nothing but security. Outside of this function, it should be demonized, starved or privatized. Any force in civil society, especially labor, that contests the right of business to grab all social surplus for itself, and to treat people like roadkill and the earth like a sewer, should be crushed.

Because, the national chairman of ALEC explained on Fresh Air yesterday, creating jobs isn’t the job of government; corporations are the ones that create jobs.

O rilly? I thought what corporations did was cut jobs as much as they possibly could without cutting production. I thought the job of corporations was not to create jobs but to make lotsa money for the shareholders. I thought one favored way of doing this was cutting labor costs. Jobs are all very well, but if they don’t pay anything, they tend to be more trouble than they’re worth. (I should know; I don’t get paid anything; but then I don’t call what I “do” a “job.”)

Well anyway. The Republican are determined to push us all off a cliff, so none of it matters. In a couple of weeks everybody except the very rich will be penniless. Whatevs.

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