Topic: Political Theory
Socialism Part Two: Infrastructure

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Second part of a three part series on Socialism. Brief examination of United States Infrastructure and its relationship to Socialism.

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by Gene DeNardo
(centrist liberal libertarian)
Tuesday, January 27, 2009

In Part One of this article, Defining Socialism, Part One: The Land Mass, we attempted to define Socialism and discover its application to the American land acquisition. Socialism is the ownership of the "means of production" by the state. This seems to be the clearest and simplest of definitions, the least argumentative and a good starting point.

It is impossible to separate the land mass from the remaining "means of production" and in fact all sub sequential means must follow the use of the resource and land mass. We used a simple chain of logic to arrive at the conclusion that the United States by its mass confiscation of the Native's land without just compensation and with extreme use of force accompanied by resulting state ownership was a "Socialization" of the land base.

The resulting two century distribution and accumulation of wealth and assets within corporate control morphed the system into our present system, that of "Corporate Socialism". To exploit this idea further, it is necessary to examine the infrastructure that has evolved from this land base, used for productive purposes within our nation.

The most important segment of the economy is that of agriculture. People just have to eat! Land is the basis of this enterprise, which returns us to the content of our first article. The United States has never owned the land itself with the intent of the government to farm in any large scale way, although the government operated depression "poor farms" grew vegetables. On the other hand, the Homestead Act deeded millions of acres to the population to establish farms and homesteads. While this is an excellent example of "unsocializing" the land, there has been as much abuse of this process as use.

The leasing of federal land for farming and ranching purposes has never been accomplished to benefit the owners of this land, the citizens. Market rates have never been approached and the majority of the leases are now held by the largest corporate entities. In fact, industry interests possess deep seeded notions that it is their right to use the public land with little or no compensation.

Direct subsidies, tax incentives, import or export taxes, quotas, and price controls are a few of the myriad ways the federal government attempts to direct and control the agricultural markets. While none of this is actual "ownership" of the means, the bureaucracy and administration needed for these tasks is enormous. Again it is more of a "Corporate Socialism" as opposed to outright ownership. However, it certainly enables ownership of the means by the "advantaged" in contrast to those the government overlooks or punishes.

The transportation sector history is overrun with "managed" growth. Railroads, the first truly nationwide transportation option, are a story of corruption and giveaways. If you can fathom this, the companies were "given" 25 miles of public land on each side of the newly laid tracks above and beyond the scandalous contracts they were rewarded. This was all done under that familiar slogan of "national security"; apparently we sought to protect our land by giving it away!

The United States does truly "own" the highway system. It was designed, built and is maintained by the taxpayer. Although this tangled web of asphalt is taken for granted and never questioned, it is a blatant socialistic enterprise.When we throw around slogans like "free trade", we rarely think of the road systems. There is no argument that socialized roads subsidize trade to the detriment of local production. Outside producers are given access to local markets through the use of the public transportation system with the cost shouldered by the taxpayer. Local production is obviously disadvantaged and often cannot compete with large scale remote production centers. The term "Anyplace, USA" sums up the homogenization that takes place partly as a result of subsidized transportation to marketplaces. Regional character and economy is sacrificed to centralized production with subsidized distribution.

Airports are usually built and constructed by local bonds through "port" infrastructure. The majority of these are taxpayer financed and government owned. Airlines pay a token portion of the cost in use fees and reap the majority of the benefit. Again, trade is subsidized, this time including international trade. The local citizens enjoy the double bite of paying for the subsidy and losing local enterprise to outside interests. The bonus is jet fuel air pollution and ozone depletion which are included in the package free of charge!

The energy sector had the potential for a wonderful expression of the free market. This was not to be, as the Army Corp is mainly responsible for massive centralized power plants with high voltage long distance distribution. The possibilities that existed for smaller, more localized and cost effective production of power, with resulting lower environmental impact have been squandered under the guise of "progress". Instead, we have a brilliant example of socialization for the benefit of the corporate purse. The federal government built and owns a large portion of the power capacity. There has been some effort to "privatize" the plants financed by the taxpayer, but this is little more than energy sector handouts of completed public projects.

Whether hydro, coal fired or gas and now most recently wind, the land, resource, structures and plants were for the most part built or highly subsidized by the taxpayer on government land, or worse, land seized under imminent domain. The energy produced is marketed at bargain basement prices to what are known as "utility" corporations. This is another word for an energy sector monopoly. Utilities are mysteriously assigned a region in which they can operate without competition. Once a year, they send representatives to meet with a "utility commission" and present their case for how much they should be allowed to charge. There is some illusion of compromise and they are granted their wage increase usually regardless of actual conditions. It is no wonder these utilities are known as good investments for guaranteed dividends. Losses are not part of their reality. The government with the help of the taxpayer assures that.

Nuclear energy is barely worth mentioning. There would not be a single nuclear power plant in existence were it not for the financing and insurance of the federal government. These controlled nuclear explosions are creatures of the State and nothing but a side product of the war machine. This is without even touching on the very long term costs and health dangers of radioactive waste.

The grid system is the stranglehold of wires that siphon mega volts of energy from massive centralized power production facilities to metropolitan areas and industrial producers thousands of miles away. Their presence prevents any serious threat from localized free market production or alternative energy. We would have been light years ahead in these fields if the market dictated our course of action rather than this government installed tangle of wires and transformers. Areas such as Los Angeles, that have a natural need to conserve and limit growth or face the economic consequences of expensive power, instead drain subsidized power from as far away as Colstrip, Montana, often at rates lower than local towns bear. The Rural Electrification Program confiscated energy independence from farmers all across the Great Plains and stifled further independent development.

Water systems and especially the handling of sewage wastes are probably two employments of the infrastructure that may have naturally evolved to government controlled systems. It seems a cooperative, public sector effort could alleviate a lot of the problems and health concerns that the private sector might face.

I think government diversion and dilution of public resources {the preoccupation with various other tasks that could be handled by the private sector} has led to some inadequacy in performance of these two tasks. In fact, there are copious examples of the public disposal of waste in close proximity of public water intake. Most of the nation's drinking water, though considered safe by the same government interests that supply the product, is below quality standards. Corporate polluters have damaged countless watersheds with public funded cleanup pending or in the case of existing municipal supplies, paid for day to day in the purification process. We must keep in mind that our nation originally possessed a vast resource, with much of it fit to drink as is. In its virgin state, selection and distribution of a pure water source would have been the preeminent task, not expensive taxpayer funded purification and chemical sterilization. Consumer cost never attains market levels and this encourages use rather than conservation. In fact, municipalities usually charge less as the consumer uses more water, mostly to the benefit of the industrial user, who consequently are primarily responsible for the majority of resulting pollution.

Although we achieved through the work of our government, the elimination in large part disease caused by pathogens transferred from human waste, it has been done at great expense. The infrastructure surrounding waste is enormous. Alternative methods have been overlooked or ignored or simply looked upon as one off trials. Usually, the resulting effluent that is released into bodies of water may be sterilized but is in no sense clean water. This is only complicated by the addition of heavy metals and toxins into the drains and piping that end up at treatment plants. These are difficult if not impossible to remove and add another industry subsidy to the taxpayer's bill.

As we saw in Part One of this series, the socialization of the land mass enabled the transfer of land wealth from public ownership into private hands. The formation and growth of the US borne mega-conglomerate corporations coincided with this massive giveaway. Much of the infrastructure created by the taxpayer funded projects has been done for the benefit of these same giants. In some cases, like transportation, the US government retains ownership rights of these "means" fulfilling the traditional definition of Socialism. But in most cases, the government meddles and intervenes, using tools like subsidies and tax breaks or even dead give aways, to encourage one sector or one faction of a sector and discourage others. These actions are the building blocks of our Corporate Socialist economy, a unique hybrid system that has not been present in human social systems till our time.

In the third and final segment we will analyze the two most adamant Socialist aspects of our government, the Warfare and Welfare bureaucracies.

Related Articles by Author:

Defining Socialism, Part One: The Land Mass

Corporations and the Free Market

Is There A Just Tax?I

©2009 Gene DeNardo, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Last modified: Tuesday, January 27, 2009

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