The Case For Big Government

[marmar]

from OurFuture.org:



The Case For Big Government
By Jeff Madrick

October 22, 2009 - 8:56am ET


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America had been living a free-market myth for a generation until the credit crisis of 2008 and 2009 descended on the nation—and the world. One expression of that myth, found frequently on the editorial pages of the popular media, was that government does not grow economies, business does. In other words, government, don't meddle where you're not needed. Politicians are even easier to belittle than government itself.

I have spent much of my professional life making the opposite point. Government does indeed grow economies. It creates jobs and it produces prosperity. When politicians make correct decisions, they indeed make economies grow. There is no example of a major rich nation in the world whose government does not educate its children and teenagers; build its roads, bridges, superhighways, and airports; establish regulatory bodies to minimize financial busts; develop sanitation and water systems, and health care standards; support those who are temporarily unemployed; and provide a public pension to the elderly and a subsidy to the poor.

Key progressive leaders participating in the October 29, 2009 "Building the New Economy" conference in Washington address what it will take to ensure that the new economy that emerges from the wreckage of the old will provide Americans with good jobs.

This is the call of big government. Label it proportional government if the words “big government” bother you. It is people getting together to do what they believe they must. And, yes, this is what good politicians do. Let's call it like it is.

As economies grow larger, societies more populous, scientific and social knowledge deeper, and interconnections more complex, government grows as well—at least in societies that succeed. And when government works as it should, it is also typically the leading agent of change. As economies progress, societies learn more, and expectations rise, government's main purpose is to manage, foster, and adapt to this change. It is a profound task.

Our own government has a history of managing and adapting, often radically, to change, looking ahead, not backward. It did so in the face of influential forces, fearing the future and aiming to protect established interests, which invariably opposed new obligations for government: financing the canals in the 1820s; building free primary schools starting in the 1830s and high schools in the late 1800s; developing government-built sanitation and water systems in the early 1900s that made the cities possible; creating a central bank to mitigate the disruption of boom-and-bust cycles and regulate unstable financial markets; enforcing labor rights such as hours worked, job safety, and a minimum wage; implementing vaccination programs and health. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009104322/case-big-government

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

1. Al Gore's MLK Day speech a couple of years ago was also eloquent on this topic. nt

[annabanana]

2. The framing of our government as "the other" by Reagan, aided by Ailes

has been a disaster for the country.

When people no longer understand that We are (or at least could be) "the Government".. there is no vestment in the system.

The scariest words in American History:


"The scariest words are 'We are the government and we are here to help you'".