We no longer have the discipline and intelligence to plan, and that is our biggest problem, according to James K. Galbraith, who wrote a piece called “Plan” in Harper’s Magazine. [1]
Our system is not capitalism. Our economy has a large public sector, which at its best was competently concerned with research, defense, financial stability, environmental safety, social security, and large measures of education, health care and housing. Today, after thirty years of attack on government, all these functions are damaged and in peril.
The rot comes from predators posing as conservatives and mouthing the rhetoric of “free markets.” They are not actually interested in free markets. Their goal is to use the government to build monopolies, to control resources, to block regulation, to crush unions, to divert as much as possible from taxpayers into private pockets. They have a reckless attitude toward war-making and they put the financial system in peril by failing to enforce standards of ethics and transparency. As a result, they imperil the country’s credit in the world. True conservatives recognize this, which is why they defected from Bush and McCain long ago.
Galbraith argues that “planning” has too long been a dirty word and that it is time to change that. I can’t argue with him, in light of the lack of plans regarding numerous threats to the American way of life, including the lack of coherent plans regarding the invasion of Iraq and the deregulation of Wall Street.
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