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Some may have wondered why Wild Wilderness has frequently and vigorously weighed in on the very unwilderness-like issues of road privatization and traffic congestion pricing.
We did so because those issues are reflections of our signature issue, "The Corporate Takeover of Nature." We did so because the same privatization ideologues are leading both battles. We did so because the identical forces are at play in both issues and the same outcomes can be expected in both issues. Most of all, we did so to convince our readers that The Corporate Takeover of Nature is part of something bigger --- that being The Corporate Takeover of EVERYTHING.
Pasted below is a much condensed, new, Jim Hightower essay. It's about the corporate takeover of roads and related transportation infrastructure. It's a topic about which I have written both directly and indirectly in many hundreds of postings that were focused upon the issues of recreation user fees and the privatization of outdoor recreation infrastructure.
When will people stand up for that which is theirs??? We're rapidly losing our shared infrastructure, our country and our democracy. Perhaps people will fight back when they understand what is at stake. The appended article helps explain what is at stake.
Scott
--- begin CONDENSED quoted ---
Read the original, fully version, at:
http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/1309
July 2007, Volume 9, Number 7
Based on the lie that companies do everything better than governments do
Politicians are selling our bridges rather than building them
By Jim Hightower, Hightower Lowdown
The gullibility of anyone who thinks it's possible to buy the Brooklyn
Bridge is an old punch line, but today the joke is on us. In these
weird times of privatization fever, buying bridges is no longer
considered preposterous, and old Will would be appalled by the crass
morals of both the sellers and the buyers in these increasingly common
transactions.
What's at work here is a convergence of gutless politicians, right-wing
ideological fantasizers, conniving investment bankers, and raw
corporate greed. What has drawn them together is the incandescent,
transformative, blinding, neon-green force that rules American society:
money.
If you're an antigovernment, privatization zealot, those are joyous
numbers, for they mean that state and local officials are more
vulnerable than ever to your pitch that public assets are better placed
in corporate hands. For years, such corporate-funded, right-wing think
tanks as the Reason Foundation have dreamed of the moment when they
could impose their ideology on the public -- and here it is.
The corporate players
Why are corporations laying down such sums to run toll roads? Because
these are high-fat sugar bombs with whipped cream dollops and sprinkles
on top.
First, the corporate owners get monopolistic control of prime routes of
travel. This provides a steady (and steadily increasing) flow of tens
of thousands of captive customers every day. The corporations have a
guaranteed cash flow that's literally driven to them!
Second -- and this is the biggest factor of all -- private owners get
to raise toll rates. Elected officials are wary of hiking tolls because
of the political backlash they can suffer, and the better pols actually
give a damn about keeping costs affordable for regular people. But
corporations are not subject to the electorate and thus have no qualms
about stiffing the public.
When corporations and their political enablers first push a
privatization scheme on a state or city, they invariably claim that it
will be in the public interest because "everyone knows" that
corporations are more efficient than government. What's "efficient"
about these deals is that corporate operators can freely raise our
tolls to cover their inherent inefficiencies.
Third, if a free-wheeling ability to jack up tolls is not enough to
fatten the investors' bottom line, corporations receive two other
advantages that the privatizers don't like to mention. The new
operators receive hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks, and
instead of staffing the system with full-time public employees getting
decent wages and benefits, these private operators shift to low-wage,
parttime workers with no benefits. So taxpayers subsidize the
conversion to "free enterprise," and the reward to the community is
worse jobs than it had before. What a deal!
A raw deal
For those of us without the wealth to profit from privatization, this
is a mighty rocky road to travel. Instead of providing universal public
service, our prime transportation routes will be priced at what the
market will bear. Working stiffs, small businesses (from truckers to
maid services), and others -- the majority -- will be economically
burdened or forced onto clogged side roads.
We'll also be giving up any semblance of democratic control, ceding
decision making over fundamentally public matters to selfinterested
private executives cloistered inside board rooms. With long-term
leases, decisions about major repairs or expansion 10, 20, or 30 years
from now will rest not on public need, but on what will make the most
profit for the shareholders. The corporation can refuse to add lanes,
can raise tolls to do so, or can even sell its lease to another party
that might choose to cover its cost of purchase by lowering the quality
of service.
What we're losing here is the whole idea of public purpose. These are
the people's assets -- belonging not just to all of us here today, but
to those who went before and to all those yet to come. Politicians need
to know that these are not "theirs" to sell, that no one can "own" our
public assets as their private property.
This abandonment of the public trust and the common good is a
leadership issue of Rooseveltian proportions, yet no one running for
president has made a peep about it. If they did, they'd tap into a rich
reserve of public resentment against the rip-off deals, the
profiteering, and the very principle of selling what is ours.
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- Privatization 
