K. Sabeel Rahman, president of the think tank Demos, proposes wisely in The Atlantic that the way to fix our nation’s economy and restore equity is to reverse decades of privatization and instead invest in public infrastructure. This would not only create millions of jobs but would restore the balance between the public and private spheres, which are dramatically skewed in favor of the haves and against the have-nots. I wish he said more about the privatization of public schools, but he does not fail to mention the subject.
He begins:
When I refer to public infrastructure, I mean something much more expansive than roads and bridges; I mean the full range of goods, services, and investments needed for communities to thrive: physical utilities such as water, parks, and transit; basics such as housing, child care, and health care; and economic safety-net supports such as food stamps and unemployment insurance. But under America’s reigning ideology, public infrastructure like this is seen as costly, inefficient, outdated, and low-quality, while private alternatives are valorized as more dynamic, efficient, and modern. This ideology is also highly racialized. Universal services open to a multiracial public are vilified, coded in dog-whistle politics as an undeserved giveaway to communities of color at the expense of white constituents. The result has been a systematic defunding of public infrastructure since the 1970s.
Now under the extreme pressures of the pandemic and the economic collapse, the true costs of this underinvestment have become appallingly clear. As the country looks at how to respond to both the recent demands for racial justice and the needs of survival and rebuilding from the COVID-19 crisis, any recovery agenda will have to overcome these ideological and institutional attacks on the idea of public infrastructure, and commit to investing more dollars into our public infrastructure, dismantling racialized barriers to access, and embracing an economic narrative that defends these public goods.
On an economic score alone, massive investments in public infrastructure would pay off. Every dollar invested in transit infrastructure generates at least $3.70 in returns through new jobs, reduced congestion, and increased productivity, without accounting for the environmental and health benefits. For each dollar invested in early-childhood education, the result is $8.60 worth of economic benefit largely through reductions in crime and poverty. A universal health-care system would save Americans more than $2 trillion in health-care costs (even accounting for the increased public expenditure that would be needed) while securing access to life-saving care for more than 30 million Americans. The fact that federal and state governments fail to make these investments is not a matter of limited resources, but rather of skewed priorities. The 2017 Trump tax cuts of $1.9 trillion sent most of its gains to corporations and the wealthiest Americans; the United States has spent more than $820 billion on the Iraq War since 2003, and hundreds of billions every year to fund the prison-industrial complex.
Any 21st-century civil-rights and economic agenda must involve a massive shift in our public investments. The human cost of the failure to invest in these crucial social goods falls disproportionately on Black and brown communities. In the midst of the current economic crisis, more than a quarter of Black and Latino households report missing their last rent payment, and more than one-fifth of Black and Latino households are food insecure. Our public-investment decisions reflect who and what we value: Too often, the decision to underinvest in public infrastructure has stemmed from a desire to restrict access to those goods and services for people of color, in an attempt to preserve the benefits of public infrastructure for wealthier and whiter communities.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is a great article on the pitfalls and the government’s social negligence of ever increasing privatization. Privatization allows companies to decide how and where services are rendered. As we have seen in public school privatization, it is the poor black and brown communities are targeted for private takeover. This separate and unequal treatment is unfair and anti-democratic. Privatization can be used as a tool to keep certain groups down. It can deny access or even marginalize some diverse members of society. Privatization can be a vehicle for racism, sexism and preferential treatment for certain groups..
“Our public-investment decisions reflect who and what we value.” Our disinvestment in the common good points to our the government’s social dereliction. Through lobbying our billionaires and corporations have turned a nation that should represent all people fairly into one that mostly represents wealthy interests. We have been bombarded by politicians on the right that have claimed that we need a “small government” because government is the problem. Even on the left, corporate Democrats have been too complicit with this agenda because it is backed by mountains of dark money. Our elected representatives need to be defenders of the common good.
Income inequality in this nation is extremely out of sync with what is fair and just. Our nation has become a hyper capitalistic cesspool in which the strong consume the weak. Privatization is a massive transfer of wealth from working people and the poor to the already wealthy. Regular people in this nation are continuously on the losing end of political decisions while the wealthy are on the winning end of tax breaks and tax avoidance strategies. The promise of America is supposed to be a government of, by and for the people. We need to return to that vision and stop undermining and eroding the common good.
well said: hyper capitalistic cesspool
It’s a good idea but Rahman’s plan should not ignore an essential part-
the prevention of deposed privatizers, as individuals, from finding other ways to destroy Main Street.
A couple of people come to mind, Michael Milken who was legally blocked from the financial sector after his conviction and moved into the education sector. And, John Arnold, who moved from Enron to the education sector and to attack public pensions.
Oh how right you are. The capitalist argument, Look at all the good my money does, all the people employed by me, suits every supporter of Trump. They balk at the next step of social benevolence. They will do all they can to avoid paying taxes. In defense they argue, the state would have less tax ( for police other services etc) if I did not profit the community by employing all my staff. Anyway, they continue, any money the state gets it wastes. As a softener they get tax relief while the poor get slugged with a disproportionate tax liability. It alway amazes me those most injured continue to swallow this twaddle. Thanks for the article and the careful responses.