Emotion seems to be clouding your usually keen brain, Angela. Or perhaps you aren't aware of the data concerning energy costs once they're "privatized". I can tell you that energy here in Ontario was in no way subsidized when it was fully in the hands of government. Public utilities were actually profitable. And yet, once the system was partly sold off to corporations, costs soared dramatically, and in precisely those parts of the system that were "privatized". It's only since privately owned corporations became involved that some have been suggesting that subsidies may become necessary for low income people, although that hasn't been done yet. The same thing happened in many other jurisdictions. The reality is that when we let privately owned corporations take over essential services, they hurt the economy through price gouging. That's simple fact, and I think all school children and geneticists should be taught this information.
And, while I agree that smaller economic units generally don't function as well as larger units, that's not a universal rule. In fact, much of Britain'e electrical power comes from dams on waterfalls and lochs in northern Scotland. And yet the people of northern Scotland pay far more for their electricity than people in England do. That is in fact one of the drivers of the separatist movement.
As for Detroit, I suspect that much of the rhetoric about how it got that way is thinly veiled racism, although I would assume you aren't aware of that. And a lot of what's been said about Detroit is simply false. For example, wages for city employees, on average, were not in fact all that high. I've discussed the issue with an economics professor at a Canadian university who visited places like Flint and Detroit to find out how the urban blight was created and whether it could happen elsewhere. She concluded that Detroit's troubles started in the 1950s when the level of automation in auto assembly and auto parts factories increased, reducing the number of people needed in those factories. Further automation over the decades compounded the problem. The fact that no state or federal government intervened to encourage population relocation or managed the reduction in size of the city meant that as people left of their own volition, buildings were abandoned, services were decreased and urban decay and urban crime increased correspondingly. The problem is not that some urban areas shrank but that the American political system didn't manage the change as well as many European countries have. Wallonia may have its problems, but it wasn't as severely neglected as the post-industrial areas of the U.S. so life hasn't decayed as much in Wallonia as it has in some American cities. Some degree of urban decay, reduction in services and a resulting increase in corruption and crime seems to have incurred in Wallonia, as Maciamo has explained, and perhaps some blight is unavoidable when an area declines economically, but things haven't reached the same level as in post-industrial areas that are neglected by government. I think there's an important lesson there.
Thanks, I guess?
Seriously, Aberdeen, there are issues about which I get emotional, but Belgian independence isn't one of them.
Obviously, we come from slightly different parts of the political spectrum. While I certainly see that there are things which can be criticized about capitalism, I still think it's far better than the alternatives. I hope that doesn't mean that we can't continue to have the kinds of rational discussions which I have much enjoyed. However, if you start bandying around words like racism, then all discussion is going to cease. I don't have a racist bone in my body, which should be obvious to anyone who has read my posts.
I also have more than a passing acquaintance with the problems of the inner cities, so forgive me if I'm not overwhelmed by the insight of a Canadian academic passing through...although the point she made about automation is quite valid. The situation is just much more complicated than that...
For one thing, you mentioned moving populations...that is something which obviously could not be done forcibly...we don't have that kind of government, thank goodness, nor would the people tolerate it. Even encouraging relocation, as well as the eminently sensible steps that could have been taken to make Detroit more attractive to other companies (and that were not taken by either the federal, state, or city governments) would not have solved the problems.
To where, for example, would you have encouraged emigration? And to what jobs? For that matter, what industries could have been encouraged to move to Detroit to take up the slack?
Automation is taking place in all industries. Plus, you don't need me to tell you that the most developed countries have an increasingly difficult time competing in the manufacturing sector with countries in the developing world which pay much less in terms of worker costs, both for labor and benefits. The fact is that there is just less need in the modern economy for the kinds of relatively unskilled factory work that once attracted thousands of people to certain countries and cities within countries.
The jobs which are being created, although they don't match in number the jobs that were created at the height of industrialization, require higher level skill sets. Once again, governments are at fault for not educating the younger people for these higher level jobs. The U.S. has a particular problem in this area, in my opinion, because the assumption has been that all young people are capable of attending and graduating from university programs, and so the kinds of trade schools and programs which exist in Europe do not exist to the same degree here. Even so, it's just a fact of life, in my opinion, that some people regardless of race and/or ethnicity will not be able to acquire these skill sets. That is a huge problem for the future.
In addition, however, one cannot ignore the other factors involved in the plight of the urban centers of the northeastern and mid-western "rust belt".
In Detroit, as in many of these cities, the problem with expenditures is not the salaries paid to city workers; it has to do with the pensions. Pensions that are much higher, by the way, than those paid by the private sector. They were supposed to be paid for with future revenues from taxation. Unfortunately, as the old industries downsized, they paid fewer taxes. Fewer jobs meant fewer taxes from workers and from people employed in all the ancillary businesses in the area. The solution chosen, that of hiking the taxes of the middle and upper class people in the cities merely caused these people to relocate to the suburbs or out of the area completely.
There are other drains on government resources as well. It goes without saying that the impaired, children, the elderly poor, and those unable to find work despite their best efforts should be helped by their governments. However, some government policies actually foster dependence rather than independence. Also, anyone who doesn't think that skyrocketing drug use had an impact on these cities and rural areas as well hasn't been paying attention. Ask any community leaders what crack did to their areas. In addition, the bearing of multiple children by young, uneducated, unemployed and unemployable girls is a sure recipe for poverty and dysfunction not only for the young women involved, and their children, but for their community.
Facts are uncomfortable things sometimes, but they must be dealt with honestly...knee jerk attribution of blame to one political ideology or another is not helpful.
And now, I think I've strayed far enough off topic.
