The Wealth of Nations

I’m back to my remedial college reading, this time from The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. At the beginning  Smith talks about “savage societies” versus “ civilized societies in light of how we treat people. In primitive societies everyone one works hard just to survive and those who can’t – children and the old or infirm – are often abandoned to die; a Darwinian “survival of the fittest mentality, cruel but necessary.  In civilized societies, because we are affluent, we can afford to take care of the young, the old and the infirm without any undue burden because of wealth we can produce collectively. Thus we have the difference between savage and civilized societies.

It seems to be the agenda of some of the far right wing politicians of our society to lift up the value of primitive societies.  In Gov. Scott Walkers’ 144 page budget proposal we find these elements. If enacted the bill would allow government appointed officials to making sweeping cuts in health care for low income families and ignore normal legislative procedures.  It would also allow the selling of any state-owned heating, cooling or power plant to private entities with or  without soliciting bids, whatever they deem best for the state. This is another move towards privatization of enterprises for the common good. Let’s hear it for cronyism. This comes along with the drive to crush unions.

I think Governor Walker needs to do some remedial reading of the basic of a free enterprise society along with me. We are a wealthy nation perfectly capable of taking care of all of our population with good health care and economic security. Our problem is that our wealth is concentrated among a very very small number of folk who appear more savage in outlook than civilized.