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Assault on the Commons
by Fr. John S. Rausch
October 2007
In 1903 John Muir took President Teddy Roosevelt on a three-day camping trip to the Yosemite wilderness. There among the ancient sequoias and cascading waterfalls, Muir convinced T.R. to preserve the beauty before them. Later Roosevelt would argue that the concept of democracy includes future generations, because it would be undemocratic to diminish the nation’s resources for present profit: "We do not intend our natural resources to be exploited by the few against the interests of the many."
A millennium and a half before, in 528 C.E., Roman Emperor Justinian proclaimed, "By the law of nature these things are common to all humanity: the air, running water, the sea and consequently the shores of the sea." Justinian’s code, widely known as the Public Trust Doctrine, insured the heritage of all citizens by protecting the commons.
The commons describe the many resources we own collectively. Some commons represent physical assets like the global atmosphere, ecosystems, mountains, roads, wildlife and clean water, while other commons comprise public institutions like libraries, museums, schools and government agencies. Unlike markets, where people need money to participate, the commons generally provide equal access to a resource. The children of the poor can enjoy the playground at a city park, while the kids of the wealthy may own their own Jungle Jim set. This access to a park represents a civic or social right and not a privilege enjoyed by only the elite.
Today, however, the commons face a threat to their very existence by an untrammeled spirit of privatization. After three decades of portraying government as inept, beginning with President Reagan’s famous statement, "Government is the problem," privatization has become the solution. Advocates of privatization see laissez-faire individualism and free market economics as offering efficiency, smaller-sized government and greater individual choice–appealing sound bites. In reality, the commons pass into private hands, especially to corporations, and the people, not government, lose.
Indiana leased its 157-mile Indiana Toll Road with hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks to a foreign consortium for the next 75 years for $3.8 billion. Economist Roger Skurski valued the road over that period at $11.38 billion. After 2010 the consortium can raise the tolls by a specified percentage each year which drivers can either pay or drive the alternative, clogged circuitous routes between Toledo and Chicago.
The myth persists: corporations are inherently more efficient than government. That comparison mixes grapefruits with avocados. In the global economy, corporations pledge loyalty to their shareholders, not necessarily to the country or the common good. Corporate efficiency comes largely from paying lower wages to employees and occasionally from shortcutting the suppliers they buy from and cheapening the products they deliver. The savings from this efficiency not infrequently find their way into extravagant executive compensations and higher profits.
Conversely, government has an obligation to serve everyone, including those needing higher cost services, such as rural postal patrons. Responsible legislators using the ability-to-pay principle can raise taxes to insure delivering public services and preserving the commons for all. If lawmakers avoid the tax debate and choose privatization, corporations will cherry-pick the most profitable parts of a public service and leave the most costly for government.
Government at all levels is experiencing the push for corporate takeovers in schools, parks, prisons, hospitals, tax collection, environmental protection, police work and military forces. During this assault on the commons, people of faith need to ask in a moral context: are there any functions, or responsibilities, of society that should never be outsourced for profit–but rather preserved for future generations?
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