June/July 1983 RAIN Page 13 The Answer?• by Tom Bender standards of social benefit seems tied more to the overwhelming strength of our materialistic attitudes and lack of any sense of what "socially responsible" management would mean than to lack of potential. In theory, the social benefits of public enterprises should outweigh their "economic" handicaps, but in practice, this has rarely occurred. In consumer oriented industries, public enterprises appear a failure. They have found a successful role in utilities and in credit unions, co-ops and municipal services. Here they have operated within a market economy to provide enough countervailing power to compete successfully with corporate giants to curb major abuses of power by the corporate marketplace. Viewed pragmatically, public ownership or operation can probably be used as a response to specific situations where private enterprise, under fair game rules, has failed in its obligations and responsibilities. The same view should be taken toward allowing private competition into poorly functioning public enterprises. We need to keep healthy alternatives existing alongside each other as yardsticks to measure performance, to set up structures that encourage public intervention, and allow a shift back and forth between various public and private structures as the need arises. Experience suggests also that co-existence or competition (under equitable rules) between private and public enterprises can be a desirable state of affairs. Public and private utilities, banking, health services, insurance, retirement plans, and broadcasting already co-exist healthfully. A pluralistic economy may offer us greater freedom for innovation, experimentation, and continued viability than one based on either private or public enterprise. There is also a fundamental difference between different forms of capitalism and socialism. There is a difference between "making a killing" and "making a living," between the power and damage potential of large and small institutions, and between small ones that want to be big and small ones that want to be small. The small business sector of our economy is the source of most new ideas, products, and jobs. It contains the most efficient and responsive production units, competitive prices, and offers people more control over their work. The same is true of worker-owned businesses compared to nationalized big ones. With small businesses, the positive features of a market economy are gained, while they largely avoid the negative features associated with size and power, monopoly, and valuing capital accumulation over service performed. A small-business/fair-market economy—with any mix of private and public ownership— can probably provide a more sound basis for our society than either Big Capitalism or Big Socialism. In both our economy and ones where public enterprise is more common, the greatest problems seem to be caused by scale and values—by the domination of the market or planning by the power of a few large production units, by prices uncontrolled by competitive forces, by placing financial gain before human gain. Similarly, they are caused by unresponsiveness to the needs, resources, and desires of different people, communities, and regions. Big Business has stacked the cards against the small business person so greatly by control of the legal, financial, and political rules of our economy, that small businesses appear far less viable than they are in real economic or social terms. Restructuring these rules from a sound value base gives a greater opportunity to In theory, the social benefits of public enterprises should outweigh their ''economic" handicaps, but in practice, this has rarely occurred. solve our economic problems than any sweeping change from private to public enterprise. The similarities between capitalistic and socialistic societies are much more significiant than the differences upon which we focus so much attention. Definitions of socialism and capitalism overlap like crazy-quilts. They blend into each other in untold variations in practice. They grow from similar materialistic roots, operate so similarly in scale, values, bureaucratization, and in placing dollars before social and human development, that their effects are frequently indistinguishable. We need to look beyond the materialism basic to both systems for a sound basis for society—either can be a workable operating mechanism if built on sound values and restructured to serve those values. □□ Tom Bender is editor-emeritus ofRAIN. He presently lives at Neahkahnie Mountain on the Oregon coast.
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