Public v Private, no; public and private, yes

Here in Oregon, in discussing our intramural difficulties, we refer to the “urban/rural divide” — the gap in attitudes and policy approaches between those in the cities and those in small towns and remote areas. However, in light of the arguments being raised as we complete the Measures 66/67 campaign, I think it’s clear we have a more significant divide to deal with: that between the public and private sectors.

Many Oregonians see the public sector as a feeding trough for powerful unions and their over-compensated members. The jobs that most public sector employees hold are necessary to maintain the safe and healthy quality of life Oregonians demand, whether urban or rural. At the same time, many liberals, who support almost uncritically the public sector, view the private with a jaundiced eye. The damage wreaked by financial corporations, developers, the auto industry and others does little to convince the critics of “business” that the private sector can be trusted.

Add to this an election about whether or not to raise business taxes, and the potential for the public-private debate to sour into toxicity is great. I’ve gotten involved in a number of conversations, far too many on Twitter, and rather than continue to try to state my view in 140-character bursts, I’ll set out some things here.

First and foremost, the public sector is absolutely vital to any modern, flourishing economy. Only the public sector can effectively, efficiently and — vital within a democracy — fairly provide services necessary for an economy to prosper: education, public safety, transportation and utility infrastructure, regulations to protect those vulnerable to the unscrupulous and careless, and the redistribution of wealth that prevents a few from gaining tyrannical power over the majority. The specific nature of the institutions and practices that accomplish these goals is a matter of on-going debate and experimentation; that such services can best be provided by government — I would argue, only be provided by government of, by and for the people — is a principle to which I gladly give allegiance.

Second, the private sector must be strong and healthy for a democratic, market-based society like the United States to survive, much less prosper. Most people work within the private sector; most wealth is produced by the private sector. More importantly, the private sector allows individuals to pursue goals and dreams: not just make a living but create a dynamic, fulfilling career. I have spent most of my life in the private sector and am trying desperately to make a career as a self-employed businessperson, so this is not just theory: it’s personal.

The difficulty in talking about the private sector is that two levels of business enterprise exist: the sane and rational, and the out-of-control corporation. Today’s Supreme Court ruling that corporations — bizarrely conceived as persons, not because of any law or Court decision but because of a comment by a Court clerk over a century ago — highlights the danger and ugliness corporations can present. We now have a category of corporation of which neither Adam Smith nor Karl Marx ever dreamt: too-big-to-fail. Any corporation that is too big to fail is also too big to exist. When the collapse of a single corporation can demolish a state — GM — or a handful of corporations can bring a nation to the brink of a second Great Depression; those are businesses that have no place in a democratic, market-based society. The financial enterprises that robbed and then nearly ruined this country do not function in any market to which the majority of American businesses have any access; the lack of credit to fuel a recovery is clear evidence of the abyss between these two levels of business.

Oregon and the nation need a strong, thriving private sector. We need businesses that provide humane, creative work at living wages with good benefits. We need millions of these jobs, not minimum-wage clerks and baristas but jobs that provide careers and satisfaction — not to mention a flow of revenue that not only keeps government functioning strong and effectively but without putting an unjust burden on any persons or businesses. I believe the majority of Oregonians share this belief, whether they are a union steward, government manager or private business owner. Everyone is willing to pay their fair share, and everyone wants the rest of his or her community to enjoy a good standard of living.

We lose track of this in the heat of political debate and as campaign slogans obliterate the space for rational discussion. On one side, the unions and public employees are seen as privileged robbers of hard-working men and women; on the other, “big business” is greedy and could care less about either the services provided by the public sector or the people who live their lives in the middle- and working-classes.

Congress needs, at some point, to end the reign of terror visited upon the world by huge, unregulated corporations. The market needs to be made safe and fair for small- and medium-sized businesses, the kind that provide most of the jobs and wealth in Oregon. We need public and private spaces that benefit these businesses. To the extent that either government, by bad regulation and poorly designed taxes and fees, or businesses, through greed and over-arching self-interest, harm the market, they must both be made to answer to the people.

I believe Measures 66 & 67 are not only fair; they will preserve far more jobs than they can possibly cost. But the taxes to be approved by these ballot measures are bandaids and nothing more; Oregon’s tax structure is, to use a technical term from economics, fucked-up. We need to deep-six the kicker, we need to shift the balance of the tax burden from individuals (who now pay about two-thirds of the load) back to those businesses, and wealthy individuals, who can afford to pay more. We don’t need to cut government budgets more; those have been pretty well butchered. More taxes won’t fix our busted economy, something I think most members of the Legislature, including liberal Democrats, believe (hence their decision last year to cut $2 billion from the 2009-11 biennium before they even looked at tax increases).

What we need is to grow small and medium businesses in Oregon. Protecting basic levels of public service is key to this; that’s why Measures 66 & 67 are so important to the future of Oregon business. Two things stand out as absolutely necessary for Oregon business to recover: in the short-term, access to capital; and in the long-term, an education system that produces, year after year, workers who will fill existing jobs and create new technologies, products and businesses (and even make government work better). I hope the 2011 Legislature gets as creative as possible to find ways to provide capital to Oregon’s businesses of all sizes (I would love to see and am looking into new and expanded micro-loan projects). It’s going to take years to fix our problems with the schools, but if we can help small and medium-sized businesses, in particular, to recover and grow, we will benefit everyone.