I also don't understand the claim that sponsoring all of the press must necessarily follow from sponsoring part of it. It is perfectly possible for part of the press to be sponsored by political parties, part of it to be sponsored by labour unions, part of it to be sponsored by Big Money and part of it to be sponsored by the state.
That's actually how it used to work in Scandinavia, until right-wing ideologues set out to undermine our independent public radio. I don't usually hear claims that Scandinavia is a communist dictatorship - well, I sometimes do, but only when I'm stupid enough to follow a link over to FreeRepublic...
(And as an aside, the Danish press is all subsidised to some extent through various regulations that benefit organised publishers over - say - boy scout pamphlets.)
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
Sponsoring part of the press amounts to creating an official organ of press. Been there, done that.
Sponsoring part of it also won't stop capitalist rats from making even more capitalist papers, better quality, larger audience, slogans well instilled inside. So in order to be faithful to the purpose, you need to owe all the press; then you get to forbidding any other press but the official one.
I was speaking about sponsoring/subsidizing by the state though. Granted, what you say about Scandinavia sounds quite differently and I find fewer reasons of mistrust. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
I don't see why public press should necessarily be lower quality than the commercial press. In fact, it is often the other way around - the public press does not have to worry about the bottom line, so they can let their reporters actually do some expensive investigative reporting, instead of copying what they're fed by spin-doctors.
But of course, that requires that the state-owned press is insulated from political pressures. Much the same way universities have to be, and for much the same reasons.
You should come live in Scandinavia for a while. See socialism with a human face :-P
Heck, apart from the fact that it's cold and dark half of the year, you might even like it here...
State universities are not always quite so insulated from either state bureaucracy or political influence. There is a point to those americans saying that whatever the state touches, becomes inefficient, a perk and a political territory. The bad side of democracy. Their extremist solution is no better though.
My opening diary was about my latest two week trip to Scandinavia actually. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
State universities are not always quite so insulated from either state bureaucracy or political influence.
Tell me about it... our universities have been brought to the ragged edge of dysfunction by a right-wing imbecile of a minister who insists on micro-managing everything.
There is a point to those americans saying that whatever the state touches, becomes inefficient, a perk and a political territory.
And this isn't true for the things corporations do?
It is of course true inasmuch as "inefficient" is taken to mean "catering to other purposes than blindly maximising profit." Which is the usual wingnut definition. As to whether public institutions are in general less efficient at fulfilling their roles in society... well, no, as public railways and utilities can attest.
Corporations do other kind of bad things, they don't do bureaucracy. Their goal is always the market and the profit, which is normal, their reason of existence, and which must be well regulated to avoid abuse (like insurance corporations refusing to reimburse people on pretexts).
OTOH state's role is to serve the society, and bureaucracy or political perks are NOT normal. Not the same thing.
As it happens, the private railways example is IMO an example of bad regulation, even though I tend to consider this a domain of public service and a strategic domain, and so I even wonder whether it should not be, as such, state property. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
Corporations don't do bureaucracy? ROFLMAO! Oh, they certainly also do those other Bad Things you mention. But they sure do bureaucracy too... Yeah, it makes them less effective and hurts their bottom line, but that doesn't prevent them from doing it.
I agree with you that railways are a bad example, though, because you're right, they shouldn't be private. They were just the most obvious example I could think of off the top of my head of excessively bureaucratic private organisations vs. much more efficient public sector ones providing essentially the same services.
