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Infrastructure Development to Pay the Rich Time for Democratic Renewal and a New Direction for the Economy!
There are infrastructure projects across the country that cast long shadows over public spending on infrastructure. These infrastructure projects essentially enrich a handful of private developers, landowners and financiers. They are the people who decide, control and profit from infrastructure projects. The corruption is so thick it even raises questions about the necessity of the projects in the first place. The necessity for infrastructure in a modern economy is self evident, which in effect is why corruption appears to be so easy to cover up with high-sounding phrases, for example, nowadays especially by claiming that something is "green." Industrial mass production demands a level of productivity in energy and water consumption, sewage disposal and transportation that only big expensive projects can deliver. And it seems, the larger the project the greater the sleaze. Lenin, in 1916, exposed the imperialist practice of enriching land developers and banks by extending mass transit to the far reaches of sprawling cities: "Speculation in land situated in the suburbs of rapidly growing big towns is a particularly profitable operation for finance capital. The monopoly of the banks merges here with the monopoly of ground-rent and with monopoly of the means of communication, since the rise in the price of land and the possibility of selling it profitably in lots, etc., is mainly dependent on good means of communication with the centre of the town; and these means of communication are in the hands of large companies which are connected with these same banks through the holding system and the distribution of seats on the boards."[1] How the infrastructure is conceived, decided, controlled, financed, organized, built, maintained and managed from inception to ongoing use is the crux of the matter. Within the present situation, a ruling oligarchy decides and controls these matters and manipulates public opinion to accept the decision. The people do not control or decide any aspect of the development even though it directly affects their lives, the economy and the social and natural environment. The ruling elite suggest no alternative is possible except to pay the rich, generating cynicism and distrust and casting a pall over society as nation-building is turned upside down, degenerating into criminal nation-wrecking. Of course this is not the final word on the matter for, as with everything, the people are quite capable of turning the situation around in a new direction that serves their interests and builds the New and leaves the filth behind.
In the case of infrastructure projects in Ontario, the corruption is so blatant it is little wonder Premier Doug Ford is crying at press conferences pretending he cares about the people. If it stinks and gleams like rotting fish, it most probably is rotten. Time to stop paying the rich and clean out the filthy stable through democratic renewal and a new direction for the economy! For the example of the corruption involved in the construction of Highway 413 in Ontario click here. Together Let's Build the New! Note |
Stories
of the corruption and sleaze tend to serve scandal politics against the
government of the day and feed the liberal illusion that a sleazy
government can be replaced by one which
is not sleazy. No better case exists than that of Ontario to prove that
this is not the case. Subsequent governments, no matter the political
stripe of the party in power, have been corrupt on
very grand scales. It is the system of party government which is
corrupt and requires replacement with a system that elects citizens to
the legislature and these citizens elect their
government and hold it to account. They must not permit narrow private
interests to influence the direction of the economy, government
projects, policies or regulations.
