Stop Paying
the
Rich -- Increase Funding
for Social Programs
 The Alberta
government has
announced a series of new
pay-the-rich schemes. The most recent announcements include:
- the leasing of 4,400 rail cars by the Alberta
government to
ship bitumen to the Gulf Coast at a price to the public treasury
of $3.7 billion over three years;
- $1 billion to private interests building
partial
upgraders; and
- $80 million towards the construction of a
private
methanol
plant.
In all, these particular pay-the-rich schemes of
the
Notley
government amount to $6.7 billion. The $6.7 billion arises from
the social wealth workers have produced, which has been
subsequently
claimed
by government as public funds. Some may also be borrowed from
private moneylenders. The government is now handing these public
funds to the financial oligarchy to sustain their private
interests rather than have those funds go towards funding social
programs and public services or even new public enterprises,
where the enterprise profit would return to the public treasury.
Such pay-the-rich transactions and practices are examples of
extortion and theft of the social wealth that belongs to the
working people by right, which should go towards strengthening
the public interest in favour of the people rather than the
private interests, control and class privilege of the rich.
To put this amount in perspective, the $6.7
billion is
greater than government revenues received from royalties paid on
non-renewable resources ($3 billion) plus corporate income taxes
from
all
sectors in 2017-18 ($3.6
billion).
The global energy cartels have seized control of
Alberta's
vast energy and other natural resources and a large portion of
the capacity to work of its working people. The oligarchs accept
no social responsibility to care for the land, natural
environment and security of the people. Not only do they
expropriate the added-value workers produce from transforming
natural resources into use-value, they demand to be paid from the
public treasury and to use publicly built infrastructure for free
to
further their narrow private interests and control.
 The value the
financial
oligarchs receive from social
programs and services in the form of educated and healthy working
people and physical infrastructure is enormous. The energy
cartels could not function for one day without the services
provided through public programs. They demand to receive the
value from these services without acknowledging or realizing in a
proper exchange the value they receive. The public schools,
universities and health care institutions produce healthy and
educated workers the big companies employ without recognizing the
public value and returning it directly to the institutions and
workers that produced it.
The oligarchs receive value from publicly-funded
research at
universities and public research facilities where new
technologies are developed and handed over to the big companies
to further their private interests and control. They receive
value from the public roads and bridges they use, from the public
transit and other essential public infrastructure, which the
economy requires to function. Just imagine the problems that
could be solved if this social wealth were honestly exchanged and
made available to the people, economy, society and environment
and the financial oligarchy were forced to accept an average rate
of profit and nothing more for their investments.
On the front of private investments and state
borrowing, the
disinformation is over the top. In fact, a modern economy with
bountiful natural resources and a skillful, experienced and
trained working class, such as exists in Alberta, does not need
loans
from private moneylenders. A
step towards such a pro-social direction imbued with social
responsibility would be for the state to end the pay-the-rich
schemes, out-of-control private investments and borrowing; put a
moratorium on interest payments on the province's outstanding
debt until its legitimacy can be determined, and bring all
wholesale internal and external trade of means of production,
such
as oil and natural gas, under a public authority.
A new direction would insist that all private
investments in
major projects must be at an agreed average rate of profit and
not a penny more with a public authority determining a price of
production and market price openly and scientifically.
Albertans have had enough of the abuse of the
energy
cartels
and their privileged oligarchs. They want a modern social
consciousness in command of the main sectors of the economy that
develops the economy for the good of all humanity and the social
and natural environment, not for the narrow private interests of
the global rich.
This article was published in
Volume 49 Number 8 - March 9, 2019
Article Link:
Stop Paying
the
Rich -- Increase Funding
for Social Programs
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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