Who Pays for Public InfrastructureThe financial oligarchy refuses to pay for the public infrastructure it uses that benefit its business activities, such as public highways, bridges, public education and health care and mass transit, amongst others including research and development. The building of the infrastructure makes huge profits for big business while much of the payment for these necessary investments in a modern economy falls to the public purse without revenue returning to the governments from the economic activity they engender and the value they produce. The issue is never broached by the rulers or their media and education system that government debt to private interests is completely unnecessary, wasteful and harmful. The state could borrow from itself and repay the debt from the added-value workers create in an expanding and stable economy. If the government used the money borrowed from itself to invest in public enterprise then the increased value and income from those enterprises would quickly repay the debt and more, making the increased value available for investments in social programs as well as providing stable employment for workers. Governments usurped by the oligopolies use the public revenue they have collected to pay the rich to build, maintain and manage all manner of public infrastructure including public roads, bridges, mass transit, housing, hospitals, educational institutions etc.
Public infrastructure must be seen in their true form as public means of production essential for all economic sectors and enterprises, and not as articles of consumption for which individuals must pay. Private conglomerates nowadays operate as global cartels and coalitions which maraud with impunity to control the socialized economies and seize whatever benefits they deem fit in the moment. Those who control the cartels and coalitions have the aim to seize maximum profits under all conditions and circumstances. Anyone who claims they can be moderate or socially responsible is in denial for their own self-serving interests. The striving of the cartels and coalitions is to control the productive forces. If they fail to control them, then they destroy them. The cut-throat competition over control clashes inexorably with the striving of the working people to mobilize the modern interconnected economy and all its parts to meet their needs and organize it to function seamlessly and collectively without crises. The problem posed for the working class is to begin by declaring that there is an alternative to the present crisis-ridden and destructive policy which pays the rich. The alternative begins by insisting that governments must be duty-bound to provide Canada with a modern aim which serves the people and society. The economy can be organized so that each part supports each other and complements the whole under the control and direction of the actual producers.
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Once public
infrastructure is built and up and running, the
private enterprises of
the imperialist oligarchy refuse to realize (pay
for) the full amount
of the infrastructure they consume in the course
of operating their
businesses. A problem posed for the people to
resolve is to ensure that
when public or private enterprises consume public
infrastructure during
the course of their business as means of
production, the amount
consumed and transferred into the value of their
production must be
realized and accounted for in a transparent,
complete and direct manner.