Loony Guardian writer Kate Arnoff isn’t a big fan of capitalism, despite using services created by capitalism to let us know that she doesn’t like capitalism, and blames capitalism for Hurricane Harvey. Then there’s this from back on August 1st
Here's me on why there's no good reason for private electric utilities to exist https://t.co/lXeFq0ii9B
— Kate Aronoff (@KateAronoff) August 1, 2017
From the article
What’s clear now is that the electric utility sector is broken, and its biggest and most influential firms can’t be trusted to work in the public’s best interest. Massive transformations in the electric power sector are both desperately needed and eminently possible. Updating our outmoded grid system, for instance – making it easier for customers to sell back power to their power providers – could yield fairer rates for customers and hundreds of thousands of well-paid jobs. The only way to get there is to take investors’ endless thirst for short-term profits out of the equation.
Of course, America’s many publicly owned utilities are in need of massive reforms, too. The sector as a whole is beholden to a series of archaic regulations written before solar and wind generation was possible. But the kind of wholesale transformation science demands of it will be virtually impossible so long as a small handful of wealthy elites are calling the shots.
Dethroning the utility barons isn’t such a crazy idea. The Labour manifesto Jeremy Corbyn ran on in the last UK general election called for a “transition to a publicly owned, decentralised energy systemâ€. In the US, we have our own examples for how to put electric utilities back under democratic control. Some of them, like our New Deal-era rural electric cooperatives, already are. And towns and cities here and around the world are moving to make power provision more low-carbon and democratic.
I’ve long been noting that one of the purposes of the ‘climate change’ movement is to put control of the energy sector under the total control of the Government. It’s all part of the overall scheme of Progressivism, an authoritarian political model. If they control your energy, they’re well on their way to controlling you, especially when you combine that with all the other things they want to control, like healthcare.
There’s no need to stop at electric utilities, either. Since the financial crisis, people on both sides of the Atlantic feel out of control of their economic lives, saddled with both mounting debts and stagnant wages. All the while, the rich are getting richer.
That so many aspects of our economy are controlled by so few people represents as much of a crisis for the planet as it does for democracy. Putting it back into public hands is an opportunity to start mending both.
That’s right, she doesn’t want to stop at energy, everything else should be controlled by government, using a 1%er argument. There is a case to be made that too few people in control is problematic. Switching that control to Government and the few people in control there is not the answer. Nor does it increase democracy. It increases despotism. If a private entity becomes overbearing, there are recourses. What of when the government does this? It doesn’t go away. There’s virtually no one to stop it.
