An American Perestroika?
M. Orhan Tarhan
June 21, 2009
About a week ago, at the Outlook Section of Washington Post Mr. Gorbatchev had an interesting article. He said that the financial crisis here and worldwide shows that it is now time we should make changes in our capitalist system. He was polite enough not to say what these changes should be.
Of course Mr. Gorbatchev´s Perestroika in the 1980´s represented drastic change.. He also announced that the Soviet citizens would have some sort of democracy.(Glasnost) Apparently Mr. Gorbatchev did not know that drastic change cannot be carried out under democracy, because human nature does not like change. It can change though under compulsion. So Soviets had a mess.
The changes that America needs do not represent drastic change. Thus, they can be carried out under democracy. These are changes that I discussed in past articles.
The most important one is public funding of elections and a strict ban for corporations (Actually, any one besides the voter) to donate money to people who are going to be elected or are already elected. That ban will change the entire politics in this country. The sovereignty will pass from corporations to the citizen voters.
Another change that is badly needed is the Health system. I am glad that it is one of the changes President Obama wants to make.
Here, speaking of personal experience, I strongly recommend that the new system be not run by the government, because then complaints are solved according to political considerations and not according to medical considerations as it should be. Generally, government does a poor job in comparison to a commercial organization. I worked ten years for a government-run industry and over 30 years in the same kind of industry that was commercially run. In 1951 I had the privilege to visit the great coke-oven installations in this country. They were all commercially managed. The Karabuk coke plant in Turkey was government-owned and –operated. I observed that American coke-oven Installations were generally older than the Karabuk plant. The Turkish engineers were selected by competitive examinations and graduated from the best European Technical Universities. While American engineers were just selected from the general population of engineers and were not in that class at all. Turkish labor was considerably more loyal. A benzene plant operator had slept during the night and caused a few hundred liters of Toluene (Important for defense) to run to the sewer. That man cried for three days out of shame. We did not fire him, we were sure that he would never sleep on the job again. American labor would not mind going on strike and forcing the brick-ovens to cool down, thus reducing their lives. Yet the commercial American plants were much more profitable.
Some proponents of government managing show the military that is run by the government, to support their point. Certainly, the government can run anything, but it will not be as effective and low-cost as the commercial management. Did anyone try to run the military commercially and made the comparison?
In the foregoing I discussed two big changes for which I feel qualified to speak. There is another subject, the financial crisis for which I am not qualified to speak. The trouble is that most people who claim they are qualified appear to be really not much more knowledgeable than I am.
Of course Mr. Gorbatchev´s Perestroika in the 1980´s represented drastic change.. He also announced that the Soviet citizens would have some sort of democracy.(Glasnost) Apparently Mr. Gorbatchev did not know that drastic change cannot be carried out under democracy, because human nature does not like change. It can change though under compulsion. So Soviets had a mess.
The changes that America needs do not represent drastic change. Thus, they can be carried out under democracy. These are changes that I discussed in past articles.
The most important one is public funding of elections and a strict ban for corporations (Actually, any one besides the voter) to donate money to people who are going to be elected or are already elected. That ban will change the entire politics in this country. The sovereignty will pass from corporations to the citizen voters.
Another change that is badly needed is the Health system. I am glad that it is one of the changes President Obama wants to make.
Here, speaking of personal experience, I strongly recommend that the new system be not run by the government, because then complaints are solved according to political considerations and not according to medical considerations as it should be. Generally, government does a poor job in comparison to a commercial organization. I worked ten years for a government-run industry and over 30 years in the same kind of industry that was commercially run. In 1951 I had the privilege to visit the great coke-oven installations in this country. They were all commercially managed. The Karabuk coke plant in Turkey was government-owned and –operated. I observed that American coke-oven Installations were generally older than the Karabuk plant. The Turkish engineers were selected by competitive examinations and graduated from the best European Technical Universities. While American engineers were just selected from the general population of engineers and were not in that class at all. Turkish labor was considerably more loyal. A benzene plant operator had slept during the night and caused a few hundred liters of Toluene (Important for defense) to run to the sewer. That man cried for three days out of shame. We did not fire him, we were sure that he would never sleep on the job again. American labor would not mind going on strike and forcing the brick-ovens to cool down, thus reducing their lives. Yet the commercial American plants were much more profitable.
Some proponents of government managing show the military that is run by the government, to support their point. Certainly, the government can run anything, but it will not be as effective and low-cost as the commercial management. Did anyone try to run the military commercially and made the comparison?
In the foregoing I discussed two big changes for which I feel qualified to speak. There is another subject, the financial crisis for which I am not qualified to speak. The trouble is that most people who claim they are qualified appear to be really not much more knowledgeable than I am.
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