Dear John,
We keep hearing that America should be "run like a business."
Let me make it clear: Government should NOT be run like a business!
The goal of business is to make the most profit possible.
The goal of the government should be to make life better for its people – to help our nation achieve the common good. It’s in the very first sentence of the Constitution: “To promote the general welfare.”
But making peoples’ lives better costs money and it doesn’t return a profit. Well, hold on a second…making a profit is not the point of government!
Check out our video this week as we take a look at the actual point of government. Then help us get the word out by sharing it on all your socials!
Should we gut healthcare services for our veterans because it’s not profitable? What about inspecting our food? Should we cut Social Security and let seniors starve?
And think about schools. Highways. Libraries. National Parks. Mail delivered by the postal service. These are public goods that are paid for by the public and are available to everyone. That’s the beauty of them.
We are citizens, not customers. We are voters, not shareholders.
And if you run a company into the ground, you can go bankrupt like Trump, and start a new one. But if you run the United States into the ground, you’re wrecking people’s lives, their rights, their livelihoods. You can’t just shrug it off and start another country.
That’s why we must insist, again and again: the purpose of government is not to show a profit. It’s to work together to achieve the common good.
Thank you for watching,
Robert Reich
Inequality Media
