I don't recall anyone saying that private search and rescue corporations should be relied upon to extract stranded survivors.

Your memory is faulty. Not only did people SAY that; the government DID it. FEMA relied on private companies to bring buses to evacuate the city. (They never showed up.) To the extent that the gov't didn't rely on private contractors, it relied on the military - the only government institution conservatives seem to want to insert everywhere, even where its competences are not appropriate.

It is accurate to say that the failure of government in New Orleans, from the failure to fund levee upgrades to the downgrading and cronyization of FEMA, reflected the administration's general lack of enthusiasm for the basic functions of government. Where I have my doubts is what any of this has to do with specifically women's concerns.

"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone

I think the appeal of market fundamentalism is based on the superior efficiency of private business over public government action in CERTAIN situations. For programs such as local garbage collection, proponents of market fundamentalism can cite actual numbers to justify their tendencies.

But, if efficiency is the basis of the support, I think it can be proved that some programs currently operated by a limited set of corporate entitites would be more cost effective if they were administered by the government. They don't necessarily need to be operated by the government, but they could be regulated to force a level of parity that would benefit more people.

I suspect that health care falls in this category, but I don't really know enough to have an informed position. I believe that publically financed campaigns would be the most effective way of debunking the notion that unfettered markets are always the best solution.

Your memory is faulty. Not only did people SAY that; the government DID it. FEMA relied on private companies to bring buses to evacuate the city. (They never showed up.) To the extent that the gov't didn't rely on private contractors, it relied on the military - the only government institution conservatives seem to want to insert everywhere, even where its competences are not appropriate.

My example was slightly off, but your point does not go to the heart of the issue.

What I should have written is that no one argued that the need for stranded individuals to be rescued should be treated as a market for private corporations to respond to. Or in other words, that the government should not act to rescue people because market forces would produce rescues. The fact that FEMA used private companies does not correspond to the creation of a market for rescues. FEMA using private companies is the opposite of a market--it is government action or interference effectuated through a specific manner.

Some argue for unfettered markets, emphasizing the natural intelligence of the system. This is countered by the many situations where markets are not free but manipulated by the large players (see health, defense).

A better "fundamentalism" would be to accept that markets happen, are difficult to suppress, and must be acknowledged as factors in policy. Black markets fit this definition, as does the current struggle between downloaded music and CDs. 

Markets can solve problems, with the caveat that those problems are only the ones solvable by market. Markets can't solve problems of common use, such as clean rivers and air, or broadcast spectrum allocation. Markets did not solve New York's water problems in the early 20th century--that took a long-term construction plan.

Markets can't see very far into the future; of course no one can, but we have to make decisions on the future, anyway. Energy is an example---given that mined fuels must eventually become difficult, the nation that sets up alternatives earlier may be the leader in the future. Another good example of non-market economics leading to economic success would the transcontinental railroad.

enews, a news service which too few good men bother to read

isn't that sort of an "over the top" speculation?

... has just reported that the hugely expanded bipartisan Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues now has the power to put women’s issues on the national agenda

AND

Without directly challenging Market Fundamentalism, they will ultimately fail to improve the lives of ordinary American women and their families

I don't think that all women would want to do this so I think your posting is weak because it sterotypes women.

Madeline Albright, for example, suggested that "500,000 dead Iraqi children were worth the price" and Condelezza Rice chair leads for the neocons.

So the Women's caucus will be as much a mud wrestling match as carrying the torch for humanity.

There are good men out there and plenty of evil women and there are good women out there and plenty of evil men.

Just like the dollar, "in god we trust" to give us "good men and women."

What do you mean "capitalism is science?" The power and legitimacy of economics as an academic discipline seem wildly overblown to me.

Those are all very good examples. Some economists refer to Utilities that you mentioned like Water delivery and electrical utilities as natural monopolies. Some are more so than others. It is possible to deliver these services to market without making them a natural monopoly run by the public sector.

Defense is sometimes refered to in this regard as well to avoid multiple armies vying for the patronage of the government. The colonials supplied militias as a compliment to the continental army.

Downloaded music and the like is a private property concern. Private property needs to be protected in order that people are free to exchange labor and services at prices they choose to negotiate. It is a function of a limited government to protect Life, liberty and property. A person should be able to own a tract of land without others tresspassing or stealing their land. That includes protection from the government stealing your property.

Markets can see into the future, but maybe not in the way some might like. You mentioned mined fuels. This year was the first year in 25 years that people have chosen to drive less, even though they have more money to spend. They are driving less, because it is more expensive to do so. The market is working. There will always be oil. There will never be a situation where someone is willing to spend 10 million dollars to drill for the last barrel of oil, if a driver is willing to spend only 20 dollars a gallon. The reason Bush is pushing alternative fuels is not primarily for enviromental reasons, it is a national security issue for him. He wants to make the trade imbalance with the middle east irrelevant.

The Railroad issue is similar to the broadcast spectrum. The IEEE, a non governmental standards body brings together commercial industry players to agree on standards such as 802.11 G for wireless internet devices. The governments sell spectrum to cell phone companies when the standards guilds could easily do the same.

The Railroads were laying tracks in different gauges. A standards body can solve that, the problem is having the rights of way that the government allows. This again is a private property issue. They botched that too, by allowing the Railroads to get free land along the tracks. California in its early days was run by Crocker, Huntington, Stanford, and Hopkins, because they had been given the monopoly by the governemnt through the railroads.

I'm not saying there are not places where the government shouldn't play a part, just that usually the market can do it better and when the government gets involved it should be to protect private property rights, because the little people usually get hurt. The Kelo case is a good example.

What?

Everything in Ruth's post is right on the 'money'. New Orleans is the best example of a rising tide that does not lift all boats, especially for those that are boat-less in the first place.

Do we want to live in a society that protects private property but lets its citizens drown on their rooftops?

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. Douglas Adams

"Capitalism is science" is a category error, and makes no sense. "Economics is a science" makes sense.

The free market is fetishized in a religious fashion by people who do not understand rather simple concepts like "externalities". And "don't dam the river, let it flow" is a particularly idiotic thing to say in a thread that partly addresses the flooding of New Orleans.

"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone

It is accurate to say that the failure of government in New Orleans, from the failure to fund levee upgrades to the downgrading and cronyization of FEMA, reflected the administration's general lack of enthusiasm for the basic functions of government.
*******************************************

I think you're mis-stating the basic problem, which was that work on the levees over a period of 40+ years had been poorly engineered and construction did not meet specifications. That was through administrations liberal and conservative and a congress run mostly by Democrats. That's more of a USACOE performance issue than the Bush Administration's lack of enthusiasm.

Help me out then. How might someone "fetishize" in a religious fashion the free market? Not trying to be "idiotic" here?

You might as well say, Climatology in the service of global warming is not science.

Capitalism exists as a concept and it is studied by economics. It can be proven by scientific methods that Capitalism exists and has a scientific methodology to it that makes it a subset of the Social Sciences.

The lackluster growth in Socialist economies of western Europe continue to have pathetic growth. The best thing for them to do is turn away from leftist economic models.

Capitalism is a market infrastructure that is made up of a set of economic policies. It arguably depends more on the state than the state depends on it. In your own words, the state has to protect private property from force and fraud and also protect the system from foreign invasion, enforce contracts and coin a uniform currency and weights and measures, among other duties.

Lackluster growth of what in which European economies? By what measures are you measuring those economies and relative to what other countries and systems?

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. Douglas Adams

Capitalism is Science. 

This is what the Trotskyites of the 30's--all those earnest CCNY left-wingers who later became neo-cons-- would have sounded like if laptops had been invented by then. Please get real. This country is not going socialist in the lifetime of anybody on this board, so figure out how government can harness the power of the market to achieve desirable social ends. Capping and trading emissions permits is one way; government subsidies for people to buy health insurance is another. Unless you taking this blog for college credit, don't waste people's time on sterile theories.

I was not stating that Capitalism MUST depend on those things. I said different goods,services and relationships lend themselves more to what some economists call "natural monopolies". Their argument is, and it is not my argument, is that having many electric companies wanting to string cable down one street to deliver electricity would be a problem for some. The market has solutions for that too. People would choose to live in a community that does not do that.

As I stated militias in the colonial period are a form of having more than one producer of military services and security. Protecting property, We have second amendment because we do not trust the government to always be there to protect our property.

I also gave examples of how industrial organizations, guilds and standardizing bodies can come to agreements on how the producers will operate. Uniform currency, who needs cash? Believe me where currency is involved, without a government making money people can create their own internet currency, and they have.

I am not advocating no government, I just think your statement that Capitalism depends more on the government than government depends on Capitalism is an extremely profoundly interesting, yet mistaken statement. The reason why we believe in limited government is for the very reason that government has an uncontrollable instinct to engulf free market economies and must be reined in constantly. Government feeds off of it. As I stated earlier, the Kelo case before the Supreme court is a perfect example of that. Many on the left and right agree on the danger of the decision. A city government that craves tax dollars, condemns poor people's homes, kicks them out through imminent domain to allow a fat cat developer to build a private development that will bring in more tax dollars. Robbing poor Peter to pay rich Paul. Private property rights be damned. In his dissenting opinion, Clarence Thomas, said in the 50s and 60s this type of abuse of eminent Domain was called "negro removal".

Government can't live with out an economy, but an Economy can live with little or no government.

What did the Soviets and the Chinese turn to when they saw the government struggling to compete with the Capitalist world, they begrudgingly admitted they had to free up parts of their economy to create wealth so the government would have something to feed off of. They could have survived off of the old stand by, ...rape and pillage, but with the free world acting as a counter weight to their rape and pillage, it became too costly. They lost.

Government exists because we the people give our consent to allow it to exist.

In answer to your Western European question, for the last full year, 2005, as a percentage of GDP, here is western Europe with their 2 month mandatory vacations, bloated welfare programs and confusing regulatory schemes.

France 1.2, Germany 0.9, belgium 1.5, italy 0.0, netherlands 1.5, portugal 0.4.

Even Iraq has a faster growing economy.

The Eastern European countries that are more philosophically aligned with the US model their economies on growth oriented principles like stable monetary policy, export-oriented trade policies, low flat-tax rates. This has given many of them growth rates of 8-9%. They also happen to be strong supporters of Military operations in the Middle east. The Economic map of Europe is stagnant west, robust east.

Thanks for your response

The Economic map of Europe is stagnant west

Sorry, but you are repeating myths here. Western Europe's economies are not as anemic as the Economist, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, etc. frequently claim.

GDP growth is not the lone deciding factor of economic prosperity. The fruits of a country's wealth should ideally result in a happier population: You mention long vacations, and let's add to that higher average wages, universal healthcare, and more job security. In the U.S., GDP growth (3.2% annually) is for the most part being felt by the richest 10% of the population. Widening economic disparities translate into power disparities, and that is not healthy for democracies. Growth just for the sake of growth means nothing as far as prosperity is concerned. Even the anti-social-spending Economist ranks nine Western European countries ahead of the U.S. on its quality of life index: link

If, however, you want to get hung up on GDP, a little math shows that most Western European countries' GDP per capita is growing at a faster rate than that of the U.S. Compare if you wish the U.S.' 3.2% annual GDP growth rate for 300 million residents to France's 1.2% for 60 million residents.

They also happen to be strong supporters of Military operations in the Middle east.

This is a good thing per se?