This article nicely illustrates both pernicious sides of the rusting coin of capitalism:  the utter dearth of resources to meet the needs of all people, including their need for health care, and the shameful way people treat each other, acculturated as they are in a society that does not easily meet their own needs, thus forcing them into a dog-eat-dog, law-of-the-jungle mentality and existence, that can't help but carry over into lives and attitudes, generally.

As you may know, the PCS program addresses both of these catastrophic imbalances: it calls explicitly for 1.) a transition to an economy whose principal purpose is to meet the needs of people, and provide actualizing work activity (i.e. "employment") for the population, and 2.) a set of core social values and behavior based on the love ethic, or "brotherly love."

When profit is the focus of social and economic activity, not the needs of people, including our vital need for emergency health care, these kinds of results, and worse, should come as no surprise.

Profit, not the needs of people--including the critical need for safety--is always the principal focus of economic activity under capitalism.

Our analysis of this problem is part of our larger analysis of home ownership in America.

This article details the efforts of Goldman Sachs and other investors to take private control of the toll roads in New Jersey, and the deleterious consequences of private control of these kinds of historic public resources.

Note the two basic visions of what society is and how it should operate, illustrated in the two approaches to the New Jersey highway transportation system, presented in the article:

• A society of human beings working and operating together by cooperating in a civic and civil fraternity, or --

• A society where such cooperation is impossible, because a tiny group of owners, a kind of "ruling class," hold complete control over every resource needed to do so, and operates those resources in a calculated and exacting manner, with the singular goal of enriching itself as much as possible.

  Under such a system, every other consideration is relegated to secondary or tertiary status, or worse.

Which approach do you prefer?

Which is best for you? For people? For families? Children? Communities? Indeed, for the human race?

People For a Cooperative Society asserts the overwhelming desirability of cooperation, over pernicious private ownership for sale and profit.

Join the movement of hope, optimism, and realistic social change, the movement for a Cooperative Society--and let's put these selfish and narcissistic plunderers out of business permanently! Let's build a world of peace, plenty, brotherhood, love, and cooperation--together!

This article details the efforts of the present U.S. administration to effect regulatory changes that will result in cuts to Medicaid, the federal and state program that provides health care to persons of low income.

The particular administration, Republican or Democratic, attempting to effect these cuts is irrelevant; the point is that because capitalism is a system of so-called "free-enterprise," the value system and priorities of free enterprise determine government policy--not the value system and priorities of human beings and the human race. Some administrations and governments are worse than others in attempting to advance this profit-and-money agenda--but they all do it. They have to--without a constant stream of buying and selling, and the governmental policies that support and encourage a constant stream of buying and selling, capitalism would collapse.

Can you say depression and recession?

Most people are not aware that, in fact, the United States has suffered NINE depressions in its history, and an unbelievable THIRTY-TWO recessions--so far (source: http://www.nber.org/cycles.html). Dig out your old college or high school economics textbook from the attic, and check it out for yourself; we've had depressions in the United States in the following periods:

1. 1861
2. 1865
3. 1873-79 (six years)
4. 1884
5. 1893-97 (four years)
6. 1903-04 (one year)
7. 1907
8. 1920-22 (two years)
9. And of course, the catastrophic global depression of 1929-40 (eleven years)

The U.S. also regularly suffers mini-depressions, called "recessions," in years including 1981-82, for example.

Furthermore, even when economic recovery occurs, it does not necessarily bring jobs. Over the last few years in America we've all heard about the so-called "jobless recovery." Thus, we see that even when capitalism is operating at its best, it is still often not good enough.

We, the people, clamor rightfully for health care, and our corporate-controlled government does take a stab at reforming the system to provide it. However, the so-called free-enterprise system is notoriously difficult to reform successfully, because 1.) reforms that are enacted, such as increased Medicaid spending to cover more people in need, are never enough to fully solve the problem they are meant to address, and, 2.) insofar as problems are  addressed, improvements are often impermanent and disappear or are weakened as markets and governments change--which is exactly the phenomenon we see detailed in the article above.

By contrast, a Cooperative System would provide health care to everyone as a birthright, absolutely free! In fact, under a cooperative system all goods and services would be free. Indeed, money itself would no longer exist, as it would no longer be required for any purpose.