Economy

FROM THE GROUND UP

http://truth-out.org/news/item/16353-everyday-socialism-american-style-is-happening-now

...Chapter 11 of What Then Must We Do?

One more obvious step, for the moment, in connection with real-world democratization (and maybe also about what can be done if you want to start getting serious): I assume you are aware that socialism—real socialism, not the fuzzy kind conservatives try to pin on Barack Obama—is as common as grass (well, maybe not that common, but still very common indeed) in the United States. I'm not talking about the public programs that come to many minds when socialism is discussed in an American context. These programs often help people in need and do many other useful things, but they don't attempt to change the underlying systemic design and the political power it confers on corporate actors. I'm talking about the (efficient) government ownership of businesses, some set up in the past and still working very nicely, thank you, and many new efforts now also flourishing big-time.

For a start: It's often forgotten—or simply not known—that there are more than two thousand publicly owned electric utilities now operating, day by day, week by week, throughout the United States (many in the conservative South). Indeed, 25 percent of US electricity is supplied by locally owned public utilities and co-ops. Moreover, most of these now conventional "socialist" operations have a demonstrated capacity to provide electricity at lower cost to the consumer, not to mention cheaper and more accessible broadband. (Nationally, on average, customers of private utilities pay 14 percent more than customers of public utilities.)

One obvious reason: Public utilities and co-ops simply don't pay the same exorbitant executive salaries common in the private sector. They get pretty much the same work done for far less. General managers of the largest class of publicly owned power companies earned an average salary of roughly $260,000 in 2011. Average compensation for CEOs of large investor-owned utilities was $6 million—almost twenty-five times as much. Also, of course, public utilities and co-op producers don't have to pay private shareholders any dividends. And they return a portion of their revenues to the city or county to help supplement local budgets, easing the pressure on taxpayers. A recent study found an average transfer of 5.2 percent of revenues to municipalities—compared with average tax payments by private-investor-owned utilities of 3.9 percent.

In smaller communities revenues from public utilities are often a crucial component of city budgets. In Ashland, Oregon, for instance, fully 30 percent of the general fund that pays for such services as police, fire, and street maintenance comes from public utility profits; only 16 percent comes from property taxes. Similarly, the century-old public utility in Norwich, Connecticut, is a major contributor to the city, with more than 10 percent of its total billings—more than 5 percent of the city's total annual budget—going to the municipal general fund...A number of public utilities also play a powerful role in building a green economy. In California the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD)—one of the ten largest public utilities in the United States—now supplies more than 24 percent of its retail energy sales from renewable sources; it expects to reach a goal of 37 percent renewable energy by 2020. SMUD is also on target to slash CO2 emissions to just 10 percent of 1990 levels by 2050...Another leader, Austin Energy in Texas, runs the most successful utility-sponsored green energy marketing program in the country. Approximately 15 to 17 percent of its power currently comes from renewable sources—primarily wind, with landfill methane gas a distant second. The utility expects to reach 30 to 35 percent renewable energy by 2020. It also has a twenty-year agreement to purchase power from a large wood-fired power plant in East Texas, and it expects to achieve a CO2 reduction goal of 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

A number of cities are now also regularly involved in the public land development business—increasingly in situations where public policies, such as those involving mass transit, create huge land value increases and other benefits that would otherwise simply go to private developers....

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