The End of the Private Sector?

There are some reports that government jobs have become the most attractive employment opportunities in the current economic downturn. Indeed, it's gotten to the point that the Washington, D.C., public sector - Congress and the executive branch - has become the primary agent of job creation in the United States, either directly or indirectly:

Big government is walking away as the knock-out winner over the private sector in the latest financial crisis. Washington spinmeisters have placed the blame for the crisis on too much capitalism and too little regulation, with no blame left over for Washington's own bad regulatory, monetary and tax policies.

The solution offered by big government is even bigger government. If unchecked, the Washington "fix" for the financial crisis would create its biggest power expansion since the New Deal.

My thoughts were drawn to this question of government employment and economic survival after reading this post at Incertus:

I'm actually starting to get offended by the rhetoric about how we need private-sector, not public-sector, jobs from whatever stimulus plan we hatch.

First of all, jobs are jobs and we need them, so let's get them all "stimulated" and into action. But secondly, can I just say that the only people I know who are secure in their jobs are people with government jobs? My friends, family, and students working for private companies or for themselves are getting hosed. Those of us working for the county, state, and country are relatively secure.

So why would private sector jobs be, in these uncertain times, preferable to public sector ones?

The sheer ignorance in this essay is astounding. No one dismisses the deep economic dislocation facing the country. But this idea that we don't need "private sector jobs" and that "friends, family, and students" are getting "hosed" by private employers is simply astounding.

I'm reminded of the recent essay by Stephen Moore at the Wall Street Journal, "'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years," where he suggests the current economic crisis is demonstrating the profound wisdom and insight of novelist Ayn Rand.

Note this passage Moore cites in particular:

One memorable moment in "Atlas" occurs near the very end, when the economy has been rendered comatose by all the great economic minds in Washington. Finally, and out of desperation, the politicians come to the heroic businessman John Galt (who has resisted their assault on capitalism) and beg him to help them get the economy back on track. The discussion sounds much like what would happen today:

Galt: "You want me to be Economic Dictator?"

Mr. Thompson: "Yes!"

"And you'll obey any order I give?"

"Implicitly!"

"Then start by abolishing all income taxes."

"Oh no!" screamed Mr. Thompson, leaping to his feet. "We couldn't do that . . . How would we pay government employees?"

"Fire your government employees."

"Oh, no!"

Abolishing the income tax. Now that really would be a genuine economic stimulus. But Mr. Obama and the Democrats in Washington want to do the opposite: to raise the income tax "for purposes of fairness" as Barack Obama puts it.

""Oh, no!" We can't get rid of those government employees! Otherwise they might get "hosed" by the endlessly greedy capitalist roaders! AAAHHH!!!!

This economy's going to come back in the next year or two, but it won't because of Barack Obama and the Democrats created more "public sector jobs." At some point the left's socialist-regulatory state will kill the economy altogether and Rand's vision of economic calamity and social pandemonium won't be fiction.

But don't tell that to the radical leftists attacking Rand's philosophies. Nope, the more government the better - that's the ticket to prosperity!

See also, Tigerhawk, "Is it Time to Re-Read Atlas Shrugged?"