It’s disturbing how we have come to see public goods as about some sort of charity to the poor and not as critical democratic institutions that allow us to engage across class and create a shared sense of values. This, then, is actually an argument for privatization.
And, yet, many Americans do not believe the poor should get access to “free” services either. Further, none of this is actually free. Public goods, by definition, mean the public pays and the public receives.
And, of course, this, too, can be partly traced to anti-black racism. As Nancy MacLean shows, the decline in (white) support for public goods coincides with black people gaining legal access to once-segregated public spaces. amazon.com/Democracy-Chai…
It’s been pointed out on here several times that some of MacLean’s scholarship is in dispute. None of these people, however, dispute the specific assertion of my tweet — which of course is backed up not just by history but by modern polling.
