I want to tread a bit lightly on any disagreement with a living legend like Walter Bright who was navigating the complexities of public/private sector trade-offs via his aerospace work when I was knee-high to a grasshopper: experience and demonstrated ability like that deserve more consideration than they get around here.
With that said, my personal politics (I did self-identify as a “coastal leftie”) are such that I tend to agree with you that equitable surges in human welfare seem highly correlated with a deep partnership between the public and private sectors, strong labor organization, thoughtful and deliberate restraints on monopoly actors, and the Powers That Be taking a very long view on their own welfare by viewing it as a partnership with the working class.
I have also had to divert significant funds to family members both older and younger than me because people in both groups faced exceedingly bleak economic situations of comparatively new vintage: the older because of a collapse in traditional safety nets for retired persons (both public sector and community oriented) and the latter because of starting their working lives during the Great Recession, neither of which is anything to them but really bad luck.
I can’t speak for Walter, but in my lifetime I’ve observed a marked decline in what used to be called noblesse oblige among the asset-holding class, and given his greater experience it seems at a minimum plausible that my dissenting opinions are a product of a deviation from more typical conditions.
With that said, my personal politics (I did self-identify as a “coastal leftie”) are such that I tend to agree with you that equitable surges in human welfare seem highly correlated with a deep partnership between the public and private sectors, strong labor organization, thoughtful and deliberate restraints on monopoly actors, and the Powers That Be taking a very long view on their own welfare by viewing it as a partnership with the working class.
I have also had to divert significant funds to family members both older and younger than me because people in both groups faced exceedingly bleak economic situations of comparatively new vintage: the older because of a collapse in traditional safety nets for retired persons (both public sector and community oriented) and the latter because of starting their working lives during the Great Recession, neither of which is anything to them but really bad luck.
I can’t speak for Walter, but in my lifetime I’ve observed a marked decline in what used to be called noblesse oblige among the asset-holding class, and given his greater experience it seems at a minimum plausible that my dissenting opinions are a product of a deviation from more typical conditions.
I sure hope so!