...to remember the folks here who had endured such horror in their own lives; to remember and pray and feel outrage (righteous) and sadness; to feel with them as they recall? To stand with them as they live? To love them as you have? I can't think of anything more you could add to what you already have done. You remain in my heart as so precious and dear, Gwen, and I'm so glad for your presence. Thank you so much.

Abuse is inherent to the free market model, since the assumption that the state can pay a private company less than what it costs to provide any particular service and receive the same level of service is nonsensical.

If a qualified low-level caregiver receives a salary of... let's say, 25K per annum, and you pay a private company 15K to provide the same service, where does the necessary profit appear in the equation? Companies these days all want twenty- and thirty-percent returns on investment, in addition to very substantial salaries for their chief executives, so the firm will naturally seek to hire cheap labour, offering 10K for what would normally cost 25K.

At marginal salaries, one attracts marginal staff. At least some of them will be people whose desire to work with vulnerable clients at starvation wages is motivated by exploitative or sadistic impulses, since one can't justify working at such wages for reasons of pecuniary self-interest.

We mustn't forget that the modern theory of the firm, exemplified in the limited liability stock company, was especially-designed to loot the physical resources and human slave labour of conquered foreign lands.

When we allow these rapacious engines of destruction to colonise their home shores, we can hardly blame them when they do within their theoretical borders the same sorts of things they did in Africa, India, and the Americas.

That is, after all, the whole point of limited liability and trans-national corporations.

Imagine what our streets would be like if we allowed overt criminals to form limited liability companies to conduct street muggings and murder?

"BlagCo. Blagging is our trade. May I help you?"

"Hello, this is Detective Inspector Morse. I understand that one of your representatives shot Colonel Mustard with a revolver in the library."

"Will, you hold please?"

[Music plays for approximately half an hour, then the phone line goes dead]

"BlagCo. Blagging is our trade. May I help you?"

"Hello, this is Detective Inspector Morse. I understand that one of your representatives shot Colonel Mustard with a revolver in the library."

"Will, you hold please?"

"No, I've just done that! I was..."

[Music plays for approximately half an hour, then the phone line goes dead]

"BlagCo. Blagging is our trade. May I help you?"

"Hello, this is Detective Inspector Morse. This is a police emergency. I want to talk with someone in charge right now!"

"Legal department, may I help you?"

"This is Detective Inspector Morse. I want to know who shot Colonel Mustard!"

"I'm terribly sorry, Inspector, but that's a commercial trade secret. It wouldn't do to let our competitors in on our private business. If you have any questions at all, please feel free contact our home office on Henderson Island (in the Pitcairn Islands)."

"Look here, I happen to know that Henderson Island is uninhabited!"

"I'm sorry, sir, but that's where the home office is, as far as I know. It's listed in my company directory, right here."

[Click.]

...

Limited liability is inherently pernicious.

Many things are the responsibility of society, and should never be privatised.

Imagine a society in which the Army and Navy are fully-privatised. What happens if they get a better offer? They'd have a fiduciary duty to take it, after all.

Cheers,

Puddin'

A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style