Privatizion and the free market vs. corruption

I'm sure there are plenty of things knee-jerk Bush defenders can find to take this movie to task, but one thing that makes me blanch are their references to the "free market". No-bid, cost-plus miltary contracts handed to politically connected cronies has NOTHING to do with the free market. It might come as a shock to right-wing idealogues, but the real free market actually does require a government; otherwise, to resort to a sport's analogy, it's like trying to play a serious game without referees. Sure, you don't want a heavy-handed referee that interferes at the slightest infraction and won't let the playes play the game (the equivalent of socialism), but that doesn't mean the opposite extreme is necessarily any more desirable.

But even if the free market COULD operate without any kind of government in an ideal world, in the REAL world these kind of small, weak "privatized" governments are never just totally hands-off--they're almost inevitably corrupt. This was true in Iraq's transitional government and it's true almost everywhere else in the Third World where America has tried to enforce its minimalist government policies. Instead of just not having referees at all, you have ones who are for sale to whomever slips them some cash before the game starts.

Privatization is fine IF you have a strong government that regulates the players instead of a corrupt one that just showers public money on it's campaign contributors. The free market works well WHEN you have competition and companies actually have incentives to keep costs low and services adequate. But this has NOT been the case in Iraq. I hate to see "liberals" throw the baby out with the bathwater and reflexively condemn the real free market, or even privatization, based on the disastrous bastardized version of it the Bush administration is selling in Iraq. On the other hand, I hate to see all these "conservatives" (many of whom would probably drink Bush and Cheney's bathwater) refuse to call these policies what they are--not "privatization", not the "free market", but CORRUPTION.