US Republican Party president-elect Donald Trump is incoming for his second term. He’s announced a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with billionaire Elon Musk and failed republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy co-leading.
Elon Musk’s DOGE: crack for the plutocrats
People have taken an Elon Musk tweet of an interview with hardcore capitalist economist Milton Friedman as a clue to what’s in store. In the Friedman interview, the economist said he would entirely cut the government departments of education and housing.
That’s an oligarch’s wet dream. Remove state education so the population is dumbed down and easy to control (like how Musk views his X followers). Remove state housing subsidies (which are already woeful) so people are in desperate need of working long weeks for capitalists in order to stay afloat.
Indeed, Musk has tweeted that he’s looking for “super high IQ revolutionaries” to work 80+ hour weeks for the new efficiency department. He told one person inquiring that “compensation is zero”. As everyone knows, it’s a sign of high intelligence to work ridiculous hours for free for a literal billionaire. He may as well be hiring for the role of ‘Musk fan boy ego masseuse’.
The real route to state efficiency
In reality, it’s through public ownership and investment that the government can be a true engine of efficiency – not Elon Musk and DOGE.
One essential that’s de-facto key is energy. Mark Jackobson, director of Stanford university’s Atmosphere and Energy Program, has the figures on how much investing in a public Green New Deal (GND) would save the government.
Jackobson notes that transitioning to an 100% renewables economy would cost an initial capital investment of $9.5 trillion. And that’s a high estimation compared to those for other countries, when considering population size. But within a few years that investment would be paid off through consumers’ electricity bills – at $1 trillion of revenue per year. After a decade, the programme would start to make money at that huge sum. Yet Musk glazes over Friedman who wants to remove the department of energy except for its role in the military.
Not only that, but a GND would reduce energy costs for consumers by that same figure – $1 trillion per year. That’s because they necessarily spend $2 trillion per year on fossil fuels. And the savings for US and global society go further. A GND would remove $600 billion per year in US health costs because of pollution. And it would save the planet $3.3 trillion in global climate costs that US emissions cause. Talk about efficiency.
Elon Musk should do this – but he won’t
Jackobson is also professor of civil and environmental engineering at Standford. He further points out that a GND would net two million US jobs (while considering jobs lost). And the physical capabilities are there. The academic and engineer states:
At least 37 papers among 11 independent research groups find that the electric grid can stay stable at low cost with at or near 100 percent wind-water-solar.
You don’t even have to believe in climate change to think a GND is a brilliant idea.
Musk should fire the capitalists, remove the shareholders and take the organisational role of a CEO as a reasonably paid job like anything else. This is how the new department of efficiency should actually function. Of course, that’s not what’s going to happen at DOGE.
Featured image via Sky News – YouTube
By James Wright
This post was originally published on Canary.