ABSTRACT
In stark contrast to the corporate mandate for growth and the accompanying corporate need for advancing its cause through advertising and public relations, the public sector, apart from its military component, has no built in mechanism for public commitment and expansion. Any progressive program to provide economic security, rectify the massive inequality around us, and counter investment stagnation requires a general assessment of basic human needs and an explicit recognition that, for millions of households, the market system cannot deliver on these needs. In mainstream economics, there is no distinction between "needs" and "wants." Commodities are produced in accordance with "demand," where consumers exercise their sovereignty through consumer voting power as measured by money. The boundary line is most vividly shown by the long and uneven history surrounding the advocacy for public works and by budgetary expenditures. Federal government expenditures are geared almost exclusively to defense expenditures and transfer payments.
