How governments are realising that by privatising their obligations to you they can employ a freemium model letting social entrepreneurs take up the slack so they can prop up the private sector.
Every few years we get to exercise our democratic right to elect the government, the suits who will relentlessly appear on terribly dull news programmes talking about GDP, unemployment and who they feel we should feel we need to wage war on. Every few years, they tour round the country, kissing our grandmas and babies, get chummy with rock stars and actors and appeal to our good sense to give them our vote. Politicians are our representatives; they look after our needs and the needs of our nation. A democratically elected government is the management team, responsible for making sure our needs are met and we are cared for. This mammoth organisation is funded and its (our) employees are paid through the taxes. So why are they slowly but surely passing these obligations to private industry who charge us again for the same services? This is the century of DIY
Everyone knows that the Greeks invented democracy, the word
itself means rule of the people. Around
6th century BC some clever Athenians decided that every citizen of
the state should have a say in how the state was run and taxes were levied on
the people for the defence of democracy. This model was used by subsequent republics
for millennia and the taxes were collected by monarchs and autocrats to keep
them in palaces and armies.
It wasn’t until the 1850s when Otto von Bismarck, the first elected
chancellor of Germany, expanded the remit of the government to the welfare of
the people by taking over and consolidating the role of charitable
organisations.
It was the British who really threw themselves into social welfare,
maybe in a bid to stem the tide of communism or maybe
because they were just really good people but liberal prime ministers
Herbert Asquith and David Lloyd George furthered the reach of the government
with state pensions, unemployment benefits and health cover.
And the payoff was that it enabled the state to manipulate
the populous and thus the economy more efficiently.
By the 80s, many governments were beginning to devolve their
welfare systems, sell public industries, sell public housing and encourage
private industry to run free and proliferate. The result was a boom time for
many. Wages rose, bonuses swelled and credit made almost everything attainable
to almost everyone. But it wasn't to be for long; the boom went bang.
The 90s were spent trying to balance the books after the bust.
The main strategy was to deregulate banking and finance and allow laissez-faire
economics to drive a new era of wealth and then when things were looking good,
it all collapsed around our ears.
Now governments are trying to rake back the losses made from
propping up the private sector, a new welfare state, for the welfare of
industry.
As for Sir William
Beveridge’s “five Giant evils”
Squalor: Public housing has been sold off leaving private
landlords to turn any cupboard into a “studio flat”.
Ignorance: Higher education is now the privilege of those
able to take on huge student loans to have the possibility to get a job that will enable you to pay it off.
Want: Pensions and unemployment benefits have had the
goal-post moved so far that private pensions and zero-hour contracts are now
the base line.
Idleness: With unemployment and under-employment across the
western world at historic highs, especially amongst the young and old, entire
generations are dispossessed and not contributing to the community.
Disease: National health services are crumbling under the
pressure. Britain’s NHS is being propped up by the private medical insurance
despite the fact that the recession has ensured that less people can afford it.
Greece’s system has changed names and protocols so many times recently that
even those working in it are unsure of what advice to give patients. France’s
system is hanging in but costs are spiralling.
You can still vote, you can still pay taxes but make no
mistake, you are on your own.
The state is adopting the freemium business model. You can
have basic services from the state, but in order to get anything more, private
industry is on hand to provide supplementary services. The private sector is
expected to provide the same, if not better services than a non-profit institution
like the state while still keeping an eye on the profit margins.
Social entrepreurism is the new way with individuals encouraged
to take up the slack. Set up an NGO and plug the gaps in the state. While the
state props up the private sector, with your money.
For what was, in reality, a short period of history,
governments made an admirable effort to care for the people who put them there
in the first place. Then came the civil war of public versus private and
private won. Now you are on your own again, governments and industry are
washing their hands of any public responsibility with taxes, once again,
collected to fund the wars on the global markets.
