The economist's notion of public goods has lost currency in this age of commodities, not just in the EU but particularly in the Anglo-Saxon world. Unlike today, two generations ago, economics undergraduates were taught that such goods were different from soap flakes and hamburgers. Public goods and services are things which need to be supplied – or at least regulated – by the public sector because they are by their very nature collective. Clean water, unpolluted air, education and law and order are obvious examples; there is no doubt that everybody should have such goods, not merely those who can afford to buy them privately.
These days, however, the distinction between "public" and "private" has become blurred, and among mainstream economists the consensus appears to be that because the private sector is more efficient than the state, we should limit the public role almost entirely to that of supervision. In Britain, for example, the railways were privatised and an "internal market" was created within the national health service on the grounds that this improved the efficiency of service delivery for "customers". In the US, it has become common for everything from mass transport to prison services to be run for private profit. Indeed, there are some politicians who – as followers of the economist Friedrich Hayek – would abolish all forms of state supervision or control, and a few who would abolish all taxation.
Anti-state ideology goes back a long way, but its major driver in the last century was doubtless the Reagan-Thatcher revolution and, at a global level, what became known as the Washington consensus, ie, the rightwing orthodoxy associated with the IMF and the World Bank. Among others, economists such as Anne Krueger and Jagdish Bhagwati helped popularise the notion that civil servants are really "rent-seeking" bureaucrats whose contribution to society is nil.
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/27/when-privatisation-doesnt-work
These days, however, the distinction between "public" and "private" has become blurred, and among mainstream economists the consensus appears to be that because the private sector is more efficient than the state, we should limit the public role almost entirely to that of supervision. In Britain, for example, the railways were privatised and an "internal market" was created within the national health service on the grounds that this improved the efficiency of service delivery for "customers". In the US, it has become common for everything from mass transport to prison services to be run for private profit. Indeed, there are some politicians who – as followers of the economist Friedrich Hayek – would abolish all forms of state supervision or control, and a few who would abolish all taxation.
Anti-state ideology goes back a long way, but its major driver in the last century was doubtless the Reagan-Thatcher revolution and, at a global level, what became known as the Washington consensus, ie, the rightwing orthodoxy associated with the IMF and the World Bank. Among others, economists such as Anne Krueger and Jagdish Bhagwati helped popularise the notion that civil servants are really "rent-seeking" bureaucrats whose contribution to society is nil.
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/27/when-privatisation-doesnt-work
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