Private provision is a public menace

Ben Spies-Butcher presents a persuasive case that the increased weight of private provision of "superior goods" of health, education and retirement incomes, along with housing, is overall costly and damaging. More public provision in these areas is socially beneficial, and less costly as well as being better for low income people. His critique describes the government decisions that have driven this shift, and their effects, without looking at the reasons why governments have pursued a set of policies which can only be considered irrational on the basis of the evidence in the article. Ben S-B does however point out that this policy approach invariably favours the most well-off, both as consumers of the services in question, and in making profits out of their provision.

The issues that Ben S-B leaves me pondering are:
1. Since this policy shift has been so detrimental and irrational considering the interests of the majority in a democracy, why is there not a more coherent and vocal challenge to this policy?
2. Funding public provision - most of the revenue is raised federally, as are most of the tax rules, policies etc which favour private provision. Most of the responsibility for public provision (except for retirement incomes) is state. So even IF a state government wanted to return to favouring public provision over private, it could not reallocate the funding to enable this to happen. Just read the public hearing into NSW Education and Training estimates, and the savings that the NSW Government is demanding from teachers to get an idea of the budget challenges to public education.
3. How can the advocates of public provision come together with people who would most benefit from an increase in the weight of public provision, to develop demands to achieve it?
4. What are the reservations people have about public provision, and how can they be addressed? I think that one legitimate reservation is the difficulty of having complaints addressed and problems solved in a bureaucratic public system. Accountability is as important an issue as funding.
Now the "market" is clearly failing as a system for managing production, maybe now is a good time to get people thinking more about the ideas raised in Ben Spies Butcher's article - "restocking the economic toolkit".

Quality child care should not be a market risk

Watching Insight on SBS - Holding the baby - there seems to be general agreement amongst the researchers that almost all parents would rather not have their babies in care at under 6 months, and amongst the child care workers present that a ratio of 1 carer to 3 children would be ideal up to the age of 2 years. Unfortunately I was interrupted before the end of the discussion on how to fund childcare - but I did hear one audience member advocating that all funding go to individual parents as cash for them to spend as they wished. I couldn't disagree more - this only fosters private provision for profit. Standards are better enforced if community based care is publicly funded to provide it and supervised by parents on democratic governing bodies. Then parents advocating improvements in centres are advocating on behalf of all children, rather than behaving as paying customers/consumers pursuing only their own interests - and only having the power of changing centres, disrupting their child even further if they are dissatisfied. Work based and family day care could also be funded, but cash to parents to spend in the market does not produce quality, in the most important aspect - reduced ratios. It would be a shame if the market had to be discredited by collapses and scandals in child care the way the financial market is currently being discredited. The market is too risky to care for our kids.

Who will do a better job than the bankers?

How can we answer the question WHO will do a better job than the bankers and lenders who have caused the economic crisis? First I think we need to understand WHY does credit / capital get allocated where it does? Why do the prices of currencies, credit and real estate bounce around so much? Why should they send production into a spin, when the productive resources - labour, machinery, land, buildings, raw materials, etc are there just the same?

So WHO are these people deciding where to make production happen, what kind of production it should be? And why do THEY get to decide? If their decisions can be so bad for everyone else (and even themselves in some cases) - then who else could decide? And how? How more democratically?

If democratic economic decision making would take a lot of time - think - how many people are employed in finance, accounting and management to make those decisions? Share their hours around the workforce, and we could all be paid at least 1 day a week to take the time to participate in planning and deciding...

And if the loss makers are to be in effect nationalised, why not nationalise the lot - losers and profiteers? It would simplify and streamline the regulation of the financial system, and give a lot more flexibility to what voters could demand of governments (including tackling climate change, more public transport, renewable energy) and a lot less income to the excessively rich!

It's very frustrating to see these powerful people messing up, and even if a few of them get into trouble, really they are causing a lot more trouble and suffering for workers losing their homes, losing their jobs... people who just want to live their lives without having power over other people. But if we don't organise to take their power away and run things differently, then they'll just sort out the mess on their own terms, and rerun the show again...

Renewing Labor locally

An excerpt from Darcy Byrne's inaugural address upon his election to Leichhardt Municipal Council.
"As a Councillor I am determined to contribute to the renewal of a Labor Party that
is grass roots in structure, radical in intent and unwavering in its commitment to
fighting for equality...

I am proud to have put forward positive policies during the campaign and I will be
working hard as a Councillor to implement that agenda.

We need a big increase in sporting fields for our kids, a new parking system for our
residents, to build new affordable housing for our workers and pensioners and to
find practical ways to strengthen our sense of community by bringing all our
residents together.

I will continue to get out into the community to put these ideas forward because the
only way to represent the community is to be part of the community and I look
forward to seeing you all along the way. "

Darcy's address silent on a couple of major points of local opposition to the NSW government - saving Callan Park from take over by Sydney Uni, and the planned construction of a $150million extra bridge over Iron Cove. What about light rail and public transport? If Darcy cannot bring himself to unequivocally oppose the unpopular policies of the state Labor government, then I don't think he will make much progress in renewing labour as a grass roots radical force. His concern with equality is however a refreshing and welcome one. Let's see.