Privatisation - Al Capone would have been proud of it

I have been reading about the latest fiasco involving the outsourcing of public services and the extent to which the private sector firms charged with immigration and border security have been detaining people quite unnecessarily, causing inconvenience, hardship, trauma and even death by their incompetence, bullying and brutality. The latest case involved an 84 year old Canadian gentleman suffering from Alzheimers who was detained quite unlawfully for 5 weeks and died in custody whilst being handcuffed for over 5 hours.

If there is any greater evidence of the failure of the dominant economic ideology that governs this sorry nation it is the experience of privatisation. As I have noted before, I cannot think of a privatisation that has been anything less than a disaster. The justification for this policy is economic, but every privatisation that has occurred so far has been disastrously uneconomic and the experience has been that it is a form of legalised gangsterism whereby unscrupulous business people have made fortunes at the public's expense. In addition, none of the people responsible for the disasters that have resulted from it have been held to account. So, what are the alternatives? Well, there are none according to all of our three major Westminster parties. However, should you cancel all of the privatised contracts and return such services to the public sector, two things would immediately happen. One you would save billions of pounds, and two, you would create millions of jobs.

One of the principal reasons for the failure of privatisation is that it  leads to deregulation and an accompanying lack of accountability. It is also a truism that privatised industries run on a shoestring with the workforce depleted to the point that it is difficult to function. Another source of its inability to provide a proper service is the almost complete absence of investment. All profits are siphoned off for the directors and the shareholders. That is why they can make so much profit, but still claim to be penniless. I think I have said this before, but no public service should be in the private sector, full stop.

I have told you and will continue to tell you, that all of the fundamental premises that support free market neoliberalism are wrong. They are ideological and do not bear up to any decent empirical scrutiny.  If you base a theory on a false hypothesis then your conclusion have to be wrong. This then leads to public policy being devised from incorrect theories about economic phenomena which eventually lead to political and social chaos. There has to be a massive programme of renationalisation and the serious reform of our system of local government. I know it sounds stupid, but I could solve unemployment in a maximum of two years. This would then lead to a solution to the benefits dilemma that our politicians cannot even begin to understand. If you ally such measures to a comprehensive reform of the tax system, you begin to solve the deficit crisis quite quickly. It is not rocket science, but is a definite alternative to the system for which our pathologically lying politicians tell us there is no alternative. There can be no solution under the present Westminster system. You have been warned.

Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat