The Public Sector Rich List- a couple of thoughts
The Taxpayers’ Alliance published a couple of weeks ago a public sector rich list. Its a really good political ploy from an alliance whose main cause is the reduction of taxation but what is interesting is that the implications of compiling such a list actually tend to go in different directions to those in which the Taxpayer’s Alliance wishes to push British politics.
Firstly its noticeable that on their website, they claim the need for this survey because these public sector workers are paid so much more than teachers, soldiers and policemen. The politics of envy resurfaces and is evident in many of the comments! Such an argument presupposes a commitment of some kind to equality- and acknowledges the injustice of directors of the Royal Mail sitting in plush offices earning millions whilst soldiers sit in Basra risking their lives earning thousands. I’m not sure how that sits with the reductions in taxation that the TPA advocates elsewhere- nor am I sure that the only inequalities are within the public sector.
Secondly they argue that the salaries of public officials should be justified- and they are right. Lets take Adam Crozier, chief executive of Royal Mail. He is paid a ridiculously vast amount of money, but he was recruited from being Chairman of the FA- and before that was a leading advertiser. If the TPA believe in the efficacy of private markets setting wages then Adam Crozier is probably being paid at about the market rate for a chief executive- and so are many others amongst these fat cats in the public sector. Ultimately the cause of the pay of the public sector fat cats is the pay of the private sector fat cats. If you want to get your hands on these types of people you have to pay these types of salaries. So if you want to take a look at public sector people being paid too much for these jobs, perhaps you have to either settle for rubbish directors (of which more in my third point) or you have to think about private sector pay scales.
Thirdly, ah says my Taxpayers’ alliance friend- but the question is whether they have any impact on their organisations. But again that presents him with an ideological problem. Generally researchers for the TPA believe in hierarchy and hence in differentiated pay. There is lots of evidence, just have a look at Chris Dillow’s blog, that company directors don’t necessarily have an impact on their company stock’s performance- and its quite possible that the same thing applies in the public sector but again all the arguments in favour of or against hierarchy apply similarly in both sectors and hence all the arguments for and against large pay differentials and packets!
The ultimate problem with this kind of Daily Mail politics is that in order to establish that well paid bosses don’t make the public sector any better off, the Taxpayers’ alliance would have to accept that well paid bosses don’t have any positive impact on any organisation. Otherwise they are arguing for poorer public services! (Or perhaps that equality is a moral good which trumps efficiency, but again is that a unique truth for the public sector!) All these arguments seem to me to rebound upon their owners.
In a sense this isn’t important- the list they did didn’t really make the national media. But I think its worth thinking about. Partly because of what it tells us about the fact that even for the right-wingers in the Taxpayers’ alliance, equality is a moral good- the fact that teachers are paid a fraction of what the fat cats get matters to them in this context- so you have to ask why it doesn’t matter in other contexts. The other thing about it is that the Taxpayers’ Alliance ends up arguing that large salaries are unnecessary to promote efficiency and that they should be justified by results- again there is nothing necessarily limiting those insights to the public sector- those insights could be applied to the private sector. The thing is that as soon as you examine the logic of what the Taxpayers’ Alliance are saying you end up with politics far closer to the tradition of George Orwell than that of Margaret Thatcher.
I’m not sure that was what their intention was.
Leftwing lessons from Langley about Iraq
When Tony Blair in 2004 sought to justify the foreign policies of his Premiership, he mentioned his belief that the era of Westphalia was over and that a new era of foreign policy had begun. Blair earned for thoughts like this a place in the anthology of American neoconservative foreign policy thinking, but Blair’s ideas boil down to a key concept. Blair argues essentially that politics now spreads beyond the bounds of nation states. He isn’t alone in suggesting that this is true, various other people make the same argument. The Congressional Research Service recently for example put out a fascinating paper about Burma (pdf) which suggested that the military dictatorship was exporting all sorts of problems- particularly crime, drug and people smuggling- beyond its borders and creating instability within the region.
Lets leave aside for a moment the more divisive questions about when to go to war, whether Iraq was right and what it is right to do in various situations, let us just accept a simple fact that today’s foreign policy is not merely Westphalian.
We are not merely concerned with the defence of the principle of international borders. Whether it be for human rights reasons, terrorism reasons, or more mundane economic and criminal reasons problems have a habit of overspilling their borders. Almost everyone agrees with this argument- from those who opposed the war on Iraq but support forcing Isreal and the PLO to a peace treaty to those that supported the war in Iraq but can’t see a need for much acceleration in the Middle Eastern Peace process. Obviously there is a minority who are purely libertarian and would argue that foreign policy itself is misconceived- Ron Paul is perhaps their most prominent leader- this article doesn’t address their arguments. We all are, whether we like it or not, internationalists now. continue reading… »
Is the Left Totalitarian?
The thesis that the left is totalitarian or tends to create totalitarian situations has a respectable pedigree. F. A. Hayek afterall argued that socialism was a road to serfdom, and Karl Popper suggested that state planning, based on the ideologies of Plato, Hegel and Marx led ultimately to totalitarian government.
This thesis is the ultimate refutation of the idea that in some way leftwing concerns with equality can be accomodated alongside any concern for liberty: the suggestion is that the left tends to wish to create the best society, irrespective of the views of those people living in it. Rightwing blogs tend to argue that the left for instance wants to create a tolerant society, and do that with the blunt instrument of the law, proscribing what people can and cannot say and ending up with a situation in which free speech no longer exists.
Is there any truth in these ideas? Obviously the left can become totalitarian and there are parts of the left which are totalitarian in the UK today- very minor parts like the communist and trotskyite parties of the far left. So incidentally can the right, clerical dominion is nothing if not totalitarian in its ambitions. But there is something more going on here- and that is the equation of economic liberty with liberty tout court.
An equation that the libertarians amongst us are eager to make- if that equation isn’t true then the argument that the left is neccessarily totalitarian collapses like a house of cards. The issue therefore is whether economic aid transferred by collective consent from the top of the socio-economic pyramid to the bottom is totalitarian.
continue reading… »
Gangs and terrorists
John Kerry, the former Presidential Candidate for the Democrats in 2004, was ridiculed when running for the White House because he compared terrorists to criminals. Whatever the merits of the case that some states encourage terrorism, Kerry may have been right to point to the similarities between terrorists and criminals. Both in the fact that it may be impossible to eradicate terrorism finally, and as a way of understanding the structure of terrorist movements.
This can all be illustrated if we turn to a recent Congressional Research Service report on the subject of some Latino Gangs that are increasingly worrying both the US and Central American governments.
Education and its purpose
Mike Ion wrote an interesting piece earlier on today about the school leaving age. I found it particularly interesting because of the language that Mike used, and the language that many of us use when discussing education. We tend to think of education as a way of maximising economic benefits to society- if you have a GCSE you will earn x, if you have an A-Level you will earn x+y, if you have a degree you will earn x+y+a etc. To some extent that is obviously true- though higher up the degree structure- with PhDs for example I’m not sure the link is as complete. To some extent the more educated you are, the more you earn and the more likely you are to get a job. But is that really what education is about, is education effectively a synonym for training only a broader sort of training that equips you with some transferrable skills like being able to read and do mathematics?
Part of the argument I think for suggesting that we need to train people as oppose to educate them is an assumption that what our society needs is a constant supply of labour. We need lots of workers and very few drones. But I think that misses something about education that we ought to think about. Because we aren’t merely a capitalist society, we are also a democratic society. There might be skills that a citizen needs in order to make decisions, vote and take part in the political process that aren’t the same as those that she requires as a worker. The point is for instance that if you can’t at a very basic level interpret and evaluate what politicians are saying on TV, you can’t really understand which party to vote for. Education should help you understand a bit of the world around you- understand something about the way that people live and enable you to understand more about that. Obviously it shouldn’t indoctrinate you, but it should provide you with the means to understand and think about things.
As liberals, and therefore committed to democracy, I think we should be a little more ambitious in what we want education to do. I don’t know what this means in policy terms- and obviously there are a hundred different arguments to be had about that. I don’t think it means anything in the context of the debate that Mike and Chris Dillow are having about the school leaving age. I do think though that if we aren’t careful we might just design an education system that reflects the language that we are using about education- that would be a disaster because it would bequeath us a generation of people, who were perfect employees, but unable to contribute to the world around them.
You can read articles through the front page, via Twitter or rss feeds.
» How bad is the feline obesity crisis?
» Why don’t MPs pay back tuition fees instead of increasing ours?
» Obama is right to slam BP – and why capitalists should too
» Why does Phillip Blond see civic cohesion as a security issue?
» So what if the Labour candidates went to Oxbridge?
» Last night’s Labour hustings: will it get interesting or turn to torture?
» It’s now down to Ken to win London for Labour
» The Labour people need
» Blog Nation: what would you like to see discussed?
» The Labour leadership’s token contender.. and it’s not Diane Abbott
» In defence of these fraternal nominations
|
66 Comments 20 Comments 13 Comments 10 Comments 18 Comments 4 Comments 25 Comments 49 Comments 31 Comments 16 Comments |
|
LATEST COMMENTS » Sarah AB posted on Complete tits » Blackberries posted on Complete tits » Shatterface posted on How bad is the feline obesity crisis? » Shatterface posted on Complete tits » McDuff posted on Why I'm defending Ed Balls over immigration » damon posted on Complete tits » Sunny Hundal posted on Complete tits » sunny hundal posted on Why don't MPs pay back tuition fees instead of increasing ours? » Lee Griffin posted on The Labour leadership's token contender.. and it's not Diane Abbott » dan posted on Defend the urban fox! » Richard W posted on Boris rise for Living Wage left of Labour » Julian Swainson posted on How many cabinet MPs went to private schools? » sally posted on Complete tits » Joanne Dunn posted on How many cabinet MPs went to private schools? » Lovely Lynnette Peck posted on How many cabinet MPs went to private schools? |
