Socialism in
Great Britain
“I’ve been reading British
history, Curmudge. Right after
World War II the Labour Party was voted into power, and the Prime Minister,
Clement Attlee, was committed to nationalizing Britain’s main industries. Thus the State took ownership of the
gas, coal, steel, electricity, rail, airline, and auto manufacturing industries. This helped rebuild
the country’s infrastructure that had been damaged in the war. The welfare state was also established,
including a national insurance system and the National Health Service
(NHS). There was a belief at that
time that government could play a positive role in promoting equality through
social engineering, e.g., progressive taxation and redistributive welfare
spending.”
“That seemed to work well for a while, Julie. But then by the 1970’s many of the
nationalized industries encountered problems. They were managed inefficiently,
and those (‘too big to fail’) were bailed out by the taxpayers. There was increasing labor unrest, and
even the gravediggers went on strike.
The U.K. was termed ‘the sick man of Europe,’
with targets
for blame including outdated attitudes on the shop floor (‘us and them’)
and irresponsible trade union power.
The winter of 1978-79 became known as Britain’s ‘winter of our
discontent’ (from Shakespeare’s Richard
III).”
“I know what happened then, Old Guy. In 1979 the Conservative Party returned
to power with Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister. By the late 1970’s and throughout the 1980’s most of the
U.K.’s State-owned industries (but not the NHS) were sold off to the private
sector. This signaled the end of
the era of strict socialism and of following Keynesian economic policies, i.e.,
attempting to stimulate the economy with government spending. Thatcher adopted the ‘new ideas of economists
Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman—advocating a greater scope for markets and limited
government.’ We’ll talk more
about these concepts in a later posting.”
“We now recognize this as supply-side
economic policy. The
result of this was that the ‘economy was growing steadily and Britons could
once again look into the future
with optimism.’ This was
largely due to Thatcher’s militant classical liberalism (now termed
conservatism) and strength of character.”
“You know, Curmudge, the labor unions in postwar Britain had
considerable influence over the Labour government. Any group in power in a national government would be
expected to govern fairly and equitably.
That might have put the unions in an awkward role.”
“How so, Bright Lady?”
“By their nature, unions seek preferential benefits for
their members at the expense of the rest of society. It seems to me that a union would be the epitome of
self-centeredness on behalf of its members and wouldn’t even be expected to
govern a whole nation in an equitable manner. So I’m not surprised that the Labour government made ‘a
dog’s breakfast’ out of Great Britain.”
“Said like a true Brit, Julie. And it’s worse than that. A union’s higher-ups often aren’t fully supportive of the
working people. A union contract
gives a union monopoly power to provide workers to a business, giving others
who wish to work no choice but to join the union. Furthermore, the union bosses can use members’ dues to
support causes that some members might not wish to support. And finally, politicians with strong
union support may be corrupted to advocate policies that favor the union to the
detriment of the general public.
Thus it is conceivable that a union can abridge the political as well as
the economic freedom of the populace.”
“Wow, Curmudge!
It certainly appears that socialism is not a good choice for most
societies and certainly not for our Curmudgeonocracy. A possible exception would be a small country with a
monolithic population and lots of money, like Norway. Let’s end with your favorite Margaret Thatcher quotation:
‘The problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, you run out of other
people’s money.’ “
Kaizen Curmudgeon
No comments:
Post a Comment