Who pays? What a naive question.

Published by Tom

September 23, 2011

Has any one lost their job over half-billion pound waste? | Grassroots | The TaxPayers' Alliance.

This is so naive. Of course the answer is 'No.' It's not even a sensible question. The job objectives of public 'servants' are so much more complex than in the private sector, as is their relationship with their bosses. No doubt some politician signed off this scheme; probably to make political capital by publicly 'caring' about such popular front-liners as firemen.

Perhaps the civil servants knew from the outset the project would fail, but did their level best? Perhaps. Or perhaps they didn't give a damn. After all, why should they?

Even to discuss it is to make the false assumption that efficient government is possible. Even in the private sector, when all economic interests are aligned, humans find ways to foul up. But spending limitless supplies of other people's money obtained by force on 'services' no-one would choose to pay for guarantees it. Why do we continue to be (or pretend to be) outraged when the inevitable happens? After all, this particular failure is quite minor compared to the £6 billion of materiel lost by the Ministry of Defence. Yet that story passed in minutes, with no political (or employment) consequences.

For these are failures only in the banal terms by which those of those of us outside public 'service' live our lives. Neither of these massive cock-ups was a 'failure' for the civil servants or their bosses. The former got their salaries, pensions and honours. The politicians remained focussed on the only thing they care about; winning a popularity contest in the next 1-5 years to allow them to get money the market would never pay them. To hope for different outcomes is to assume there is a 'right' form of this legalised, but still evil, gangsterism.

The state is inherently inefficient. The only way to avoid such colossal waste (both of taxpayers' money and of lives in politics and the public sector that might otherwise have been productive) is to scale it down. All else is dangerous delusion.

7 responses to “Who pays? What a naive question.”

Peter Whale

September 23, 2011

Tom, I used to be just cynical of the state now I just despise and hate it in all its variety.
Glad to have you back posting.

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MickC

September 23, 2011

Both sentiments seconded.

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Suboptimal Planet

September 23, 2011

Good post, Tom.
I’m not so sure about this bit:
“The politicians remained focussed on the only thing they care about; winning a popularity contest in the next 1-5 years to allow them to get money the market would never pay them”
A politically-connected friend has met many MPs, and his impression is that most of them are there because they genuinely want to make Britain a better place … it’s just that they’re tragically misguided.
You might say that’s naive, but I suspect you don’t get to be an MP (even in the Labour Party) without having something about you. I think it’s probably the non-politician’s employed by the public sector who would struggle to find employment in the private sector.

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Tom Paine

September 23, 2011

I think its naive. From my own inside sources, most seem to be more or less John Prescott; i.e. mediocrities living in a style their ‘talents’ could never sustain in the real world.
In fact Prescott has the virtue of a distinctive ‘voice’ (even if he is wrong from the molecular level up). Most are bland and colourless too. We used to have some talented, experienced, characterful MPs but now they are mainly career politicians with zero real life experience.
I could be available to serve myself and would happily dedicate the last decade or so of my working life to poltics, but no electable party would accept a canktankerous, opinionated, independent sort like me. They would know I’d vote my conscience and wouldn’t always take the party whip. Hence the nonentities we are cursed with as legislators. We should not vote for anyone prepared to make the Faustian bargain involved in being adopted as a PPC for the three main parties.

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tomsmith

September 23, 2011

We should not vote at all because democratic politics is the problem. Voting amounts to support for the system of ceding control over large portions of freedom and material wealth to the state. I don’t care if the state is run by people who are a bit more inclined to think like me or not: the idea of it is still utterly wrong.

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Matt

September 23, 2011

Quite troubling. The role of a Civil Servant is to carry out, execute the policy decisions handed down by the political masters. It is not part of the script that the civil servant has to “believe” in the policy. Why should it be. Should Civil Servants constantly second guess their political masters and only progress things they personally support.
When a family and a mortgage have to be supported all of that is a luxury you can’t afford.
You do as you are told, and do all you can to deliver what you have been told is wanted.
Whether a new Fire Service control system or beavering away on Climate change, windmills, sea level rise and such stuff.
Even at the highest level telling the top dog what he does not want to hear is not a good career move.
This fish rotted from the head as always. We are just an incompetent badly run country sinking rapidly into our new role as an offshore dump for the EUSSRs social problems. Meanwhile French and Canadian defence and IT spivs run riot barely able to believe their luck. Unforgivable.

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Andrew Duffin

September 24, 2011

“probably to make political capital by publicly ‘caring’”
Attractive idea which I suppose does them some sort of credit, but in fact not true.
They signed of on it because it was part of the EU plan for the regionalisation of England in preparation for direct government from Brussels, and they always do what the EU says.
So even worse then you thought.

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