The public domain, argues David Marquand in his new book, Decline of the Public, needs reinventing. It needs reinventing so that it can be rid of inappropriate devices such as market proxies and performance targets, the things made fashionable by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler’s book Reinventing Government, published in America ten years ago. This kind of reform, says Marquand, consumes the trust on which a civilised polity depends. The techniques of improvement (targets, league tables, pay for results) that are virtues in a market domain become vices in the public domain. A panoply of centralised control and inspection has directly caused the dilapidated state of public services and, in the process, hollowed out our sense of belonging to a common citizenry. The solution is a return to professional autonomy, democratic participation by active citizens and the reinvigoration of local government. All the Osborne and Gaebler stuff, says Marquand, was not reinvention; it was destruction.
This will be intoxicating reading for some people on the left. They will be heartened to hear that Marquand attributes the apparently poor state of public services to what he calls the kulturkampf, which has been waged by an aggressive, cross-party, market-fixated elite. But it is an odd judgement when you consider that the kulturkampf has been accompanied by large increases in public spending. In 1978, ?28bn (at 2003-04 prices) was spent on the NHS. By 2001 it was ?70bn. Education spending rose over the same period from ?33bn to ?57bn. And the biggest boost has come about thanks to a policy choice by the Labour party in 2001. Marquand does point out that public spending and the public domain are not the same, but it would be odd to suggest that public services have not been improved at all by new money.
It is also an odd judgement to make at a time when there seems to be pretty conclusive evidence that public services are improving. Violent crime has fallen from 3.6m incidents in 1997 to 2.7m in 2003; waiting lists have fallen from a peak of 1.3m in 1998 to below 1m in 2003; the rate of heart disease mortality has fallen steadily, from 142 per 1,000 people in 1997 to 115 per 1,000 in 2001. In 1988, under 40 per cent of children achieved five GCSEs at grades A to C. In 2002, 51 per cent achieved the same grades.
If you are a subscriber, please log in »
This article is available to subscribers only
Subscribing to Prospect is the most reliable and convenient way to receive the magazine every month, and offers the best value.Subscription Types:
Online
An online subscription offers you complete and unlimited access to the entire website, including our searchable archive of every back issue of Prospect, and a PDF edition of each new issue: all this for just £20 per year. Purchase an online subscription »Renewal
Renew an existing subscription »Institutional access
If you are a library, business organisation or any other large institution that needs a multi-user licence, you can obtain institutional access.
Share
Subscribe to post comments
Print
