Austerity Is Part of a Plan to Privatize the NHS
Austerity Is Part of a Plan to Privatize the NHS
Decades of austerity have undermined Britainâs National Health Service, leading to staffing shortages and longer wait times. Itâs a pretext for handing off more and more of the system to profiteering corporations.
Philosophy Tube's most recent episode explains "austerity" in the context of the UK's public services and I gotta say, what an absolutely dumb shit, quintessentially British way to cannibalize your own society.
It really is very stupid and short-sighted. And, of course, driven by people who see all government spending as a cost rather than an investment. When it inevitably causes the economy to stall, they then think the problem is that they're still spending too much, rather than not enough. The Tories also think they're taxing too much, when in reality they're not taxing enough.
While I think it is possible for governments to spend money in wasteful and frivolous ways, so more spending is not necessarily better, spending on health, housing, transport, education, etc definitely isn't wasteful or frivolous. They're investments that pay for themselves, often in invisible ways that don't become obvious until decades later.
They really struggle to understand that all businesses have departments that consume money and departments that generate profit (cost centres and profit centres); not every part of the system makes money, but the parts that do (Sales) need the support of departments that don't (Human Resources, Accounts, Legal) - get the balance right and you have a resilient organisation that will do well.
Public spending and the public sector are a bit like the cost centres of a business. Having high quality public education, healthcare and transport creates and supports an environment in which free enterprise has access to a skilled, healthy and mobile workforce; the profits naturally follow. Balance that properly with appropriate taxation and the system trundles on...
Nothing good in the history of mankind has ever come from conservatism. Nothing at all.
Luckily most people still see what they are doing to the NHS and think it's bullshit but some think the other "advantages" the Tories "provide" outweighs that disadvantage, and no I don't see Labour changing course on trying to privatise the NHS either.
The NHS has been in trouble for a very long time and politicians see that as a good thing.