It is very hard for us to cross these cultural barriers of different experience. If you want some understanding of where I am coming from you could perhaps start by googling the 'Three Day Week' and 'Mid Staffordshire NHS scandal'. They will give you some flavour of the socialism based horror stories I could counter yours with.
Maybe the thing to focus on is to ask yourself why Thatcher was so popular and is still held in such high regard. It is because she gave people freedom and opportunities that they could never have under socialism. In a socialist system the only way to advance is to belong to a favoured interest group. Tories see the world more as a continuous tapestry than isolated blocks of special interests (that is what One Nation Toryism is all about - I would describe myself as a One Nation Tory). Thatcher took a country that was broken and stagnating and turned it in the course of a few years into a successful and confident one. For me personally this is always symbolised by watching London on my trips there over the years. When I was a child, after 30 years of socialism, London was run down, still with bomb sites from the war everywhere you went. By the 80s those bomb sites were beginning to be built on, with new colourful buildings. By the 90s Canary Wharf was there, representing the new city and what it would grow into. The London of today is one of only two world cities, and completely unrecognisable. I do understand that the rise in housing costs has hit native Londoners hard, just as the rise has effected everyone throughout the south, but it is hard to look at the transformation and see it as in any way a bad thing. Yes, there are problems, some of them very serious ones, that need to be solved, but I cannot see how returning to the 70s style could ever be the answer.
I understand what you are saying about the difficulties of recessions, and I am sorry you have had to go through those experiences. Recession is part of the capitalist system at the moment. Personally I am optimistic that as our economies grow and change ways will be found to limit the effects of recessions, although I do not believe they will ever be eliminated entirely. And it is perhaps worth pointing out that a soft socialist system certainly does not reduce the impact of recessions, it actually worsens them since the more things are dependent on tax revenue for investment, the more suffer every time that tax revenue is cut by a recession. The more varied and flexible a system is, the more robust it is.
So from my point of view, what you are describing is not a failure of capitalism as a system, but a failure of social service provision. Services are prone to market failure because they are commonly purchased as a subscription - which weakens the positive effects of those who shop around to improve the system and makes for a monopoly or cartel culture. That is why the best systems are a mixture of subscription (insurance or nationalised) and direct payment (cash purchases and personal savings accounts), with a charitable backup to catch any who fall through the net. Such a system is robust, flexible, and utilises the best of market systems to be constantly improving. It is less vulnerable to the economic cycle than a purely nationalised or insurance based system. Personal health/pension/social care accounts also allow ordinary people to build up assets which can be used as capital for other purposes. A nationalised taxation based system leaves most people asset poor, which is a major problem for those on low incomes throughout the West.
How either of our countries gets from the current failed subscription systems to a mixed approach, is the question that needs to be asked. Unfortunately in both our countries it is one question that almost nobody yet dares to ask, because the bulk of the population is too wedded to tinkering with the current system than stepping back and looking at the bigger picture. I am worried that the crises will need to get even worse before we face up to what needs to be done.
no subject
Maybe the thing to focus on is to ask yourself why Thatcher was so popular and is still held in such high regard. It is because she gave people freedom and opportunities that they could never have under socialism. In a socialist system the only way to advance is to belong to a favoured interest group. Tories see the world more as a continuous tapestry than isolated blocks of special interests (that is what One Nation Toryism is all about - I would describe myself as a One Nation Tory). Thatcher took a country that was broken and stagnating and turned it in the course of a few years into a successful and confident one. For me personally this is always symbolised by watching London on my trips there over the years. When I was a child, after 30 years of socialism, London was run down, still with bomb sites from the war everywhere you went. By the 80s those bomb sites were beginning to be built on, with new colourful buildings. By the 90s Canary Wharf was there, representing the new city and what it would grow into. The London of today is one of only two world cities, and completely unrecognisable. I do understand that the rise in housing costs has hit native Londoners hard, just as the rise has effected everyone throughout the south, but it is hard to look at the transformation and see it as in any way a bad thing. Yes, there are problems, some of them very serious ones, that need to be solved, but I cannot see how returning to the 70s style could ever be the answer.
I understand what you are saying about the difficulties of recessions, and I am sorry you have had to go through those experiences. Recession is part of the capitalist system at the moment. Personally I am optimistic that as our economies grow and change ways will be found to limit the effects of recessions, although I do not believe they will ever be eliminated entirely. And it is perhaps worth pointing out that a soft socialist system certainly does not reduce the impact of recessions, it actually worsens them since the more things are dependent on tax revenue for investment, the more suffer every time that tax revenue is cut by a recession. The more varied and flexible a system is, the more robust it is.
So from my point of view, what you are describing is not a failure of capitalism as a system, but a failure of social service provision. Services are prone to market failure because they are commonly purchased as a subscription - which weakens the positive effects of those who shop around to improve the system and makes for a monopoly or cartel culture. That is why the best systems are a mixture of subscription (insurance or nationalised) and direct payment (cash purchases and personal savings accounts), with a charitable backup to catch any who fall through the net. Such a system is robust, flexible, and utilises the best of market systems to be constantly improving. It is less vulnerable to the economic cycle than a purely nationalised or insurance based system. Personal health/pension/social care accounts also allow ordinary people to build up assets which can be used as capital for other purposes. A nationalised taxation based system leaves most people asset poor, which is a major problem for those on low incomes throughout the West.
How either of our countries gets from the current failed subscription systems to a mixed approach, is the question that needs to be asked. Unfortunately in both our countries it is one question that almost nobody yet dares to ask, because the bulk of the population is too wedded to tinkering with the current system than stepping back and looking at the bigger picture. I am worried that the crises will need to get even worse before we face up to what needs to be done.