At 12:48 15/12/01 +0100, you wrote: (CR) >You see Keith, that's the problem with your UK-centrism: You observe that >the centralistic, Thatcherism/TurdWay-ruined UK public services are bad, >and from this you jump to the "conclusion" that public services *as such* >must be bad. Not so. Where's your often-boasted rationality ?
I am not so dirigiste as you imagine. If, in a state-run system, the citizen (or the citizens as a whole) were able to say: "I have received good service for the price I (we) have paid (taxation)" and, if this were not the case in some instances, the citizen were able to access the providers fairly readily and insist on better service (and obtain it), this would, in reality, be quite close to a free market system, and I wouldn't be so bothered. But, much more often than not, this is not the case. In a small country like Switzerland (and in Finland, Sweden, Norway, and other small developed countries) the state-run services are better than in countries with much larger populations because the bureaucratic hierarchies are shorter and the top civil servants managing the system are more accessible. This is why your public services (and in those other countries) are generally better than ours (and much better in the case of education in Finland). Keith Hudson ___________________________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________________________________________
