Tuesday 8 February 2011

A comment that is worthy of a post

Edward Spalton, commenting on an earlier post about the Forensic Science Service, made remarks which are worthy of repitition.
"PRIVATISATION is the outcome of an EU-inspired policy known as "The Enabling State". That is, the state commissions services to be run by private contractors, competing in an EU-wide "market" for every possible type of service.

It is now about 4 years since the East Riding of Yorkshire outsourced all its administrative services to a German-owned company, Arvato, which is part of the Bertelsmann group.

The obvious outcome of this is that most of the vital infrastructure of every member state will be infiltrated by foreign-owned companies (which themselves can be sold on to other companies). The companies will owe a sort of allegiance to the EU for creating the "market" for them and be in a position to report on the internal workings of everything from District Council upwards.

One result to date is that the freehold of many British government offices have been sold off to private providers, registered in tax havens. The Inland Revenue was one of the first to do this! (I kid you not. You could not make it up!).

This is not, of course, private enterprise in the Adam Smith, free market tradition. It is a welding together of political and market power. Its proper name is corporatism and Mussolini (who knew as much as anybody about it) said it was the basis of fascism. It doesn't need the fancy uniforms, shiny boots and silly salutes.They were just window dressing to display apparent dynamism. Common Purpose (with its emphasis on "leadership" - aka the Fuehrerprinzip) provides the ideology for the lounge-suited storm troopers of the New Order. Cameron's "Big Society" is another aspect.

It is infinitely corruptible, as demonstrated by the "revolving door" by which politicians and officials leave public service and return again as directors and consultants of the firms to which they awarded contracts.

The idea is to let the gravy train run sufficiently far so that there is a adequately large, powerful politico/business class to suffocate any possible rebellion.

And the system is so opaque and diffuse that people do not know who or what to attack. The mixture of private and public functions makes it near impossible to tell 't'other from which."

9 comments:

GoodnightVienna said...

Absolutely! I don't think there's a word there I can disagree with. Everything, from localism and the Big Society to selling off slices of national infrastructure, is bound in with corporatism and the EU. I wish more people would stop and think about the direction we're heading in.

Mark Wadsworth said...

That's an excellent summary and indeed well worthy of being posted in its own right. The EU in particular (but all governments generally) are a conduit for getting taxpayers' money to their chums in the 'private' sector.

WV: ally no

WitteringsfromWitney said...

GV/MW: As I said in an earlier post, Our Edward rocks!

The Gray Monk said...

Absolutely spot on the money.... Er, pardon the unintentional pun!

Tufty said...

"And the system is so opaque and diffuse that people do not know who or what to attack."

I do – the EU.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

TGM: You're forgiven!

T: Agreed, the root of all our evil

Edward Spalton said...

Thank you for the kind comment, WfW.
Tufty, the EU is beyond our reach to attack. Its local agents here, people who look and talk like our fellow countrymen, are not - but we have to identify them first! The EU has done nothing to us. Our own political class has done it.

This quotation from Giuliano Amato (former Italian Prime Minister and Vice President of the EU Constitutional Convention) from an interview in La Stampa of 13 July 2000 tells us what a Kafka-esque world is intended
" (Amato) said that however daring a political project might be.... it must be hidden, camouflaged. One must act "as if" in Europe. "As if" one wanted a very few things in order to obtain a great deal. "As if" nations were to remain sovereign in order to convince them to surrender their sovereignty. The Commission in Brussels, for example, must act "as if" it were a technical organ in order to operate like a government.
He said that sovereignty lost on a national level does not pass to any new individual. It is entrusted to a faceless entity....eventually the EU. The Union is the vanguard of a changing world. The new entity is faceless and those in command can neither be identified nor elected. As a matter of fact the metamorphosis is already here. All we need are a few corrections here and there along with a great deal of cunning...."

This and a great deal more useful stuff in CIB's booklet "A HOUSE DIVIDED: Can Parliament serve two masters, the Nation and the EU?" £2.50 from
SMP Ltd, 1 Barnfield, Common Lane, Hemingford Abbots, Huntingdon PE28 9AX

TTC said...

Re. Bertelsmann:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2308415.stm

They are not alone.

TTC

WitteringsfromWitney said...

ES: Thanks for the additional information.

TTC: Thanks for that link.