Are all public sector workers stupid? No, obviously – only the ones who listen to the deceptions their unions spout. What does baffle me, however, is how certain workers in the public sector are completely clueless as to how they are actually paid. I swear some of them think money grows on trees.
The state now directly spends 53% of the kingdom's wealth, 53% GDP (this figure was 40% before Tony Blair was elected). That's more than communist china (COMMUNIST CHINA!). The public sector absorbs 53% of the wealth Britain generates, yet generates no wealth in return. It's a parasite, in other words. A teacher or politician may insist that she earns her salary, but she does so not in the same manner as a private sector worker. Their relationships to the economy are entirely different. A teacher, or politician, or doctor, or soldier, is entirely dependant on the private sector for her pay packet. Some might chip in and say, 'I'm paid by government, not the private sector, actually', which is quite hilarious. Government has no money. Any money a government has, it takes by taxation, taxation of the private sector: from bankers to waitresses. The public sector worker may then, bizarrely, protest that she pays her taxes just like everyone else. No she doesn't, girlfriend! Her entire salary is generated by the smaller private sector. Whatever she pays in taxes goes into the government spending pot – and straight back into her salary.
That's right: you pay your own salary. Look at it this way: a teaching job is created by the state, let's say the salary is £100 a month. That salary is paid for by the government which generates funds through taxation. Money from, let's say, a KFC establishment, is taken and used to pay for this teaching job. The teacher then pays £30s worth of tax from her salary in taxes. Is she paying taxes in the same manner as the KFC establishment? She might state, “by golly, I've paid my dues, I've paid £30 in tax”. But that £30 she has given up to the government, is basically going straight into her next pay-packet. The government is taking her 30% and placing it right back into next month's salary. The difference being, the teacher's salary is generated by the private sector, whilst the KFC establishment's wealth is generated entirely by its own merits. Oh no no no, before you say anything, KFC's profit is not stimulated by public sector workers buying buckets, that's basically KFC PAYING THEM to buy their own products, don't be so vulgar. So we have the public sector being entirely parasitic on the labour of the private sector. Any tax a public sector worker thinks she's paying is recycled and sent back to them. I'm sure they have a nice fuzzy feeling of 'doing their bit via tax', but really, it's just an illusion.
Now paying for soldiers and having teachers deliver first class education to our children, is a good thing. I like talking to people who can read! So we generally think that it's groovy to spend a bit of dosh on the public sector. I don't see any disagreements there, superficially at least. We all enjoy the benefits of some of the finest soldiers in the world. We enjoy the administration of the country, when it works. We enjoy an educated populace. We enjoy law and order. It's bloody brilliant.
In theory.
The unfortunate side-effect stems from games/structures of power. A consequence of living in an affluent democracy, that has completely forgotten that the freedom they enjoy was bought with blood. The paradigm that prevailed during the world wars, the paradigm of blood, sweat and toil, has been replaced with the paradigm of “it's my right!” It's my right to work, it's my right to have a great pension, it's my right to be educated for free! From one extreme to the other. What we have is less democracy and more a case of whichever party offers the more free shit is the government that wins the election. Few humans are going to vote for the party that might remove their job or lower their pension. And so, Labour in particular, played this very nasty game. To accumulate a clientele electorate that could be relied upon to vote Labour consistently, the size of the state was increased. This serves two functions: it ensures that those who are paid 'by the state' will vote Labour, as few will vote for government that will cut their job; and secondly, that those who benefit from some of the services that these jobs are supposed to provide, will likewise continue to vote leftwards. I'll give you a job, or a benefit, you give me your vote. Don't vote for the other guy, she'll cut your job or benefit! Simples. No one is going to condemn someone for spending money on an upgraded school, for example. It's a nice thing! But one who slashes the budget for upgrading a school will ALWAYS be villified.
That is not to say that there is no need for some of these jobs and public services. We can come up with an almost endless number of governmental services that would improve the quality of life for all. The problem arises when one is asked to pay for this stuff. Rent must be paid for when a governmental building opens, salaries must be paid. Money must be found, if one is to pay a benefit or pay for material items. It goes on and on.
The bigger a public sector, the more money it costs to fund. Remember, the public sector does not create money, it only absorbs it. It's up to the private sector, the bankers, the pornstars, the delivery boys, the merchants, blacksmiths and apothecaries, to create the wealth that the government will promptly tax in order to pay the salaries of the public workers. At a hypothetical equilibrium things might be ok. If Sean Bean was Hand of the King, things might be ok. However, under the rule of politicians who are either engaging in public spending to 'purchase' loyal voters, or idealist politicians who, despite their hearts being in the right place, think money grows on trees, we find ourselves unable to generate enough wealth to pay for the services that were in place decades ago, not to mention the new ones. So what happens? Even more money than usual is borrowed, often from overseas individuals, in order to pay for the public services. The money generated from KFC is not enough! And the public debt increases and increases. Currently it's like 4.8 trillion or something insane. And the current government is doing almost nothing to reduce that. In fact, if I remember correctly, public spending has somehow gone up the past few years (you'll notice increases in spending with most areas, apart from Defence, which is the only area to receive a real, substantial, cut … and yes, we're bombing Libya with bombs we can't afford). So the government borrows and this borrowed money incurs interest, generous interest in fact, for why would you lend a government money if there was little in it, for you?
The only way to pay – responsibly – for all these public services is to increase the wealth of the nation. The only ones who INCREASE the pool of money available are those businesses who can produce something that can be sold ABROAD: i.e. we take a bit of money from another country's pool of money, and add it to our own. The government takes its cut, and can spend that money on something new. This is gradual and slow, but responsible. Keep in mind, if you tax companies too much (this is the money THEY have earned and NOT you or the governments money, remember), they will understandably take their business abroad. For example, a hair-dressing salon generates money of its own accord but does not draw money in from abroad. A porn company, for example, might sell it's sexy products to Germany. If this happens, the UK government will take a slice of the pie Germany gave said porn company, via tax, as the company being based in the UK will have to pay a whole bunch of taxes.
Of course when your labour politician comes up to you and says, “we're gonna build a super massive school! And double-gold plate the teacher's pensions! I'm super-serious about this! I'm great!” everyone thinks that's cool: it's VERY hard to argue against. Many do not think hard about where this money is coming from. Speaking of pensions, who pays teacher's pensions? Not them. They may take a portion of their pay to pay into their pension, sure, but that money was never “theirs' in the first place. You can see where this is going! Who pays a teacher's pension? KFC pay it. The private sector will pay for it: the government does not generate wealth, it only takes it away from one and gives to another. Not to be discourteous towards teachers and their work, but this is about where raw cash and the means of generating it comes from. Yes, public sector workers work like everybody else – but their salary is paid to them via violence applied through tax. There is no free choice or will, in the matter. If you don't like KFC you can take the money you've earned elsewhere – not so with the public sector, you MUST pay them, less you be jailed. This aspect is not necessarily a bad state of affairs, I say it with indifference.
Britain is currently broken. It really is time people understood the insanity behind the public sector's current size, and it's time certain members of the public service eat a clue and get off their pedestal. I always respected a former boss who admitted he couldn't give a shite about his public-sector provision, but rather was in it for the overly-generous pension (given the limited difficulty and effort his job entailed) and pay, which outstripped anything he could hope to get in the private sector. Previous governments have simply created jobs which they could not afford to sustain, with pensions they simply could never have paid. With a damaged private sector, the public sector's bloated mass has buckled and threatens to crush us all, as with Greece. Previous governments have made promises to create jobs and provide nice care-bear services which predictably allowed them to cement power, and create a reliable base of loyal voters; but, in doing so they plundered the fruits of the private sector, and borrowed and borrowed money that not even our children's children will be able to pay back.
This rant might be crude (I am aware of various conflations, and oversimplifications) but the conclusion should be reasonably obvious: the bigger the public sector, the more money is required to sustain it. The smaller the private sector, the less money is available to power the public sector. We need to produce more shit to sell abroad. Like porn.
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