Calm down, dears

by Maria on October 19, 2011

The Government is worried about women. Not worried in the sense of;

‘Concerned the female unemployment rate is higher and getting worse’;

‘Troubled that axing child benefit nudges middle class women out of work for good’;

‘Alarmed that women know health and education cuts doom their children to shorter, poorer lives’;

‘Horrified that targeted cutbacks to legal aid mean demonstrably more women will be murdered by the men they love’.

Not at all.

Silly women, the government thinks! Just because of our blue-sky thinking to cut parental leave in the never-ending War on Red Tape, why would women think we have it in for them?

But the UK equivalent of the American soccer mom is deserting the coalition government in droves, and she must be won back. How? The coalition can’t miss this once-in-a-generation chance to destroy the welfare state in order to pay for banks and the imaginary economy they’ve destroyed. The cuts must go on.

Then what shall they do to win women back? How about some cheep ‘n cheerful eye-catching measures that show our hearts are in the right place? Let’s;

• Ban forced marriages, because that’s too simple an issue to cock up
• Pretend we can stop porn on the Internet, because women are too stupid to know it doesn’t work like that, and we can still get ours anyway
• Talk very loudly about how hideous it is to sexualize children, especially working class ones who don’t know any better
• Spend bazillions on our buddies’ flagship ‘free schools’ in west London to show we really care about the kids
• Remind everyone constantly that the Prime Minister’s heart is in the right place; he has NHS frequent flyer miles and he feels our pain

And you know what? Cameron is right to be a little perplexed that women are losing faith in him. Because the government’s faux-regretful gouges at the post-war social contract don’t just hurt women. They hurt everyone who’s not been sensible enough to be born or become wealthy. It’s just that women voters seem to be among the first to cop on to it.

But you can’t play the ‘trust me because I’m a reasonable, personable man with a clever wife I adore’ card more than once. Women aren’t stupid, and neither is the electorate.

{ 65 comments }

1

Ben 10.19.11 at 8:50 am

“The coalition can’t miss this once-in-a-generation chance to destroy the welfare state”

“Because the government’s faux-regretful gouges at the post-war social contract don’t just hurt women.”

Just…. wow. All that was the post-war social contract was it? If so, how come it has been growing continuously since the war? Reducing it to something like… well, not so much reducing it as stopping it growing so fast, really … cannot be described as “gouging the post-war social contract”, or “destroy[ing] the welfare state”.

That’s just about the silliest post I have read here.

2

Phil 10.19.11 at 8:58 am

not so much reducing it as stopping it growing so fast

Two years before cuts: 5 libraries. One year before cuts: 5 libraries. Year after cuts: 3 libraries. Clearly, the library service has “stopped growing so fast”.

It’s just that women voters seem to be among the first to cop on to it

Actually women voters were the last (or rather, the second) gender-defined group to cop on to it; until recently, the Tories’ loss of support among men was being propped up by a higher level of support among women.

3

Chris Bertram 10.19.11 at 9:09 am

Actually they did cock up the forced marriages ban, through trying to implement it via a measure that attacked the article 8 rights of people under 21.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15272121

To be fair, though, this was a NuLab policy, enthusiastically adopted by the coalition.

4

Maria 10.19.11 at 9:21 am

Exactly – my sarcasm perhaps wasn’t heavy enough!

5

ajay 10.19.11 at 9:24 am

But the UK equivalent of the American soccer mom is deserting the coalition government in droves, and she must be won back.

This doesn’t actually seem to be true.

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/2867/Conservative-support-among-women.aspx

“Articles in the Observer ( 2 October 2011) and Guardian (3 October 2011), quoting Ipsos MORI data on women’s voting intentions and attitudes to the Conservatives, have a number of errors…We find women’s support for the Conservatives over the course of 2011 at 35%, compared to 36% in the general election, down one percentage point. Over the same period, Conservative support among men has fallen from 38% to 35%, a three-point fall…there is now no substantial difference between the voting intentions of men and women as a whole.”

They go on, however, to say that “we have found that the government performs worse among women than among men on a number of other measurements of political attitudes” – no details yet.

Breakdown of changes in support for the Conservatives shows that the people who have been leaving in droves since the general election are young and youngish men – 18-24 and 25-34 – and
young women – 18-24 only. There are really significant drops in those demographics.

The “soccer mom” age groups, however, have most definitely not been leaving the Conservatives. Tory support is up among 25-34 women and static in 35-54 women.

6

ajay 10.19.11 at 9:43 am

The real loss of support for the Coalition has been voters walking away from the Liberal Democrats, but there’s really no demographic story to tell there. Men are leaving, women are leaving, old women, young men, rich women, working class men… everyone hates them.

7

Tim Worstall 10.19.11 at 9:48 am

“Spend bazillions on our buddies’ flagship ‘free schools’ in west London to show we really care about the kids”

I assume that’s Toby Young’s thing. Which appears to be cheaper in capital costs than a standard new state school.

8

Maria 10.19.11 at 10:11 am

Good luck to you Tim if you’ve been able to find solid information on government funding of ‘free schools’. At least £130 million has been spent on capex for what, about half a dozen new schools?

But the Dept. of Education refuses to say how much for each, and the total figure is suspected to be far higher. Nick Gove controversially awarded £500,000 to conservative lobby group (sorry, ‘charity’), the New Schools Network, in a no-bid contract to promote the initiative.

Meanwhile education maintenance allowances that actually keep thousands of disadvantaged youth in education are being slashed.

I don’t consider that cheap.

9

Maria 10.19.11 at 10:14 am

Ajay, yes indeed, the government’s stance that women are deserting it in droves does appear to be more of a rhetorical stance than a demographic issue. Hence the synthetic response.

10

ajay 10.19.11 at 10:20 am

9: eh? So the government knows it isn’t actually losing the female vote, but it wants to make it look as though it’s trying to win it back? Not sure I follow that.

11

Alex 10.19.11 at 10:32 am

Which appears to be cheaper in capital costs than a standard new state school.

That’s because it isn’t a new school, in the sense of a new building dedicated to education. The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, which is currently controlled by Tories, just *gave* Toby the use of a building when it looked like he wouldn’t make it to the start line in September, kicking a variety of inoffensive community organisations that had been based in it for years out onto the kerb.

It is very easy to have lower CAPEX if your ideological pals just *give* you chunks of state property in order to spare their party an embarrassing fiasco.

Meanwhile, what I want to know is what happened between the 14th December 2010 and the 1st February 2011. If you look at the chart, the Tory lead among women transitions from its previous range, between 5 and 10 percentage points higher than men, down to a new one hardly any different…and the change is accomplished entirely within this period of time. It’s a regime-change in the original, pre-Rumsfeld sense of the term.

I’m struggling to tie this to a political event of some description.

The other interesting observation is that the two series used to be inversely correlated but since May 2011 they have become correlated.

12

Alex 10.19.11 at 10:35 am

We find women’s support for the Conservatives over the course of 2011 at 35%, compared to 36% in the general election, down one percentage point.

To put it another way, if you average over the year, the in-year changes are smoothed out? That’s what averaging does.

13

ajay 10.19.11 at 10:41 am

Not sure about your correlation point Alex, I think I’d want to see the numbers. But you’re right about the disappearance of the Conservative lead among women.
Combine that with the IPSOS thing I linked to, and I think you can be fairly sure that whatever it was happened among young women because that’s the main bit of their female base that has disappeared. What did the Tories do in late 2010 that could have annoyed a lot of young women? Is there a tuition fees issue?

14

Tim Worstall 10.19.11 at 10:41 am

Well, this is from Toby Young so is clearly suspect:

“When you say the £15m capital cost of establishing the West London Free School is “worrying”, do you mean you’re worried that the Coalition is investing so little in the free schools programme? Because the average cost of establishing a new secondary school under the last government’s Building Schools for the Future programme was, on average, twice that and in some cases three times as much. As it happens, another new secondary school is opening in Hammersmith and Fulham at the same time as the West London Free School, this one built by the last government. It is exactly the same size as the WLFS, i.e. it will admit 120 children/year and will educate 840 children at full capacity. Yet this school has cost the taxpayer £36m. ”

And the £130 million cost is opening 24 schools, which at £5 million and change each doesn’t sound all that terribly expensive (obviously, not all in London and many are primaries which are cheaper etc)

There could be all sorts of reasons for opposing free schools, ranging from Melissa Benn’s plaintive cry that of course who gets educated where and how in what manner should be left to important people like Melissa Benn all the way through to actually principled opposition.

But government efficiency at capital expenditure probably isn’t one of the arguments against free schools.

15

ajay 10.19.11 at 10:51 am

the average cost of establishing a new secondary school under the last government’s Building Schools for the Future programme was, on average, twice that

Yes, Toby, probably because that programme involved actually building actual schools rather than, as Alex points out, getting given them for free by your mates.

16

Alex 10.19.11 at 11:05 am

Tuition fees, EMA – is this an unintended consequence of girls doing really well on exams in the 2000s? In which case, I think this is something of a triumph for progress in general.

Other possibilities – housing benefit/LHA, child benefit? Housing disproportionately affects the young, of course. There was the whole ruckus about taxing child benefit, or perhaps not, but the actual group of people affected was pretty small. That doesn’t mean, though, that it didn’t have wider political impact.

17

ptl 10.19.11 at 11:08 am

9 doesn’t make sense to me. It’s possible the Tories see women as a safer bet than men (historically, true to an extent) so are more concerned about a loss of female support in the polls; it’s possible they know women tend to support the welfare state more strongly; it’s possible they’ve misinterpreted the poll data.

I suggest they really are concerned, hence the little cheap n’ cheerful measure you forgot to list

— backtracking, at a not insignificant cost, on the combined raising/equalisation of the state pension age

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15333154

(But “flyer miles etc.” are not responses to a real or feared loss of support among women. Hugging huskies was part of Call Me Dave’s thing before the election, and it isn’t only about women — and very much is about the middle class.)

“It’s just that women voters seem to be among the first to cop on to it.”

Women might well notice it first — I’d expect that — but not change their voting behaviour first.

The MORI piece seems sound.

18

ajay 10.19.11 at 11:16 am

Tuition fees, EMA – is this an unintended consequence of girls doing really well on exams in the 2000s? In which case, I think this is something of a triumph for progress in general.

Needs more data but sounds probable – especially since they’ve lost lots of support among men of the same age as well.

19

Chris Williams 10.19.11 at 11:20 am

Longer time horizons of 20something women compared to their 20something male counterparts? If your goals in life are to play games and hang out with your mates – Forever! – then you might miss (for a time) the closure of the semi-skilled career track. If you’re thinking – even once in a while – about settling down and raising kids, the country is truly obviously down the shitter.

20

John Quiggin 10.19.11 at 11:27 am

A bit of a tangent, but does anyone have any insight into how the LibDem backbench is thinking. Presumably a fair few of them would have rather gone with Labour, and (I don’t know much about the geography of their support, so maybe this is less accurate) presumably nearly all of them are facing obliteration, with no serious prospect that the LibDems will regain support, even if the govt as a whole does so.

If I were in the situation described, I’d be thinking of switching to Labour while there was still time. But AFAIK no one has done so. Any thoughts?

21

ajay 10.19.11 at 11:33 am

19: don’t forget that the numbers paint a picture of women being rather slower than men to work out that Conservative policies are bad news.

22

Chris Williams 10.19.11 at 11:43 am

You and your pesky _facts_, Ajay. . . Perhaps the male slackers had already changed their minds, when faced with the immediate and obvious drop in prospects, but their optimistic (and better qualified) sisters spent an extra few months temping and interning before the scales fell from their eyes?

Hmm . . . I don’t know about the rest of us, but at this point I have certainly reached and passed the ‘pointless speculation’ line. More research is needed. I would imagine that the Conservative Party carried out such research in March 2011, as their numbers among women went south. Or rather, I _would_ imagine the Conservatives carried out such research, if I hadn’t reluctantly concluded that they appear to lack the brain power given by providence to crows, Labradors, and perhaps even cats.

23

Phil 10.19.11 at 12:03 pm

The trouble with leftish Lib Dems is that I don’t think any of them see themselves as as left-wing as Labour. The old breed of Lib Dem, who combined a healthy dislike for the Tories with a nice middle-class hatred of the labour movement, is more or less extinct, not least because New Labour had a much better claim to that pitch. What started developing under Ashdown, and galloped ahead under Kennedy, was a Lib Dem programme consistently and coherently to the Left of New Labour; my own MP, who replaced Labour’s Keith Bradley and essentially fought him from the Left, is one example. (The Lib Dems’ position on Iraq also helped.) So you’ve now got a fair number of Leftish Lib Dem MPs, stuck in a coalition with the Tories, who still criticise Labour from the Left; their argument is that, even if the net impact of the coalition on the country is negative, at least the LDs are making it less negative than it would have been. Labour, by contrast, had the chance to do something positive, but only did something slightly less negative than the Tories. (No, it doesn’t make much sense. “The dwarfs are for the dwarfs”, essentially.)

24

Barry 10.19.11 at 12:30 pm

That sounds morel like the Lib-Dem leadership sold out to the Tories, promising their backbenchers that they’d be able to soften the inevitable (i.e., TINA, Thatcher’s favorite lie). And now they’re stuck; calling an election now would result in the Lib-Dems being trashed.

25

Tom Addison 10.19.11 at 12:38 pm

Demagogic faux-egalitarianism, as Will Self would say.

26

Maria 10.19.11 at 12:39 pm

Sorry, Tim. I got the number of schools wrong. Point taken that capex per se isn’t the issue – more knowledgeable people than I can compare per pupil spend and decide how troubling or otherwise it is. But large amounts of money are being splurged untransparently on ideological pet projects of dubious value and to the detriment of boring old every day schools.

27

Maria 10.19.11 at 12:42 pm

Ajay, as per my post above about Costa, I have spent more time this week than I’m used to, reading The Times. It is all agog about The Problem With Women, and I am responding rhetorically to that. Not very scientific, but what’s in the zeitgeist. For some function of zeitgeist.

28

ajay 10.19.11 at 12:53 pm

27: ugh, bad luck.

29

Tim Worstall 10.19.11 at 1:10 pm

“But large amounts of money are being splurged untransparently on ideological pet projects of dubious value ”

Well, yes, that’s what tends to happen when a government of different ideological hue gets elected. An appalling problem but one not really solved by not having governments of different ideological hue being able to get elected.

“The trouble with leftish Lib Dems is that I don’t think any of them see themselves as as left-wing as Labour.”

It’s possible to make an entirely respectable argument that *all* LibDem MPs see themselves are more left wing than much of the Labour Party. And quite a few Tories too. After all, there’s nothing quite as conservative (note, small c) as much of the Labour Party.

30

Phil 10.19.11 at 1:48 pm

Tim – the problem with that is that it makes leftish LDs see the Labour Party as a traitorous rival which ultimately needs to be replaced, rather than as a potential ally. The cognitive dissonance involved in maintaining that belief while in coalition with the Tories must be almost physically painful.

31

ptl 10.19.11 at 3:32 pm

21 ” don’t forget that the numbers paint a picture of women being rather slower than men to work out that Conservative policies are bad news”

I’d taken the numbers in, ajay, but failed to spell out my point. When I said

“Women might well notice it first—I’d expect that— but not change their voting behaviour first.”

I failed to add “so, the polls won’t necessarily show it”. I have noted massive complaints from many women about Condem welfare cuts, but often, they don’t, or don’t immediately, translate into support for a different party. There are various reasons for that. (I won’t bother to give them here. )

22 “You and your pesky facts, Ajay.” anyone, Chris, can parrot opinion poll data. It is its meaning that counts.

32

ptl 10.19.11 at 3:42 pm

22. “More research is needed. I would imagine that the Conservative Party carried out such research in March 2011, as their numbers among women went south. ”

It does rather a lot of polling, doesn’t it?

I agree more research is needed.

Maria, 27, luckily, I don’t read the Times. That would have maddened me too. But, you chose to escape it by posting *here*?

33

DrJim 10.19.11 at 3:56 pm

“Women aren’t stupid, and neither is the electorate.”

Both were stupid enough to fall for it once. What you are hoping is they won’t fall for it again; i.e. they aren’t THAT stupid. I have my doubts.

34

Salient 10.19.11 at 4:05 pm

If anything, ajay’s observation serves to amplify Maria’s point: if the trend isn’t even well-established as clearly happening, WTF is up with the newspapers going agog about it? Speculative assessment is unwarranted and weird. They probably just see it as more horse race coverage.

Reminds me of the newspaper stands that said, by way of advertising a new special feature, “What Do Women Want?” Seriously. It said that. In boldface. As an advertisement that their newspaper would investigate the answer and report back to us. First point of discussion was whether the fashion section of a newspaper tended to highlight supermodel fashion too much and mainstream clothing too little. There were a couple sentences about women wanting quality local news reporting from a newspaper somewhere in there, but even in that they specified stories about family type things, e.g. coverage of the annual state fair. No mention of the sports or business section. I wanted to tear my hair out.

Statute of limitations is definitely expired by now, so it’s safe to admit I spent a few hours one Saturday with paint approximately the color of the background and brushed out the “What” on every newsstand with that slogan that I could find. To ‘heighten the contradictions!’ …and also because it proved impossible to replace the Do with an Ought. (Replicating fonts is hard.) I was sort of hoping to get arrested and then interviewed about it, so I could get the chance to say I was attempting to save the newspaper folks from their own asinine blockheadedness (I had the phrase ‘asinine blockheadedness’ pre-picked out and everything.)

…I wonder if this runs afoul of JQ’s principle set forth in the MLK post. Probably not, it seems like most graffiti type things are best categorized as not violent (violent specifically referring to physically breaking something so that its physical structure is compromised). Eh.

35

Steve Williams 10.19.11 at 4:36 pm

This is just a suggestion, maybe completely rubbish, but perhaps there’s a sense of panic over the fact that their share of the vote amongst women hasn’t gone up? After all, they do want a majority next time, and as Maria pointed out, they’ve done most of the nice stuff already, the blocking of hubby’s porn, the forced marriage thing, but they haven’t done all that much of the massive white-collar public sector layoff thing yet, which is presumably going to hit women the hardest . . .

36

ajay 10.19.11 at 4:43 pm

“anyone, Chris, can parrot opinion poll data. It is its meaning that counts.”

What an odd thing to say.

34 rings fairly true. I mean, by definition, if they want a majority next time they’re probably going to have to increase their share of the female vote (and indeed of the male vote as well) and, since it’s well known that women only care about their strange obscure Women’s Issues, you’d think that action on those would make you more popular? But it hasn’t. Very puzzling for the chaps down at Central Office.

37

Cahal 10.19.11 at 6:24 pm

Ben #1

State spending as a % of GDP grows naturally because of Baumol’s Cost Disease.

Honestly, Baumol’s Disease should be tatooed on the forehead of every libertarian who comments on how state spending has been growing out of control throughout history, and how they’d like it to be 3% like the good old 18th century.

38

ScentOfViolets 10.19.11 at 6:41 pm

“anyone, Chris, can parrot opinion poll data. It is its meaning that counts.”

What an odd thing to say.

Perhaps you are not familiar with the last USian midterm elections, or the polling before and afterwords. Anyone with half a brain realized that Obama’s failure to deliver on his campaign promises and the Democrat’s inability to deliver anything but the most modest and cosmetic “change” consistent with preserving the privileges of the usual powerful interests would probably translate as a – shall we say – lack of enthusiasm for getting out to vote amongst their supporters.

Surprise! The Democrats did indeed suffer a defeat of epic proportions. How did the Democrats and the Obama administration (choose to) interpret this? As not being conciliatory, moderate and bipartisan enough.

So yeah, how you interpret the raw data makes a huge difference in determining policy.

39

Tim Worstall 10.19.11 at 7:43 pm

“State spending as a % of GDP grows naturally because of Baumol’s Cost Disease.”

Umm, no. Services rise in price compared to manufactures as a result of BCD, sure.

That govt spending increases as a %ge of GDP is a result of deciding to deliver services through govt spending. Not BCD itself.

It’s not just quibble, it’s an important point.

Whether services should be delivered through govt spending is an entirely different question from whether they’re going to get more expensive relative to manufactures.

40

Tim Wilkinson 10.19.11 at 8:43 pm

Actually UK public spending has been hovering around 40% GDP since the war.

And while spending on the NHS, for example, has indeed been steadily increasing relative to GDP, UK spending compares favourably to other countries

The settlement was not framed in terms of a fixed sum or percentage of GDP but in terms of the service to be supplied. So contra Ben’s “don’t be so amazingly silly dear” comment, even the increase in NHS spending is very obviously not a question of ‘the state’ going beyond the post-war settlement, but merely of meeting the requirements of that settlement – and doing so rather efficiently, it seems. Similarly, Tim Worstall’s point may be important but is irrelevant here.

The key to much of the Tory cutting programme is that the impact of cuts is in many ways being maximised. It’s not a question of paring back the size of ‘the state’ a bit, but of making strategic structural changes which undermine the public provision model. NHS reforms, for example, are accelerating fragmentation and privatisation without even actually saving money. Housing benefit reforms are uprooting the poor from city centres. Child benefit cuts removed the last universal benefit, further eroding any commonality of interest between classes.

Plenty of damage has already been done since 79 of course by successive Thatcherite govts, but this lot are going all-out to administer the coup de grâce in one term.

41

John Quiggin 10.19.11 at 9:21 pm

@Tim: To rephrase the point. If governments mostly provide services, then, in the absence of any change in the allocation of activities between governments and the private sector, the government share of total expenditure will tend to rise.

42

John Quiggin 10.19.11 at 9:26 pm

@Salient Actually, I think billboard advertising is a minor form of violence.

We don’t ask to see it, and we are bombarded with it all the time. I don’t want to be overly precious about that, but I don’t see any real problem with making your own editorial amendments, apart from the risk of being caught and prosecuted.

43

Tim Wilkinson 10.19.11 at 9:33 pm

And in many cases it is aimed at (and undoubtedly succeeds at) altering behaviour by psychological manipulation at a deep level, for example attacking self-esteem, etc.

Which for one thing undermines any notion of consumer sovereignty, of course.

44

Jeff R. 10.19.11 at 10:05 pm

I can’t see a definition of ‘violence’ that includes things like billboard advertising or the incarceration of people convicted by juries of their peers [or who willingly made bargains based on the expectations of what such a jury would do] for crimes established by laws enacted by and that could be repealed at any time by democratically elected governments as being, well, anything resembling the English language as it is commonly spoken. “violence” doesn’t mean “anything I don’t care for” any more than “glory” means “a good, knock-down argument”.

45

Tim Wilkinson 10.19.11 at 10:42 pm

The phrase convicted by juries of their peers [or who willingly made bargains based on the expectations of what such a jury would do] for crimes established by laws enacted by and that could be repealed at any time by democratically elected governments is irrelevant there, I think. But I don’t suppose anyone wants this thread infected with discussion about the phrase “does violence to”, etymological speculation about ‘violate’ and cognates or consideration of where on the central – peripheral – analogical – metaphorical continuum talk of ‘psychological assault’ belongs.

46

Alex 10.19.11 at 11:21 pm

That govt spending increases as a %ge of GDP is a result of deciding to deliver services through govt spending.

Trivial. And obvious. If they were delivered privately they would still get more expensive. There is no pony.

47

Chris Williams 10.19.11 at 11:26 pm

I spent two years trying to define violence and pretty much gave up. I suspect that if we decide that advertising is violence we are, urm, doing violence to both words. On the other hand, how else might we describe the Spanish stolen babies scandal? Help is at hand, though: there’s a developing criminological literature on the concept of ‘harm’ which might be useful here.

48

stubydoo 10.20.11 at 12:04 am

Once upon a time I had a word in my vocabulary called “violence”. Now I do not – I could never use the word and count on there being a connection between what I intend to mean and what my audience interprets. A series of CT posters have succeeded in beating that word out of my vocabulary (of course I cannot have any opinion at all regarding whether such “beating” constituted violence).

Meanwhile Wittgenstein rolls in his grave.

49

Salient 10.20.11 at 1:17 am

So now that we’ve subdooed stubydoo with advertising-as-violence and a discussion that has wandered its way across four or five threads now (and with beatings, which will continue until morale improves), let’s consider whether ideological propaganda is violence. Does it matter whether the advertising is stationary, or carried by a person?

For example: suppose I decorate my Squid & Owl satchel with a sign or pin that says “this bookbag kills fascists.” Not only is this a form of ideological advertising, there is an implied threat that, if you are a fascist, I will hit you with my bookbag and you will die.

50

Keith 10.20.11 at 2:44 am

Well the electorate put them into power; women and men. So are we all going to agree the voters cannot be stupid? Voting for balls seems routine in Britain ever since 1979.

51

ajay 10.20.11 at 9:27 am

let’s consider whether ideological propaganda is violence. Does it matter whether the advertising is stationary, or carried by a person?

This has the wonderful sound of an excerpt from some sort of left-wing version of AP Herbert’s “Uncommon Law”. (Cheques written on a cow, libels via skywriting, etc.)

If governments mostly provide services, then, in the absence of any change in the allocation of activities between governments and the private sector, the government share of total expenditure will tend to rise.

That is a really interesting point. Never thought of that. So the road to socialism isn’t through nationalising the means of production after all; it’s through nationalising the means of service provision.

52

ajay 10.20.11 at 9:28 am

38: Perhaps you are not familiar with the last USian midterm elections, or the polling before and afterwords.

Funny, SoV, normally you tend to go for actual aggressive aggression rather than this passive-aggressive thing.

53

Tim Worstall 10.20.11 at 10:21 am

“If they were delivered privately they would still get more expensive. There is no pony.”

But from the other side of Baumol’s work we find that there might be a pony.

BCD happens because innovation (ie, increasing tfp, labour is only a special case of the general tfp point) is more difficult in services than manufactures.

Baumol has also spent a lot of time looking at what promotes innovation (note, innovation, not invention). He finds that market based systems do this better than planned ones. Thus, using just the work of this one economist, we might find that there is a pony. Move services from the planned to the market based part of the economy and find that BCD is lessened…possibly eliminated, but more likely just lessened.

54

John Quiggin 10.20.11 at 10:37 am

“So the road to socialism isn’t through nationalising the means of production after all; it’s through nationalising the means of service provision.”

This has been a constant theme of mine for the past twenty years at least. Obviously, the other side recognises its validity, as shown by the efforts of the Tories.

55

Tim Wilkinson 10.20.11 at 11:23 am

He finds that market based systems do this better

Oh, he finds that does he? Does he get round to exoplaining how it is that a profit seeking bureaucracy does better than a public service orientated one?

If empirical data is admissible here, note that the second of the links provided above @40 shows the US spending 13.9%, the UK 7.6% of GDP on healthcare. As preliminary observations go, this makes the free market pony thesis look a bit, well, pony.

56

John Quiggin 10.20.11 at 11:33 am

My review of Baumol’s book (not a good one, unfortunately) is here

http://www.australianreview.net/digest/2002/11/quiggin.html

The quote relevant to this discussion:

Social democracies are dealt with using the simple technique of argument by definition. It turns out that the ‘free-market’ in Baumol’s title is redundant. In his analysis, all capitalist societies, even those where tax revenues exceed 50 per cent of national income, are classed as ‘free-market’. Thus, the question of the relative roles of the public and private sectors in research and development is effectively ignored

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Alex 10.20.11 at 2:24 pm

He finds that market based systems do this better than planned ones.

Unfortunately, he observed the cost disease across the entire economy. It is quite plausible, given that the cost disease is a thing, that much of what appears to be a public/private split is actually driven by it.

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Tim Worstall 10.20.11 at 2:55 pm

“It is quite plausible, given that the cost disease is a thing, that much of what appears to be a public/private split is actually driven by it.”

Indeed, could be. We could also do all sorts of empirical work I guess. Are the water companies (a service pretty much) more or less efficient as private not public organisations? In fact, are the private English ones more or less efficient that the various forms of mutual, state and local council provision in the Celtic nations?

Did anyone study the effects of previous limited moves to market organisation (ie, competition but not on price) of NHS England, moves which did not take place in NHS Wales and NHS Scotland? I believe they did you know and I believe they found that NHS England did indeed increase tfp faster than NHS Wales or NHS Scotland.

We’ve plenty of natural experiments that we can exploit to find an answer to this.

59

Ben 10.20.11 at 3:30 pm

This post is really too silly to be worth rebutting. It’s too much effort to expend on something so little was spent on. But:

1) The scope of activities the state does has grown continuously since the war, it’s not just the proportion of GDP which has grown, the state now does things it didn’t do at all before.

2) Therefore it is not all Baumol’s cost disease

3) And it can’t all be described as part of the “post-war social contract”.

60

Steve Williams 10.20.11 at 4:29 pm

‘The scope of activities the state does has grown continuously since the war, it’s not just the proportion of GDP which has grown, the state now does things it didn’t do at all before.’

1) British Gas – nationalised in the post-war settlement, privatised in 1986.

2) British Rail – nationalised in 1947, privatised in 1997.

3) British Steel – started as a nationalised company in 1967, privatised in 1988.

4) British Leyland – nationalised in 1975, until changed corporate identity in the 80s.

5) British Airways – nationalised in 1974, privatised in 1987.

6) National Coal Board – nationalised in the post-war settlement, privatised in 1987.

Honestly Ben, that’s without even trying. Better trolls please.

61

IM 10.20.11 at 5:02 pm

>The scope of activities the state does has grown continuously since the war, it’s not just the proportion of GDP which has grown, the state now does things it didn’t do at all before.<

As far as I know, that just isn't true in any western nation. proportion of gdp is quite stable since decades.

62

chris 10.21.11 at 11:47 am

Women aren’t stupid, and neither is the electorate.

Objection: some of the electorate is quite stupid indeed, very likely including some women. Whether it’s *enough* of the electorate is questionable, but as an American, I can produce a long line of election results that make me somewhere between pessimistic and derisive about arguments of the form “that will never work, the electorate would have to be idiots to fall for it”.

They hurt everyone who’s not been sensible enough to be born or become wealthy. It’s just that women voters seem to be among the first to cop on to it.

Perhaps women are the least likely to believe that they will become wealthy through their own supreme awesomeness any day now (without relying on help from anyone else and certainly not the government, of course), and therefore don’t have to worry about service cuts? It’s a staggeringly egotistical point of view and statistics show that it is almost always wrong, but it nevertheless seems disturbingly common among men, or maybe that’s just in America.

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Tim Wilkinson 10.21.11 at 7:06 pm

A bit late, but –

Tim Worstall @58: Did anyone study the effects of previous limited moves to market organisation (ie, competition but not on price) of NHS England, moves which did not take place in NHS Wales and NHS Scotland? I believe they did you know and I believe they found that NHS England did indeed increase tfp faster than NHS Wales or NHS Scotland.

That would be the Nuffield Trust (‘We see ourselves as philanthropic venture capitalists’).

That particular report was criticised quite witheringly by the BMA, as well as by CPPR at the U. of Glasgow.

But even if the findings were correct and NHS England were intrinsically much more productive than Scotland and Wales – indeed even if the findings went further and agreed with you that tfp had increased faster in England since devolution – that wouldn’t get close to establishing that ‘market-like’ reforms are responsible.

In any case, I think describing any introduction of competition into public provision as ‘market-like’ is verging on JQ’s ‘argument by definition’.

What is introduced as ‘competition’ may in fact owe any efficacy it has to diversity of approach enabling better practices to be developed, rather than to competition in the sense of rivalry (rivalness?) or harsh negative incentives (‘market discipline’). Even if some limited form of competition properly so-called were responsible for improvements, I don’t see that it can be chalked up as a victory for some ‘free market’ – profit-driven – approach.

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Tim Wilkinson 10.23.11 at 3:21 pm

Just to be clear, I think ascribing improvements to ‘market-like’ reforms is part of a general trend of claiming all improvements in material conditions for the cause of ‘capitalism’ – in a way that is regarded as justifying ‘laissez-faire’/fait accompli capitalism rather than a mixed economy. As if the explosion in technology which began before the industrial revolution didn’t have its own impetus, and instead was dependent the whole time on love of profit and fear of ruin.

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John Quiggin 10.23.11 at 3:54 pm

Broadly speaking, what’s happened over the past thirty years is that strenuous efforts to cut back the scope of public sector activity have offset the increasing share of services in the economy with the result that the public sector share of GDP has been held constant.

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