More Murphy

Richard Murphy on some spending cuts:

But there’s more to it than that. The people who run these services – lowly paid by and large – want to work with the young, the old, in caring for fellow human beings. The private sector is not going to provide these people with those jobs – because the state is not going to pay them to provide them – and nor is The Big Society – let’s be realistic.

Where to begin? There are just so many problems in this hysterical bilge that I really do struggle to find a starting point. I guess we're just going to have to do this the old-fashioned way, and start at the beginning.

Firstly, those who work for the various services Murphy is chuntering about are often not paid well. But that really is the choice of those who employ these individuals. That's right - local and central government decide how much these people should be paid. Therefore, it is their fault if these people aren't paid particularly well.

Murphy would be on stronger ground if the pay in the public sector was roughly the same across that sector. Of course, it isn't. Those delivering frontline services may be paid poorly, but those in management positions or in office based work are often paid relatively well - a quick flick through The Guardian's job adverts shows this. And those who run councils - the Chief Executives etc - are often paid hundreds of thousands for the work they do. Of course, pay comes down to the particular worth an organisation places on its employees and you can argue that the pay scales in the public sector are counter-intuitive and warped. But that's an internal problem to the public sector - that sector that Murphy virtually worships.

It is also impossible to say what the motives are of such employees. Some will actively want to work with the vulnerable; others might do it because they have no choice. Murphy here is trying to do a crude trick - he's tugging on your heartstrings by talking about poorly paid caring people. The reality is that some carers will match that description - others really won't.

And where's his evidence that the private sector won't give these people jobs? The private sector may well give them jobs if there is a demand for their services and a chance that those services will turn in a profit for the employers. Employers aren't reliant on the state and state funding to employ people who are useful to them - in fact, a lot of employers would far rather that the government buggered off out of their hiring choices.

He's right that the Big Society won't pay for these people - but then again, given the Big Society is a largely empty concept rather than an actual institution, that's hardly surprising. Social Democracy won't pay to provide jobs for them either - again, it's a ideology, not an institution or individual with funds. However, society and its component communities may well pay for these people to have relevant jobs - particularly if the tax burden in this country is substantially reduced and people get to choose how they spend their money to a much, much greater extent. Which, of course, is something that Murphy passionately opposes.

At its heart, there is something very depressing about Murphy's view of human nature. He doesn't see people as basically willing to care about other people without the coercion of the state. In his worldview, people have to be forced to be nice to each other, and to care about the welfare of others. And in doing so, he fabricates an ersatz sense of caring. Many of us who don't share his unthinking reverence for the state believe that if we are given increased freedom, many of us will quite naturally use that freedom to make sure others are Ok. And I'd argue that this is far more optimistic that anything in the statist outlook of Murphy and his ilk.