{"id":6357,"date":"2010-03-12T13:42:38","date_gmt":"2010-03-12T11:42:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=6357"},"modified":"2010-03-12T13:42:38","modified_gmt":"2010-03-12T11:42:38","slug":"mutualisation-and-the-john-lewis-state-editorial-comment-is-free-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2010\/03\/12\/mutualisation-and-the-john-lewis-state-editorial-comment-is-free-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Mutualisation and The John Lewis state | Editorial | \t\t\t\tComment is free | \t\t\t\tThe Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/commentisfree\/2010\/mar\/12\/john-lewis-mutualisation-editorial\">Mutualisation: The John Lewis state | Editorial | \t\t\t\tComment is free | \t\t\t\tThe Guardian <\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Guardian, in an editorial, notes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One can see the politicians' train of thought: John Lewis is popular; [it's a mutual entity] therefore this policy will be popular. But even if we overlook the vague announcements (teachers having more say over their workplaces, which is what is sometimes talked about, is a great idea, but it is not mutualism), there are big problems with the very idea of a John Lewis state. Even nice bourgeois retail chains are in the business of making a profit; the NHS is not. Public sector organisations should be accountable to the taxpayer; an architects' firm need not be.<\/p>\n<p>Turning public services into co-operatives opens them up to the risk of being run by profit-seeking companies. Having more mutuals in the private sector would be a fine thing, but before politicians import the John Lewis principle into the public sector they should probably shop around a bit more.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The Guardian is right: I am a big fan of mutuals and cooperatives. But corporate models of management and organisation simply don't belong in the state sector. The ethos is different.<\/p>\n<p>The result of corporatism has been only too apparent: bullying, inefficiency and disaster in the NHS - entirely as a result of using the foundation and trust model; the disaster of PFI for the tube and the crazy economics of sacking staff at HMRC when we badly need more tax revenue.<\/p>\n<p>Mutuals are good.<\/p>\n<p>But let's be clear - the public sector is different. The sooner we realise that, applaud that, embrace it and encourage it the better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mutualisation: The John Lewis state | Editorial | Comment is free | The Guardian . The Guardian, in an editorial, notes: One can see the<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2010\/03\/12\/mutualisation-and-the-john-lewis-state-editorial-comment-is-free-the-guardian\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6357\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}