UK Privatisation-US Deregulation
| Date | 01 October 1985 |
| Author | J.R. Shackleton |
| Published date | 01 October 1985 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9256.1985.tb00108.x |
| Subject Matter | Article |
a.
Timothy
Kenyon
Despite the magnitude of his achievement, Geldof has completed his
leadership of Band Aid in a mood of irritating frustration. He has been
forced
to
recognise the limits of individual action and the capacity
of
'moral blackmail' to succeed where
it
most needed to do
so,
namely in
convincing the governments of the
UK
and the
USA
in particular of the
strength of feeling supporting the demand for increased and sustained relief
programmes. In the long-term,
it
would be decidedly ironic
if
certain
governments that have consistently extolled the virtues of individual
initiative and the essentially individualistic aspect
of
charitable giving
should fall foul of a mood of disenchantment that has been inspired by the
taking up of this challenge.
project, however tenuously, are looking to western governments to reciprocate.
The fear is that the success of Live Aid may promote a further abrogation
of
responsibility on the part of governments in the west instead of sparking
off
a renewal of aid procedures.
Many people associated with the Live Aid
References
Fishkin, James
S
(19821, The Limits of Obligation (New Haven, Yale Univ. Press).
Singer, Peter (1979), Practical Ethics (Cambridge,, University Press).
Steiner, Hillel
(1984),
'A
Liberal Theory of Exploitation', Ethics
94,
225-241.
U
K
PRIVATISATI
ON-US
DEREG
ULATl
ON
J.R.
Shackleton
Privatisation remains big news in Britain. In the United States,
however, the vogue word is 'deregulation'. These trends are related, but
little attention has been paid
to
the connection.
US
discussions of
deregulation use a theoretical framework which has not permeated British
thinking to any great degree. On the other hand, American writers do not seem
to me
to
have fully examined the qualifications to their analysis which
British
-
or, more widely, European
-
experience might render necessary. In
this article,
I
try to link discussion of policy in both countries, mixing
a
cocktail
of
British empiricism and American theory.
The British press and academic journals have extensively surveyed the
privatisation issue (see, for example, Brittan,
1984;
or Shackleton, 1984).
Although most attention has centred on sales of the assets of nationalised
industries, particularly on such glamorous stockmarket launches as British
Telecom, other measures falling within the general heading
of
privatisation
have also been discussed. Such measures include the sale
of
well over half
a million council dwellings, the encouragement of new entry into areas where
nationalised industries previously held a monopoly (such as long-distance
bus routes!, and reduced subsidies to remaining national ised enterprises.
Turning to welfare and other services, privatisation has
so
far proceeded
slowly
-
but has included instances of contracting-out to private firms
of
such publicly-funded services as refuse collection and hospital laundry. The
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