Workers Co-operatives
The Tories have just unveiled a weird plan to turn welfare services and schools into workers co-operatives. Labour has plans not wholly dissimilar.
This blog will not comment on the efficacy of these proposals until more is known. It does hasten to remind its readers of the complete fiasco of the NHS internal market introduced by the Tories on their privatisation binge years back and the inherent weakness in trying to make a business out of a service. This is what caused the GP surgeries to go to pot.
Some elements of modern life must operate at a profit to create wealth. These elements are mostly best in private hands. But there are other elements, infrastructure and public services, which are there to enable the rest of the economy to work smoothly and these are best left under some form of public control. This control needs to be accessible and democratic as public money is involved. Where relevant that democratic control should be exercised locally and not through Whitehall. This is a point made by Cameron. Whether workers co-operatives in primary schools and welfare services would achieve that, is very much open to question.