So, who watches the people we pay to watch the watchers?

What’s most fascinating about this lament to socialism perdu is the central thesis:

It is axiomatic, since the death of socialism, that governments must everywhere retreat… Liberalisation, privatisation and global policies of “small government” (except in the areas of defence and law and order) have led to a withdrawal by governments from areas of concern, which, until recently, had been seen as their primary functions.

He’s 180 degrees wrong. In fact, the state is hungrier than it’s ever been. Figure 2.1(a) of this pdf shows that total managed expenditure has almost tripled in real terms since 1963-4. Even as a proportion of GDP, current spending matches the mid-1960s. Of course, unlike 40 years ago, we’re now instructed how to dispose of our toasters, whether we must strap children into car seats, and what we can wear to work or shop.

What happened in the 1980s wasn’t deregulation and privatization, but re-regulation and government capture. The New Public Management: governance networked on the al-Qaeda model. Nothing was privatized in the sense that control passed into the hands of private citizens, or even (*shriek*) workers. Every pseudo-transfer retained the magical Postwatch proliferation property.

And it’s all hidden, partly beneath this language of “privatization”, retreating government and non-existent competition. For instance, unless you happen to read through pages 43-44 of the Postwatch Annual Report 2005/6 (pdf), you’ll have no idea that the self-appointed (but certainly not self-financing) consumer champion spent £200,000 obtaining a judicial review of a Postcomm (that’s the regulator, by the way) decision; or that during this financial year they anticipate a potential £700,000 bill from legal action involving Royal Mail. Corporate lawyers get distastefully rich while different parts of the sclerotic state sue the arse off each other. Nor would you know that since Postwatch is funded on a fee per complaint basis, a shortfall of £870,000 caused by a drop in customer complaints is expected to be made up by the DTI. When service improves, it costs us more, on top of the more it’s already costing us to improve the service. Still, on the plus side, at least that annual report is available in Welsh.

Socialism may have lost, but boy did big government win. I can’t see how anyone, let alone an eloquent commentator such as Jeremy Seabrook, could think otherwise.