The Global Auction: The Broken Promises of Education, Jobs, and Incomes
The Global Auction: The Broken Promises of Education, Jobs, and Incomes
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全球拍卖：教育、就业和收入的承诺落空
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发表时间：
2012
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通讯作者：
D. Palfreyman
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作者：
D. Palfreyman
在英国的服务。有一些重要的问题在这本书中没有提到。例如，如果公共服务的提供是有效和公平的，那么新的右翼理论家怎么可能传达相反的印象呢？变革的支持者为何能如此轻易地智胜维持现状的支持者？正如书中各章所承认的那样，推动变革的动力不仅限于撒切尔政府，也包括新工党，这一事实使问题更加复杂。要么是维护现状的人在政治上无能，要么是在提供公共服务方面存在需要提出和回答的重要问题。此外，虽然削减对公共服务的财政支持几乎不可避免地会影响到提供服务的质量，但需要问的问题是，在目前的经济气候下，这是否可以想象地避免。尽管工党反对联合政府的削减规模，但它还是支持削减公共开支。这本书需要做的是证明公共产品支出不受收入削减的影响。这种方法几乎没有可行性，而且谴责政府政策和忽视当代经济现实要容易得多。我本希望这一卷的结尾是对未来的路线图的介绍。该路线图本可以明确呼吁公共提供一系列关键服务，并概述一项战略，使这种呼吁能够获得支持。显而易见的期望是，未来的政府能够被说服解决过去三十年的失败。相反，我们有一章告诉我们，媒体对公共服务的理念和提供公共服务的人是多么不公平。这是一个有趣的（如果显而易见的）章节，可以帮助解释占主导地位的新右翼意识形态的稳步出现。但是，它未能总结本书的整体论点，而且肯定没有提出前进的方向。因此，读者就像悬在半空中一样，当然不知道接下来会发生什么，或者应该发生什么。因此，我们有一个令人失望的结论，一个具有挑战性的卷。
services in Britain. There are important questions that are not addressed in the volume. For example, if public services were provided efficiently and equitably, then how was it possible for the new right ideologues to convey the opposite impression? How were the proponents of change apparently able to outmanoeuvre the supporters of the status quo so easily? The problem is compounded by the fact that, as the chapters in the book acknowledge, the impetus for change was not confined to the Thatcher Governments but also embraced New Labour. Either the defenders of the status quo were politically inept or there were important questions about the provision of public services that needed to be raised and answered. Furthermore, while it is almost inevitable that cuts in the financial support for public services will impact upon the quality of provision, the question needs to be asked whether this was conceivably avoidable in the current economic climate. While the Labour Party is opposed to the Coalition Government’s scale of cuts, nonetheless it supports a trimming of public expenditure. What the book needed to do was to make a case for the immunity of expenditure on public goods from cuts in revenue. Such an approach would have little viability and it is so much easier to condemn government policy and ignore the contemporary economic realities. I would have expected the volume to have ended with the presentation of a roadmap for the future. The roadmap could have presented a clear clarion call for the public provision of a range of key services and could have outlined a strategy whereby such a call could have gathered support. The obvious expectation would be that a future government could be persuaded to address the failings of the previous thirty years. Instead we have a chapter telling us how unfair the press has been to the idea of public service and those who provide it. This is an interesting (if obvious) chapter that could have helped to explain the steady emergence of the dominant new right ideology. But, it fails to summarise the overall argument of the book and most certainly does not suggest a way forward. The reader, therefore, is rather left hanging in the air and certainly has no idea of what comes, or should come, next. Thus we have a disappointing conclusion to a challenging volume.