Uttering Heresies Regarding Nationalisation

Capitalism is clearly the best guarantor of prosperity in a country not least because it is closest to what evolves naturally in human marketplaces. It is not an artificial imposition. Having said that its good functioning is dependent on certain conditions. These might be considered to include a decent judiciary, good laws and incorruptible forces of law and order to enforce them. In that these guarantee the possibility of trust they provide one of the key conditions which enables capitalism to function effectively. They crucially set it in a moral framework and, if someone were to suggest that the judiciary, the legislature and the Police should be outsourced and privatized they would (forgive the pun) be laughed out of court. This is to say that capitalism and profit are not the ultimate arbiter and that the forces of law and order can not be allowed to be anything other than ends in themselves and never means to an end. This testifies to the moral nature of humans. It also underlines the importance of the forces of law and order never being bought. When they are it is rightly considered a scandal. The 2008 banking crisis was a perfect example of the failure of morality, law and regulation to get a handle on unbridled capitalists who would do anything to make a buck. That did not end well.

The ascendancy of morality over profit is one of the reasons why it is wrong that areas where the assertion of moral value is crucial should be privatised. For this reason prisons, the probation service and immigration holding centres should not have been privatised and outsourced. 

I’d go further though and this is where I will be uttering heresies and be assumed to be a socialist if not a communist. I would renationalize rail and perhaps some utilities. My chief reason for this is that, like morality, they underpin and guarantee the good functioning of capitalism in the form of hard and reliable infrastructure. In addition to this they give a sense of common national ownership which contributes to, rather than militating against, a sense of national cohesiveness and identity. In this way they contribute to a sense of 'one-nation-ism' They enable capitalism rather than working against it. At this point the cry will go up –‘What about the chaos caused by the unions in the 1970s?’ I would seek to solve this by having nationalized industries where unions are obliged to sign no-strike agreements in exchange for good tenure, pensions and shares in profits by operating as, say, John Lewis, with its partnership scheme, operates.

In Scotland and Northern Ireland (for profit) and in Wales (non-profit) water companies have been successfully nationalized. In the US, in the guise of Amtrak, Italy and France, to name a few, rail is successfully nationalised. In the UK the vast majority of the road system is not privatized.