What is the 'big society'?

[eFestivals]

This is my point. 'Private business' does not necessarily mean profit. It means anything that isn't of the state. But I also think that in many cases even profit based systems are better at providing services to society than state based systems. Not all though. The NHS and the police force being two fine examples of the latter.

We've really only got one real-world example of 'private businesses' taking over a function that had previously been that of 'the state', and that's with 'social housing'.

Has it been a success? Well, it certainly has for those people running those 'not-for-profit' businesses, who pay themselves hugely more than used to be the pay of the people running those services (). But meanwhile (overall) rents are higher in real terms, and overall there's been no improvement in the maintenance of that housing stock (it varies from place to place, just as it did before). The one advantage is that new houses are being built, but the only reason they weren't previously is because councils weren't allowed in law (since Thatcher's time) to re-invest money from social housing into more social housing.

The other, less relevant, examples are the now-privatised state industries - where the cost of running trains is now a bigger burden on the state than it was when state-run, where electricity and gas costs more money in real terms (even with price rises of the commodities are removed), where water costs more in real terms ... in fact, the only 'clear success' is with BT - but that's more the result of the profits the govt used to suck from them which limited their re-investment.

[TalkShow Bob]

We've really only got one real-world example of 'private businesses' taking over a function that had previously been that of 'the state', and that's with 'social housing'.

Has it been a success? Well, it certainly has for those people running those 'not-for-profit' businesses, who pay themselves hugely more than used to be the pay of the people running those services (). But meanwhile (overall) rents are higher in real terms, and overall there's been no improvement in the maintenance of that housing stock (it varies from place to place, just as it did before). The one advantage is that new houses are being built, but the only reason they weren't previously is because councils weren't allowed in law (since Thatcher's time) to re-invest money from social housing into more social housing.

The other, less relevant, examples are the now-privatised state industries - where the cost of running trains is now a bigger burden on the state than it was when state-run, where electricity and gas costs more money in real terms (even with price rises of the commodities are removed), where water costs more in real terms ... in fact, the only 'clear success' is with BT - but that's more the result of the profits the govt used to suck from them which limited their re-investment.