We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Samizdata quote of the day – the benefits of Andy Burnham edition “Many on the right like to pretend that Britain is a nation of frustrated Thatcherites straining against a socialist establishment. And sure, if you poll the British people in the abstract, support for higher taxes and spending has actually fallen — it’s at its lowest since 2013. But ask about anything specific and the picture inverts. 72% want higher taxes on the top 5%. 61% will pay more themselves for the NHS. 82% want water nationalised, 76% the railways — including 78% and 66% of Reform voters respectively. The British public is against tax and spend in general and in favour of it in every particular, which is the single most useful fact in British politics if you happen to be Andy Burnham. He is simply the first politician with the emotional range to leverage this without sounding like he’s reading a spreadsheet.
So he will get his way. And it will not work.”
– Konstantin Kisin
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
Is this all voters? I imagine taxpayers only would give a different result.
Confucius say, “Only fair tax is a tax somebody else pays”
And Llamas’ Corollorary – “All government spending wasteful, except spending which benefit me.”
llater,
llamas
This Konstantin chap is a sharp cookie. Would that there were more like him.
Kisin is right and it won’t change until all of the Orwellian BBC Telescreens, at least one in every household, with their continuous promotion of socialism and the State are shut down. Lots of other things to fix, too, of course.
The chant goes up:
“What do we want?”
“Higher taxes, but only on people who’ve got more than us!”
“When do we want it?”
“NOW!”
As always – we get the government that we (collectively) deserve.
@RdJ – net taxpayers maybe, but they are few and dwindling in number.
Mind you, 61% would pay extra tax themselves for the NHS? Stick a 5p NHS levy on the basic rate of income tax and see how that goes.
Konstantin Kisin is correct and thank you to Johnathan Pearce for posting this.
Most British people, including most taxpayers, still believe LIES – they believe the railways are private (hence their support for nationization) even though the main system is GOVERNMENT OWED – that there unionized corporations running trains on the government-owned system, does not make the railways “private enterprise” – but most people think the railways have been “de-natioalized” or whatever.
Most people have also been taught that “Liz Truss crashed the economy – by reckless tax cuts” – that these tax cuts never-went-into-effect is not known, the establishment used Liz Truss as a scape goat for the consequences of their own insane Covid policies – and some people (even on this site) still believe there were no effective Early Treatments for Covid (there were), still believe the “lockdowns” were a good idea (they did terrible harm – and were intended-to-do-so – this was an international policy for which Covid was used as an excuse), and even believe the injections were “vaccines” (they were NOT vaccines – see the report by the United States Senate Committee headed by Senator Ron Johnson showing the terrible harm the injections did – and are doing, President Trump was deceived by a ruthless establishment – both government and corporate, sadly there is little real distinction between the two).
When people, including taxpayers, believe lies they will support terrible policies “justified” by those lies – such as “higher taxes on the rich – because the rich are not paying their fair share of taxation”.
And they still believe the NHS was the “first in the world” (it was a copy of the Soviet system – which was set up more than 20 years before), and is “the envy of the world” (it has a terrible health record – it is a “good” abortion machine, but not good at such things as cancer screening and treatment), and they believe lies about history……
People are not likely to support laissez faire when they are taught (and they are taught) that laissez faire (leave alone) policies led to mass death in Ireland – I doubt more than 1 person in a 100 knows there was crushing Poor Law Taxation in Ireland, and that it was this (and other taxation) that crushed the Irish economy in areas that were NOT dependent on the potato.
And most people believe, because they are taught to believe, that the poor did not get hospital treatment before the NHS – that most hospitals were charitable (that the poor DID get medical treatment – even if they were NOT members of the fraternal organizations – which 80% of industrial workers were even in 1911) is not known by most people. Nor is it known that the NHS has CLOSED DOWN so many hospitals – that we now have fewer hospital beds (especially in proportion to the population) than we had in the “terrible” 1930s.
By the way – British economic performance 90 years ago was less bad than any other nation, certainly less bad than the United States under “FDR” or Germany under Mr Hitler – but, again, I doubt more than 1 person in a 100 knows that the British economy did BETTER than other nations in the 1930s – 90 years ago the publication of the “General Theory….” by J.M. Keynes sent the lie-fest into overdrive – and the lies continue, as bad as ever).
Most people do not know the truth – they know, and believe, lies. Whether about taxation, health care, history – or just about anything else.
When people believe lies (lies they are constantly taught – not just by the education system, but also by the media – especially the entertaiment media) it is not astonishing that they support terrible policies “justified” by the lies.
It is true that 90 years ago, in spite of (not because of) the insane antics of the Administration of Franklin Roosevelt (such as destroying crops and farm animals – and imposing “Collective Bargaining” on industry) output-per-man in the United States was still higher than it was in Britain (NOT in relation to Germany – output per man was twice as high in Britain, in the 1930s, than in National Socialist Germany – but most people did not know that) – but the gap was far smaller than it had been in the 1920s (British economic growth in the 1930s was much better than American – or German – economic growth) – or before the 1st World War (yes the United States had overtaken Britain long before the First World War – but it did not suit the agenda of the “Social Reformers” to talk about this – as the United States in, say, 1912 was about the least “Social Reform” nation on Earth).
However, “intellectuals” such as the “liberals” J.M. Keynes and E.H. Carr (the latter being the leading economic historian of the 1930s – and if ever wrote a true word about anything, it was an accident) sang the praises of the totalitarian countries – not Britain.
The German edition of the “General Theory….” by Keynes starts off with fawning praise for the policies of the National Socialist regime (something the defenders of the late Lord Keynes would like us to forget) and E.H. Carr presented the fantasy statistics (on economic output and everything else) of both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union – as if they were the truth.
The wildest, and most absurd lies, were presented by Professor Carr – as the truth.
The British people were betrayed by the “treason of the intellectuals” – and it did not start in 2026 – it was well under way 90 years ago.
Quick question – how many British history text books go into the arguments of the Majority Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Law in the early 1900s? What is the point of “citing a book” when they are all written by pro “Social Reform” people?
They all lovingly present the opinions of the Minority Report – written by totalitarians (and they were totalitarians – as their later support of the Soviet Union made clear), but they do not really present the arguments-and-evidence of the Majority Report – written by people who had spent their lives helping the poor – with their own money and their own hands.
And the British “Liberal” government (not that Balfour and the “Conservatives” were much better), even way back then, ignored the Majority Report and followed the ravings of the Minority Report.
Just as the “Liberals” put unions above the law (the insane 1906 Act – which built on the folly of Disraeli’s 1875 Act) and then wept Crocodile tears about the increase in UNEMPLOYMENT – an increase in UNEMPLOYMENT that its own Act of Parliament had created.
The undermining of this nation did not start with “Andy” Burnham or even “Tony” Blair – it has been going on for a very long time indeed.
“NHS, the Envy of The World”
This can be debunked very easily.
1. No other country has copied it.
2. It fails at the first initial – the “N”. It is chaotic in terms of communication and despite huge spending has utterly useless IT systems. Why does this matter? It certainly does if you have complex medical care needs and one doctor doesn’t have the slightest idea what the other is doing. This applies to a lot of people I know. In principle it’s very size could be an advantage rather than a disadvantage. I am comparing with Amazon here.
3. The NHS seems to be spending about 50% more on payouts for negligence in maternity care than it spends on maternity care. Other sources are available. This is a scandal.
#3 is a killer (literally). And that is not a spike. That is over a not insignificant period of time. Consider two things. The first is maternity care mistakes almost uniquely has an effect on more than one person. One of those will be at most about 40 and the other at zero. Life-long care to ameliorate those errors is going to be a big deal. A sensible healthcare system would consider this. The NHS doesn’t because those life-long costs will be borne (pun intended) by other parts of the system. From my experience the different parts of the NHS don’t care. See #2. Also, a Great Uncle of mine died from a botched bowel surgery. What did the NHS do? The hospital that made the mistake shifted him to (very expensive) ICU at another hospital. The ICU consultant was hopping mad. It had happened before. “Those butchers just dump their mistakes on us!” (exact quote). Well, makes sense because obviously the death isn’t recorded on their turf! Whilst Jim’s death (and he’d survived the Pedestal Convoy to Malta!) was tragic his immediate family still thought the NHS was great. And that is the fundamental reason why things don’t change. In many ways the UK is a post-Christian nation. It has replaced God with the NHS and the BBC. (Oddly enough all three letters). That is very bad.
Paul: I have to keep banging on educating people that places like Sheffield had “penny in the pound” health schemes that anybody could subscribe to that provided basic health care for more than four decades before the NHS came along. And from the other side of my family, places like Whitby had community funded Cottage Hospital systems for NINETY YEARS before the NHS.
Then & Now:-
Then pre-NHS: 2 750 hospitals; 480 000 beds(most built prior to 20th Century); 400 000 on waiting list – 0.75% of population < 50 million.)
Now with our glorious NHS: 1 600 hospitals; 145 000 beds; 7 million on waiting list – 10%+ of population ~ 68 million.
That’s what you get for £242 billion; so that’s £3 500 per capita per year, and £6 188 per income tax payer. So married couple both working are paying ~ £12 200 pa or ~ £1 000 per month for Our™️ NHS.
Hands up anyone who thinks a private health insurance policy would cost that much. And hands up who think it’s “free”.
Up until 1911 National Insurance Act, which the people didn’t want, 75% of the population had private health insurance, non-insured covered by the voluntary sector, and Britain had a de facto national health service, just not run by the State.
Bang those pans!
“The only satisfactory approach to the [hospital] problem is for all hospitals intended for the acute sick to pass into the control of local authorities.” William Asbury, 1939.
“The Penny in the Pound scheme … secured the development of one of the most successful contributory hospital schemes in the country”, Records of the Penny in the Pound Scheme, 1949.
“At the close of the Penny in the Pound Scheme in 1948, it had 350,000 contributors [more than 80% of the population].” Records of the Penny in the Pound Scheme, 1949.
Prior to 1948 there was a de facto “National” health service, a mix of voluntary, private, local authority run paid for under the National Insurance Act 1911 – so what exactly did the NHS provide that wasn’t there before? All it did was take into State control the existing resources, just as it did with the railways, coal mining, etc and then destroy what was.
The Panel System (1911–1948)
Established by Lloyd George’s National Insurance Act of 1911, the “panel” system provided a form of state-supported health insurance for the working class.
• Who was covered: The scheme covered manual labourers and lower-paid, non-manual workers earning under a specific income threshold.
• What it provided: Insured workers paid a small weekly contribution to secure access to a General Practitioner (GP) from a list—or “panel”—of doctors participating in the scheme.
I don’t understand why anyone (except an actual communist) would think nationalizing the railways would be a good idea. Isn’t that just making it less efficient for the sake of making it less efficient?
@NickM
2. It fails at the first initial – the “N”. It is chaotic in terms of communication and despite huge spending has utterly useless IT systems.
I thought NickM’s approach was fun.
N for national, NickM has already debunked what a confused tragedy that is.
H for health? The NHS’s health outcomes are shockingly poor compared to other peer countries. They are bottom of the list for mortality for breast cancer, lung cancer, cervical cancer, colorectal cancer, 30 day survival after heart attack, maternal and new born mortality is higher and getting worse, and on an on.
S for service? I mean who is going to argue that the NHS’s service is good, it is abysmal. My experience with my parents is that the patients were largely seen as an inconvenience rather than a purpose, and I could not get over how dirty the hospitals I was in were which of course results in shocking rates of MRSA. But those I guess you can deal with, it is the fact that you have to wait in line for months, years to get seen by a specialist or use an expensive machine. I have a friend who needs a cholecystectomy, if he went private he could do it next week, in the NHS the wait time is about 11 months.
So I’m afraid they don’t deserve any of their letters, perhaps they should be called the DDD department: disorganized, deadly and don’t care department. Or the CSW department: Confused, sick and wait your turn department.
Excellent comments by all who have written.
jdh – I do not know what passes through the heads of the public.
They see old hospital buildings – that were clearly built before 1948, the nicest (best) buildings are always pre 1948 – do they really think the poor had to pay to be treated at these hospitals? And what do the public think when the NHS closes-down these hospitals – in order to pay for yet more DEI (or EDI) officials.
Even the Russian health service (the NHS is a copy of the Soviet system set up 20 years before) does not have all this “Diversity” and “Inclusion” – endless offcials on telephone number salaries.
I can out do you on 90 years – in my security guard days (before it was illegal to be a security guard without a “license”) I guarded hospitals in London that had been free to the poor for many hundreds of years – I believe the oldest went back 800 years.
I remember seeing books rotting away – the histories of these hospitals, which no one in authority cared about any more.
Ditto the nurses accommodation – once there was special accommodation for nurses, where they lived together a short walk from the hospital.
Then there were the hospital chapels – I am told that some of them have now been ruined (even where the hospital has not been destroyed) – turned into “multi faith prayer rooms” – i.e. mosques.
You will note that there are no chairs or pews in “multi faith prayer rooms” – and if you recited Christian prayers in one, things would not go well for you.
Thank you, Patrick Crozier, for this: I have thought about the graph many times. And used it once or twice.
“You never know when you’re making a memory.”
https://www.samizdata.net/2015/12/when-was-the-nhs-created/
@Fraser
Something that affects the debate about the quality of the NHS is that it is like the Curate’s Egg – good in parts. It can provide stunning levels of health care for those with the right malady in the right place. But if you happen to have a ‘difficult’ mix of maladies requiring joined-up care then you may be SOL.
The bureaucracy of the NHS is pretty poor. It’s not unknown for invitations to attend consultations or treatment to mysteriously go astray, or turn up several days after the scheduled appointment.
IT systems normally struggle, mostly I suspect because ‘stakeholders’ want them to be national systems so there are always too many people wanting too many local modifications for their own comfort. I very nearly became a service manager for one of those attempts, but I dodged a bullet.
What to do? I’d suggest that each hospital adopt a Health Care IT system from the USA… and make it work with hardly any customisation, or input from regional trusts etc. Once everybody is on board with their particular IT system then you can work on making the systems work together. I suspect that is too much ‘hands off’ for The Powers That Be, even though Interfering From The Top has repeatedly failed.
Eden’s Paradox: “Everyone is in favour of general economy and particular expenditure.”
Not very new!