[MD] Down the road of mediocrity

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting Ant McWatt <antmcwatt at hotmail.co.uk>:

> Agreed.  However, in theory, anarchists and true liberals also want less 
> government bureaucracy.

Yes. But in the U.S. "liberal" refers to socialist left wingers.

> What matters to the MOQ pragmatist is the general outlook that _works best 
> in practice_ and, judging from Thatcher's legacy (where during the 1980s and 
> 1990s, centralisation from London increased and unnecessary bureaucracy 
> spiralled out-of-control within the NHS, civil service and education 
> sectors), it is conservatism that falls shortest in this regard.

If that's the case, then Thatcher was no conservative. However, she did
defend the Falkland Islands from invasion, reflecting the conservative willingness
to fight vs. socialist appeasement tendencies. Let us hope the current government
doesn't flinch from rescuing the British sailors captured on the high seas by Iran.

> For example, I'll take a a specific point by Theodore Dalrymple in the 
> original article you referred to above.  He states:
> 
> "Not a single large-scale information technology project instituted by the 
> [British] government has worked. The National Health Service has spent $60 
> billion on a unified information technology system, no part of which 
> actually functions. Projects routinely get canceled after $400– $500 million 
> has been spent on them. Modernization in Britain’s public sector means delay 
> and inefficiency procured at colossal expense."
> 
> What Dalrymple fails to mention is that the reason why the British 
> government is now spending this obscene amount of money "on a unified 
> information technology system" is because when computer systems were first 
> introduced (on a large scale) in the National Health Service (NHS) during 
> the 1980s the then Conservative government (under Mrs Thatcher) decided to 
> apply the private free economy within the NHS by dividing it into separate 
> trusts which were meant to compete against each other in an "internal 
> market".
> 
> One result of this unnecessary bureaucratic complication (in a system where 
> medical treatment still remained free at the point of need) was that each 
> trust decided which type of computer system it wanted to install.  Of 
> course, each trust chose different and often incompatible systems so now 
> these systems have to be integrated (so a doctor can access the computer 
> record about a patient whether they are at their local surgery or at a 
> hospital at the other end of the country) it will cost far more than if the 
> NHS hadn't been divided into trusts in the first place.
> 
> The true conservative might make the right noises (especially when it comes 
> to making money) but, in practice, conservative governments (certainly in 
> the UK) are, by far, the most bureaucratic, divisive and personally 
> intrusive (and, therefore, least MOQ friendly).

The mistake was not so much dividing up the NHS but in having a NHS in the
first place. "True liberals" like true conservatives would have left health
care to the private sector, providing an incentive to citizens to stay in
school, work hard and become self-sufficient instead of dependents of Big
Brother government. After all, freedom is the MOQ's number one priority.

Best, 
Platt



  



-------------------------------------------------
This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/