Hi Dear
EFLImpudence and John, I do complain about communism. Back in my university days under communism country, we actually got taught all the theories about communism and how it should benefit the majority, so the society will be for the many, not the few.
But the reality is that the communism theory is too difficult to be implemented. people always said that the theory was good, it was the guys implementing the theories went corrupt, stupid or just spy of foreign country. However, why you come up with such a policy/theory that is so difficult to get it right in the first place?
Talking about public service like trains, I have been using British train for 15 years daily (as I don't drive at all). There is a big argument on both sides. As a daily user, what I cares the most is who can give me better service and it doesn't matters if it is owned as a by the government or by a private company.
I am not really sure that the ticket price will go down if the train company is owned by the government (at least I didn't see that from Corbyn's policy). I am a southwest train user (lucky not southern), the most delays I got are because of some track failure or some signalling failure. Unfortunately the maintenance company is not private (I think it is national rail?). So I don't really see from my experience that how a public owned company will behave much better.
Talking about NHS and other policies, I don't think I have enough experiences to argue in either way as there are successful systems private owned or public owned. I guess for me it is about who can provide better quality other than who owns it.
In UK, history seems to suggest that private company behaves better, but that may not be the case in other countries. For example, Chinese trains are owned by government and they are amazing. Although I would rather call China as a national capitalism country than a communism country.
What I do know something is the so called "dementia tax". My colleague sits next to me, his Mom unfortunately got this disease. For him, the most important thing is the quality of care his mom got, not how much money he will inherit. Someone will have to pay, it is either the Tax payer or funded by his family. For him, the policy proposed by May is not bad at all and he is a definitely left-wing Green party voter (he stood for Green party in local election once)! I think for public services, it is more about what works other than who owns it.
