Better for all, Capitalism or Socialism?

[SamuelRSmith]

So, here's my view:

I believe that the following should be provided by the state:

Military
Police Force/Judiciary/Prison
Healthcare
Welfare
Social Care
Education
Communications (excluding mobile phones and handsets, and television outside the BBC)
Public Transport (Buses, Trains and Airports (not the planes themselves))
Water
Electricity

Everything else (apart from a few smaller programmes that I missed out), should be provided by the private sector.

My reasons:

Military - Pretty simple, really, a nation needs defence. And some countries that have private militias end up up the shitter (read: Afghanistan, Columbia)

Police Force/Judiciary/Prison - A democracy cannot be a democracy without the rule of law, should be provided by the state (however, the state shouldn't have control over it - it should be run like the UK system).

Healthcare - Healthcare is a merit good. The benefits derived from treating sick people are greater to the community than the costs. If someone is treated, they are able to get back to work as quickly as possible, and they aren't in danger of getting anyone else sick.

Welfare - There are many positives to welfare. For one, it provides support for those unable to work (atm, for example, the number of jobs available is smaller than the number of unemployed - no matter how hard they all try, not everyone is going to get work). It also has economic benefits as it means that the unemployed are still spending. Welfare also helps keep crime levels down, and, call it a hunch (anecdotal), but I'm guessing that there are more broken families amongst the unemployed.

Social care - This is more of a personal thing, as my mum works in social care. But I think it is a necessary service to help improve people's lives, people who have problems that are outside of their own control, and I, personally, don't feel that it is right to profiteer from something like that (I also don't see how it would actually function).

Education - Education, like healthcare, is a merit good, and it benefits the country in the long run if its labour force is well educated, and those benefits far outweigh the actual costs of the education itself. (This also include libraries).

Communications - By this, I mean telephone lines and the postal service. These are services that really benefit everyone. I haven't really got any strong points for this one, other than that it is a sort of semi-right, and the benefits of having access to the internet are great for everyone.

Public Transport - Basically, cheaper travel would encourage more people to use the services which, in turn, reduces the amount of cars in the road and help bring the country closer to being eco-friendly. Also, seeing as I live outside of London, I know that the private sector hasn't proven to be very good at running this service (particularly the bus service, reliability is ridiculous).

Water - The absolute bare essential in life. If there's one thing more important in sustaining life (outside of air, of course), I'd like to hear it. This is the absolute pinnacle in a merit good.

Electricity - Energy prices are soaring, and yet the price of oil is dropping. People are losing their jobs, and so they can't afford to pay their bills, so they end up getting their juice cut. Is this right? No. You often hear stories of older people being found dead in the winter because their energy was cut off, that's just awful, and this would put an end to that. Not only that, but the private sector has been proven to be rather reluctant to switching the greener methods of energy production.

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So, these are my reasons. People will obviously disagree with some/all, and some people may even agree with some/all. This does not mean, however, that I don't want the private sector involved with some of these things. Like communications, for example, could be provided by firms winning contracts off of the Government.

On top of all my reasons, I'd just like to say one more thing - because the public sector doesn't run for a profit, it works to help people, the jobs are fairly secure in times of economic downturn.

Oh, and sometimes the public sector benefits the private sector. If there's a steel mill that's run by the state, then it could provide steel to the private sector at reduced costs (basically, provide it without profit, or maybe even for a loss).