Mind The Cap!
The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has hinted that he is thinking of introducing a 1% pay cap for public sector workers. He should not just be hinting at the idea but pressing forward with it.
It comes as no surprise that the Labour Party have hit out and were quoted on Sky News saying “It is a kick in the teeth for the public sector.” I beg to differ, as the public sector has not had it as tough as the private sector where millions of people had to live on 80% of their salary during furlough due to the pandemic.
With hundreds of thousands losing their jobs since the beginning of the pandemic. This happening whilst many public sector workers were, and still are, being paid full salary whilst being at home. Many NHS clerical colleagues, not front line workers, were classed as key workers and enjoyed preferential shopping hours and gained some services free from certain retailers because they had a NHS Id card. Now I am fully behind Doctors and Nurses getting those benefits but not those who do not serve on the front line.
This Government has wasted billions of taxpayers money at failed PPE procurement contracts, Nightingale Hospitals and had to call in our Military to sort out the mess. The test and trace system is still not working as the Government promised. The Chancellor is also going to increase taxes which will hit those in the private sector profoundly.
The public sector, the State is a gargantuan monster that so seriously needs to be cut down to the bare minimum. Statism and the socialist policies associated with it are outdated and history has shown it doesn’t work. A Libertarian approach where the State machine is cut to the minimum and devolution to the regions will create healthy competition within the nation.
The public sector is not, in the economic sense of the word productive. It does not add value to the GNI of the nation.
We cannot spend our way out of the crisis.
An explanation
“So why not another round? The most powerful argument against more stimulus comes from Friedrich Hayek and the Austrian school. The key to their view is their understanding that economic resources, whether capital or labour, are not fungible. That is, capital goods and human beings have a multiple, though not infinite, number of ways they can contribute productively to the value creation process.”
This principle should be applied to the pandemic crisis.
The Chancellor must be told that he cannot spend his way out of this crisis. He must not give in to what will become public sector trade union demands for higher wage settlements.
The recovery for the nation must be led with free market economics. A Libertarian approach is to use this and the theories of Hayek and the Austrian school of economics to create the virtuous cycle of creativity, productivity and growth.
Glenville Gogerly EADW – Libertarian Party Interim Chairman.