OutofRange.net

Chris Cook suggests a solution to National Express’s failure running the East Coast Rail Line, something he calls Venture Communism.

I believe that there is in fact another way of structuring utilities which is neither Public, i.e. owned by the State, nor Private, i.e. owned by the particularly toxic legal entity known as a Public Limited Company.

Firstly, I would hand over all of the shares in an East Coast Line operating company in trust to Mr Crow’s membership, and to other staff, whether or not unionised. What was good enough for Tyrone O’Sullivan and his fellow firebrand NUM members at Tower Colliery should be good enough for the RMT.

Then, with ownership remaining in the hands of the DfT or a “Custodian” entity on their behalf, the necessary capital for the operation of the railway would come from a “Capital Partner” who would share the gross revenues with the staff cooperative.

Part of the proportional “Units” or “n’ths” in the line’s gross revenues could and should be dedicated to pension obligations, and any balance would be available to be sold to investors interested in the gross revenues of the line.

All of the above is achieved through the use of a UK Limited Liability Partnership as a framework within which the above revenue sharing is carried out.

The outcome of such an East Coast Partnership is an interesting one. We could actually see Labour working with, rather than for Capital, and there is an opportunity for the staff and management to make common cause, share the revenues more equitably, and eliminate fat-cattery once and for all.

Moreover, there is an incentive for the operating member staff co-operative to operate to high standards of efficiency and quality, because the members will make more money if they do so. Chris Cook, Labour List.

Now if only someone in the Parliamentary Labour Party had a bit of guts and vision.

Hat Tip again to Duncan’s Economic Blog, which you really ought to be reading.

In the press those on the left talk of Sweden a model on how a country with a strong social state should be run. In The Guardian, Ruben Andersson, writes the Swedish model is failing.

Whatever Sweden does must be right, or so reason progressive politicians and Guardian journalists – not to mention scores of Swedes. But beyond this blue-eyed vision lurks a darker reality. Sweden’s conservative coalition government has stood still as the financial crisis has engulfed the country. Jobs, social services and healthcare are eroding. The Sweden Democrats – the equivalent of the BNP – are on the rise. The social state is failing. The Swedish dream is no more.

Swedes were roused from this dream with the 1986 assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme. Palme might have left behind “a country where no one was poor and no one had room for optimism” as Andrew Brown puts it, but it was Sweden’s homemade financial meltdown of the 1990s that finally killed off the dream. Poverty was added to the pessimism. Savage cuts hit schools, unemployment rocketed, the Krona sank – leaving the social system in a disarray from which it has not recovered. The conservative government at the time has lately been praised worldwide for its handling of the crisis. Actually the bankers were rewarded, not punished, while the rest of the country is still reeling from the cuts, selloffs and dashed dreams the crisis provoked. But the idea of a well-oiled Swedish model insulated from the shockwaves of capitalism runs on like a Volvo. The reality, like troubled, Ford-owned Volvo itself, is more globalised and gloomy than that. Ruben Andersson, The Guardian.

I’m not quite prepared to be as gloomy as that however, perhaps there’s a clue for a more optimistic outlook in Andersson’s penultimate paragraph.

Just as Sweden was in the vanguard of postwar social democracy, it has since the 1990s become a neoliberal experiment. The experiment has failed, though this fails to register in Sweden itself. No waves rock the stagnant pools of officialdom: strikes are almost unheard of and the tabloids are too busy flogging diet tips to bother. The Swedes cannot let go of their belief in the system. Nor can many on the European left. Ruben Andersson, The Guardian.

Mightn’t neoliberalism be the real fault? Let’s be fair it’s pretty much shagged the rest of us why should Sweden be any different, perhaps a simplistic answer, but let’s not be too hasty – I’m not yet prepared to ditch the Swedish Model, let’s not throw the baby out with the neoliberal bathwater.