Underlying debates about social provision reveal deep philosophicaldifferences, writes James Wrynn
Two issues have dominated Irish politics for the last two months: health and education. Debate in both areas has focused on very specific issues, waiting lists in health and fees in third-level education. But underpinning these debates lies the most fundamental question of politics. How do we organise two of the most important requirements of a civilized society: a good education system with the highest possible participation of all groups and a good health service?
Since the early 20th century, when democratic politics became truly democratic with full universal suffrage, two models for service provision in key areas of society have emerged. On the one hand there is the means-tested residual model, whereby certain services are provided to the "deserving poor", and on the other, the universal entitlement model, under which every citizen regardless of income is entitled to a service.
In the latter model, rights are at the heart of the issue, the right of access to the service regardless of income. But with rights come responsibilities, specifically the responsibility of paying through the taxation system. This model of universal entitlement and responsibility is central to the European social democratic model and in many ways forms the main cleavage in European politics between left and right.
Means-tested models have always been advocated by the political and economic right and universal entitlement models by the left. But universal entitlement is not just a theoretical construct beloved of the left. It is a concept that, when put into practice, fundamentally transforms societies. It is egalitarian in that access is regardless of income and quality services can be provided efficiently for all.
Nothing demonstrates this more clearly than a comparison between US healthcare and healthcare in a country such as France. The US has a notoriously uneven level of provision, through a means-tested model. Yet total expenditure on a per capita basis is twice that of France, which is renowned for the quality of the state-provided universal entitlement system.
In the European context, Ireland is noted for its poorly developed service provision in a range of areas of social provision because of weak or non-existent universal entitlement systems. The most egalitarian societies in western Europe are the Scandinavian societies. They are the societies with the most developed universal entitlement systems and always rank at the top or near the top of the UN annual survey on equality/inequality in developed countries. Ireland, on the other hand, is always located at the other end of the spectrum, close to the US, among the most unequal societies with the greatest degree of disadvantage, in the developed world.
All political parties claim to be in favour of helping the "disadvantaged", but the call to "make the rich pay" through means testing is populist rhetoric with no credibility internationally as an equality measure, and actually lets the rich off the hook through tax avoidance measures. The model which actually works involves everybody, including the rich, paying their fair contribution through the taxation system.
Universal systems have the advantage that every citizen has a stake in their success in contrast to means-tested systems, where the majority often feel they have no stake in the service provided and tend to resent taxes they perceive to be required for its funding. Means-tested systems generally divide recipients and non-recipients against each other. They encourage a cheese-paring approach with a tendency to under-resourcing and are in essence divisive. Weakly-funded public systems are continually contrasted in disparaging tones with well-funded private systems. Policy and management effort in means-tested systems is reduced to keeping a semblance of service intact. Continuous penny-pinching and minor adjustments are the preoccupation, rather than quality service.
And universal systems are not just about fairness and opportunity for the disadvantaged, although this is their primary achievement. Quality services provided on a universal entitlement basis are beneficial to every strata. For example, parents who pay fees for third-level education in a means-tested system would instead, in a universal system, have their obligations spread much thinner over a lifetime of contribution rather than over a five or six-year period when two or three children may be attending college. Indeed it is this spreading of the obligation that makes middle-class people in many European countries as enthusiastic for universal entitlement systems as lower socio-economic groups.
Politicians in Ireland often moan about reduced participation in elections. In recent years there has been a strong ideological shift by Fianna Fáil to the "Boston" model, whose key feature is the minimisation of State provision with as much as possible left to market mechanisms.
But if the role of the State is simply to be a minimalist provider and its main function is as a market referee acting through a throng of regulators, there is hardly much point in voting. Citizens conclude that they are on their own and should devote their time to surviving the economic jungle rather than participating in politics in the election of market referees with a tenuous connection in most cases to everyday life. Is it any wonder that one of the lowest levels of voter turnout is manifested in the US, where the market pervades and determines every facet of the quality of life?
Universal entitlement systems in areas such as health and education are part of the bedrock of fair societies. They can be very efficient as many examples in European countries demonstrate. And they make democracy relevant to the quality of everyday life.