This article is part of ourEconomy's 'Public ownership in times of coronavirus' series with TNI.
Today, multiple crises from pandemic to climate can clearly only be resolved through systematic public solutions and capacity. The people in the UK realise this yet find that after decades of austerity and cuts the majority of people are left vulnerable. Public health and collective security, financial and medical, has been destroyed. Even Conservatives are turning to the public sector for solutions to problems of public need. However, our experience in the UK indicates that the public sector itself needs to be transformed. Just because companies are ‘publicly managed’ does not mean that they maximise benefit for the people. Many publicly owned companies are managed in a hierarchical and unresponsive way without transparency and accountability.
We need to envisage more democratic and inclusive forms of public ownership. But how? And what opportunities and challenges does this involve? Critical lessons from the UK’s experience with post- 1945 nationalisation on the one hand and positive experiences of new forms of democratic management internationally on the other might bring us closer to an answer.
