8 - Public Matters

Summary

While recognising that the private domain of individual decision-making is driven by multifarious desires that ought to be respected, I argue in this chapter that public sectors are each driven by a limited number of collectively agreed-upon objectives, with these objectives – e.g. health, literacy – being in some sense primary (i.e. foundational, if people are to have a reasonable opportunity of fulfilling their private desires). Given that public sector objectives are collectively agreed upon a priori, respect for autonomy can be to some extent relaxed in this domain. With this, and given that the complexity of many public sector services lends scope for egoistically inclined suppliers to exploit market failures and the behavioural influences for their own interests, I contend that demand-led competitive markets in the public sector ought to be disallowed. Instead, I propose that providers and users be given direct incentives to reciprocate, by, for example, instituting reputational competition between service suppliers.