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THOMAS NOWOTNY
tion, and the efficiency of the public sector. The political parties that es–
poused the growth of the public sector accordingly have been damaged;
European social democracy has been pushed into the defensive, not be–
cause voters no longer share its goals but because the means employed
often proved ineffective: efforts in the public sector did not prevent the
rise in unemployment; did not solve housing problems; did not create a
more productive and socially just educational system, etc.
Certainly the reasons for this failure are complex, and often not even
properly understood. And while voters might accept failure where the
proper remedies remain obscure, and for instance in the fight against
criminality, they will not accept flagrant shortcomings. If performance in
the private sector is blatantly superior, they will expect it
everywhere.There are, for example, no convincing justifications for the
fact that transportation by public buses may cost three times as much as
by private ones. But the higher cost of publicly produced goods is only
part of the problem: the average citizen experiences the private sector
not only as more cost-efficient, but also as more responsive to his needs.
Supply of public services is inelastic. On Saturdays, one may, for instance,
go shopping but one cannot talk to a tax officer, or obtain a copy of a
birth certificate. Big organizations are not flexible, efficient, or easily ad–
justable.
It
left to their own instincts they become even more rigid and
inefficient - in both the public and private sector. But the latter risks
economic failure while there is no comparable risk on the public sector.
It operates less in response to demand and more according to the inter–
nal mechanism of large bureaucratic organizations.
The political problem for ,European social democracy arose from its
identification with these bureaucracies in the public sector. Social
democrats were perceived to represent not the "masses" or the consumers
of public services but the interest of those who provided the services. In–
stead of representing the public's need for mass transportation, they were
suspected of representing the interest of railroad employees; instead of the
need for humane and broad education, those of teachers. The composi–
tion of the upper echelons of the social democratic parties tends to
confirm that civil servants, teachers and university dons, social workers
and railroad workers, and trade union officials, are overly represented.
That brings us back to the long-term and Marxist aspects of our
question. Whatever socio-economic system will arise after capitalism in
Europe, it will arise only as a consequence of further economic
development. The American option of growth - with a minimal public
sector - is not open to Europe. Thus growth will take place only if the
public sector will grow in lock-step with the private one. But that can
happen only if it becomes more efficient, less costly, and more responsive
to the public - that is, more democratic. That is both a political and an
