This paper investigated ways to increase employee ownership contrary to the socialist method, through private capital ownership.
Find the full paper here
Wiser Counsels - The Reform of Local Government
This paper proposes a number of radical solutions to making local governments closer to the people they serve.
Find the full paper here
Shedding a Tier: The Reform of Local Government
This paper proposes a radical alternative to local government that will ensure they serve the needs of the people far more.
Find the full paper here
Sunday, Sunday: The Issues in Sunday Trading
This paper provides a rigorous account of why Sunday Trading Laws must be fully deregulated.
Find the full paper here
A Change of Government
The future of Britain's Civil Services has been at the forefront of recent political debate. The Efficiency Unit's report, 'Improving Management in Government: The Next Steps', has put forward an important series of changes to the way in which the central bureaucracy functions. The report represents the latest in a series of initiatives since 1979 aimed at improving the efficiency of government. Such initiatives are so far estimated to have saved the British taxpayer a total of £1.3 billion, at its maximum only £325 million per year. This report argues that such savings, important as they are, pale into insignificance when compared to the £164.8 billion spent by government in 1986/87. There must be more fundamental change in the way that Britain is governed if public expenditure is to be more than tamed. The Efficiency Unit's report offers an exciting opportunity for such change. An Inter-Departmental review should be conducted of all responsibilities and services carried out by departments. Departments should be rationalized and made to reflect today's society rather than the dreams of the early 1970s. The range of advice to ministers should be broadened and the whole question of political appointees must be re-examined.
Mechanics of Privatization
Nowhere does there exist a greater concentration of expertise on privatization than in the United Kingdom. The privatization programme in the UK started before those of other countries, and has included government companies and services that are larger and more diverse than anywhere else.
Indeed, British merchant banks, marketing agencies, policy analysts, and other institutions now have so much knowledge about how to make privatization work that their advice is one of UK's most thriving export industries! The whole world, it seems - whatever the prevailing political colour - wants to know how to reap the benefits of privatization.
It was to assemble the best of this expertise that in July 1987 the Adam Smith Institute sponsored the first London Conference on Privatization, from which most of the papers in the report derive. Over 100 finance ministers, businesspeople, and other delegates from all over the world came to learn for themselves something of the mechanics of privatization.
Read the whole report here.
Privatization in Practice
Privatization is an integral part of a free market approach to the economy but the case for it does not rest on theory; certainly in Britain it rests on the practical evidence of the performance of the nationalized industries before 1979 and on the performance of the privatized companies since 1979.
Read the whole paper here.
Track to the Future
This paper restates the case for privatization, evaluates the three proposals on the table and makes final proposals to form the basis of legislation. The book also updates material from the Right Lines whilst looking at the possible privatization of The London and Glasgow Underground systems, the Dockland Light Railway and the Tyne and Wear Metro system. Some wider aspects of a free market in transport are also addressed.
Read it here.
The Enterprise Imperative
In the Enterprise Imperative Peter Young talks of how to promote growth in developing countries via the use of privatization.
Micropolitics
Micropolitics' analyzes the process of policy formulation which makes allies of the various interest groups affected by change. Dr Pirie sets out the thinking behind some of the policies which characterized the Thatcher revolution in Britain, and to some degree those of the Reagan revolution in the United States. It deals with techniques such as ‘micro-incrementalism’ – policies which gradually replace one state of affairs with another because many people feel more comfortable with gradual, creeping reform.
His view is that we should make advances where and when we can, if they all point in the same direction. Each new status quo achieved will serve as a springboard for the next advance. ‘Micropolitics’ tells how and why.
Part 1: The role of ideas
Part 2: The public sector
Part 3: Micropolitics
Part 4: Special techniques
Part 5: Summation