This comment came from a commentator on CiF called Peter Guillam in 2008. It’s worth having another look at it:
If all the free-market, private sector cheerleaders on this thread are right then it seems that those in the public sector are parasitical, paid to lounge around doing nothing (that is when not pretending to be sick), incompetent in every respect, overpaid, enjoying gold-plated pension schemes and generally laughing all the way to the bank – and all paid for by the sweat of the heroic efforts of the value-creators. I think that this is cliched, stereotyped, self-congratulatory and economically illiterate BS, and that most of the people saying things of this sort wouldn’t last five minutes as, say, a social worker, a housing officer, a care home worker (or even, dare one say it, a community outreach officer).
But if I am wrong and they are right, then the only conclusion can be that the public sector people have arranged things pretty smartly for themselves and that the private sector drones are suckers and thickies, reduced to bewailing their plight on cif whilst Unison members open yet another bottle of fine claret and put their feet up, laughing merrily at the scam they have pulled off and planning their next skiing trip. And free-marketeers, approving as they are of individuals pursuing their own self-interest, should surely applaud and start looking at the jobs page in the Society section of the Guardian so that they too can join this magnificent and munificent gravy train without further delay
So true.
