In praise of public services

AHMAD, a dear friend, moved to Pakistan after residing for two decades in Europe. The other day, he remarked that “in 18 years of working abroad, I never negotiated salary raises; but in the last three years in Pakistan, I did it twice”.

Abroad, he was earning just above the national average, but it was sufficient for a comfortable life as his children went to good schools paid for through taxes, including his, and his family’s medical needs were met by national health systems run on public finances. He talked of the satisfaction of realising that even if he had lost his job, his family would not have been denied the basics of life. “Tax and its good use were my safety net,” he said.

In Pakistan, his salary was very good and in the top 10 percentile, and he paid almost as much tax as he did in Europe. But he now had to pay fees for quality schooling available only in the private sector; the same was true for medical needs, plus a substantial amount was needed to invest in order to ensure, in the absence of a state pension, a decent old age. Above all, he noted, “the quality of our life is delicately poised on my continued earning through a job”. Hence, work means inherent insecurity, and money becomes increasingly central to life.

This tale of two places underscores a critical issue: the quality and accessibility of public services can fundamentally shape an individual’s security, well-being, and economic stability. Robust public services are not a luxury. They are a societal necessity.

Over the last 40 years or so, there has been a concerted effort by adherents of the neoliberal economic doctrine to persuade populations that the state is inherently inefficient. It is claimed that this is true not only for running commercial enterprises but also in the fulfilment of the state’s constitutional duties such as the provision of universal healthcare and education.

Instead, we are told, it is the private sector that is the answer to every human need and that it must be allowed to run society, including the social sectors through market and commercial principles. This narrative is false.

Strong public services contribute to making a society less exploitative, especially at workplaces.

Around the world, the public sector runs services efficiently. Despite many onslaughts on its structure, the NHS in the UK remains one of the best healthcare services in the world, though the global title now belongs to health systems in East Asia. Many countries have excellent public transport systems. Some of the best educational institutions, globally and even in Pakistan, are in the public sector. Pakistan’s national airline was once a source of pride.

None of the countries described as developed states became so without huge public spending. It is also a fact that most seminal scientific breakthroughs — from atomic energy to space exploration to the internet — have happened through public investment. There is nothing inherent in the idea of the public sector that means that it is unable to run high-quality social or commercial services, but we have been forced to believe that.

There is a need to challenge the neoliberal narrative and to ensure that the state once again performs its ultimate responsibility towards the safety and welfare of all its citizens. The material interest underlying this narrative is the transfer of wealth from public to private hands. And the success of this narrative is shown by the obscene concentration of wealth in a few hands.

As Ahmad’s transition showed, public services are not just a matter of finances. They are about the quality of life. When basic needs are securely met, a person can move up to a higher order of thought and achievement. It was for a reason that the arts, sciences and philosophy were pursuits of leisure. Moreover, strong public services contribute to making a society less exploitative, especially at workplaces. Without public services, an individual is on his or her own to provide for family needs and hence at the mercy of continued employment, even if it is unpleasant or exploitative.

In his recent book, Nature, Culture and Inequality (2023), Thomas Piketty has shown the historical correlation between stronger public services and the reduction in socioeconomic inequalities in Western Europe between 1940s and 1980. Sadly, things have changed there as well since then.

What should be funded through public money? The answers will be contextual but it seems that at the very least it should include safety and law, universal healthcare and education, including access to the internet, a sustainable environment, functional public transport and roads, and safety nets when a person is unable to work or grows old.

More than any list the important point is for the state to demonstrate care and make efforts to meet the basic needs of all its citizens, laying the foundations of a dignified life for all, and being a springboard for flourishing and self-reliant lives, as Carl Sagan put it in an interview in the 1980s.

Economic growth needs to have a moral purpose, a collective reason for creating wealth. This purpose should be linked to the social contract between citizens and the state, in fact it should be to help realise this contract. People sense all this intuitively. This is why the unfulfilled promise of roti, kapra aur makan keeps Bhutto alive, even though these words are now hardly heard in the media or in political speeches.

The writer is dean of the Institute for Educational Development, Aga Khan University.

Published in Dawn, February 15th, 2025