Incessant marketisation has done even more damage than low taxation and resource starvation. It has generated a culture of distrust, which is nibbling away at the values of professionalism, citizenship, equity and service like an acrid fog. For the marketisers, the professional, public service ethic is a con. The service ethic is a device to legitimise a web of monopolistic cartels whose real purpose is to rip off the consumer. There is no point in appealing to the values of common citizenship.
Public servants are inherently untrustworthy.
If they are allowed autonomy, they will abuse it. Like everyone else, they can be motivated only by sticks and carrots. If possible, privatisation must expose them to the sticks and carrots of market competition. If not, they must be kept on their toes by repeated audits, assessments and appraisals. Twenty years of this mean-spirited rhetoric have demoralised the public services and encouraged users who can afford it to buy their way out.