The Moral Maze

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Moral Maze

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Live debate examining the moral issues behind one of the week's news stories. #moralmaze

Combative, provocative and engaging live debate examining the moral issues behind one of the week's news stories. #moralmaze

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Moral Maze: The Morality of Privatisation

The Morality of Privatisation

BBC Radio 4 - Moral Maze, The Morality of Privatisation

Live debate examining the moral issues behind one of the week's news stories.

Combative, provocative and engaging debate chaired by Michael Buerk. With Giles Fraser, Melanie Phillips, Carmody Grey and Mona Siddiqui.

Thames Water, which serves a quarter of the UK population, is billions of pounds in debt and on the brink of insolvency. The company has received heavy criticism, and calls for it to be nationalised, following a series of sewage discharges and leaks. The energy sector, railway companies, and the Royal Mail have faced a similar outcry in recent months.  

When it comes to the provision of services which are essential for our national life, the calculation is often utilitarian: which form of ownership, public or private, leads to the greater social good? Many believe that the private water, rail and energy companies are simply failing to serve the public. Meanwhile, although polling suggests most people want to keep the NHS under public ownership, many of the health outcomes of patients compare less favourably to other European countries. 

The privatisation versus nationalisation debate is about more than outcomes: it highlights competing visions of the good society. For some, the private sector gives us more freedom of choice as moral agents. For others, a ‘market mentality’ has crept into more and more aspects of our social and communal life, including education, and the result has been the erosion of our own moral obligations towards each other.  

Can the motivation for profit co-exist alongside a vision of the common good? What moral responsibilities should private companies have to society? And what are the moral limits of markets?

Producer: Dan Tierney.

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