The Tories have been muttering about instituting Easyjet-style local service provision (mm, what a vote-winner) and the Labour Party have had to find a localised model of service provision to avoid looking like centralist Soviets (not that I mind centralisation much - especially as I find myself living in an evil Tory/Lib Dem council).
The model they've gone for is one of workers' control: users and staff of anything from hospitals to leisure centres running places without too much control from the centre.
I'm all for it. Yes, things will end up being plotted by hyperactive busybodies, but the theory is sound, because the theory is Syndicalism, a splinter of communism which appealed to the Welsh miners and others in the 1930s (and got several of them in trouble with the CPGB Central Committee. Under syndicalism, the workforce of any particular industry, via their democratic union, controlled the means of production. Industries would be run co-operatively and would trade resources with other syndicalist industries. The profit motive and capitalist class would wither away. The theory suggests that government wouldn't be necessary because all workers would operate with the good of society in mind, and thus all would behave well. Personally, I think that a government of some sort would be required to adjudicate, distribute and set priorities (and conduct diplomacy, defence and public services), but it would be minimal compared with the Soviet and capitalist models.
Syndicalism rocks - and its time has come. Though I've probably just ruined its chances by identifying its origins in such as disreputable lefty idea.
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