10. "We have to keep universal services in health and education,
so that the middle classes will demand their improvement." This
is the "theory of imprisoned misery." The supposition behind it
is that the middle classes will support nothing unless they
stand to gain from it. Its corollary is that as many people as
possible should be imprisoned in shoddy and inadequate services
in order that the pressure of their protest will improve things.
It underestimates, in the first place, the ability of the middle
class to get what they want out of the system. In any universal
service, it is not the articulate and self-confident who suffer
deprivation; they are quite able to command the scarce
resources. The inarticulate and poor lose out in competition
with the middle classes. They get worse health and worse
education within the state system. Critics point to their fear
of a two-tier system, with an adequate service for the middle
classes and a rotten one for the poor. They fail to see that
universal state services th