Thats not true, "neo-liberal" countries still have a blend of free & subsidised services. Its just the scare tactics used by the government and Ks here that any other model will mean EVERYONE has to pay for EVERYTHING.
I will give you a few examples of how it works in Australia, given thats what I know best. Dont get me wrong, we have plenty of own problems (social problems amongst the Aborigines, rising cost of living etc etc), but this is just to give you an idea of how a liberal, free market model can work:
- Primary / Secondary Education: majority of students attend public schools (which are free for those who cant afford), albeit governments also subsidise private schools
- Tertiary/College Education: university education is not free, however heavily subsidised such that the government loans you money and then you start paying it back when you are capable. This means that if you cant afford upfront payment (basically no one can haha), it wont prevent you from going to University.
- Health: if you cant afford it there is free health (subsidised by the government and also by a personal tax, paid proportionately to your income)
- Welfare: Systems in place whereby if you dont work you still get money, albeit you generally have to provde you are actively looking for work, and need the benefits
- Sport on TV: both pay per view and free to air. Generally works that the bigger sports games still shown on free-to-air for those who cant afford it. If not, there is always a friends house, bar etc to watch it as someone put it.
Of course theres not such thing as a 100% neoliberal government. In fact, we have here a blend too, and every private school of Buenos Aires have subsidio from the State, since education is a constitutional obligation the State must stand for.
I dont know if it was Stiglitz (former Nobel prize on economics) or who, the one that said there are two capitalisms, one that you have it in first world countries, and the other of third world countries, mainly in Latin America, which consists basically on sacking and pillaging, where the big corporations make the most of their money, where you have week governments with low taxes, where big capitals can come make their money and leave with total liberty. He called it "pilaging capitalism".
So basically, and I have history on my side, the free market policies have sunk this country several times, They come and leave and destroy local economy. The private sector does not respect anything, they are like so greedy they just want their investment to work. So they can buy polticians or judges or congressmen to make their bussiness work. A good example of this is what happens with mineras today. Its an activity prohibited in first world countries. Same as papeleras. But they can come here extract and destroy the natural resources with total impunity, intoxicate local communities, and leave with their profit. And it have happened with lot of areas. In the nineties, we have almost all the country privatized, and the result of that policies were the worst economic crisis ever.
So my point is that here you just cant make free market policies work, because of how the upper classes, the people who would command that process, behave. They have no respect for nothing, they have no sense of community or nationalistic thoughts. They dont care of the country. They make their money here and instead of reinvesting it here, to the country grows, they take it every 10 years to Caiman Island. They dont believe in the country. They bet the money
against the country, in hedge funds, for example. They make this country explode every ten years, they empty the country of dollars, they take it from the Central bank so we always run out of. This explains the restrictions we have today, the controls, the crazyness of this government to take care of every penny.
Theres a huge entrepreneur culture implanted in the dictatoirship which implies total impunity to do whatever they want, that wont change in the short term.
And on the other direction, we have the State, which with this governement is growing and taking care of an increased number of areas. Despite corruption.
