But I don't believe that it has anything whatsoever to do with left or right: I believe it just makes sense on its own merits.
If you want to bring in a social perspective, then yes, I do have a belief in the fact that any country rich enough to have armies etc. etc. is also wealthy enough to show a little care and interest in its citizens, to the extent that the basics of life should be protected and pretty much guaranteed, for whomsoever the citizen might be.
I think an overarching health sevice, a worthwhile pension, power and water, and a basic level of food allowance should be incorporated into every person's state rights. I know people living with heating poverty who dread each and every winter. Further, I believe that public transport should be costed on what the average citizen can afford. It strikes me as crazy that many people must spend ten, fifteen thousand pounds a year on trains just to get to work. All that does is create distorted high salaries of which the earner sees a rather small portion because he has to spend so much on work travel. And which the employer has to pay in order to facilitate that worker arriving every day. It creates inflation and recruitment problems in the work market. So stupid is it that thousands of commuters can't afford to live in London because nurses, teachers, many other essential workers never do get salaries to match the cost of living where they work.
The system is out of equilibrium.
As for learning lessons from history: the greatest one to learn is that is comes and goes, that one side wins and then another, with none covering itself in glory. That wonderful autumn/winter of 2008 didn't come about because of socially run services: it came about because of the basic stupidity, greed and extreme shortsightednes of the many thousands of city guys making friggin' fortunes playing games with other people's money, passing the financial buck on to somebody else, and selling the innocents stuff they could never afford. Beautifully, none ended up in prison. I wonder why. That "swamp" will always exist because it's too tempting. It's heated, you see, and comes with beautiful water sprites. Draining incentives do not exist; rather do people seek membership.