Things that should never have been privatized (& for profit)
1. Education
2. Prisons
3. Health care and mental healthcare
4. Essential utilities, especially water and electricity
5. Retirement
6. Emergency services (fire and rescue)
7. Safety (especially allowing companies to 'self regulate')
8. Military
Just remember, 99 times out of 100, once a company goes 'public', shareholders' profits become more important than ANYTHING.
"They will privatize your hopes.
They will privatize your fears.
If they see your children cry,
They will privatize their tears."
-- Brian McNeill, 'Join the Union'
Case in point, England and Wales. The water/sewage was privatised some years ago. Just before the recent General Election (that saw the CONservatives wiped out ;) they had raw sewage being poured into the rivers and it was even turning up on the beaches.
And transport.
@Darkphoenix These weren't actively privatized. They started out as private, voluntary endeavors, largely via donations to churches (always been a pipeline to power). Think monks hand lettering *all* the books, and about half of western hospital names starting with "Saint."
The ethical issue upstairs is whether people should be compelled by government power (guns, prison, fines) to provide all of that... which is effectively the flip of communism.
Not arguing for/against. History matters.
@cy @janisf
Personally, I think the feds need to start auditing so-called religious institutions, for 1st amendment violations (separation of church and state, & the establishment clause) and pulling the non-taxable status of the violators.
By getting involved in politics, they are trying to force the country to be 'Christian'. That is a BLATANT violation of the 1st clause of the 1st amendment. And it violates your's and everyone else's right to choose what YOU want to believe.
Religion does not belong in a democratic government, because they don't want everyone to be equal, only those who are one of them.
@Darkphoenix OK, true, (in 2022, 8%*) thanks in large part to public policies of the 80's & arguably moreso 90's. It might aslo be argued that state-run prisons aren't any better. Possibly easier to oversee, but not necessarily better.
*https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/private-prisons-in-the-united-states/
That's not what you're arguing, though, and not what I was addressing either. We have a tangled private public mess in part because so many of us haven't dissected its roots.
fun fact: fire fighting services originated as private companies who demanded payment before putting out a fire, it wasn't until the 1900's that firefighters became regulated and locality funded
@Darkphoenix So even if we don't want things "nationalized" (which I think all public services, utilities and infrastructure should be!) we should at least incorporate those as either public-owned entities (i.e. #AöR in Germany), sustainability-focussed company (i.e. #gGmbH in Germany) or cooperative (i.e. #eG in Germany) and have the public be major stakeholders (i.e. the local grid company being owned by the town and having specific bylaws to mandate it to run the water/sweage/gas/heat/power grid and maintain it) as these are natural monopolies.
As for many other things, Fire Dept, Police, EMS and correctional facilities should be nationalized to prevent perverse facilities (i.e. for-profit incarceration) and enshure equal service quality to everyone and not have worse-equipped FDs and ambulances in poorer cities.
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