Martin Rundkvist16h ago

Hey private enterprise enthusiasts. You believe that the public sector can save money by handing over utilities to companies, which are inherently more efficient.

Here's why this doesn't work.

You have to pay someone to monitor the private companies. Because they have no incentive to deliver what they promised. They always cut corners in the name of profit. And that monitoring eats the savings you hoped for. While you have no control over your utilities.

#capitalism

Show threadTheriac
@mrundkvist
the companies then use the profits they make to buy the politicians overseeing the watch dogs and regulations ... aaaand you end up with English water or Fukushima.
8:09amWeb
Show threadToken Sane Person5h ago

@Theriac @mrundkvist OTOH if it's publicly owned then there is no regulator, just a government department marking its own homework and probably declaring its failings a state secret.

You can't win.

Show threadMartin Rundkvist5h ago
@tokensane @Theriac
Municipal libraries? No.
Show threadTheriac1h ago
@tokensane @mrundkvist
Look into how well privitisation of services went in the UK from Thatcher onwards. Leaving aside the fact publicly owned assests were converted into private at discount prices - the moment you turn a service into an entity seeking profit the service deteriorates. In Japan for example they privatised their telecom in 1985 and it is pretty typical. It intentionally stifled the spread of the internet in the 1990s because it made more money selling phone time units than infrastructure access. Even now despite being a private company it reacts to technological changes at a glacial pace, because it was handed a monopoly at inception and has no reason to innovate.

Thatcher made the play book for conning people into accepting privatisation - claim the entity is bloated and inefficient, declare cuts are necessary then starve it of funding and then point at how badly it performs when the cracks starts showing. Rinse and repeat until people get fed up with the dotty service.

At the time of writing - most countries have had longer experience of freidmanite mantras regarding public ownership, than they had of publicly owned companies and manufacturing - for the UK 25 or so years approx for nationalised companies vs nearly 50 years of friedmanite "government should not supply services".