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I think both options together are good. Both capitalist and government-planned economies have inefficiencies, but at different areas. If you have some service
by js8 9y ago
I think both options together are good. Both capitalist and government-planned economies have inefficiencies, but at different areas.
If you have some service provided by government, then it's sometimes inefficient. These inefficiencies can only be reduced by better governance, i.e. people actually getting involved politically and forcing the management to straighten it out.
If you have some service provided by only private companies for profits, then perhaps the production is efficient, but this efficiency can become lost for the end customer in the form of profits. In theory, this shouldn't happen due to competition but in practice it happens a lot (almost no private company operates at marginal costs).
So if you have a choice of both options, in theory you should get optimal results. In practice, it is difficult for societies to keep both options, for reasons:
1. If the public option is too good (too efficient), no private companies want to compete (no profit). For example, look at some state-owned European companies, such as Swiss post or railways.
2. If the private option is too good (only decent profit), then there is no reason to have the public option. People want to avoid governance, if possible. The people who pay for private option will question if they actually need to fund the public option from taxes if the private ones are comparably good.
So I think the big problem is that system with both (the best one) is unstable.
- fvdessen 9y agoWorst case scenario is that the private's solution is too good and the state thus regulates the private competition to be as bad as the public.
- js8 9y agoDo you have some examples? I can only see the obvious extreme example of communism, which forbade private competition at all. But I am not clear who (which party) would push for such a regulation. The benefit to the public is obviously bad, and the private industry would certainly oppose it.
- timthelion 9y agoI have the opposite example. In the Czech Republic, the national railway was sued by the private railways for being too cheep. And the private railways won in court!
- ajmurmann 9y agoSimilarly: in Germany you used to bed able to watch the entire back catalog of public broadcasting companies. They got sued by private broadcasters and now are only allowed to show two weeks back. I think it's ridiculous, since the tax payer paid for and owns the content.
- fvdessen 9y agoI am thinking of Outbox, a former US tech startup that digitalised mail, and that was shut down by the U.S. Post Office.