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> Governments are terrible at running businesses. Pure ideology, and trivially factually wrong. - Nationalization means the government owns the business, not
by djrobstep 8y ago
> Governments are terrible at running businesses.
Pure ideology, and trivially factually wrong.
- Nationalization means the government owns the business, not that it runs it. Only difference is who collects the profits, Bezos or everyday people.
- Norway and the other Scandy countries have high levels of public ownership and huge public sectors. Their economies run great.
"Some of these SOEs are businesses often run by states: a postal service, a public broadcasting channel, an Alcohol retail monopoly. But others are just normal businesses typically associated with the private sector.
In Finland, where I know the situation the best, there are 64 state-owned enterprises, including one called Solidium that operates as a holding company for the government’s minority stake in 13 of the companies.
The Finnish state-owned enterprises include an airliner called Finnair; a wine and spirits maker called Altia; a marketing communications company called Nordic Morning; a large construction and engineering company called VR; and an $8.8 billion oil company called Neste.
In Norway, the state manages direct ownership of 70 companies. The businesses include the real estate company Entra; the country’s largest financial services group DNB; the 30,000-employee mobile telecommunications company Telenor; and the famous state-owned oil company Statoil."
Read more here: https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2018/03/14/the-state-owns-76-of-norways-non-home-wealth/ https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2018/03/14/the-state-ow...
- kwhitefoot 8y ago> In Norway, the state manages direct ownership of 70 companies. Including the airport train which even Trygve Hegnar, editor of Kapital and as capitalist as they come, says is one of the best run companies in the country. The Conservatives (Høyre) keep on promising it to sell it even though it is profitable, and Hegnar says it is unlikely that anyone else could run it better.
- zorga 8y ago> Nationalization means the government owns the business, not that it runs it. Only difference is who collects the profits, Bezos or everyday people. A distinction without a difference, owners appoint who runs it, they effectively run it. > Norway and the other Scandy countries have high levels of public ownership and huge public sectors. Their economies run great. Tiny economies with largely mono culture populations who align on this political ideology; that won't work here, our diversity also includes ideological diversity that would never allow this kind of program to be implemented so it's a non-starter proposal. When a government is as ideologically split as our is, they are ineffective and bad at doing things due to the constant infighting and battling of ideologies. So no, it's not factually wrong at all, it's reality.
- squish78 8y agoThe US and Scandinavian countries are hardly comparable. It's like saying, "Hey Ethiopia, you should just be more like Canada and that would solve all your problems!"
- djrobstep 8y agoActually the comparison is fine. They're both similarly developed first world economies. The US isn't Ethiopia. It has ample resources to solve all its problems given the political will. It just needs to overcome its irrational fear of the welfare state.
- zorga 8y agoIt's not an irrational fear of the welfare state, it's an ideological opposition to collectivism from the half of the country that are ideologically individualistic.