3 ms·

Could it be that privatization works as desired in some cases and not in others?

shadowoflight 7y ago
An even better phrasing is that privatization works as desired until it becomes more profitable for it to work differently.
- nerdponx 7y ago
  To be fair, you could say the same about good/honest government.
  - wallace_f 7y ago
    I mean, if we're being fair, compare the domain of ICANN to the most-regulated industries such as finance, healthcare, drugs, education and housing... There is no question where prosperity and liberty are winning, and where corruption, inequity and insufficient supply/quality are dominating.
    - AstralStorm 7y ago
      Give it time. Pharma had some time to practice stinkers. Education is mostly private in the US above basic level and causes misery all around due to loans. Housing? Collusion between private and public governance. Mostly private, good luck finding public housing. Even military in the US is mostly private. Show me anything that is public. The only thing that comes to mind is roads (even there construction is private) and to lesser extent, municipal services like water and waste (also private contractors but controlled).
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - wallace_f 7y ago
        Ok... Education is not remotely resembling of what economists mean when they say Perfect Competition, or a free market, empowers consumers. How in the world do you believe it is not heavily interfered with?
        xg15 7y ago
        "Perfect competition" would also require all consumers to be perfectly rational and to have full knowledge about the market. Where apart from fully automated algorithmic trading is this the case? (And even there you have market failures)
kristopolous 7y ago
If you remove a core civic function from the public's control, they are no longer sovereign over it. The argument given is this process empowers the public and gives them choices. But it's usually instrumented through monopolies: cartels, m&a, patent protection, natural & geographic monopolies or some mechanism where the choice remains merely theoretical. For example, the organization discussed here. So the public gives up control, never gets the choice, and usually weirdly enough still pays for it - the profits just get funneled out of the system. For instance, in high speed internet, the infrastructure is usually built by tax dollars and those same consumers pay a second time for service on the platform they just paid to build. This is usually justified by the fact that it's expensive to build the infrastructure conveniently ignoring the source of the funds. The public usually isn't careful enough to deconstruct this rationale.. Really. It's wacky when you think about it. Fluffy marketing words like "small government" and "free market" which seems to always strangely lead to the most expensive option with the least public control and oversight. It's a giant hustle, like back when taxpayers built sports stadiums for tax revenue from tax-exempt NFL teams. Without exception all it did was blow huge holes in the city books with the phantom returns never coming. It's a hoodwink operation. Nothing more. Instead, let the government own some for-profits and cut taxes that way. Like the public bank of North Dakota, municipal internet or the collectors editions from the US mint. If taxpayers build the stadium, taxpayers own the team, simple. There's no logical reason the public has to be left just with the stinkers that lose money while the winners get privatized away. We'll be paying someone to run the stuff we paid to build, might at well be ourselves

An even better phrasing is that privatization works as desired until it becomes more profitable for it to work differently.

nerdponx 7y ago
To be fair, you could say the same about good/honest government.
- wallace_f 7y ago
  I mean, if we're being fair, compare the domain of ICANN to the most-regulated industries such as finance, healthcare, drugs, education and housing... There is no question where prosperity and liberty are winning, and where corruption, inequity and insufficient supply/quality are dominating.
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    Give it time. Pharma had some time to practice stinkers. Education is mostly private in the US above basic level and causes misery all around due to loans. Housing? Collusion between private and public governance. Mostly private, good luck finding public housing. Even military in the US is mostly private. Show me anything that is public. The only thing that comes to mind is roads (even there construction is private) and to lesser extent, municipal services like water and waste (also private contractors but controlled).
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - wallace_f 7y ago
      Ok... Education is not remotely resembling of what economists mean when they say Perfect Competition, or a free market, empowers consumers. How in the world do you believe it is not heavily interfered with?
      - xg15 7y ago
        "Perfect competition" would also require all consumers to be perfectly rational and to have full knowledge about the market. Where apart from fully automated algorithmic trading is this the case? (And even there you have market failures)

kristopolous 7y ago

If you remove a core civic function from the public's control, they are no longer sovereign over it. The argument given is this process empowers the public and gives them choices. But it's usually instrumented through monopolies: cartels, m&a, patent protection, natural & geographic monopolies or some mechanism where the choice remains merely theoretical. For example, the organization discussed here. So the public gives up control, never gets the choice, and usually weirdly enough still pays for it - the profits just get funneled out of the system. For instance, in high speed internet, the infrastructure is usually built by tax dollars and those same consumers pay a second time for service on the platform they just paid to build. This is usually justified by the fact that it's expensive to build the infrastructure conveniently ignoring the source of the funds. The public usually isn't careful enough to deconstruct this rationale.. Really. It's wacky when you think about it. Fluffy marketing words like "small government" and "free market" which seems to always strangely lead to the most expensive option with the least public control and oversight. It's a giant hustle, like back when taxpayers built sports stadiums for tax revenue from tax-exempt NFL teams. Without exception all it did was blow huge holes in the city books with the phantom returns never coming. It's a hoodwink operation. Nothing more. Instead, let the government own some for-profits and cut taxes that way. Like the public bank of North Dakota, municipal internet or the collectors editions from the US mint. If taxpayers build the stadium, taxpayers own the team, simple. There's no logical reason the public has to be left just with the stinkers that lose money while the winners get privatized away. We'll be paying someone to run the stuff we paid to build, might at well be ourselves