4 ms·

When many large British companies were in state hands (up until the 1980s) there was no accountability. Customers were ignored because they had no alternative.

When many large British companies were in state hands (up until the 1980s) there was no accountability. Customers were ignored because they had no alternative. The law - sensibly enough - didn't allow politicians to interfere in the running of the companies so they were basically unaccountable. That's how you got waiting lists of more than a decade for a phone line. One of the Tory ministers responsible for privatizing utilities in the 1980s said they did it because the utilities would be easier to control as private companies with a regulator. There is no silver bullet.

koboll 7y ago
>The law - sensibly enough - didn't allow politicians to interfere in the running of the companies so they were basically unaccountable. I'm not sure how that's sensible. Are you being sarcastic? Sure, there are problems with political intervention in state-owned companies (near term bias, etc.), but if it's the only means of holding state-owned companies accountable, and if a competitive market is untenable, then yes, voter-accountable politicians should be able to intervene in state-owned companies. As it stands, with a company like PG&E, you have a half-solution, where it's a privately-owned monopoly but isn't directly accountable to its customers because they can't vote with their wallet, so it gets metric tons of regulation dumped on it instead as a half-measure that (obviously) doesn't work.