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Most of them were originally national companies, like BNP Paribas or Renault. Those two were privatised in the nineties. It's the same thing in Spain, and I rec
by Funes- 7y ago
Most of them were originally national companies, like BNP Paribas or Renault. Those two were privatised in the nineties. It's the same thing in Spain, and I reckon all around Europe. A shame, if you ask me, that many of them were providing essential public resources (telecommunications, energy, food, banking, etcetera) and eventually underwent a very sketchy privatisation process.
- fgonzag 7y agoThe problem isn't national vs private companies. It's monopolies vs true competition. Any monopoly or oligopoly is inefficient by nature, and tend to become corrupt over time. National companies are monopolies. Incorrectly privatized national companies is just transferring a monopoly from one party to another. Privatization done right can work. But you need to break up the big national companies into smaller regional companies that should be incentivized to expand into each others regions, thus providing competition.
- kzrdude 7y agoPrivatization has in some cases created even larger, multi-national of course, conglomerates, which are more inefficient still. It's not just monopolization that makes companies inefficient, but size, even if the two go hand in hand.
- lozenge 7y agoNatural monopolies can be efficient. Regional companies encouraged to lay duplicate fibre cables, duplicate power delivery or duplicate water or sewer systems, are not efficient. By your reasoning the government is always becoming more inefficient by nature. Odd because the standard of life keeps going up and the % GDP taken in taxes remains steady(ish).
- dzhiurgis 7y ago> Regional companies encouraged to lay duplicate fibre cables, duplicate power delivery or duplicate water or sewer systems, are not efficient. That’s never the case. Power is separated into producers, transmitters and retailers (you only deal with retailers who compete in service and negotiate with producers. Telco’s lease line from national company, negotiate peering and retail to you. Exception is cell telcos... these pay so much in spectrum auctions that almost undoubtedly few millions end up in polichickens pockets.
- lqet 7y agoSame discussion coming up in Germany, although there have been voices for years now saying that the only way to stop the decades-long decline of the German railway network is to nationalize Deutsche Bahn again (also privatized in the 90ies).