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>nationalised industry has a chance of properly dealing with externalities Do you know the history of the Soviet whaling program? They killed more whales for i

• revolvingocelot 5y ago
  Yes, yes, the USSR was bad. If I allow you to define "nationalised industry" as "something bad the Soviets/CCP/Venezuelans did", then of course it's bad. Contrast that to the concept of a Crown corporation in Canada, which "provide services required by the public that otherwise would not be economically viable as a private enterprise or that do not fit exactly within the scope of any ministry." [0] They can do things like "care about externalities" because they're not expected to make money, but they're still structured as corporations and therefore can have the usual trappings like middle management and competitive salaries and casual Fridays. A famous example would be the Canadian National Railway, which was created by government fiat in 1918 as a response to a bunch of private railways in (less-developed) western Canada running out of government money to feed on and thereby going bankrupt. The diversity of the interests that it inherited allowed it to spin off all sorts of other beneficial Crown corporations recognized by every Canadian, like VIA Rail, Air Canada, and the CBC. Of course, the privatization of Crown corporations is also a great way for right-wing governments to create minor budgetary surpluses to enthrall the plebes while handing over a captive "customer"-base to their already-wealthy friends, and since the 80s it's become a proud tradition. [1] Air Canada, Ontario Hydro, Petro-Canada... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_corporations_of_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_corporations_of_Canada [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Former_Crown_corporations_of_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Former_Crown_corporat...
  • Jensson 5y ago
    > Contrast that to the concept of a Crown corporation in Canada Crown corporation in Canada isn't running any industries though, it is just an organization for providing government services and isn't any different than a typical department of education or post or government rails etc. I'm sure most agree with you that there are areas best served by government run organizations. Crown corporation just operates in such areas, so it wouldn't change peoples views on what services a government should run at all.
    • revolvingocelot 5y ago
      >Crown corporation in Canada isn't running any industries though, it is just an organization for providing government services and isn't any different than a typical department of education or post or government rails etc. An oil extraction and distribution company isn't an industry? I also suggest you read the second link in the grandparent: Nova Chemicals, Yara Belle Plaine, PotashCorp, all the resource extraction corps in Saskatchewan... Also, that's strictly wrong -- Crown corporations could operate in any sphere of business at all, so long as the government chose to endow them to do so. Furthermore, some Crown corporations must deal with real physical externalities arising as a consequence of their operations, like Petro-Canada, which (before it was sold off for a song to already-rich people) extracted real physical oil in Alberta, and dealt with the real physical externalities in a much MUCH *MUCH* more accountable way.
      • Jensson 5y ago
        > An oil extraction and distribution company isn't an industry? No, they aren't manufacturing anything. Managing natural resources is a reasonable thing for a government to do. > Crown corporations could operate in any sphere of business at all But they aren't which is the point. Just because they could do something in theory doesn't mean that they would do a good job if they did. There is no evidence that they would, so using them as an example doesn't work. > Furthermore, some Crown corporations must deal with real physical externalities arising as a consequence of their operations, like Petro-Canada There is no reason this couldn't just be done for private corporations via regulations. Politicians have that power today, why aren't they using it? And why do you think they would use it if ownership was different?
        • revolvingocelot 5y ago
          Apologies, I had updated my comment to list a few of the dozen-and-a-half industrial Crown corporations that Canadian governments have sold off to already-wealthy people. I'll continue: Victory Aircraft, Orion Bus Industries, Canadian Vickers, Canadair... It's a historical fact that the government did operate industrial Crown corporations, and they operated them "better", as viewed from the embarrassingly non-fiduciary perspectives of the workers and the environment, which is the point. >There is no reason this couldn't just be done for private corporations via regulations. Politicians have that power today, why aren't they using it? And why do you think they would use it if ownership was different? There's several organizations between the legislature in which some regulation is made, and the actual group to be regulated, whereas a Crown corporation's mandate to report directly to the government, not to mention the absent necessity to cover bad things up until the quarterly earnings report drops, makes them more honest. The other kicker, of course, is that private corporations can just bribe I mean lobby the government for permission to do bad things. There's not really an incentive for Crown corporations to do that. A Crown corp is not there to make ever-increasing amounts of money, they're there to provide a service. No amount of deployed regulation on a for-profit, privately-owned corporation can change its tendency to optimize for the former.
• mellavora 5y ago
  Do you know the early history of the US post office when it was considered a wonder of the world?