3 ms·

There’s a mixed track record. Saudi Aramco for instance became the largest oil operator generating lots of profit for its home country. Norway’s Statoil is anot

• dmix 4y ago
  Wasn't Saudi Aramco a 50/50 arrangement with the private American company for most of it's history when it was developing the main oil fields? I believe the companies agreed to this because the Saudi's threatened to nationalize it completely. The Norwegian one was a gov corporation from the beginning though and was there from the beginning of exploration/development. There can also be a long-term benefit that post-nationalized orgs from their past state as private structures, living off the fat as they say. The existing talent/prior knowledge/industry relationships are still there, just with a new owner and more capital. Similar to NASA absorbing a well established and already highly productive private industry / university researcher pool, and merging them under one umbrella and then having a golden era of productivity before sliding back into a more normal public agency. That sort of productivity naturally fades over time as the gov bureaucracy increasingly takes over and the natural constraints of politicized funding. It helps if your business is a slow changing monopoly industry like oil/gas though.
• williamcotton 4y ago
  And economic ideology is less important to that mixed track record than is generally believed, regardless of which camp people subscribe.