4 ms·

The British government privatised all the UK water companies some years ago. It turned out just about as well as you would expect. Turns out its much cheaper to

The British government privatised all the UK water companies some years ago. It turned out just about as well as you would expect. Turns out its much cheaper to pump shit into the rivers and risk the occasional paltry fine than to invest in infrastructure. Meanwhile you can load the water company with debt and pay massive dividends to the private equity companies and foreign investors that own the companies. And consumers have no choice, because each company is a monopoly. Marvellous.

JetSetWilly 3y ago
This is completely false. The UK government privatised water companies in England. In Scotland the water remained nationalised. In recent years, the UK government started measuring water quality, by installing measurement devices absolutely everywhere in England. The measurement devices then show that the rivers have lots of shit in them. But the point is, the shit is not a new development - they always had shit. Meanwhile in Scotland, the rivers are not monitored, there's a pathetically small quantity of measurement devices installed. Hence there's no scandal in Scotland because ignorance is bliss I suppose, not because nationalised water is somehow amazingly better. Somehow people with a narrative to push turn this into a tale of how privatisation is terrible despite there being no evidence to back this up whatsoever.
- Iwan-Zotow 3y ago
  And why UK (whole UK I guess?) gvmnt isn't installing devices in Scotland? > show that the rivers have lots of shit in them irrelevant to Scotland, isn't it in itself indication that water privatization was shit?
  - justrealist 3y ago
    Nobody privatized the rivers...
    - Iwan-Zotow 3y ago
      But water clean-up/discharge is private, isn't it?
- autoexec 3y ago
  The amount of monitoring, or even the amount of shit in the water aren't a good measure of how well privatization has served the public interest, at least not without context. Monitoring is a good thing to have, and clean water is a good thing to have. Those are valid metrics, but what also must be considered are the costs of providing those services, how available/accessible the services are to the public, the price the public pays for them, etc. I'd love to see an in depth analysis the impacts of privatization in the UK, but I'd be surprised if the public was better off because of it. In the end, privatization tends to be the worst option because of one simple fact: in addition to total compensation of all the costs required to provide the service to the public, the private entity also demands that they make a profit on top of that. A government can provide a service without any pressure to charge anything more than needed to keep the system going. Governments can even run essential services at a loss if needed. The government, unconcerned with personal enrichment, only has to worry about providing the best service to everyone. The private corporation only cares about profits and the endless growth of those profits so they will do anything to enrich themselves even at the expense of the public. Government is incentivized to provide what the public wants because when it fails they risk being voted out of office. Corporations are incentivized to provide as little as possible, spending as little as possible to provide it, while charging the public as much as possible and they are not accountable to the public at all.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > privatization tends to be the worst option because of one simple fact: in addition to total compensation of all the costs required to provide the service to the public, the private entity also demands that they make a profit on top of that This applies to all private efforts. Yet history shows the private sector can compete with public initiatives. The difference is competition. Water utilities don't have competition. They're born into a mode of market failure. For natural monopolies, public management seems to work best.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      You're right. Competition changes the math substantially. It means the pubic can get tailored services that suit their unique needs and a large number of companies trying to one-up each other fuels innovation. The public is unlikely to be better off when the service being provided doesn't really allow for competition and utilities and infrastructure are great examples of that. For products and services where competition is desirable, easy, and plentiful I want those options and the government's role should be limited to regulating where necessary to ensure that competition stays strong and the public is protected.
- hermitcrab 3y ago
  Correction: The UK government privatised water companies in England and Wales. Not the UK. My mistake.
autoexec 3y ago
The privatization of infrastructure is basically theft. Take from the public, and gift to private corporations that the public has no power over. The privatization of the public's air or water supply should be criminal.
- gloryjulio 3y ago
  Yep. Not saying public service is efficient, the privatisation of certain sectors like water and is much worse. The environment cost is just ignored and the public still get to foot the bill
- willmadden 3y ago
  Too broad... I would say monopolies are the problem, both public and private.
  - KPGv2 3y ago
    You don't think "governments are a problem" is too broad?
  - autoexec 3y ago
    Monopolies are desirable (unavoidable?) in some cases. I don't want 35 competing toll roads running past my house. Natural monopolies, goods and services that will never be profitable (or would just never be as profitable as refusing to provide them would), and essential services are ideal for public monopolies. I'm not sure there's ever a situation where a private monopoly is the ideal though.
    - rdedev 3y ago
      The best way to evaluate it would be as a function of the elasticity of the service provided. I can avoid eating a pizza but not avoid taking a specific road. Besides it seems like any domain where the initial investment is large seems to be places where one monopoly eventually emerge. At least in my opinion healthcare (hospitals and such not including drug development) should not be private or of there is there should be a strong public hospital network for providing care
tzs 3y ago
The article was about rivers in the US and central Europe though, so it is not clear to me how UK water company privatization policies are relevant.
- hermitcrab 3y ago
  Because the privatisation of UK water companies directly led to huge amount of shit being dumped in UK rivers. buy water company -> dump shit in rivers rather than treat it -> profit
  - tzs 3y ago
    But how does that warm rivers in the US and central Europe?
  - archsurface 3y ago
    JetSetWilly above said that's completely false...?
    - throwaway290 3y ago
      JetSetWilly wrote that they privatized England water and it's measurably shit. They didn't privatize Scotland water and they have not enough measurements to say it's shit or not. It doesn't prove either way so the point is moot.
      - archsurface 3y ago
        [flagged]
thelastgallon 3y ago
"Yes the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders." https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995 https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995
DueDilligence 3y ago
[dead]

JetSetWilly 3y ago

This is completely false. The UK government privatised water companies in England. In Scotland the water remained nationalised. In recent years, the UK government started measuring water quality, by installing measurement devices absolutely everywhere in England. The measurement devices then show that the rivers have lots of shit in them. But the point is, the shit is not a new development - they always had shit. Meanwhile in Scotland, the rivers are not monitored, there's a pathetically small quantity of measurement devices installed. Hence there's no scandal in Scotland because ignorance is bliss I suppose, not because nationalised water is somehow amazingly better. Somehow people with a narrative to push turn this into a tale of how privatisation is terrible despite there being no evidence to back this up whatsoever.

Iwan-Zotow 3y ago
And why UK (whole UK I guess?) gvmnt isn't installing devices in Scotland? > show that the rivers have lots of shit in them irrelevant to Scotland, isn't it in itself indication that water privatization was shit?
- justrealist 3y ago
  Nobody privatized the rivers...
  - Iwan-Zotow 3y ago
    But water clean-up/discharge is private, isn't it?
autoexec 3y ago
The amount of monitoring, or even the amount of shit in the water aren't a good measure of how well privatization has served the public interest, at least not without context. Monitoring is a good thing to have, and clean water is a good thing to have. Those are valid metrics, but what also must be considered are the costs of providing those services, how available/accessible the services are to the public, the price the public pays for them, etc. I'd love to see an in depth analysis the impacts of privatization in the UK, but I'd be surprised if the public was better off because of it. In the end, privatization tends to be the worst option because of one simple fact: in addition to total compensation of all the costs required to provide the service to the public, the private entity also demands that they make a profit on top of that. A government can provide a service without any pressure to charge anything more than needed to keep the system going. Governments can even run essential services at a loss if needed. The government, unconcerned with personal enrichment, only has to worry about providing the best service to everyone. The private corporation only cares about profits and the endless growth of those profits so they will do anything to enrich themselves even at the expense of the public. Government is incentivized to provide what the public wants because when it fails they risk being voted out of office. Corporations are incentivized to provide as little as possible, spending as little as possible to provide it, while charging the public as much as possible and they are not accountable to the public at all.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > privatization tends to be the worst option because of one simple fact: in addition to total compensation of all the costs required to provide the service to the public, the private entity also demands that they make a profit on top of that This applies to all private efforts. Yet history shows the private sector can compete with public initiatives. The difference is competition. Water utilities don't have competition. They're born into a mode of market failure. For natural monopolies, public management seems to work best.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    You're right. Competition changes the math substantially. It means the pubic can get tailored services that suit their unique needs and a large number of companies trying to one-up each other fuels innovation. The public is unlikely to be better off when the service being provided doesn't really allow for competition and utilities and infrastructure are great examples of that. For products and services where competition is desirable, easy, and plentiful I want those options and the government's role should be limited to regulating where necessary to ensure that competition stays strong and the public is protected.
hermitcrab 3y ago
Correction: The UK government privatised water companies in England and Wales. Not the UK. My mistake.

autoexec 3y ago

The privatization of infrastructure is basically theft. Take from the public, and gift to private corporations that the public has no power over. The privatization of the public's air or water supply should be criminal.

gloryjulio 3y ago
Yep. Not saying public service is efficient, the privatisation of certain sectors like water and is much worse. The environment cost is just ignored and the public still get to foot the bill
willmadden 3y ago
Too broad... I would say monopolies are the problem, both public and private.
- KPGv2 3y ago
  You don't think "governments are a problem" is too broad?
- autoexec 3y ago
  Monopolies are desirable (unavoidable?) in some cases. I don't want 35 competing toll roads running past my house. Natural monopolies, goods and services that will never be profitable (or would just never be as profitable as refusing to provide them would), and essential services are ideal for public monopolies. I'm not sure there's ever a situation where a private monopoly is the ideal though.
  - rdedev 3y ago
    The best way to evaluate it would be as a function of the elasticity of the service provided. I can avoid eating a pizza but not avoid taking a specific road. Besides it seems like any domain where the initial investment is large seems to be places where one monopoly eventually emerge. At least in my opinion healthcare (hospitals and such not including drug development) should not be private or of there is there should be a strong public hospital network for providing care

tzs 3y ago

The article was about rivers in the US and central Europe though, so it is not clear to me how UK water company privatization policies are relevant.

hermitcrab 3y ago
Because the privatisation of UK water companies directly led to huge amount of shit being dumped in UK rivers. buy water company -> dump shit in rivers rather than treat it -> profit
- tzs 3y ago
  But how does that warm rivers in the US and central Europe?
- archsurface 3y ago
  JetSetWilly above said that's completely false...?
  - throwaway290 3y ago
    JetSetWilly wrote that they privatized England water and it's measurably shit. They didn't privatize Scotland water and they have not enough measurements to say it's shit or not. It doesn't prove either way so the point is moot.
    - archsurface 3y ago
      [flagged]

thelastgallon 3y ago

"Yes the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders." https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995 https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995

DueDilligence 3y ago

[dead]