4 ms·

> Do you hate the company so much to risk hurting and risking many many people in the whole country? If it's that important, the players should be nationalised

> Do you hate the company so much to risk hurting and risking many many people in the whole country? If it's that important, the players should be nationalised.

robertlagrant 3y ago
Everything is important. Companies that lease vehicles for fuel to be transported are incredibly important. So are their drivers. So are cleaners in hopsitals. So are cell phone tower operators. So are shipping companies. So are computer monitor manufacturers. Do we nationalise everything?
- jampekka 3y ago
  Why not?
  - psd1 3y ago
    My country has had national assets sold to the private sector by neoliberal ideologues: I feel viscerally that energy generation should be in the public sector. The truth is that their needs to be a balance. All political opinions are wrong and harmful, as a fact of human linings on complex systems with enormous numbers of unknowable factors. So we should instead consider complex systems. A complex system needs to have capacity to change, and contain variation within itself. If it is too chaotic, it will dissipate; if it is too stable, its effectiveness will plummet when the environment changes. This demonstrates why communists and libertarians are both full of shit. It suggests that a nation should have a mix of private and nationalised industry. When new categories emerge, besides private and national, then nations should have some of that in the mix, too: in order to maintain internal heterogeneity, to provide a reserve of dynamism.
    - jampekka 3y ago
      This is quite close to at least nordic social democracy, in which the economy was actually called mixed economy (as opposed to e.g. capitalist or socialist). Until the rapid neoliberalization in late 80's and early 90's. Finland's national and third sector (e.g. co-operatives) were (and still are) plundered quite a bit too, although of course nothing like ex-socialist countries. There indeed needs to be a mix. The "mix" in mixed economy wasn't just about gov ownership vs capitalist ownership. It was also about co-ops, unions, worker ownership and non-profits.
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        > It was also about co-ops, unions and non-profits. Those all sound like things that would exist just fine in a capitalist system. It's just "free agreement between individuals to create organisations that can only compete based on rules set out by the government". They can all exist in that framework, and do. Co-ops are just a type of ownership structure, like any other. Unions are a condition of employment agreement between employee and employer. Non-profits, like charities, are just a type of governance and taxation arrangement that exists fine in that system.
        jampekka 3y ago
        Co-ops, unions and non-profits are detrimental to private capital profit and thus they tend to get marginalized when private ownership becomes too powerful. E.g. telecoms were co-ops, but then privatized and the memberships-turned-shares were amassed by big investors. Similar happened to banks in the UK (in Finland many non-profit banks were more or less plundered to bankcrupty). That said, co-ops are still huge in Finnish retail, banking and insurance (to great annoyance of the right). But they nowadays they tend to even sort of hide being a co-op and economy is mostly discussed as for-profits vs gov ownership. Other than for-profit doesn't really sit that nicely in the neoliberal ideology. Co-ops are quite a different form of ownership from private corporations and bring about different kinds of economic organization that is e.g. more robust against offshoring, speculation and asset-stripping. The type of ownership, i.e. what is enforced by the law, and violence in the extreme case, is the crux of any economic system. E.g. socialism vs capitalism difference is essentially what kind of ownership is enforced by law/state/community.
        robertlagrant 3y ago
        > Co-ops are quite a different form of ownership from private corporations and bring about different kinds of economic organization that is e.g. more robust against offshoring, speculation and asset-stripping. Can you explain how that is? My conception is if I set up a company today that has as part of its rules the idea that when any employee joins/leaves shares (or virtual shares) with voting rights are rebalanced, do I not have the basic elements of a co-op? Aren't co-ops still for-profit?
- watt 3y ago
  If they are so incompetent that the state-run they will do a better job, why not?
- closewith 3y ago
  > Do we nationalise everything? The natural monopolies of power generation, water, sewage, public transport, justice, prisons, defence, medical care, etc - why not? Certainly it seems that they were doing a better job when public anywhere they've been privatised.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    They aren't all natural monopolies. The main reasons to nationalise are: - there's no/not much innovation to do; it's just about running at low cost with a standard service (e.g. sewage) - the incentives are too misaligned to privatise (e.g. prisons; defense) - politicians can win votes by spending money on it, so it will be worse as a meddled-with private system than a nationalised system (e.g. healthcare) - there is an actual natural/positive monopoly (e.g. power transmission) None of that means that in this case a middleman power retailer should nationalise. If there's an actual reason, that's fine. But saying "some things are better national (or at least better than private with a lot of government interference)" doesn't mean that it applies here.
    - jampekka 3y ago
      Why is nationalization the exeption and private ownership the rule? What are the conditions for private to be better?
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        Private is the default as we all have to pay for it with taxes now or inflation later. I guess you could ask why doesn't the state start a plumbing business?
        jampekka 3y ago
        Yes, why not? They run the water and sewage "business" too. They are totally self funded as far as I understand. Private we have to pay through profits and rent seeking even more. Also public ownership doesn't mean the enterprise can't be self funding or even profitable. E.g. my city's electrical plants and distribution are run by municipally owned company that pays dividends of the profit to the city.

> Do you hate the company so much to risk hurting and risking many many people in the whole country? If it's that important, the players should be nationalised.

robertlagrant 3y ago

Everything is important. Companies that lease vehicles for fuel to be transported are incredibly important. So are their drivers. So are cleaners in hopsitals. So are cell phone tower operators. So are shipping companies. So are computer monitor manufacturers. Do we nationalise everything?

jampekka 3y ago
Why not?
- psd1 3y ago
  My country has had national assets sold to the private sector by neoliberal ideologues: I feel viscerally that energy generation should be in the public sector. The truth is that their needs to be a balance. All political opinions are wrong and harmful, as a fact of human linings on complex systems with enormous numbers of unknowable factors. So we should instead consider complex systems. A complex system needs to have capacity to change, and contain variation within itself. If it is too chaotic, it will dissipate; if it is too stable, its effectiveness will plummet when the environment changes. This demonstrates why communists and libertarians are both full of shit. It suggests that a nation should have a mix of private and nationalised industry. When new categories emerge, besides private and national, then nations should have some of that in the mix, too: in order to maintain internal heterogeneity, to provide a reserve of dynamism.
  - jampekka 3y ago
    This is quite close to at least nordic social democracy, in which the economy was actually called mixed economy (as opposed to e.g. capitalist or socialist). Until the rapid neoliberalization in late 80's and early 90's. Finland's national and third sector (e.g. co-operatives) were (and still are) plundered quite a bit too, although of course nothing like ex-socialist countries. There indeed needs to be a mix. The "mix" in mixed economy wasn't just about gov ownership vs capitalist ownership. It was also about co-ops, unions, worker ownership and non-profits.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      > It was also about co-ops, unions and non-profits. Those all sound like things that would exist just fine in a capitalist system. It's just "free agreement between individuals to create organisations that can only compete based on rules set out by the government". They can all exist in that framework, and do. Co-ops are just a type of ownership structure, like any other. Unions are a condition of employment agreement between employee and employer. Non-profits, like charities, are just a type of governance and taxation arrangement that exists fine in that system.
      - jampekka 3y ago
        Co-ops, unions and non-profits are detrimental to private capital profit and thus they tend to get marginalized when private ownership becomes too powerful. E.g. telecoms were co-ops, but then privatized and the memberships-turned-shares were amassed by big investors. Similar happened to banks in the UK (in Finland many non-profit banks were more or less plundered to bankcrupty). That said, co-ops are still huge in Finnish retail, banking and insurance (to great annoyance of the right). But they nowadays they tend to even sort of hide being a co-op and economy is mostly discussed as for-profits vs gov ownership. Other than for-profit doesn't really sit that nicely in the neoliberal ideology. Co-ops are quite a different form of ownership from private corporations and bring about different kinds of economic organization that is e.g. more robust against offshoring, speculation and asset-stripping. The type of ownership, i.e. what is enforced by the law, and violence in the extreme case, is the crux of any economic system. E.g. socialism vs capitalism difference is essentially what kind of ownership is enforced by law/state/community.
        robertlagrant 3y ago
        > Co-ops are quite a different form of ownership from private corporations and bring about different kinds of economic organization that is e.g. more robust against offshoring, speculation and asset-stripping. Can you explain how that is? My conception is if I set up a company today that has as part of its rules the idea that when any employee joins/leaves shares (or virtual shares) with voting rights are rebalanced, do I not have the basic elements of a co-op? Aren't co-ops still for-profit?
watt 3y ago
If they are so incompetent that the state-run they will do a better job, why not?
closewith 3y ago
> Do we nationalise everything? The natural monopolies of power generation, water, sewage, public transport, justice, prisons, defence, medical care, etc - why not? Certainly it seems that they were doing a better job when public anywhere they've been privatised.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  They aren't all natural monopolies. The main reasons to nationalise are: - there's no/not much innovation to do; it's just about running at low cost with a standard service (e.g. sewage) - the incentives are too misaligned to privatise (e.g. prisons; defense) - politicians can win votes by spending money on it, so it will be worse as a meddled-with private system than a nationalised system (e.g. healthcare) - there is an actual natural/positive monopoly (e.g. power transmission) None of that means that in this case a middleman power retailer should nationalise. If there's an actual reason, that's fine. But saying "some things are better national (or at least better than private with a lot of government interference)" doesn't mean that it applies here.
  - jampekka 3y ago
    Why is nationalization the exeption and private ownership the rule? What are the conditions for private to be better?
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      Private is the default as we all have to pay for it with taxes now or inflation later. I guess you could ask why doesn't the state start a plumbing business?
      - jampekka 3y ago
        Yes, why not? They run the water and sewage "business" too. They are totally self funded as far as I understand. Private we have to pay through profits and rent seeking even more. Also public ownership doesn't mean the enterprise can't be self funding or even profitable. E.g. my city's electrical plants and distribution are run by municipally owned company that pays dividends of the profit to the city.