Any large disaster will be caused by a long list of failures. Chernobyl was a particularly colossal screw-up (mostly a concatenation of unlucky coincidences, on

Any large disaster will be caused by a long list of failures. Chernobyl was a particularly colossal screw-up (mostly a concatenation of unlucky coincidences, one specific instance of ignorance due to political meddling, and severe human errors eg by Dyatlov). But it is preposterous to draw conclusions about state vs private enterprises from this N=1 example. There have been many successful government-run megaprojects (Panama Canal, Dutch North Sea dams, China's high-speed-rail). There have been many unsuccessful private ones. Adjudicating this question would require careful enumeration and analysis across many instances, not just throwing out one example. McKinsey, for example, states that megaprojects can fail "when big projects cross state or national borders and involve a mix of private and government spending." https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/megaprojects-the-good-the-bad-and-the-better https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insight...