State controlled is little better than privately held.
In a public company only people who own a stake get a vote, and their vote is proportional to how much of a stake they own (the rich get most of the votes). In a State owned company every taxpayer is a stakeholder, the main difference being that you get exactly 1 vote no matter how much you pay in taxes.
But voting is a very inefficient way to steer a company, private or public. Markets are orders of magnitude more efficient. That's why we try to avoid monopolies as much as possible. Sometimes it doesn't make sense and that's why we have heavily regulated industries like water/power delivery, fire, police, etc... In most cases though you want to keep a competitive marketplace going to force companies to serve their customers properly.
Although capitalism is the best system by far for managing resources it has flaws. It naturally concentrates power (money) at the top over time and chokes itself to death. That's why there needs to be an independent entity (the government) that steps in and breaks up the ossified wealth to keep the system from dying.