Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

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Your post is based on a premise that is simply false:

> And whatever else the fact is that privatized information infrastructure simply has not worked overall.

"Worked" compared to what? The U.S. is in the top 10 for average connection speeds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_.... It is far ahead of France, Germany, the U.K., Italy, and Spain (which is 70%+ of the EU population). That's all the result of private infrastructure.

> Of course governments can have issues too.

This is a huge understatement. Our roads are full of potholes. Amtrak is never on time. WMATA is on fire. New York spends 5-7x as much money to build a mile of subway as London or Paris.[1] Our water infrastructure is poisoning children with lead.[2] That's our public infrastructure.

I travel to Germany and Japan for business, and when I come home, it's not broadband that I'm steamed about. Our broadband is fine (better than Germany, worse than Japan), especially here on the east coast. But our public, government-run infrastructure is total shit in comparison. After riding Japanese trains around, I get on the D.C. Metro and it makes me actively mad.

To me, the correct premise seems to be exactly the opposite of the one you're applying. U.S. state and local governments are so completely awful at building and maintaining infrastructure, that even a private monopoly with no competition is preferable to a government-run system.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

[2] https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/ct-chicago-wate...

>'But our public, government-run infrastructure is total shit in comparison. After riding Japanese trains around, I get on the D.C. Metro and it makes me actively mad."

It's worth noting that many of those wonderful trains in Japan are are actually privately owned though:

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/10/why-tokyos-pr...

But I agree with your points.

In those countries with better infrastructure there isn't as strong of a government-is-always-awful ideology as we have here. Our "conservative" politicians thinks of their job as destroying government. So we get bad government. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Except infrastructure is awful in solidly blue states as well as red states. What "conservative politicians" are to blame for the NYC subway falling apart? I think you've got the causation backward. There's a bigger "market" for anti-government rhetoric in the U.S. than in Europe because the governmental units closest to the people here are so awful.

Democrats in the US would be considered center right in many European countries. The highest income tax rate in Denmark is around 80%. If you want excellent public infrastructure, you need to be willing to invest into the commons (not hand it over to the private sector - there is no example I am familiar with where that has led to better outcomes in the long run).

That’s not really true either. Tax rates are higher outside the U.S. (but also flatter—VAT taxes which are pervasive in Europe would be considered a right-wing attempt to shift the tax burden to the middle class here.)

But infrastructure isn’t more “left” in Europe, and it’s often more “right.” The Danish telecom operator owns all the copper and almost all the cable and is a fully private company. And Denmark got rid of its telecom regulator recently. The Danish rail operator is a for-profit government owned company that is in the process of being privatized. Deutsche Bahn is organized as a for-profit company. (The Japanese rail operators are all for-profit companies.) Stockholm’s dark fiber provider is organized as a for-profit company. Whereas De Blasio has turned fiber in NYC into a social justice issue, the Stockholm fiber provider built out its network based on demand and revenue generation (e.g. businesses first), and charged high initial hookup fees (approaching $1,000). The British commuter rail system is run by private companies. While London’s subway is run by the city, it pays for itself with fares (while half the costs of the New York subway come from the government). Nobody in Europe has anything like our Universal Service Fund, which shifts billions of dollars a year from urban areas to rural areas. It goes on and on. Europe was late to the deregulation game, but ran with it in the 1990s and 2000s.

Case study: the U.K. The U.K.'s telecom infrastructure is almost entirely owned by a single private, for-profit company: BT. British telecom law imposes an open access requirement, requiring BT to lease access to competitors. However, because British regulators are sane, these leases are made at rates that leave BT with similar profit margins to Comcast. BT, unsurprisingly, has invested in upgrading its copper network. The U.S. had a similar requirement for DSL, but the FCC set the rates so low (at cost) that it basically killed investment in the copper network.

The idea of the government owning and running rail, power, or telecom infrastructure these days is solidly left of center compared to Europe.

The key point is that you need tax revenue to manage (build, own, operate, or regulate) public infrastructure well.

Expecting great rail, road, or internet service without paying high taxes and strong government involvement hasn’t worked out. Nothing in your post contradicts that.

In many cases, public funding was even required to put in place the core infrastructure and conditions for privately operated companies to succeed. That’s certainly the case for high speed rail in Germany.

> Expecting great rail, road, or internet service without paying high taxes and strong government involvement hasn’t worked out. Nothing in your post contradicts that.

All of the examples in my post are ones where "high taxes" aren't used to pay for infrastructure, or where "government involvement" is limited because infrastructure is managed by for-profit corporations. Stockholm doesn't have pervasive fiber because of "high taxes" (tax dollars were not used to build the network) or "strong government involvement" (while Stokab is owned by the city, it is a for-profit corporation and the city does not control its rate and expansion plans). Denmark's telecom system, likewise, is owned by a private company, was not built with public money, and is loosely regulated (Denmark got rid of its telecom regulator recently). Japan's railways (owned by private companies which mostly run at a profit), and London's subway (which breaks even through fare revenue) are examples of great infrastructure that are not the result of "high taxes" and "strong government involvement."

It's fair to point out that European systems aren't completely privatized and often receive subsidies. There is a spectrum. But the U.S. is generally on the left-side of that spectrum. U.S. passenger rail is almost entirely government-owned, government-run, and heavily subsidized. New York receives half its budget from taxpayer funding, for example.

Europe tends to be further right on the spectrum. For example, in the U.K. a government agency owns most of the track, but private Train Operating Companies own the trains and provide service. And London's subway system receives all its funding from fares. You see high levels of privatization in the U.K., Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, etc. You also see multi-national competition--half of train operating companies in the U.K. are foreign firms; Deutsche Bahn subsidiaries operate passenger rail service in the Netherlands, etc. Can you imagine NY MTA opening up its network to competing operators from Europe? Now, European systems receive subsidies, for sure. But Deutsche Bahn at least runs an operating profit. U.S. rail operators universally rely on tax dollars just to meet their operating expenses (and rely on the government for all of their capital expenses).

At the other end of the spectrum, many Asian rail systems receive few subsidies, and are mostly responsible for their own capital expenses. Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore systems are operated (and often owned) by private companies, and run a significant profit.

The NYC subway is a poor example, since its funding is dependant on the conservative (but not for much longer) state government.

Calling the New York state government “conservative” is laughable. Democrats have controlled the governor’s seat for 32 of the last 43 years. They have controlled the Assembly (which has primary responsibility for tax and spending bills) for all of the last 43 years. New York state has one of the highest levels of taxes and public expenditures in the whole country.

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