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Comment by sbenitoj | Hacker News Reader

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I'm trying remember a case of where a public utility / service becoming privatized resulted in better outcomes for the public in the medium or long term.

You must not be looking that hard!

The two best examples I can think of are the DMV in Alberta, Canada, and alcohol sales in the same province.

Prior to prioritization, the DMV was run by the govt and it sucked, hard. Two locations in a city of 1M. Took forever to get stuff done and the hours sucked (like the DMV in the US!). Post privatization, it was awesome. About 50 locations in the city, open until 9pm at night so you could go after work, good customer service and no lines! The difference was night and day.

Alcohol sales were similar. Better hours, better prices and more convenient. Specialty stores opened up and actually catered to customers needs versus the old govt run stores.

Railroads? Nationalization of the US railroads during WWI was definitely a long-term loss for a short-term gain, although it was only ever meant to be temporary I guess.

Privatization of the railroads neutered a lot of their utility in much of the US. I remember taking my first Amtrak in Illinois to Chicago and experiencing that my train was delayed for 3 hours because the tracks were privately owned & slow freight trains had priority on the majority single track rails. I later learned that such delays were typical.

German rail has been absolutely awful since it was privatized.

Privatization doesn't necessarily mean free market.

Better according to whom? Perception is subjective.

Really? A downvote on this?

I'd wager it's because "better" is well-defined in this context. A service provided by the government is designed to maximize the good and value it provides to the people. A corporation is designed to maximize its own interests. It stands to reason that a well-run government service by definition is better across many metrics.

They don't all need to be socialized of course, but the raw foundation of society (health, education, police, fire, even rail, etc) put people on an even footing that allows them to rise to the level of their capabilities. It provides a foundation for meritocracy instead of supporting plutocracy.

Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

People need Apple sitting on cash reserves larger than the GDP of many countries even less.

“People” aren’t entitled to tell you what to do with your iPhone after you buy it from Apple, why are “people” entitled to tell Apple what they should do with the money they earned?

Using an iPhone doesn't magically put you above the law, so yes, society in the wider sense does tell you (one of it's members) what you can't do with your iPhone after you bought it. Apple is part of society in more or less the same way, benefiting from what society provides and expected to follow the rules set by society in return.

Perhaps the "people" who helped create that wealth should have some say in how it's spent

Poor quality arguments get downvoted here universally.

"Socialism is when the government does stuff, and the more stuff it does, the more socialister it is."

It's not socialism to think that large companies being able to wave away all their tax liabilities through creative manipulation is a problem.

Why is Apple destined to pay taxes to USG? Is Apple a slave to USG? Why can’t they move and pay taxes to another country just like an individual can?

> Why is Apple destined to pay taxes to USG?

Apple is incorporated in Delaware. Delaware is a state in the United States.

> Is Apple a slave to USG?

No, they're a business. (Almost) every country taxes all businesses that are incorporated and do business within their borders.

> Why can’t they move and pay taxes to another country just like an individual can?

Under current US law, you still have to pay income and estate taxes if you're living abroad. But even if we ignore that, the case is far weaker: Apple hasn't moved to another country, and (regardless) continues to do substantial business in the US.

Define “move” — it’s a multinational corporation, and it’s incorporated in many jurisdictions.

Definitely, and the Delaware corporation is both the head of the entity and also the place from which it choses to do business with US persons. To do business in the US and with US persons it generally is advantageous to have a presence. If they want to stop participating in the US market for the tax savings they are welcome to divest and restructure to avoid it. They choose not to because the benefits outweigh the costs.

Anyone care to refute the proposition rather than just downvote?

1) many people depend on government services

2) calling anyone who recognizes utility of government services is unnecessary and just incorrect

3) suggesting that everyone can take of themselves is simply not true. Some people need help.

4) tone is dickish

1) does that mean they’re entitled to them? Why can’t these needs be met by those people, their families, or simply remain unmet?

2) socialism = redistribution of wealth; govt services are redistribution of wealth

3) didn’t say everyone can take care of themselves, many people can’t take care of themselves now even WITH govt assistance, it’s completely beside the point

4) true

Patent protection, law enforcement, safe international finance and goods market access are just some examples of "govt services" Apple benefits greatly from.

(1) They are entitled to them because the government is an extension of the will of the people, and the people entitled certain classes to certain benefits. We, the people, can change this. Until we do, they are and will remain entitled. People payed in to provide these benefits and these benefits are being rendered.

That said they're not all "take" and no "give." As a sibling posted, patent protection incentivizes the inclusion of invention in the public domain in exchange for temporary monopoly. Copyright law and IP law give rise to whole industries in and of themselves. All of which rely on law enforcement, on fire protection, on education, on healthcare, etc. These things cost money.

(2) Classical Socialism is not redistribution of wealth. Socialism is the government controlling the means of production. Wealth is not the means of production it is the ends. Socialism in the public discourse in the US is yet another definition, basically "capitalism with guard rails" where society ensures a minimum standard of health and well-being for everyone so that we can all rise to the level of our abilities in a meritocratic way instead of plutocratically.

(3) Yes, you are correct, however I personally believe in the "I'd rather 90% of my contributions squandered than see someone die unnecessarily because they fell through the cracks" -- it's really easy to end up there through a series of unfortunate events and I'm not willing to write these people off.

(4) Dick-ish tone or not (and it happens to me by accident from time to time) you do deserve level-headed reply, though I do only speak for myself.

If someone uses hyperbole, scare words, and sweeping generalizations about complicated issues, rational people often assume that (a) that person is trying to bullshit them, or (b) someone else has successfully bullshitted (bullshat?) that person, but they haven't realized it yet.

How do you define socialism?

Communal ownership of the means of production? Social democratic redistribution schemes are not socialist.

Ownership rights include the right to enjoy the benefits of ownership. The more rights another has to the profits, the more ownership rights they have.

Therefore, the more taxes that are extracted, the less ownership one has, and the more "communal ownership", i.e., socialistic it is.

Sure, I don't think many would argue that social democratic schemes are further down the scales to the left. But if we define a system that explicitly exists within the context of supporting privately owned corporations socialist, I feel we've overdefined the term to where it's no longer meaningful.

Social democratic redistribution (of the means of production) are in fact socialist, which is what’s going on here.

The means of production are _not_ being redistributed via taxes and foodstamps. Apple still owns the factories, the IP, the land, the offices, etc.

Yes, and they moved specific means of production to Jersey in order to sell their services from there.

Now there are complaints that Apple actually owes more taxes to USG (and other govts).

So which one is it — does Apple own the means of production (and thus what they did is totally legal) or do they not own the means of production (and thus this is socialism)?

I don't think the problem is that Apple purchased an office on an island. The problem is the use of that to not pay taxes to the USG.

This is my point though, why can’t they open an office elsewhere and sell their services from that location?

Why are they required to sell their services from the US for all of eternity?

Honestly, it's because intent counts. There's lots of reasons a company who wants to do business in and with the US would want a US entity. They are not required to sell their services from the US for all eternity, however they are also not required to sell their services to the US either. For now, at least, the calculus is in favor of doing business both from here and to here.

Are you really here to argue semantics?

Also I'm a pretty hard core capitalist myself but plenty of people aren't actually afraid of the label "socialism", especially those outside the US, so you won't be able to convince someone by just labeling something as socialist.

If I had to generalize, the problems at hand are growing the pie and distributing the pie, and the two are often at odds.

I suppose the reason I choose to argue the semantics is that I think overdefining the term socialism hides the critique of capitalism that socialism embodies, and I think that does a disservice to the debate.

You’re a rare breed in these parts!

I’m not trying to argue semantics, I don’t think most people on this forum realize that the redistribution of wealth IS socialism. I’m aware that “socialist” does not carry the bad connotation I believe it deserves on this forum.

Capitalist companies are first and foremost concerned with growing the pie; socialist govts are concerned with getting a bigger slice of the current pie and don’t care very much about growing it.

I don't think most of us agree that redistribution of wealth (the proceeds of production) is socialism (the redistribution of the means of production). The US has particularly strong property rights, and asking companies to chip in to reimburse the public for the benefits they've leveraged to become and remain successful (such as national defense, public education, public roads, public police, public fire departments, public water, courts, etc) is beyond the pail even if you choose to label that socialism. I don't think it's beyond the pail to work to build a more meritocratic than plutocratic society to ensure the next generation of businesses also.

I don't want to get in between you two if you're dead set on arguing over the definition of socialism but it seems to me to be unproductive.

Fair, he seemed genuinely surprised that some of us had a different idea so I wanted to explain where I’m coming from so we had a shared basis to work from. It was more of a pitch than an argument :)

> I’m not trying to argue semantics, I don’t think most people on this forum realize that the redistribution of wealth IS socialism

Heh, that is literally arguing over the definition of a word ;)

But yes, let's do the math trick of "Let X = Y" and say "Sbenitoj's Socialism" means wealth redistribution which I would assume to entail welfare, taxation, etc.

I think that's a good jumping point to debate about what the best mix is (which would then depend on what measuring stick people are using... gdp? median happiness? min(happiness)?) and then you can get somewhere.

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