The Economist, publishing an article (even just an opinion piece by a guest author) about privatisation being a failure? Wow...
They changed tack on climate change and ecosystems disasters about a decade ago. After that it was pretty obvious the current trend on full economy scale climate action (starting from Wall Street using ESG in major fashion as a criterion) was coming.
https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2023/07/06/thames-wa...
Although they went quite far to be clear it wasn't written by them.
That said I've not found the economist to be dogmatic when it comes to privatisation. They typically come across as quite practical to me.
The case for privatisation rested on two claims, reiterated by Michael Howard, writing recently for The Economist. First, the bracing force of competition would improve utility management and hence overall outcomes. Second, it would unlock access to private capital to fund much-needed investment that would otherwise be held back by short-termism and scarcity—supposedly endemic to public ownership.
Neither claim stands up to scrutiny. Private management and weak regulation have delivered a crisis-ridden sector and chronic underinvestment. Water companies have made clear that investment will be funded mainly by increased bills, undermining the idea that private capital is essential for investment.
It's a post-ideological era that we live in. Nobody cares about taxes, incomes and the like any more.[2] The conflict is now red vs blue.
[1]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/20/great-...
[2] Apart from the occasional oligarch who buys a newspaper because he really cares about his own taxes.
The Economist is a bit like RT - denying that everything is going wrong in Kharkiv to a point but beyond a certain threshold they eventually stopped and admitted reality.
I'd be curious to see what their views were about Thames Water privatization were in the past before all this stuff came out. That'll give a clearer picture of their true views.