Comment by pydry | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pydry | Hacker News Reader

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This was obvious since the first wave of privatizations were kicked off in the 80s but somehow they still managed to build a cult around it. Now the investor cult is crumbling, but we're still supposed to acknowledge that there was a core of a good idea there and they just made a few mistakes and took it too far.

That's absurdly generous.

Even some of the supposed privatization successes really werent (e.g. British Steel, British Telecom). Even in markets where competition is possible, if the product or service is basic enough, keeping a state run competitor helps inflict market discipline on private actors who need to be kept in check. The UK property is a clear example of where this is direly needed but the cult both prohibits it and has its greedy eyes on the NHS.

I don't know in which country you live, but here in France, privatization and opening markets has been salutary. - The phone lines state monopoly was broken, it cut the cost by a factor of 10, and made possible high speed internet. - The packages delivery state monopoly was broken, which lead to a much more improved service, which delivery of fresh food or tracking minute by minute where your package is. - The internal flights state monopoly was broken, which leds to low-cost operator who devided flights tickets by factor of 20.

Opening markets != privatization. There's absolutely nothing wrong with breaking a state monopoly if that's possible, but that's not privatization.

The free market cultists pretending that these two things that are very different are equivalent is half of how we got into this mess, in fact.

Whilst participants in the utilites market will often complain that it's "not fair" that they have to compete with a state actor, they're often the best way of exerting market discipline on them.

This is particularly true in utilities space where private actors unhindered by state competition try to bamboozle their customers into giving them fat profit margins with stupidly complex bills. State run companies that provide a bare bones low profit service that matches what most people actually want inhibit this kind of market abuse.

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