An Upstate Town Took Back Its Power (2023)
nysfocus.com
nysfocus.com
Princeton, MA is a really good example because they've got success and failure. They sort of succeeded with Internet and sort of failed with electricity (and windmills).
See Mad Ned blogs for Internet: https://madned.substack.com/p/thin-pipe-part-i https://madned.substack.com/p/thin-pipe-part-ii
I lived a while in a satellite town of the smaller city I grew up in, and it had an electric cooperative instead of the company that has a monopoly over pretty much the rest of the state. It was significantly more reliable service, because there were stakes and it's not completely for profit.
The same town also has a municipal fiber company, who has begun branching into the anchor city. Everyone is excited for it, because again they provide a wildly superior service in every way. The massive corporations with the former duopoly are clearly in fear of this, to the point a technician showed up unannounced to check the decaying wiring and connections"free of charge" (this is unheard of in the 25 years I've been forced to use them).
> “That’s what makes Massena so unique — that we saw it through,” said Andrew McMahon, superintendent of the city-owned Massena Electric Department. Others have tried only to see the effort fall apart, he said. In Massena, “the town hung together.”
What's far more special about Massena is that they've kept their municipal electric utility going since then. Similar to start-ups, successfully doing this is 1% idea, 99% execution.
Flip-side - one of my uncles spent 50 years managing a small municipal electric utility. But after he retired, there were too few locals who understood that their cheap & reliable electricity didn't come from Santa. Politicians short-changed maintenance 'till something complex & expensive broke - and Big Electric Co. bought up the whole system for pennies. Because "keep shivering in the dark" was the only other bidder.
I'm not dead set against municipal utilities because a municipality is so small reasonably motivated people can actually make a big impact. But a competitive free market is still better because if the incumbent is so incompetent that a total system failure is likely there is the biggest opportunity for someone to head the crisis off before it eventuates.
emphasis on competitive there, which these types of things tend not to be
I don't think anyone is arguing against the long term planning capabilities of capitalists. The disagreement is about whether their plans are beneficial to society.
For example, take the case of the aggressive marketing for baby formula that nestle carried out in the third world. Very forward thinking long term strategy, and innovative too: Other baby formula vendors were not focussing on these nations. The outcome was twofold. On the one hand, higher profits for nestle, and on the other, increased infant mortality in the targeted nations.
Now, whether that outcome was desirable is entirely up for debate. Me, personally, I'm not a huge fan of infant mortality, but to each their own. What is not up for debate is that nestle engaged in some effective long term strategizing.
Shareholders are notorious for only the seeing the business as a speculative asset to be flipped for a profit.
Governments clearly can handle long-term thinking, as can private companies. But only if they're left alone to do that.
The buyer is not prefect, but they're better incentivised than anyone else.
It is not just bad luck or accident that businesses at scale, while they may temporarily be run by idealists of that or other stripes, either fail or end up run by people whose interests is in having the organization run as an optimized profit-returning (either directly or by increasing stock value so that investors can realize gains by liquidating some part of their holdings) machine above all else. It is the structural incentives of the system in which they operate.
"That makes it some of the cheapest electricity in the country — largely thanks to NYPA’s preferential rates for municipal utilities. "
It is not the miracle of socialism over capitalism I was hoping for
There seem to be some socialists who are taking up the charge to expand this program but the original victory is all just public ownership. Rock bottom energy generation prices being passed on directly to the consumer instead of being sold to the highest bidder, amazing.
Privatisation of utilities has been fairly disastrous in the UK. I understand what you're saying but they're natural monopolies who have limited scope for innovation. They literally aren't really any different to roads or 'sidewalks'.
Probably the safest industry to put in the hands of the state, if you're going to do it.