Is Privatisation A Good Thing?
Poll: Is Privatisation A Good Thing?
Total Members Polled: 121
Discussion
President Merkin said:
Isn't your postman an employee of a private company?
You need to look at the history, not just "now". Royal Mail's grossly inefficient working practices and staff are almost all carry-over from state ownership.Post Office/Royal Mail used to have a monopoly on parcel deliveries but got eaten alive by competition as soon as they were privatised.
It's the other way round though, no? Royal Mail makes all it's whack from parcels & haemorrhages cash on the univeral service obligation which they're deperate to divest themselves of. And their industrial relations history is surely no different from any other previously nationalised industry?
It is good if you run a water company:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0dem8v7epzo
"Severn Trent boss defends multi-million pay packet"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0dem8v7epzo
"Severn Trent boss defends multi-million pay packet"
2xChevrons said:
Panamax said:
The difference between public and private is easy to illustrate. Our postman saunters about, chatting on his phone while the Amazon guys dash up and down the drive. BT/Openreach were just as bad until they were exposed to competition for phone and internet.
I'm not sure that pushing everything down to the level that Amazon treats its 'human capital' in the name of consumer service is exactly the best advert for private business. Agree with much that's been posted.
Essential services should remain in public hands but perhaps run at arms length from the government. Government interference can hamper any business especially when things become political like water and rail.
Where things are privatised, the appointed regulator should be given the necessary tools to properly oversee the businesses and be able to take punitive actions where needed including making bosses personally accountable and have a culture of customer first, investors second.
Done like the terms? Then don't bid for the franchise...
As a general rule, yes. The starting point should always be to justify 'why should the state be sticking its nose into this' rather than 'should this be run by the private sector or not'.
So yes, the state should run the judiciary, the military, the police, the central bank, the standards bureaux. Not because they are better at it, but because there are too many conflicts of interest otherwise. But there is no reason for the state to be running hospitals, trains, planes, automobiles, power, sewerage, telecoms, or any other commercial activity.
Nothing to stop governments setting and enforcing regulations for an industrial sector - that's the best way to prevent negative externalities, and make sure an electorate's wider aims are represented in commercial activity. So for instance, you can definitely build and run a private airport but you can't have any flights between 2300 and 0700.
If that leads to a general market failure - ie, no private enterprise is prepared to operate a service under the rules its customers want to impose, then that might be a rationale for that service to be provided by the state on a non-profit basis. Or maybe look again at the regulations.
So yes, the state should run the judiciary, the military, the police, the central bank, the standards bureaux. Not because they are better at it, but because there are too many conflicts of interest otherwise. But there is no reason for the state to be running hospitals, trains, planes, automobiles, power, sewerage, telecoms, or any other commercial activity.
Nothing to stop governments setting and enforcing regulations for an industrial sector - that's the best way to prevent negative externalities, and make sure an electorate's wider aims are represented in commercial activity. So for instance, you can definitely build and run a private airport but you can't have any flights between 2300 and 0700.
If that leads to a general market failure - ie, no private enterprise is prepared to operate a service under the rules its customers want to impose, then that might be a rationale for that service to be provided by the state on a non-profit basis. Or maybe look again at the regulations.
Privatisation is a great thing but privatisation isn't the problem.
The real problem is politicians, like when a Gov allows big business to take the urine. Politicians/Gov need to allow the regulators to be truly independent and have real powers that are enforceable in law, with hefty fines and/or criminal charges against Company directors.
The real problem is politicians, like when a Gov allows big business to take the urine. Politicians/Gov need to allow the regulators to be truly independent and have real powers that are enforceable in law, with hefty fines and/or criminal charges against Company directors.
bazza white said:
Privatisation of the prison service is one I really dislike yet no-one mentions.
Again, I think the real issue is "funding" more than whether it's state run or privately run. Because the prisons are so old and overcrowded it's impossible to run them effectively.At the end of the day if private running is more efficient than public running that increased efficiency should deliver a suitable profit margin without damaging the quality of service. But if there wasn't enough money being injected in the first place privatisation won't deliver miracles.
As an aside, the cost of keeping people in prison is absolutely absurd. Getting on for £50,000 p.a. per prisoner so pretty much exactly the same as sending a kid to boarding school at Eton.
I'm old enough to remember the days before privatisation.
Pre-privatisation, there were some real and deep issues. Getting a phone installed was the work of months (I remember my mother having to say she was pregnant to get a shorter wait time). Gas and Electric were similarly bad - long connection times and difficult to deal with (I remember spending hours in some high street electric showroom while my mother sorted something). British Rail trains were filthy and old. BR food was execrable. Strikes were common place.
So privatisation sorted some of that.
However, some of it was really stupid both in implementation and the process. There is no real competition in water or trains for instance. Just local monopolies. Regulation has been too weak and companies took the michael with things like safety, investment, etc.
Pre-privatisation, there were some real and deep issues. Getting a phone installed was the work of months (I remember my mother having to say she was pregnant to get a shorter wait time). Gas and Electric were similarly bad - long connection times and difficult to deal with (I remember spending hours in some high street electric showroom while my mother sorted something). British Rail trains were filthy and old. BR food was execrable. Strikes were common place.
So privatisation sorted some of that.
However, some of it was really stupid both in implementation and the process. There is no real competition in water or trains for instance. Just local monopolies. Regulation has been too weak and companies took the michael with things like safety, investment, etc.
hidetheelephants said:
BR was pretty decent by the time it was privatised, mainly because it had loads of money thrown at it to catch up on decades of neglect.
Which is the fundamental problem of nationalisation. We need a billion quid for the railways, great but we also need a billion quid for some new schools and for new hospitals. You end up with massive underinvestment because there is always something more important or politically expedient for the government to spend money on.It depends
There is a massive push at the moment to highlight how bad privatisation has been. I think we have forgot just how terrible nationalisation was and how utterly awful services were.
The water companies and poop in the sea, whilst I agree it is terrible, when the water was a state owned monopoly was it better? When I was a little boy in the mid 80s, my grand parents lived in an old farm house in rural Northumberland, idyllic, the river that ran through their land was on the face of it beautiful. We were not allowed to swim in it the pollution was so bad. It’s not like that now.
I believe the Thames was as bad in places. No,one in their right mind in the 80s or 90s would have gone swimming in most rivers in the U.K.
Since privatisation rivers and the sea seem vastly cleaner than they were, I don’t mean a bit but vastly.
Trains, were horrific back in the 90s, I remember just after privatisation getting the train to college. Slam door carriages that were filthy, looked like they had last been cleaned in the 60s. Looking across at the headrest opposite and moving my head to make sure it did not rest on mine out of fear of catching something.
There was no sense going to catch a specific train as they were never on time, often 30/40/ 60 minutes late. I remember asking someone in uniform on a platform if the train was the one I wanted and him looking at me like I asked to shag his mum and walk off without replying. They were also massively expensive, no cheaper than they are now, relatively speaking.
I got the same train the other day for the first time in years and the difference was night and day, clean bright, on time.
I am not sure spending money re-nationalising things when it should be better spent improving services. Personally I feel terrible, weak regulation is the problem, not ownership. Personally I would limit executive salaries in these industries to something very small but with massive bonuses for targeted achievement.
There is a massive push at the moment to highlight how bad privatisation has been. I think we have forgot just how terrible nationalisation was and how utterly awful services were.
The water companies and poop in the sea, whilst I agree it is terrible, when the water was a state owned monopoly was it better? When I was a little boy in the mid 80s, my grand parents lived in an old farm house in rural Northumberland, idyllic, the river that ran through their land was on the face of it beautiful. We were not allowed to swim in it the pollution was so bad. It’s not like that now.
I believe the Thames was as bad in places. No,one in their right mind in the 80s or 90s would have gone swimming in most rivers in the U.K.
Since privatisation rivers and the sea seem vastly cleaner than they were, I don’t mean a bit but vastly.
Trains, were horrific back in the 90s, I remember just after privatisation getting the train to college. Slam door carriages that were filthy, looked like they had last been cleaned in the 60s. Looking across at the headrest opposite and moving my head to make sure it did not rest on mine out of fear of catching something.
There was no sense going to catch a specific train as they were never on time, often 30/40/ 60 minutes late. I remember asking someone in uniform on a platform if the train was the one I wanted and him looking at me like I asked to shag his mum and walk off without replying. They were also massively expensive, no cheaper than they are now, relatively speaking.
I got the same train the other day for the first time in years and the difference was night and day, clean bright, on time.
I am not sure spending money re-nationalising things when it should be better spent improving services. Personally I feel terrible, weak regulation is the problem, not ownership. Personally I would limit executive salaries in these industries to something very small but with massive bonuses for targeted achievement.
nikaiyo2 said:
I am not sure spending money re-nationalising things when it should be better spent improving services. Personally I feel terrible, weak regulation is the problem, not ownership. Personally I would limit executive salaries in these industries to something very small but with massive bonuses for targeted achievement.
No money needed for rail, it's already nationalised barring the ROSCOs and they can just fade away as their rolling stock ages out.hidetheelephants said:
No money needed for rail, it's already nationalised barring the ROSCOs and they can just fade away as their rolling stock ages out.
My main concern would be trains right now are not that bad, in my limited experience, certainly vastly better than they were. They are incomparable to how they were in the 90s, better now in every possible way.Why on earth are we trying to go back to a time when the trains were massively worse than now? Perhaps if it was used as an opportunity to remove the unions who seem to do all the6 can to spread misery.
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