An unfortunate example - while the privatisation of British Rail was not handled particularly well (and I know firsthand - I worked for OPRAF and the SRA), BR pre-privatisation was a corrupt, inefficient disaster. I have many issues with the current system (although one of my biggest was the creation of Railtrack, which made no sense under the franchise approach) but I’ll take the current railway over BR as it was.
Meh. Royal Mail under state ownership was stuck in the 1950s with ridiculous opening times for sorting offices. Since they were largely privatised they’ve started trialling Sunday opening times and have started delivering parcels on Sundays.
Also, parcel delivery is a massively competitive market with dozens of competitors, and who sends letters any more? What few people or business that do will either move over to e-mail like the rest of the developed world in the next few decades or die from old age. Better to sell off now than be stuck with it.
To be clear, you’re arguing that the kind of thing in your link (maggots in food) happens with private contractors, but not with government employee run prison food systems?
Since privatisation, there has been more competition in the residential mail delivery service. I often receive mail more than once a day, from two different companies. Seems like an awfully inefficient way to deliver dozens of catalogues I never signed up for :-/
I’m arguing that private entities have more incentive to cut corners to improve profitability. people conflate doing something “cheaply” with doing it “efficiently.”
Their interests are the public’s interest: maintaining the services. Who are these political masters you’re talking about? Do you think Obama’s personally writing desk procedures on how to deliver mail or something?
You assume too much. Nowhere have I claimed that state run services are better. They may or may not be. But they are guaranteed and will always run without regard for profit, which is important when you’re trying to maintain a minimum standard of service for people who may not be able to pay for it.
You talk about idiocies of state run enterprises but what can you suggest that a private company can do in maintaining it worrying about how much money it makes? Lets say the government decides that in the near future, a minimum high speed internet connection is necessary for people to function. Do you trust a private company to run a fiber optic cable to a town of a hundred people in some rural area, losing money in the process? If there is no government forcing them to do that, why would they bother to do it on their own?
Since he is talking about British public industries, I am about 99.9% certain that he doesn’t think Obama is involved.
Government can step up with incentives. That’s exactly how I and other rural residents got access to high-speed internet only about 10 years ago.
The government, as a rule, should only be involved in things it needs to be involved in. It’s up to whoever thinks it should get involved to defend it.
Privatisation of public services in the UK has been a mixed bag.
In the case of utilities, it seems to have been generally positive and has allowed consumers to choose suppliers, which in turn has driven the suppliers to become leaner and more service-oriented.
In the case of rail transport, the system was broken up into essentially a collection of small, greedy monopolies, who in their thirst for revenue have driven up the costs and compromised on service (and in notable cases, safety, leading to passenger deaths)
Royal Mail privatisation seems like it should resemble the former more than the latter, as there is already a rich market of competing choices for carriage of physical deliveries. The big problem is more likely to be that RM is too badly broken and too inefficient to survive the transition.
Yeah, end of an era and all that, but nostalgia is the worst possible reason to hang on to this legacy now.
The minimum standard of service for letter carrying in the UK is enshrined in law as a universal service obligation. The privatised Royal Mail is still subject to this obligation. Similarly, broadband infrastructure in the UK is largely handled by BT Openreach, the infrastructure division of the previously nationalised British Telecom, which is mandated by the Enterprise Act 2002 to offer rival telecom operators access to the BT network.
Well, that’s Thatcherism for you. They “sell off” public institutions to cronies and bankrollers.
That’s odd. BT was sold off in the early 1990s, wasn’t it? I understand why it was required to share access to its telephone network, but how did it have a head start on broadband?
So, selling the Royal mail has nothing to do with the Queen’s Christmas cards. I learned something today.
That’s good, hopefully this kind of service doesn’t stop for some stupid monetary reason
Let’s just say I don’t at all trust that a private company will be equally motivated to maintain a minimum standard of service in perpetuity. With a change in representatives, a slight tweaking of the laws, those things can be gone in the next election cycle. Better to have them in the hands of the government where politicians are motivated by fear of the voters that they will not alter the service in any way. Its not the best strategy, but better than in the hands of a private company
Britain has “re-nationalized” privatized industries before. No reason it couldn’t do it again (other than its general trend away from nationalization over the past 40-odd years.)
I tend to be suspicious of privatization. This is partly because many times lawmakers undervalue the public asset to create a sweetheart deal for their friend and supporter who buys it. Also, some services do work better as state monopolies run in the public interest.
I would hope that de-privatization at least has something like the rules in the USA that require a fair price for buying something through eminent domain.