Not without paying the owners: constitutionally the US government cannot take property for a public purpose without compensating the owners. (V Amendment)
Not all nationalized industries fail, and not all privatized ones succeed.
The British National Health Service is provided for all - universal health care. There are in addition private pharmaceutical and medical practitioners, hospitals, etc. for those who are prepared to pay more than the (IMO impressively low) taxes that provide the NHS. The NHS is indeed fiscally inefficient, and I wish it weren’t so, but there are many medical and pharmaceutical innovations (e.g. Viagra, DNA fingerprinting) that have come both from it and from British private companies. Having a nationalized health service doesn’t preclude innovation.
Privatization of the British rail industry has been an unmitigated disaster. IMO anything where there is a natural monopoly needs tight regulation.
Having said that, the nationalized car industry (British Leyland) of Britain was one of the worst and most pathetic companies I have ever seen.
Do nationalized industries have a tendency to fail? probably about as much as much as private ones - Enron, Worldcom, Conseco, Pan-Am (etc etc etc etc)
Wrong, scm1001! Enron, Worldcom, etc. could and did fail, because the market eventually ate them up. If they were nationalized then they would continue to exist, or even sorta nationalized like Japanese companies who lean on Japanese banks and can borrow money pretty much at will.
PS To the OP, you announce that you’re a liberal but that you haven’t learned anything about history or government? What did you do, flip a coin?
probably about as much as much as private ones
Touche! I don’t think Clu is going to get much of a factual answer on this, since the inevitability of nationalised companies failing seems to be a point of unreasoning faith with US posters.
It has nothing to do with faith. It is based on experience. All of our nationalized industries were and are unqualified failures. And that is not a commentary on US government, but on the different goals of capitalism and nationalism. In a society whose goal is independent freedom of choice, innovation, and entrepeneurialism, then capitalism and market economies are the only real option. In a capitalist economy, if there is a desire for a service or product, then someone will eventually fill that need. In a nationalist economy, the greater need is filled at the expense of others. I’m not saying that either system is right or wrong, only that each system is designed for a specific national identity.
Privatized industry works in America, despite what you may hear elsewhere, and when people complain about companies and their services, they have the option of shopping elsewhere. Take away that option, and you create dissatisfaction with no solution. And everyone knows … Americans LOVE to complain.
No one has to imagine anything. Government agencies are making major breakthroughs already, without a profit motive. To give just one example:www.nih.gov
Hrm… yes, this is so one sided.
a lot of private companies go bankrupt. they need to be considered failures. just like you consider a gov’t business providing inadequate services as failures.
gov’t can do a good job when management is strong.
gov’t research dept have the most part been successful. very few for profit companies want to duplicate or take over those research business because research into non-profitable areas simply cannot work. only time private can beat public is that they are providing a service or product that can be sold at a profit. If the business cannot be profitable, then gov’t can do it more efficient if properly managed. The management must have turnover. People must be allowed to be fired.
But government money would be stretched far thinner, and there is much less incentive for the government to invest in applied science.
What kind of justification is that? You’re comparing what they’ve done to their absence; that’s always going to be positive! You should be comparing what they’ve done to what another enterprise could have done. But of course you can’t do that when there’s only one agency doing the bulk.
If you compare national industries to the market meaning of failure you are mixing things up. You need to ask why markets fail as well for public goods and why governments might fail/succeed in their own terms, too.
There are examples in the US of a semi-market based system that improved with being “nationalized.” If you are in school you are likely familiar with it: the Federal Direct Student Loan system.
The beginnings of returning to a large scale national student loan system, one of direct goverment loans and not just indirect loans that were backed by government, came about under the Bush the First administration. The situation for students and schools was vastly improved by the government “re-nationalizing” a large part of the student loan business. Lower interest, less paper work, etc. Now, as was mentioned, this is not meant to make a profit.
Regarding pharmacies: I’ll view the present US drug industry as a “market” example when federally funded research is replenished by a tax on drug market profits derived from this government research. 
Plus, some drug markets wouldn’t exist without patenting laws, so the actual lenght of those laws can be seen as government interference/support for the market. Some economists believe that it is reasonable to shorten the length of these government granted monopolies.
Anyway… pick up some good books on public policy. They can introduce the various kinds of “goods” that various institutional arrangements provide. Also note that an alternative to the nationalization or market rhetoric is that of nonprofit (civil society provision of public goods, e.g., Catholic hospital). Mixes of these various sectors is rampant and often ignored by those on the far right and the libertarian crowd who prefer privitization.
Surely, you don’t think that lower interest government student loans are possible because of nationalized efficiencies. The loans are subsidized.
So? The question wasn’t about “subsidized or not” it was can government do it well enough to not be considered a failure? Any government expenditure on a fee for service product is a subsidy in some way. Right?
I guess one could point out that markets would not touch student loans with a ten foot pole without government backed guarantees (the so-called indirect loan sytstem) or without extremely high interest rates. Thus, it is not a “natural product” for a market, or something. Nontheless, the point is clear…there are products for which government intervention is a requirement for their existence.
In the drug category, the example is the so-called “orphan” drugs. These are drugs that need development even though there isn’t a market large enough, or wealthy enough, to make it a profitable area of research. Thus, the market fails these people and community qua government should pic it up. That is doesn’t is a shame and that interest groups form to lobby the public and officials to do so is the beauty of democracy.
Wow, drhess, I’m not sure where to start, but I’ll give it a shot!!
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There is a fundamental miscommunication here about the definition of failure. Some of the posters have alluded to it, but let’s be clear: Yes, private industries fail … all the time. But they fail because they are driven out by the market, and because there is a better, cheaper, or newer alternative. Nationalized industries fail because they continue to exist even in the face of negative market economies. Thus, when private industry fails, it’s a good thing generally. When nationalized industry fails, it is always a bad thing, because they continue to offer inferior service or products at a greater expense - simply because they are not subject to market forces. In that case, consumers, or citizens if you will, are always the losers.
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The Federal Student Loan Program is a terrible example for your views, because it is not a nationalized industry. There are private loans out there for students who cannot receive federal loans. Yes, they charge a higher interest rate, but they make money doing it. As daniel801 said, the Federal Program is able to charge lower rates because the taxpayers of America subsidize the program out of the goodness of their hearts (or ignorance of their goodness). In this case, you are not talking so much about a nationalized industry (which it isn’t), but a subsidized competitor. Sometimes this can be effective, but in the long run, it will cost more money than it is worth. And, if you think this program is managed well, you haven’t gone through the application and receipt process for the Stafford Loan Program in a while. Hello, Nightmare.
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I must confess that I don’t know much about the NIH, but my suspicion is that they research at a loss (another subsidized competitor), and produce a smaller fraction of the medical breakthroughs.
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No one has yet implied that there is anything wrong or fundamentally flawed with the non-profit sector. They do good things because people give funding or time to causes they believe in. I think that fills a need in our society that more people should contribute to. I just donated to the Big Brothers and Big Sisters today!
No one is saying that free market forces can solve everything. Only that most industries work better under the free market milieu.
The loan program does have market loans, but they are highly dependent on government action.
Also, what’s the difference between nationalized and run directly by and subsidized? You and some others seem to think that subsidy and direct management rules some examples out, but that seems to me to be an example of the fallacy of equivication on your part. If government runs something, it is subsidized.
Another point: the fact that there is less paperwork and better service in the direct loan business is well recognized by most student loan officers at schools. And yes, I’m gong through the direct loan program now. Apparently you didn’t use the prior program (pre-1993 or so). THAT was a nightmare!! Ask your loan staff, if they’ve been around long enoug they’ll likely agree. The association of loan officers at schools was among the big proponent of this change. Multiple loan rules, papers, different money coming on different days. They had to keep binders for all kind of institutions. (I also haven’t mentioned how market forces also severly corrupted the indirect loan system, which is one reason the feds under Bush looked into taking it back in. There are now less defaults in part due to nationalization. This is an opinion based on research, not ideology, btw.)
Also, the reason taxpayers pay for this is in part becuase they benefit from it.
Again, without government intervention, directly or not, there would not be much of a market for student loans. Apparently you aren’t aware that private loans are backed by government. If not all, then the vast majority.
I’ll not comment on number 4 because I don’t see your point as related to the OP. I simply wanted the OP to know that their are more institutionalized relationships than just market vs government.
I just think we are misunderstanding each other, drhess. I believe the OP was concerned about nationalized industry - when the government takes over an industry to the exclusion of other competitors. My point is that I don’t think the federal student loan program is a proper example because it is merely a subsidized competitor. A completely nationalized industry has no competitors. And yes, I remember the Stafford loans of 1989-1994. I was in college, and they sucked. They still suck. Federal Stafford loans are provided by private lenders, but guaranteed by the federal government, and I assume that’s what you’re referring to when you speak of private industry, subsidized loans. But there are still private industry loans for people who do not qualify for Stafford loans, and they do operate profitably.
I wasn’t trying to start a debate, I was just trying to point out that there are different conversations happening here.
Have we set the record here for longest time before transferring a thread to GD?
I am shocked, as well, that no one has shown us the door.
And now some factual information along with some analysis that certain trigger-happy authority figures may determine is political. Therefore I risk the ultimate consequence of banishment — an unlovely fate which for me would be the same as death or orgasm.
America is widely recognized as having the best medical care in the world, except for the 16% who are uninsured — an involuntary figure that would be unthinkable in any westenized country with nationalized medicine.
Therefore, while it is persuassive to say that America has the best medical care for some or maybe even most Americans, it would be wrong to suggest that care, on average, is better than in any other western country.
Here’s a site that’s good for looking up national life expectancies: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/country_profiles/default.stm
A few results:
United States: Life expectancy for men 74, women 80
Germany: Life expectancy for men 75, women 81
Sweden: Life expectancy for men 78, women 83
Canada: Life expectancy for men 77, women 82
The figure for Sweden is particularly impressive when you consider their penchant for cheese and suicide and how dark it gets in the wintertime plus how mercilessly bright it is in the summer.
Now, here’s a bone for the Libertarians in the crowd: While you can argue that life-expectancy is better in countries with nationalized medicine and be right, what you can’t argue against is that America leads the world in research and development for new drugs, surgical methods, etc. — which the countries that are nationalized take advantage of. Therefore, one could credibly argue that while nationalizing American medicine would, in the short-run, promote marginal increases in longevity, in the long-run it would actually decrease longevity because of the resulting lack in innovation.
That would seem to throw the argument in favor of the Libertarians. Still, that’s cold comfort for that loser 16%.
One of those myths that never seems to die. It has such vitality that A. Alvarez even felt the need to adress it in The Savage God, his book about suicide.
Here are some statisitcs from the World Health Organization:www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suiciderates/en/
As you can see, Sweden has only a slightly higher suicide rate than the United States, and a much lower rate than Austria, Finland, Estonia, Ukraine, and many other nations.
How Sweden earned her unsavory reputation is a mystery (Alvarez suggested it had something to do with the rest of the world’s jealousy over the fact that Sweden, by remaining neutral, had avoided the destruction of World Wars I and II).