[axelroze]

> Is nationalisation evil in itself?

Oh very much it is. Come to the lovely Eastern Europe and see for yourself how good national owned companies are. Full of useless bureaucrats put there to ensure voters so the ruling party can continue ruling. Also in huge debts which are paid by more taxes so the working people pay for the lazy.

Unless the human race somehow chains itself to selflessness, nationalization + democracy is a sure way to destroy any organization. Now privately owned is not much better but in theory can be replaced with a competitor. Not so much for a national organization.

Source: Living and suffering daily in Eastern Europe.

[trasz]

On the other hand, outside the Eastern Europe many of the state-owned corporations work pretty well, and usually the service goes down the drain after selling them off - see UK railways.

[selfhoster11]

UK railways are a classic example of privatisation going wrong. They even quietly re-nationalised then recently.

[selfhoster11]

I'm from Eastern Europe too (actually Central Europe - if you know what I mean, you'll know exactly which country), but I've been living in the UK for many years so I have a different perspective.

Privatisation of the British railways was a disaster, and the creeping privatisation of the National Health Service is a disaster in the making as well. As far as I'm concerned, when we're talking about well-understood, national-scale services, private sector almost always starves the service out of greed or is outright incompetent.