[graemep]

I think you are misrepresenting Thatcherism. Thatcher was pretty pragmatic and did not want to privatise everything - e.g. Royal Mail and the Post Office - those were done by the very non-Thatcherite coalition government in 2013. They were also messed up (e.g. private ownership of the postcode database).

https://www.ft.com/content/1057f722-75d5-11e1-9dce-00144feab...

A lot of NHS privatisation was done by Blair and Brown - especially to facilitate Brown's use of off-balance sheet debt to fund spending while pretending the government was not increasing national debt.

A lot of privatisations were a good idea. I think most people would agree the government should not own oil companies, airlines, car manufacturers, steel manufacturers, or telecoms, etc. I think the mistakes need to be seen against the backdrop of a necessary correction of a lot of nationalisation.

The problem has also been regulatory. Why were water companies not required to build capacity? Why were they allowed to borrow in order to pay shareholders? This was all entirely foreseeable.

I think the problem is not an ideology, but the lack of a coherent ideology. Privatisation has become an end in itself, backed by politicians who do not seem to understand that its not a magic bullets, and there is no incentive for efficiency in the absence of competition. A private monopoly is usually worse than a state monopoly unless very closely regulated.

[mschuster91]

> I think most people would agree the government should not own oil companies, airlines, car manufacturers, steel manufacturers, or telecoms, etc.

People are starting to revisit the idea that oil and steel manufacture should at least be held domestically, if not run by the government outright, given the current geopolitical situation. Let's talk straight: if China and India would close down export for steel, or if OPEC decides to repeat the 70s... the Western world is fucked. And yes, that includes America, because most US refineries need OPEC oil for chemical composition reasons. The US is only net positive on oil imports and exports, it is by far not self sufficient. Add in a major war, we'd not be able to produce ammo, much less vehicles, even if we somehow found enough staff to man the plants.

As for telecoms: the base infrastructure should belong to the government. That is a lesson we in Germany are learning at the moment...

[coryrc]

> And yes, that includes America, because most US refineries need OPEC oil for chemical composition reasons.

I think you got that backwards, Venezuela needs US refineries because of chemical composition reasons. North America as a whole is self-sufficient.

> People are starting to revisit the idea that oil and steel manufacture should at least be held domestically

Oh good, lets push the inflation button even harder. I can only hope steel manufacture can someday be as efficient and competitive as US boat building.

[mschuster91]

> I can only hope steel manufacture can someday be as efficient and competitive as US boat building.

Better have expensive boats than no boats, particularly when preparing to wage war with a country that can be reached either by air - which means either missiles or nuclear bombers - or by water, the only option allowing for conventional warfare.

That's the thing we all have to prepare for, the inevitable confrontation with China.

In any case, the secret to cheap building is scale. When all you build is a few boats, planes or god knows what a year, of course each will be expensive. But if you build dozens, hundreds or - just look to WW2 - thousands of units, suddenly efficiencies of scale and standardization really kick in.

[Earw0rm]

This is efficient if you actually _need_ hundreds or thousands of units.

Which was clearly the case in WW2.

And _might_ be the case if the confrontation with China is proxy wars. Hundreds or thousands of spare units (of tanks, AA, helicopters, fighter jets) would be useful in Ukraine, for example.

But it's hard to see a use-case for hundreds of B-2s, for example. By the time those things are flying in anger, twenty or thirty will do everything you're ever going to do.

[mschuster91]

> But it's hard to see a use-case for hundreds of B-2s, for example.

Sell them to allies. But ever since both Trump and Biden seriously restricted Ukraine from defending itself... let's say the US isn't among the most trusted arms suppliers these days. A lot of soft power, just gone.

[Earw0rm]

I'm from the UK, one of your wealthier allies. We can't afford to buy or operate B-2's. Not sure who could.. Taiwan? Saudi? Israel?

[arethuza]

It's the problem with ideological thinking - from what I can see some privatisations worked well (e.g. Rolls Royce) and others went terribly (rail, water in England) - unfortunately they tend to get treated as all bad or all good.

[graemep]

I disagree about rail - nationalised British Rail was pretty terrible, had more accidents per distance travelled, and carried far fewer people. It think it made little difference.

Nationalised water in Scotland is no better than privatised in England and Wales, and has a higher rate of sewer leaks: https://theferret.scot/scotland-behind-england-sewage-leaks/

[teamonkey]

From the same site: https://theferret.scot/water-pollution-scotland-england-most...

One thing of note about Scotland is that water is free (i.e. paid for by taxes) there.

[JetSetWilly]

It isn't free but it is less expensive. In fact in Scotland the annual water bill averages to £490 compared to £603 in England. This is despite a lower population density (which means more infra required per person comparatively).

So despite the best efforts of critics, they can't really show that Scottish water is any worse in terms of sewage outflows etc - if anything it is marginally better on that metric, and significantly cheaper to run. And the actual water quality is good, although that has a lot to do with incidental geography. Why would I want it privatised?

[teamonkey]

I fully agree. Moreover, it’s clear that Scottish Water actually has (if slowly) moved towards improving infrastructure and sewerage monitoring since that 2021 post I replied to, unlike a number of English water companies.

[arethuza]

It's not free - there are explicit charges for it attached to our council taxes?

[teamonkey]

I literally said “I.e. paid for by taxes” :)

But it’s unmetered, unlike most of the UK, and, as the other poster mentioned, cheaper.

[arethuza]

Nitpick: "Water and waste water charges are set by Scottish Water and billed alongside council tax." They aren't a tax themselves.

https://www.fife.gov.uk/kb/docs/articles/housing/council-tax...

[graemep]

Unmetered water is still common in the rest of the UK. There is a gradual move to metering.

I think there is a good argument for metering water - it provides an incentive not to waste it, and potable water is expensive to supply and has a significant environmental impact.

It does need to be affordable even to people on the lowest incomes though.

[graemep]

I entirely agree with you about ideological thinking. We need a pragmatic approach, and a willingness to think through complex problems.

[mr_toad]

The privatisations that go bad are usually monopolistic.

[bluecheese452]

Claiming “Most people would agree” is not strong evidence that something was a good idea. I could just as easily assert most people would agree that it was a mistake.