[BoxOfRain]

>Politics is irreducible from human affairs, privatization doesn't eliminate politics. It relocates it to a different set of actors.

We ideologically privatised the water sector into regional private monopolies in the UK, and anyone who's had experience with the water monopolies knows this is the truth.

[FractalParadigm]

I don't know, maybe it's the way I was raised, but to me it just seems like common sense that a privatised monopoly is going to be worse in literally every metric imaginable, than maintaining public ownership - not just with regards to water and/or similar critial-to-life infrastructure, but everything in general. Highway 407, the most expensive toll road on the planet, is a prime reminder to Ontarians why privatisation is objectively bad.

[Avicebron]

We in the US did the same with PG&E (gas and electric utility) out in California. It goes as well as expected, which is to say poorly.

[cameronbrown]

In the UK, gas & electric is also privatised and in a poor state too :)

Almost like private investment generates return for investors, not customers. Sometimes those align.

[buckle8017]

Can't really compare a natural monopoly (water utility) that should be the government with something that isn't a natural monopoly (research).

[BoxOfRain]

I think you can in the limited sense it supports the idea privatisation doesn't remove politics, just relocates it and often into a less democratically accountable place to boot.

Whenever a person or group has power over another person or group, politics necessarily exists. I don't think this fact can be avoided, as much as advocates of privatisation often argue that it can be.