Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre
There is no compelling reason for Railway carriers, for example, to be state owned.
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I would say there is which is why a lot of countries don't privatise the railways. The main one being there is no real mechinism for competition. You as a consumer can rarely choose which provider to take because you need to get somewhere and there are rarely multiple lines for that.
The tender process is a flawed attempt to bring competition into it because to make any investment worthwhile companies need to be given long contracts which, once given, are hard to take away for poor service. Seen how bad Southern Rail have been.
Even longer term investment such as HS2 needs to be driven by the government anyway because of the length of time involved to build and then to turn a profit.
Then there is the fact they're a key part of our infrastructure whose success shouldn't only be measured by profit but the economic benefits of the areas which they serve. This is largely useless for private companies that need to make a profit, if the government want them to serve some minor station for a handful of people in a rural area then they need to provide incentives for that. So we have to underwrite it anyway.
I would argue there are few candidates better for nationalisation than the rail network.
---------- Post added at 21:54 ---------- Previous post was at 21:46 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierre
Like anything it’s a spectrum. Marxism one end - total free market economy the other.
There are lots of models inbetween.
Even the USA has state controlled enterprises, very few granted.
China is essentially still a communist state..........
However, I would still describe that nationalisation of companies in what is, in the main, a free market economy as a Marxist policy. You could legitimately challenge that statement and I could legitimately argue it.
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I think you can only describe it as a Marxist policy if it's part of a broader attempt to bring about Marxism in practise, i.e prepping the country to become communist. Even a socialist government couldn't be described as Marxist without that intent. Just as some policies such as increasing police/security apparatus or putting more power in the executive cannot be described as facist without a border context suggesting it to be so.
The formation of the NHS for example was not a Marxist policy because Attlee was not a Marxist.