Originally Posted by Westcountryman:
I've already said privatising water was a bad idea - it's a natural monopoly. But then I wouldn't want it under state control either - a not-for-profit company would suit me fine.

This also doesn't alter my point, at all. If it was practical to privatise water and open up the market, then I'd be all for it.

Just noticed you display the EU are you pro-EU?
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Originally Posted by British-Conservatism:
Just noticed you display the EU are you pro-EU?

No, it's purely there to wind up YCHTT, who insists I'm a 'traitor'.
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Originally Posted by Westcountryman:
Er, no BD. State monopolies are, by their very definition, uncompetitive and thus wasteful.

Who says? Do you empirical evidence for this assertion? I'm not actually talking about a strawman of nationalisation here but different kinds of ownership. I'm generally in favour of forms of private ownership over state ones but your analysis is poor and simplistic, nationalised and private entreprise mean little in themselves, it is much more important what the forms of administration the industries take are.

Originally Posted by :
After all, why bother trying to remain modern or competitive when you have no competition?

The same is true for for any industry not dominated by a large number of small firms. It also begs the question of how you are measuring efficiency. In a large corporation for instance control and ownership are split, the executives who are very far from the ground floor attempt to maximise not industrial efficiency but income for the shareholders. Hence there it is unlikely that a large corporation is going to very efficient, it is much the same as centralised state ownership.

Originally Posted by :
Privatisation and deregulation changed this - with the market now open to competitors companies are virtually forced to remain competitive (be it through price, quality of service etc) and invest in the company in order to remain competitive. A state monopoly does none of these things.

Well firstly in areas dominated by oligopoly and monopoly there is not too much competition and there is no a priori reason why competition must be better than some forms of public ownership.

Originally Posted by :
Not to mention privatisation and deregulation gives the consumers choice. You get no such thing when there's only one supplier (ie. The state).

You certainly can, I'm not defending centralised state ownership but even it can incorporate all of this. You are using very simplistic analysis.
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