this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2023
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The government needs to take over things which are not viable for the private sector, but important for society to work.
Lets say privatisation of public transport: In countries where it is completely private, only major cities have reasonable connections. Because those are the most profitable ones. But if you want people to actually use public transport, you need to have a fine and widely spread net of connections. For that to happen either the state completely owns the public transport, or takes off financial pressure and only partially owns it.
Exactly this mechanism enables (partially) state owned organizations to run suboptimal. As explained in the example, this is a desired effect. But it also enables memes like the lazy state employee - which are at least partially true.
E scooter services are a nice example. They are not covered under state-run public transport. You see those in major cities. There, where they are not required as much due to more dense public transport systems. But there, where they would be really useful, in more rural areas, due to a much less dense public transport system, they are lacking. And why is that? Because profits.
I live where the govt gives absurdly large subsidies to bus companies (~500 million dollars per year) and the service as a whole still sucks balls. During peak hours, it's not uncommon for a bus to not stop because you literally wouldn't manage to get in.
One thing to keep in mind is that there are many companies that are little more than state parasites, companies that wouldn't survive against real competition, yet all the blame or any misgivings ends up on the "evil big gubmint" just because.
I am not saying that throwing money at the problem solves it.
But if you want public services to also cover non-profitable areas/groups, the government needs to step in with certain measures.