2d ago

Cyberpunk is a warning

73 comments

Corporations are more efficient than governments. Getting rid of governments and moving towards corporate dominance is the only move forward.
- Now please excuse us while we charge twice as much for this previously government run service and run it so poorly that it slowly collapses.
  
  The previous experience shows that in most cases services run privately are better quality and cheaper. Unless you live in a 3rd world country like the US.
  
  My water is privatised. My waterways are full of shit. Every single one. The companies are bitching about needing money to fix the pipes even though they are getting more money than ever before but the CEO is getting a bonus for doing such a "good job". Fuck off.
  Oh my Internet is also privatised too and I have two options dog shit speed or dog shit stability.
  The buses are privatised the timetable says a bus every 20 minutes. They show up every hour on a good day and you have to check their site and guess when the bus is going to pull to your stop based on where it is on the route.
  Trains are most expensive in europe. Technically they are state owned. Foreign state owned. But hey atleast the track is still state owned.
  Privatisation is bollocks. You don't get the competition lowers cost when your options are a single company. Even then they would collude on pricing or mopolise anyway.
  
  With the exception of water, where the government botched the privatisation, and trains, which are under full government control, everything else in the UK benefited greatly from privatisation. Back in the days you couldn't even get a phone line installed. The fuck are you even complaining about?
  
  Look if private companies want to make their own networks they can go right ahead I don't see why politicians buddies should be allowed to buy infrastructure on the cheap.
  Internet access is effectively a duopoly with Virgin on one side and everyone else reselling OpenReach on the other.
  What do you mean trains are under full government control? 10 of the 14 train companies are private entities. Labour is putting them back under state ownership currently, well said they will.
  Privitisation is always short term gain for a long term loss.
  There is also the NHS which is constantly kneecapped to make privatisation seem like a good idea too.
  I also don't believe private entities should be allowed to own defacto monopolies and critical infrastructure you can put as many rules as you like in it's still not a good idea.
- How do you define efficiency?
  
  A ratio between resources spent to achieve a specific result.
  
  Then corporations are very inefficient - they waste incredible amount of resources on advertising, stock buybacks and undermining their competition, they exploit renewable resources way past their replenishment rates (look what happened to tuna and codfish), they ignore ecological damage they create, pursue increasing wealth inequality and try to leech off state subsidies and direct technology transfers.
  The only way you can call corporations efficient if the desired result is the short term profits of the shareholders.
  
  Ads, buybacks, etc all bring value to the company. Exploration of renewables past their replenishing rates is the definition of efficiency. You basically want to live in a stone age.
- No.
  
  Yes.
- Wow, the delusion.

73 comments