Some ideas/direction sought on a piece on privatization I'm working on...

[markpkessinger]

I'm in the early stages of developing a blogpost I'm writing. The piece is intended to debunk, to the extent possible, the claims made by the right to the effect that private industry always delivers products/services more efficiently (i.e., at a better quality per price) than the government. One of the things I always try to do in pieces like this is to anticipate the counter-arguments and counter examples. And here's the point where I could use some ideas/direction pointers. Can anyone here, being as generous as you reasonably can to the right's argument, think of any example from U.S. history where a product/service that was originally a publicly provided and was later privatized, about which a remotely arguable case can be made that such privatization worked to the benefit of the public at large?

I'm not looking for folks to do my research for me here, but just for some examples I might use to anticipate the right's counter-argument. Any thoughts would be most appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

[annabanana]

1. gotta tell you..

can't think of a goddam thing. .

[markpkessinger]

2. Honestly, neither can I . . .

. . . that's why I posted this, just in case there's something I'm missing!

[trof]

3. MILITARY CONTRACTORS!

Oh wait...
No.

[LAGC]

4. I don't know about U.S. history, but certainly many examples from the old Soviet Union.

As someone else stated so eloquently in another thread: "I don't want the government deciding fashion choices for me, but it would be nice if my utilities were all publicly-owned."

The free market does have advantages when dealing with most commercial products: quickly adjusting to peoples tastes/styles/desires, setting prices based on supply-and-demand, offering more variety and choices, etc.

But on the flip-side, when it comes to human services, most anything dealing with people like health care and especially public safety, the "invisible hand" tends to treat people as expendable commodities and service suffers as a result.

Certainly the privatized prison industry experiment is a glaring example. Private prisons cut costs by paying guards less, serving cheaper food, cutting corners and offering fewer comforts, no surprise that much higher levels of violence and unrest inevitably occur.

Infrastructure (roads/bridges/railways) and the energy sector in general are two other areas where I'm not sure privatization has really helped lower costs -- just made a few fat-cats very wealthy, at the public expense.

[annabanana]

5. +1.. (rec this post) . .. . .n/t

[markpkessinger]

7. Thank you!

Very helpful , and very much in accord with my own thoughts on the subject!

[cherokeeprogressive]

15. I was unaware the government ever built roads/bridges/railways. n/t

[rucky]

6. Maybe road construction?

Groundskeeping?

Seasonal & intermittent work seems to make sense for privitization. But that's about it.

[virgogal]

8. About 35 years ago my city privatized rubbish collection. The

private company does a much better job,with great efficiency.

I don't remember how it affected taxes,if it did.

[markpkessinger]

13. Thank you...

... That's not one I likely would have thought of.

[deaniac21]

9. Actually

you are asking everyone to do your research...

[markpkessinger]

11. No, I'm not...

... I will still have to research any examples anyone provides in order to be able to write about them. And I asked not for examples of products or services that would potentially benefit from privatization, but only those which were originally public and then privatized for which a reasonable case could be made that the privatization resulted in better serving of the public interest. I'm not asking anyone to actually make that case -- that's my job in researching and writing the article. But since when does a writer looking for very general input constitute someone asking folks to do his research for him?

[former9thward]

10. Garbage collection.

In every city where private crews collect garbage it is much cheaper and more efficient. The crews are not as large.

[markpkessinger]

14. Thanks...

Another poster mentioned this as well, and it's one I didn't and probably wouldn't have thought of.

[Lucy Goosey]

12. Scott Walker in Milwaukee

http://westorlandonews.com/2011/02/22/gov-scott-walker-past-privatization-disasters-unmasked/

...privatized security guards.

Meanwhile, instead of paying experienced security officers trained by the state to do the job of securing a government building, such as a county courthouse, the citizens of Wisconsin got stuck with:

* less qualified security guards protecting Wisconsin citizens — one of the guards even had a serious criminal record;
* the profits of Walker’s no-bid deal going to a global corporation headquartered in Europe;
* lower wages being paid to the contractors hired by that global corporation, meaning less money flowing into the local economy;
* Wisconsin families losing their primary breadwinner due to Scott Walker’s rash dictate to fire court security officers who had done nothing wrong; and
* the Wisconsin taxpayer footing the bill for both the global corporation’s charges (and profit margin) for providing security and also the back wages of the civil servants whose jobs were summarily destroyed by Walker, in violation of Wisconsin law.

[saras]

16. Define "efficiency". Demonstrate a connection between "efficiency" and human happiness.

Who gives a flying fuck if it's "efficient"? What efficient means is that you have stripped from an action any possibility of serving multiple conflicting social goals, but set everything else aside in the name of one numerically abstract goal.

Privatized water has always given worse cost-benefit ratios.

For me, the most "efficient" product
1. causes zero net environmental damage, as environmental repair is impracticably expensive
2. consumes the fewest renewable resources and least energy for the human happiness provided
3. lasts as long as possible
4. doesn't require expensive recycling processes
5. is priced fairly for providing the above

but currently economics ignore all these values and measure something else entirely - which is the "efficiency" of the product's existence in the market providing profit for the the collector of the profit, regardless of whether the product is harmful to the environment and its customers or not.

[markpkessinger]

17. Excellent points!

Thank you -- these are all really excellent points.

[xfundy]

18. Sure, private industry can do it cheaper.

Since they don't have to hire AMERICANS to produce a product, man the phone lines or even to provide services. And those who do get hired make shit wages, requiring them to work two or more jobs. And, of course their bosses get rich, but they have to, in order to keep paying politicians and lobbyists to make sure they stay rich and employees stay fucked.