It seems to me that doing deregulation by halves gives us the worst of both worlds: Profiteering by private companies, corruption, cronyism and abuse of position on part of the government officials running the system (which is seems to become exponentially easier when private companies are involved, since such companies can claim 'business secret' to avoid freedom of information requests) and any potential efficiency drawbacks of a single-supplier system.
Cases in point: The California energy market deregulation and the subcontracting of the European railroads.
The discussion should not be about how much we value competition - it should be about which sectors we leave to the market.
- Jake Ceterum censeo Chicago esse delendam
Profiteering by private companies, corruption, cronyism and abuse of position on part of the government officials running the system (which is seems to become exponentially easier when private companies are involved, since such companies can claim 'business secret' to avoid freedom of information requests) and any potential efficiency drawbacks of a single-supplier system.
If free competition is an objective in its own right, then anything that can be protrayed as "more competitive" ... such as a profiteering private duopoly replacing a public not-for-profit monopoly ... is a "step" toward the objective.
If free competition is a policy instrument, then just sticking the competition label on a policy is not enough to justify it. Utsukushikereba sore de ii
No, that does not follow. It is entirely conceivable that a system with limited competition is worse off than a system with no competition, as long as the no-competition system is also non-profit (a point that seems to escape many fiscal liberals). But I think that without a doubt, a system with more competition is better off than a system with limited competition.
Besides, it does not address what I were saying... I were saying that if we make the political decision to leave a sector to the market, then competition becomes an objective. We can then have a political discussion about which sectors should be left to the market (rather fewer than presently are, if you ask me).
I were saying that if we make the political decision to leave a sector to the market, then competition becomes an objective.
Part of the political process of "deciding" to leave a sector to the market is often the semantic game of labelling anything left to the market as more competitive than anything performed by the public sector. If competition stands as an objective in its own right, quite independent of whether it helps or harms the welfare of EU citizens, that provides more leverage to that semantic game.
As a development economist, I am quite sensitive to this particular game, since the IMF and World Bank are long time players. Utsukushikereba sore de ii
I was not addressing what logically follows, but what follows politically.
Oh. Ok. Then you're probably completely right.
