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.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.