The government is justifying the sale by referring to the "high salaries" of the dockworkers and the "inefficiency of public companies", as well as the influx of investment capital that would arrive (despite changing its projections about the size of these investments, practically every week - a sure sign that in fact it has no clear idea about the actual investment involved).

Let me note that the port-workers do indeed receive high salaries (as do their counterparts all over Europe), starting from a gross salary of circa 48.000 Euros and reaching 150.000 (!) Euros, but that's because the port authorities have refused to hire workers which means that (if I remember correctly) the average worker does >550 8hour shifts per year, which means that they get paid (very expensive) overtime - despite the fact that they are begging for years now for new hirings, because they are increasingly overworked and thus unable to deal with the huge traffic in the port. I have the feeling that the reason that the government refuses to hire more people despite the fact that it would cost less than paying the monster overtimes it is now paying, is that it needs to have some workers paid >100.000 Euros for spin purposes  ("overprivileged public employees" etc.), given the fact that they were intent on selling the port for some years now. In the mean time they are trying to substitute regular workers with limited-contract workers (which are paid very little and have practically no work-safety), something that the Unions are fighting tooth and nail. The unions have struck over the past month, refusing to work overtime, and the effect of this overtime strike has been to diminish the port's productivity by 70%, signifying the extent of mismanagement involved. In fact the unions, to their credit, are still opposing the privatization scheme despite the fact that the government has sought to "buy them out" guaranteeing existing salaries and benefits to existing workers, should the sale go ahead...

Note that the costs for these high salaries are not burdening the taxpayer, as the port turns a net profit of over 110 million Euros per year, which rose >30% over the past year. Note also that the port is contributing infrastructure and money to the surrounding municipalities, which include some of the poorest areas in Greater Athens. We're talking about tens of millions over these past five years, in both infrastructure and direct "grants". This is unlikely to continue under private ownership.

Also worth noting is that the Chinese company that wants to buy the port (COSCO),  is in fact state-owned.

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake

Which btw reminds me of how Poles used to consider Hungary a relative consumer paradise - it seems your stores weren't literally empty - a sight that little me accustomed to the consumerism of the West used to consider part of the exotic flavour of my trips to Poland, a bit like the pervasive haze of coal smoke.

Didn't we just have a 75 year experiment in the USSR that showed what an abject failure that is?

The "experiment" just showed that an oppressive regime without citizen freedom doesn't work.

It said absolutely nothing about wether state management work or doesn't work in non oppressive regimes where citizens are free to do what they want.

Though, here the new owners were better at creating legality for their trickily gotten new belongings, the business didn't involve much natural resources as there aren't many, and on the environmental protection front, there was rather an improvement as first the government, then export-oriented companies tried to get closer to EU norms in advance.

But back to the economic crisis during which time there was the great selling off for scrap: I don't know how exactly that went in Russia, but here, it was by following bad advice from the IMF. In this case, I think the more that don't ascribe to malice what you can ascribe to stupidity holds. What happened (according to a study by an economist) was roughly:

1. the (then outgoing 'communist') government was advised to free up prices
   
2. thus inflation of course increased
   
3. reading from the standard monetarist book, the IMF said inflation should be kept in check by limiting consumption (as inflation normally happens when the economy overheats and people overspend, obviously not true in this case), and that by raising interest rates
   
4. rising interest rates choked any new domestic investments
   
5. domestic companies going broke further increased imports reliance just after Western borders opened up
   
6. rising imports depreciated domestic currency and further boosted inflation, inciting IMF to suggest more of the same medicine...

And if you ask me I do not believe (and never did) in "American dream" or possibility to really get rich starting from "nothing" simply by dissent work and your capability...I can bet there is always some kind of illegality there.

Excuse me, but my grandfather, while never filthy rich, did quite well, in the end, after having nothing, and he never broke the law.  He worked hard, saved his money, studied investment in his spare time, and retired with more than enough money -- despite having never earned much more than $8.00/hr throughout his life.  Talk about whether the America Dream is generally true all you like, -- that, I don't know -- but the Jones clan lived it.  Two generations ago, my family was made up of sharecroppers in rural Georgia.  Today, we're in infinitely better shape.

Where's your motherf*%&ing flag pin?