Privatization of State Industry in Germany
I had a chuckle when I heard my friend @dwinblood say "The State does not like to give back [industry he once claimed]". In Germany we had a massive wave of privatization a few decades ago: Our Railroad, Telecommunication, Electricity and Postal service has been state-owned industry up until the mid 90s.
The result of that was a rampant rise of ticket prices for the train, a lack of innovation and no improvement of service. Tons of Phone scams - I am heading out to my grandparents to cancel a fraudulent Vodafone contract today... And last but not least we got one of the highest electricity prices in the world.
I do think free markets are nice and all, but the sale of state industry has never been a truly free market in the first place and there is some basic infrastructure that should not be gambled with like communication and supply of electricity.
I actually can't tell you too much about the details of the Privatization in Germany, I was still very young when it happened and it is not a topic that is broadly discussed in the media. I can't even say that "it has all been better in the old days", but I can tell you right now it sucks! The privatization of German infrastructure has not solved shit and a lot of problems we see , like phone scams by your own phone company, is something I accredit to the crony cut throat market that was established.
Pictures are from wiki commons
There's been instances in my country (Australia) where government-owned infrastructure assets are privatized and then bought back by the government. So stupid and pointless.
Why would a nation want to sell of vital infrastructure like a major power grid to a foreign country in the first place?
"More competition is good for the customer" is what they told us.
That's true actually; it's just that they have no interest in creating competition...
Even In our country jio made its impact on our country badly as well as sometime its for good cause.
What is jio? I am not aware of how privatization was handled apart from that it also went bad in Russia.
Very interesting. I was wondering how industry and neoliberalism was affecting Germany.