Anti-privatization movement
6:06 PM Fri, Jan 02, 2009 | Permalink
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Interest among some New England towns in starting their own municipally owned electricity companies is spreading. The Associated Press reports that some residents of Hampton, N.H., want the town to explore the idea, in the wake of complaints about how the Unitil company handled the disastrous ice storm last month. That storm took out power in much of central and northern New England, and some people had to wait for many days to get it back. It was a nippy experience, and of course many couldn't use their computers and TVs, things that some people sadly use for 16 hours a day. Wood-powered computers are the way to go! We proceed in cycles of privatizing and then, what?, "governmentalizing'' public services, with trends sometimes brought to critical mass by one big event, such as a storm. The privatization movement, dominant since the late '70's, is now under a lot of stress everywhere because of the economic disasters of the past year. Increasingly, the public thinks that not only are private companies run by greedy crooks but that these managements are also incompetent. It's an unfair generalization, but public opinion runs on unfair generalizations. The trouble is that while government can run some things well, it's usually the private sector that invents things that make life better. Yes, some innovations -- say the Internet and some drugs at the NIH -- are invented by government employees, but it's the incentives of personal fame and potential wealth that are the most powerful prods to creativity, not the prospect of a nice pension in a safe government job. 
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Robert:
I'm not sure I by your characterization:
"The trouble is that while government can run some things well, it's usually the private sector that invents things that make life better"
I haven't seen private enterprise end poverty, or even address it. And one only need to look at the failure of private sector health care to show the biggest glaring example of the failure of the private sector to "make life better."
And don't forget, Einstein was a patent clerk when he made his discoveries.
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Robert:
I'm not sure I buy your characterization:
"The trouble is that while government can run some things well, it's usually the private sector that invents things that make life better"
I haven't seen private enterprise end poverty, or even address it. And one only need to look at the failure of private sector health care to show the biggest glaring example of the failure of the private sector to "make life better."
And don't forget, Einstein was a patent clerk when he made his discoveries.
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With the exception of the military (they "invented" the internet as a survivable comms sytem in case of nuclear war please name something "invented by the civilian government.
I'm especially interested in hearing about NIH invented drugs.
Governments job, so to speak, is to grow and expand in a parasitic manner providing fewer services for more money each year thus increasing the scope and power of givernment employees.
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