Comments by "Andrew Sainsbury" (@andyinsuffolk) on "Businesses are no more efficient than the people who work in them" video.

Perhaps the Prof. should read about some Public Choice Theory. The Public sector suffers little consequence from doing things badly -- in fact Thos. Sowell & others point out they generally reward themselves for failure. The public sector also corrupts the private sector by creating crony corporations - banking etc etc. If a 'real' trading private company doesn't convince it's customers that they value its output it will decompose and it's capital will be redistributed -- the public body will infest society for generations mainly benefitting its ofice-holders/employees. This is not an argument for public/private partnerships which are mostly crony projects - because politicians/bureaucrats are truly awful micro-managers, and know they are untouchable.
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@tehwilsonat0r -- Monopolies are almost entirely a rhetorical fantasy. The 19th C. US 'templates' like Standard OIl and US Steel massively decreased prices as they grew. The most damaging examples are all licensed or designed by state bureaucracy. All the UK utility privatisations are actually oligopoly models where the state even gets involved in on-going pricing and corporate 'management', contracts etc. The supposed 'Neoliberal privatisation' failures are all centralised government incompetence almost always creating crony monopolies -- nothing even close to free market competition & pluralism.
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@tehwilsonat0r - Your original point was that monopolies are a natural consequence of the private sector my point was that real monopolies are created by the state - so I assert that businesses using market dominance to maintain unjustified profits and create a monoploy do not exist as a structural fact -- I already agree that the state is naturally disruptive -- so please name one Monopoly that was not a state creation. As an example Amazon can be beaten on price or service in the UK with a multitude of alternatives and has also done back-room deals with local authorities -- it is not a monopoly unless just being successful counts.
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@tehwilsonat0r - Ok but I was addressing the 'and monopolies do not face that pressure and can extract more-or-less what they want until intervention happens' -- which is much repeated but rarely survives close examination -- without real-world examples it's just wrong, the only monopolies that survive are created by the state not the free market. 'In state enterprise, more of that productivity generally will flow back into society at large' -- this is also just dogma - wishful thinking - talk about real world examples. In the UK & France state enterprise means ever-lasting turmoil over generations. Imagine the nightmare if we had state supermarkets that we have to worry about continuously as we do for education, health and utilities that are 'working for society at large'.
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@tehwilsonat0r - the state is not a benign alias for 'the people' it's always more special interest - agency doesn't need centralisation - maximum plurality and choice for the individual is optimum (and democratic). 'Rent seeking' is just another progressive trigger phrase but in reality is a field of property rights that will regulate itself better than ideology once top-down interference is minimised. Freedom just works it's not a theory - and private property seems to be integral - monopolies are a choice imposed by authoritarians.
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@tehwilsonat0r - Ok, I think we differ on a fundamental. I do not accept that the state is primarily an economic construct. This IS an ideological position that imposes the management of resources above the individual's 'political' freedom -- which must mean power for the few/authoritarianism. I am an 'ultra democratist' for want of an ideological position. Modern history seems to demonstrate that the more choice is distributed amongst the many the happier & more prosperous everybody becomes. Certainly in the west the economics rapidly become irrelevent because abundance becomes the norm -- the only barrier is the self-interested/authoritarians wishing to play with the system to impose their priorities - whether self-interest, misguided confidence.. doesn't really matter.
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