What if the government could mandate that critical infrastructure and goods must be provided at none profit rates or by none profit companies?
Posted by Arowx@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 100 comments
[removed]
non-hyphenated_@reddit
Nationalisation in the 70s was truly awful as anyone alive at the time can attest to. Has privatisation in its current guise worked? No. See Thames Water as an example. God knows what the answer is
ShipSam@reddit
Well the answer is either nationalisation with a competent government or full capitalisation where there is competition and risk of failure. Unfortunately neither exist in real life.
andytimms67@reddit
Where there is no market competition (water is regional) there needs to be a mandate that the max percentage of post tax profits given as exec remuneration and share dividends is also based on performance KPIs relative to maintenance of the infrastructure, upgrades of the infrastructure and all fines (sewage spills etc) come out of the exec / dividend pot.
Then we’d see a slow turnaround
Possiblyreef@reddit
Government contracts are often capped on the profit margin companies are allowed to make, it used to be 9% but it was made slightly less a few years ago (might be around 5-6% now)
andytimms67@reddit
In the UK, the baseline profit rate for government contracts is typically set by the Single Source Regulations Office (SSRO). For the fiscal year 2024/25, the baseline profit rate is 8.24%1. This rate serves as a starting point and can be adjusted based on various factors such as risk, performance, and capital requirements.
For small businesses, the average profit margin on government contracts is around 8%, while medium-sized contractors can see margins of about 20%, and larger contractors might achieve margins up to 24%
2024 contract profit rate - GOV.UK
Big contracts are where we are losing the money, and faith in the contractors. There is a lot of leeway in 24 percent. We need more performance criteria and less excessive profit / risky loss based on overcompensation to shareholders/ board in underperforming companies
That 8% needs to be pushed down (apart from R&D contracts which are usually an unknown)
404pbnotfound@reddit
Some things can not be competitive… water pipes, sewage system, electric grid, roads, train tracks, internet/phone lines, simply cannot be.
Infrastructure cannot be anything but public. It’s its natural end state.
I would argue that the water, electrons, buses, train tracks, data should also be public too - but I can at least understand how they are able to benefit from competition, even if I think they’d be better off public.
thecarbonkid@reddit
What was truly awful about?
It was poor at generating profits, customer service wasn't great but it was good at technology innovation (BT, Intercity trains) and provision of jobs to the working population.
Pick your poison.
CobaltQuest@reddit
*ahem* the rail network was dying out and neglected under nationalisation, as passenger numbers make immediately clear
thecarbonkid@reddit
There was the thing called the Beeching review and the governmental policy decision to support road building over public transport.
It's not that the trains were privatised and everyone said "great let's start using them instead".
Passenger numbers were starting to rise again during the 80s
CobaltQuest@reddit
I agree, but we can both agree that this data shows that, even if having a government that embraces rail like most EU countries is the ideal place to be, privatisation that means companies have an incentive to make useful services for people is a lesser evil than nationalisation by Tories, who want to run down services and extract money in an even more short-termist way than the private sector to fund vanity road projects and tax cuts for political capital.
non-hyphenated_@reddit
They were inefficient & a financial black hole. They were either massively over staffed or chronically under funded and sometimes both. Controlled by the very same politicians and civil servants that are bringing such winning concepts as HS2. My recollections are of power cuts, candles & strikes.
thecarbonkid@reddit
So one winter in the 70s when the Tories were in power?
non-hyphenated_@reddit
The winter of discontent was 1978 and helped lead to the fall of the labour government the following year. According to the ONS more working hours were lost to strike action across the 1970s than any other decade since the second world war. Both main parties saw strikes in areas such as coal, healthcare and council workers, firefighters, dockers and lorry drivers, among others.
I'm not advocating any one party or another and I've already said privatisation in its current form isn't working. The way we've historically ran nationalised industry hasn't either.
thecarbonkid@reddit
And yet by metrics living standards peaked in the 70s which rather says something about the ability of the working class to pursue their best interests.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_United_Kingdom_miners%27_strike
The miners strike in 1972 was under the Tories and led to the power cuts / shortages you mentioned.
It's why Maggie went after them so hard in the 80s.
EastLepe@reddit
Which metrics?
thecarbonkid@reddit
Despite the macroeconomic turbulence of the 1970s, anual GDP growth still averaged 2.7% and living standards rose significantly. Growth in real household disposable income (RHDI) per head was either low or negative for much of the decade, but grew rapidly in 1972–73 and 1978–79, leaving RHDI per head almost 30% higher in 1979 than it was in 1970.[18] This was a greater increase than was experienced in either the decade before (the 1960s) or the decade that followed (the 1980s).
From the House of Lords library.
I can't find the source of the memory, but the 70s were generally good in the round for working people.
EastLepe@reddit
RHDI per capita growth has indeed slowed (or in fact stopped) in the last decade but it has not declined. On that metric I don't think it's at all correct to say that living standards have peaked in the 70s.
non-hyphenated_@reddit
I was born in 72 so I hope not 😁
I think my memory is from the 78/79 winter with the power station strikes etc.
I'm not a fan of any organised political party so I have no "side" to take in this.
LowAspect542@reddit
Yep, whe you have nstionilised jobs like that it essentially leads tk workers being inefficient and taking as long a time for as little work as possible, known a few guys that used to work under the electricity boards and essentially spent most of their working day sat in their van doing jack shit making up excuses for why they couldn't attend a job, and the stuff they did attend was usually done slowly to drag put the length of tbe job, often because it pushed them into overtime pay etc. Why do the job at standard rate during your normal day when you could fob it off and knew they would come to you begging for you to do it in overtime at time and a half or double pay.
vctrmldrw@reddit
The answer is competent nationalisation.
SlightlyMithed123@reddit
My Dad made this comment back at the 2019 election when I suggested that I’d be in favour of re-nationalisation of the railways.
“Nobody who had to use British Rail would ever say that”
New_Line4049@reddit
So, the problem with this theory is you're assuming any company would be willing to do this. They wouldn't. You'd just end up with no one providing critical infrastructure. Why would they? Its of no benefit to those companies.
I see two possible ways round this. 1) you put this stuff in the remit of the civil service and give them the budget to hire onto staff people with the necessary skill sets. 2) You contract the work at non profit rates, but then give companies that work on these project for no profit some kind of tax break, so there is some incentive to do it.
keelekingfisher@reddit
I'll say what I've said before on this sort of thing - imagine your least favourite politician coming into power. Do you want them to have this power? Do you want them to be fully controlling who's allowed to sell you food and housing? Do you think there's no way to weaponise it?
timeforknowledge@reddit
Look at the NHS, bloated, yet always in need of additional funding. There's not one year that goes past where it doesn't require additional record amounts of money to keep it going and it's your only option.
Now look at something like mobile phones, you have all the knowledge in the world at your finger tips and communicate with anyone from anywhere costs nothing and you have thousands to choose from.
Socialism Vs capitalism
badgersruse@reddit
Monopoly government services are historically inefficient, are not good at responding to customer needs, and tend to get captured by unions. Those who lived through British rail and the 70s will attest that it was not a great time for quality services.
Complete privatisation doesn’t seem to be the best functioning answer either though, which might be an inherent problem or a problem with regulation not being correctly set.
It is not an easy problem to solve. Even for things that are natural monopolies like water.
elethiomel_was_kind@reddit
What was so bad about the seventies though? Sounds a lot like cheap cost of living, affordable housing, jobs for life…
I wonder if a lot of the ‘winter of discontent’ and ‘unions capturing everything’ memories were largely caused by external factors (like the creation of OPEC and the Suez crisis, for example) which affected the UK and ultimately allowed the neoliberals to grab the reins and sell everything.
But I was dead at the time…
Subject-External-168@reddit
As ever, the 70's were fine if you had money. My dad's parents both worked, which got them one room for the entire family, outside toilet.
https://flashbak.com/powerful-photos-of-glasgow-slums-1969-72-54283/
A decade later it hadn't changed that much:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-54800689
In 1980 the housekeeper here was on £4/hour in today's money. Her equivalent today is on £26/hr.
elethiomel_was_kind@reddit
So that's Glasgow..... seems like a lot more disparity then.
My parents grew up in council flats (now gone) and then estates in south London. On my dad's unskilled laborer's income alone they bought a village cottage in 1974. By 1978 they had bought the three-bedroom detached bungalow I grew up in in the south of England. It's now worth about 800,000... which is mental.
Housekeepers are making £26/hour!? I mean, plumbers and mechanics are charging £60... but it's not like they're brining home 50k and 100k respectively... those are just the billable hours.
Subject-External-168@reddit
In a way the worst part about Glasgow at the time was the lack of hope. I got out, my dad could never have: instead he left school at fourteen and went to work.
Good housekeepers are like gold dust: she's f/t salaried so with her pay rise this year she'll clear £50k.
More generally domestic service can be well-paid: our other staff member is on over £70k fte. But everyone starts at the bottom, so a lot of exploitation and competing for jobs with people who accept below minimum wage.
elethiomel_was_kind@reddit
I've heard Billy Connolly talk about coming up in Glasgow.
I need to retrain as a housekeeper, or whatever it is which allows your family to employ two domestic staff for £120k (and the rest)!
erinoco@reddit
One big thing matters for the 1970s: the collapse of Bretton Woods. That effectively spelt the end of the ability of industrialised nations to control capital flows. The end of that power made neoliberalism possible. The crises of the 1970s are at least partially about the slow realisation hitting the West. Britain suffered more, because it had an older and less flexible industrial base while being more exposed to international capital flows.
elethiomel_was_kind@reddit
Thanks - I did some reading. So this is another external factor divwhich significantly depreciated the pound, drove inflation which required an IMF bailout, drove spiking oil prices and arguably a recession and cost of living crisis. Inflation reached 25% by 1975!
Thanks to the US currency and how it had provided global stability by being pegged to gold and providing world trade with a reference point post WW2 (I think).
Unions fought for real wages... it doesn't sound to me like they were taking advantage of nationalised industry (ie, being greedy socialists)
Arowx@reddit (OP)
That's why I thought mandating none profit companies could be lean and efficient and could be changed if unable to provide the standards or services.
Whereas publicly owned services seem to tend to bureaucracy and inefficiency.
badgersruse@reddit
I see the difference but I’m not sure it matters. Who gets to decide the price levels for the services? What incentive to the non profits have to be efficient?
Throwing_Daze@reddit
Who gets to decide the price of a private company? What incentive is there for the private company to be effecient?
For me it seem that both answers ultimately come down to the shareholders. Even if it is via the CEO (who the shareholders could oust) or profits (which the shareholders demand). I'm not sure why the government couldn't do the same.
I would say however, that the government can put extra 'weighting' on the quality of service, or long term thinking over profits. Something like Thames Water redoing the old pipes is really expensive and will take a really long time.
Also, the idea that profit will lead to better companies only really holds when there are competitors. If Ithere is a choice of what water company to use, or what train company takes me from this town to that town, nobody would choose the expensive company with poor service, so that service goes out of business. But that is not the case with water companies or train services.
And again, the government being able to decide that there are priorities other than soley profit is probably a good thing when there is a captured market. What incentives to the private companies have to be efficient when they could just put their price up and everyone has to pay or have their water cut off?
badgersruse@reddit
And that is why it’s a problem without an easy answer.
Academic_Guard_4233@reddit
It’s a bad idea. What if a for profit company can provide it cheaper and better while making a profit?
vonscharpling2@reddit
Most supermarkets run margins of somewhere around 3%, so you'd quite plausibility not notice the difference at the tills. You couldn't make suppliers to supermarkets run at non-profit rates because so much of our food is imported.
We are a net importer of energy, so Norway might be quite unhappy if we tried to force them to give us their energy without profit. The intermediary suppliers make a very small % margin.
We need to get away from this idea that, if only we think smart enough, there will be one brilliant stroke of a regulatory pen to solve fundamental issues like not having enough housing or producing enough energy
Possiblyreef@reddit
As an example, people fucking LOVE to complain about Tesco making nearly £3bn profit.
They leave out the part where this was on nearly £70bn of turnover, or to put in to context nearly the entire GDP of Slovenia
PrinceBert@reddit
That's 4% profit for the lazy. Although it's an insane amount of money in total, that's essentially the equivalent of saying folks should give up their avocados in order to save for a house.
If your weekly shop is £100 per week that goes to £96 if they have no profit. Which is only a total saving of £208 a year. Obviously it'd still be nice to get £208 a year but it's hardly going to change your world.
Important_Ruin@reddit
Should really look at operating profit pre EBITA (money from actually selling their goods)
wjhall@reddit
I'm unclear why that'd be the case, ITA are real expenses.
Important_Ruin@reddit
I'd argue especially for this look at the pure business operations instead of all net of all as a whole as it does still include staff costs, transport.
But just excludes some costs and incomes which could sway figures positively or negatively, like finance income, finance costs, tax.
As Tesco has 267m from finance income especially through interest and other investments.
825m in finance costs
Just my personal opinion, for this sort of thing.
Especially if comparing supermarkets just looking at their ability to revenue, cos, admin. Instead of all their different incomes and costs within their income statement.
Thanks for downvote.
Bleuuuuuugh@reddit
⬆️
Shark_Tooth1@reddit
Why would a private company bid for those contracts if there is no profit or too many rules in place?
requisition31@reddit
The system would fall apart, one block at a time. The inefficiencies when there is no profit motive are horrifying. There always needs to be a good balance and it's not struck right now.
The other thing is when these companies make *huge profits* all that really means is your stocks/shares ISA and your pension do well.
For starters the electricity interconnectors between us and mainland Europe rely on market forces, so a goverment just screaming give us energy doesn't work.
Historical_Cobbler@reddit
Why do you assume that governments could do it cheaper than private companies even with making profits.
glasgowgeg@reddit
Because they can.
"Water bills in Scotland will be £113 cheaper than in England and Wales despite an almost 10% price hike from Scottish Water."
Nielips@reddit
There is no reason they couldn't, we have empirical evidence that supports that governments can do things cheaper with better outcomes. You only have to look at healthcare, the statistics overwhelmingly show the more privatised it is the less efficient and effective they are. Healthcare spending in the US is far more than anywhere else, yet outcomes massively lag behind those spending less.
From an anecdotal standpoint, one example where a single government-run entity should be able to perform hugely better than privatised entities is internet. There is no way on earth. I will believe that multiple companies digging up roads multiple different times to run multiple fibre connections across the country is cheaper than a single entity doing all that once.
zone6isgreener@reddit
That health line isn't that simple. I suspect you are doing the usual thing of just looking at the US rather than say European nations.
sm9t8@reddit
Healthcare is also an industry where choice is greatly limited because you don't chose your diseases, you want what you've got diagnosed and treated. The nationalized health service should know exactly what people "want" based on what the population suffers from and what the best treatment is.
Anything learned by looking at healthcare is not generally applicable to the wider economy, at least not unless you want the government shoe minister to dictate what shoes you can buy.
Nielips@reddit
That's just extra taxation rather than extra spending on private services though.
Pinetrees1990@reddit
Correct me is I'm wrong but there are only 2 BT Open reach and Virgin.
Sky, Vodafone, EE don't have their own infrastructure the same way octopus don't own the power grid.
Nielips@reddit
There are at least 3 in my area, any more than 1 is too many though.
Pinetrees1990@reddit
Your mistaken,
BT Open reach are responsible for all the telephone and fibre optic lines in the UK. Sure there might be someone subcontracts to do specific bits of work but there is only one entity incharge.
Realistic-River-1941@reddit
Don't forget Hull.
Nielips@reddit
Sorry, but that's just not correct. There are more beyond that, examples being Hyperoptic and city fibre.
I've got three coming into my house alone, all operated by different companies.
Realistic-River-1941@reddit
How do you define efficient? In many cases letting sick people die would be more cost effective than treating them, but might not be popular.
(even the ultimate in bad guys backed down on killing sick kiddies for financial reasons once people started objecting!)
Historical_Cobbler@reddit
We also have empirical evidence that bureaucracy delays implementation and overspend ensues. We can’t even decide on HS2 or HS3, we’ve been debating nuclear power generation for 20 years without agreement. The Olympic stadium was basically given away for free because of the waste.
Most private companies profits as a % is low and I’m not against shareholder profit. That said, how the water companies manage to fail is staggering and they show that they cannot run it.
Using US healthcare isn’t the same as private investment due to the insurance element so isn’t a fair comparison for me.
BabaYagasDopple@reddit
All this points to is the economy of scale in business that enables the efficiencies.
Nielips@reddit
Which exists whether it is a private or public company.
BabaYagasDopple@reddit
I don’t disagree.
BabaYagasDopple@reddit
Governments can’t even govern right, let alone run businesses to work for the people.
palaceexile@reddit
Agreed - my experience of working on Government funded jobs is that the level of spending oversight is huge as they are worried about being accused of wasting money. This adds to the overall cost and makes procurement less agile. The private sector can be more flexible (although clearly not true in all cases).
Puzzleheaded_Act7155@reddit
Where would the incentive be?
AdNorth70@reddit
Then who the fuck would want to run them?
erinoco@reddit
The essential issue is as follows: in the absence of a market mechanism, how can you be sure what the cost of production actually is? If that had been solved by governments who wished to move beyond the market mechanism, then we would have a lot more industry in common ownership today. Governments have tried to solve this before. For instance, you had the Plowden solution in the 1960s, where public expenditure (including spending by nationalised industries) would be determined by marginal cost pricing (the cost of producing one extra unit). That failed because it proved impossible for governments to stop costs soaring.
There is also the issue of properly accounting for investment. You not only need to work out what you need to allocate for investment. You also have to ensure that capital expenditure is not neglected. Governments want to keep the unit prices for consumers low. Governments are also more vulnerable to pressure on wage growth if the employees demand it. This is what undermined nationalised industries in the 60s and 70s.
txe4@reddit
If you want it done with private capital, you have to let the providers of that capital earn a return.
The more you dick them around (with increased regulations, price controls, nationalisation threats), the higher that return has to be to get the job done.
> Those companies make huge profits
Deceptive. The profit numbers are big because the revenue and costs numbers are big. To understand the profit you have to understand the capital involved and the margins. If you can't describe the margins, depreciation policies, risks, capital structure, and interest rates of an industry, you cannot make any adult rational comment on its profits.
If you want it done by the government, *in principle* that is cheaper as the government can borrow for less. However the experience of many decades across many countries is that other demands on the government's spending tend to crowd out the investment and it doesn't get done. You can tell a politician the water industry needs £5 billion or bad stuff will happen in 5 years, but they can't care about anything beyond the next election - and £5 billion is a 1p cut in income tax which will get them re-elected.
A strong motivator for the Thatcher government to privatise the utilities was that they all needed £10s of billions of investment - under government stewardship the water utilities were filling the rivers with sewage, the telephone network used 1920s technology, etc.
AudioLlama@reddit
I'm glad that the rivers aren't filling with sewage now.
liquidio@reddit
River pollution has drastically declined in recent decades thanks to better water management, not that many people seem to understand that.
Ammonia down ~85% since the 80s BOD (a measure of organic matter pollution) down 40% Phosphates down 80% Nitrate down ~15% (you can blame farming for that one not coming down as fast)
All source data here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/state-of-the-water-environment-indicator-b3-supporting-evidence/state-of-the-water-environment-long-term-trends-in-river-quality-in-england
Furthermore, the sewage almost all comes from Combined Storm Outflows, emergency overflows from parts of the system that have combined storm and foul drains. All of which were built well before privatisation when the water companies were under municipal and national control.
The only reason it has become such a hot issue is that under the Coaliton government for the first time we actually started measuring outflows with monitoring equipment. Incidentally, the private companies achieved full monitoring ahead of the non-profit Welsh water and years ahead of publicly-owned Scottish water and NI Water (who still haven’t got there yet).
txe4@reddit
Good and correct take.
The level of sewage in rivers is an engineering choice and the correct amount is not zero at all times.
If HMG wants it reduced, it can require and authorise the utilities to invest to reduce it. However, especially given the age of infrastructure and how much of it combines sewage with rainwater run-off, the required sums are daunting and flow through in to water bills.
Engineering a sewage system to cope with the volume rising 20x (during storms) is non-trivial and occasional release of highly-diluted sewage when rivers are flowing fast anyway is not unreasonable.
GhostRiders@reddit
That is down to a lack of regulatory bodies having any powers which is the Government's responsibility.
thecarbonkid@reddit
The behaviour and motives you're ascribing to the government are the ones currently practiced by the decidedly non government owners.
thecarbonkid@reddit
It was called nationalisation.
GhostRiders@reddit
Why would any company want to take on the stress and danger that any major infrastructure project presents for zero profit?
For example if I'm a major IT Company why the hell would I take on a project in the magnitude of upgrading the NHS IT Network when there is no profit?
What you are talking about is the Government taking back critical infrastructure such as water and power and no, that would be awful.
History has shown how badly Government run organisations are such as British Rail, British Telecom, British Layland etc..
They were all an absolute shit show.
The problem isn't that private companies are running critical infrastructure, it's that the relevant regulation bodies are useless.
If you have strong regulatory bodies that have powers to enforce the regulations and issue big fines where appropriate then you will find services will improve dramatically.
Conscious-Ball8373@reddit
The obvious answer to "what if the government could mandate that critical infrastructure and goods must be provided either by non-profit companies or with zero profit overheads e.g food, water, power, internet, housing" is that no-one would provide any of those things. Why would they?
If your answer to that is that the government would take over doing all those things, I refer you to Stalin's five year plan and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Exact-Put-6961@reddit
Imagine Starmer, reading out the "Tractor production statistics" weekly.
Socialism is awful.
Capitalism is better but of coirse needs regulating.
I know which i would rathet live under.
ubiquitous_uk@reddit
How do you decide what is and isn't part of the cost? Charities are non-profit, so to lose the money they issue large dividends to directors so there is no profit.
If there is no profit allowed on the books, how can they plan upgrades years in advance without knowing what funds they expect to have in place?
I do believe that it should be government run and not given to private entities who only want to take the money and run but it's probably a little late for that now.
fugasiuser@reddit
None of these companies do any good for us. They simply take and we pay for it. Thames Water is the perfect case in point. Can anyone name one for profit company that does good?
Isn't too late to stop giving them our money.
mediocrityindepth@reddit
Even the worst run private supermarket in the UK is an order of magnitude better than state run food suppliers I've used in a few corners of the world. Capitalism is riddled with faults but one thing it has done with quite impressive reliability is provided more food at lower prices than state run agriculture programs have.
Exact-Put-6961@reddit
The way the private supermarkets responded to Covid, and kept us fed, was remarkabke.
wongl888@reddit
NGO may not necessarily be the best solution to running essential services. By its nature essential services need to run continuously without interruption, safely, with high quality and with resilience.
Often competition keeps prices down. For example the UK was one of the very first country to issue dual Mobile Operator licenses in the eighties which resulted in the UK having affordable mobile services with a large coverage of the whole country. Other countries started copying this approach.
fugasiuser@reddit
Can anyone name one for profit company that does good?
locklochlackluck@reddit
It depends what you mean by 'does good'.
Most people with jobs work for "for profit" companies, so they get a job out of it. And probably use the money from that job to feed themselves and their families. So that's a good thing.
Competitive businesses like supermarkets drive down costs for consumers. So we have the lowest food costs in the world because the supermarkets are constantly trying to outcompete each other. So that's a good thing.
Disruptive businesses, like online retailers (Ocado is a good example - UK based and 'built the blueprint' for online food shopping - and Starling is my bank account which is all online, UK developed) give us new ways to do things, improving customer choice and challenging traditional businesses to modernise as well. So that's a good thing.
Businesses with deep capabilities like AstraZeneca were able to produce a vaccine for covid. So that was a good thing I'd argue?
But finally if you are just considering social impact, lots of businesses have a mission or rationale as well where they are trying to "do good" beyond good products and services. Octopus energy are encouraging everyone to switch to renewable energy. Boots have championed and tried to normalise body positivity. M&S have had a long record of only selling ethically sourced products.
And ultimately, beyond all of those small 'good' things, by companies making profit and competing they shape our economy and drive opportunities for everyone. There's a reason profit-making companies accellerated western economies whilst control economies stagnated and have since adapted - even in China where the state controls most things still, they encourage their companies to grow and make profit and compete.
Arowx@reddit (OP)
I could name a few that make good goods.
I did hear of a none profit medical company in America.
Nielips@reddit
Depends what your definition of good is and who benefits from it...
locklochlackluck@reddit
Not really, I think there's already profit limits in some places. Think of it more like a guardrail than an instant reduction in cost. It means if there's a shortage companies can't hike prices and make supernormal profit without some kind of mechanism to reinvest that profit. But generally companies will compete with each other towards the lowest profit margin anyway.
Hence why supermarkets, which are unregulated in this way, have some of the lowest profit margins in the world and we have the best food prices as a result (not so sure the farmers are as happy about that, but its give and take).
What could be done is for certain goods, the government could offer industries incentives for extra supply. So if I'm a farmer and I can sell oilseed rape for a good price, but the UK gov says they'll pay me an extra £50 per hectare of wheat to improve food security, then yea I'm going to plant wheat and the UK market will be flooded with cheap wheat and we'll get all the cheap bread we want. The downside is that now the oilseed rape isn't being produced which might have price increases in products that rely on that.
Profit is actually good in that it gives disruptor type people a reason to try to improve. If you were DPD for example and figured that Royal Mails delivery network was shit, and that you could make a nice profit by doing what they're doing but better, you get rewarded for going on and doing that. Now instead imagine that the government says you're not allowed to make a profit - why would you ever bother? Just leave Royal mail to be shit at what it does and go spend your money elsewhere.
YesIAmRightWing@reddit
We'd starve
GhostPantherNiall@reddit
They could do it quite easily with basically no downside. Government budgets don’t work like household budgets and money saved by the consumer ends up being pumped back into the economy in other ways.
zone6isgreener@reddit
Post office is state owned.
srm79@reddit
Creating independent corporations with Royal Commissions could be one way to go, while not government run, so not as susceptible to political changes, there's still government oversight. But they run more like businesses and less like civil service departments, and any profits are either held for investment in infrastructure, or targeted programs, or returned to the treasury. They aren't ideal and can still be inefficient, but could be a better compromise for some industries than nationalisation or privatisation
mpt11@reddit
So basically renationalise. Excellent idea
Milam1996@reddit
It would work for building things like roads or wind turbines, just create a taxpayer funded and owned company that carries out the work.
When it comes to things like food though it’s not gonna work. You need a currency exchange unless you want to just eat potatoes and carrots. You need a profit incentive to onboard the risk otherwise why bother with something that’s easily damaged like strawberries when I can just grow potatoes?
ashyjay@reddit
Transparent pricing could be more useful, so you can see how much is used for infrastructure, R&D for infrastructure improvements, repairs, .etc. put in a format where us plebs can understand it.
Simon170148@reddit
Then there'd be no incentive to bribe politicians. Did I say bribe? Obviously I meant 'make political donations'
New_Expectations5808@reddit
No because otherwise who is paying?
fugasiuser@reddit
SImple. The money earmarked for execs and shareholders could go back into the system instead of greasing all those palms.
Thames Water for example spent money earmarked for repairs on their board members, whilst being 17billion in debt and now taking another 3 billion we're all paying for.
kifflington@reddit
OP is talking about not-for-profit, not free; there would still be a charge, just at a level that covers operating costs instead of making profit for shareholders etc.
Harrry-Otter@reddit
For things like water and power it would be pretty viable, it already happens in a lot of places and used to here.
For things like food and housing it falls apart a bit. There’s too much variation and uneven demand to make it particularly viable. The government food shop would presumably just sell the most common stuff and there would be no incentive to diversify, so you’d be a bit stuck if you wanted sobresada or something a bit more obscure.
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