On 29-Jun-06, at 11:19 AM, Martin Senftleben wrote:
If a private company would run the railway system, they would very
likely not do it differently from how it is being run now.
It's not about _a_ private company running the railway. A free market
would see many private companies offering competing services,
not just railways but everything. If company A is overfilling trains,
that creates an opportunity for company B to win customers over
to itself by offering better service.
Additionally, as I've said a number of times, the free market is a much
wider concept than just "private companies". Private companies in
a non-free economy can't be used as an example of the dynamics
of a free market, because they are in fact _not_ in a free market.
Private companies in mixed economies enjoy coercive government
protection at many levels, from protectionist tariffs keeping foreign
competition out, to licensing requirements and other coercive entry
barriers that keep potential local competitors (especially the smaller
and more innovative ones) out of the market.
"Democracy" that trumps individual rights is actually great for
unethical
businessmen, as they can always bribe the state to provide them
protection from competitors (of-course the reasons presented for this
by the state will always have a "public benefit" spin). What is a
multi-million
dollar license payment but a bribe to the state to keep smaller
competitors
(who can't afford to pay a similar sum as license fee) out of a
lucrative
market?
So the state's power to violate individual rights works well to help
coercive businesses (aka "state capitalists") suppress competition
from the far more honorable "market capitalists".
This is the reason that most businesses that thrive in a mixed
economy are pure scum, as a mixed economy is biased in favor
of unscrupulous scum. Holding these specimens up as examples of
the free market at work is just wrong, as they are creations of the
state's intervention in the market, and not of a free market.
Interestingly, though, even heavily protected state capitalists do
usually
manage to offer services many levels of magnitude superior to state-
provided
services. (Probably because they do have to actually offer services to
earn profits, and are unable to directly loot them from the
citizenry, and
because they do have to face some competition, being unable to
directly outlaw all competition).
To see this very plainly in the case of India one only has to compare
the level of service offered by India's public sector phone companies
with the level of service provided by private companies (even though
they are all state capitalists).
Ten years ago, it took large bribes and many months of waiting to
obtain a telephone connection from the public sector phone company,
and long distance call charges were ridiculously high (among the
highest in the world, in fact).
Today, a phone can be obtained within minutes, from a variety of private
phone companies, all vying for customers by offering better deals
than the
other. This has brought call prices crashing down, and has resulted in a
telecom revolution that has put telephones in the hands of millions
of peasants,
rikshaw-pullers, rural residents, and others who didn't have any
access to
telephones for over 50 years, while the state held a monopoly over
telecom.
But the sad thing is that the same people who would have exchanged their
right arm for a telephone 15 years ago can now be observed cussing at
the
private companies for offering "too much choice" and incessantly
inundating
the potential customer with advertising and promotional schemes for a
new
phone.
The same people who would send gifts to and bow obsequiously a decade
ago
to the lowest linesman of a state-run telephone company in order to
hopefully
receive some basic level of service can be seen today yelling
indignantly at the
customer service reps of private phone companies (who do their best
to keep
their cool despite being yelled at all day) in spite of the fact that
they are now
receiving orders of magnitude better service.
And these same people will use their private phones to discuss how
private
companies are all cheats.
How soon and how easily do people forget the many blessings they receive
from the market!
#!
