My point is, if you start tearing down that perception you will find that you are not really in support of the free market, but just don't want public trains.
Honestly Theonik, this is something I've given
some degree of thought to, but since we're having this chat let's dispel a few misconceptions in your previous post...
Free markets didn't "literally give us slavery". Slavery existed before free markets, and it also exists in places with very little freedom in their markets. Furthermore, granting rights to humans is not a government intervention into a market now, is it? What you're railing against there is anarcho-capitalism, where the person with the biggest stick wins (but the idea, at least, is that people work together anyway as it's mutually beneficial to do so). Quite how you got there from me saying that that I have a "(general) support for free market(s)" is baffling to me, and that you go from saying that free markets created slavery to warmly educating me about how things aren't "black and white" had me almost drowning in the irony deluge.
Anyway, my addition of the word "(general)" there wasn't an accident. I acknowledge that the key benefit of markets operating is that of competition and choice to the consumer, and in areas where this isn't forthcoming (typically due to geographic realities) then government regulation can often be necessary, either in part (with regulations or caps) or in full (with nationalisation). The reality is that almost everyone thinks this, it's just where that balance point is varies from person to person. My expectation of where that point occurs is probably slightly to the right of the average, thus I consider myself to be more pro-free-market than most.
However, you've actually diagnosed me completely in reverse. It
is free markets I like and it's actually
not trains being nationalised that I hate. Personally I think most of the problems faced on the trains would be equally present with a nationalised rail system, and nationalising would have some benefits (staff treated better, less likely to jack up last minute faires) and some down sides (more union control who, whatever they say, care primarily about their jobs and not the customer experience). So generally I'd say it's a wash, and I basically don't care that much.
The reason I have a problem with Corbyn and his boys is that I worry that nationalising is to them what
you think private ownership is to me, ie better without question and with no exceptions. Case in point, McDonnell stated his intent to nationalise the energy industry (and not pay shareholders market rate either, which is nice of him), and Corbyn wanted to cap fuel bill costs. The problem here is... well, look for yourself at
these numbers. 95.17% of the average dual-fuel bill goes to the various costs incurred by the private companies. In fact, literally all of this comes from the gas bill, with electricity bills actually being
lower than the costs to the suppliers, leading them to make a loss on electricity. We also have lower bills currently than all the other large economies in the EU with the exception of France, who have about a billion nuclear power stations, the clever fucks. So where's the justification for nationalising an industry that's working efficiently, providing a good service to customers compared to our neighbours, and has lots of competition? There isn't one. He's not even trying to make one.
The problem here is that there's an inherent drawback to any consumer services that get subsumed by the state, and that's that lack of competition. I get an exciting opportunity at work to experience what the 70's were like, because I'm currently dealing with BT Openreach. They're a private company but, due to historic reasons relating to back when BT was nationalised, they're the only company that can install fibre leased lines into offices. No one else is allowed to.
They're shit. It's been almost 6 months now and our line's still not functioning. They never know what they're doing, the engineers don't know what the last ones did. Sometimes they phone up the day after they miss an appointment and say they couldn't gain access - even though it's an office that's open all day. They obviously don't give a fuck - and why would they? We literally can't go anywhere else. We have no choices. Now obviously not everyone's going to have this experience, and I daresay some people had simply wonderful experiences with BT in the 70's.
But if you (I mean McDonnell, not you) want to remove from people any semblance of choice over who supplies them with services, there needs to be a better justification than "because nationalised", and he's not making it. He's not interested in making it. He's waging the ideological war that you think I'm waging, and I absolutely don't trust them with the economy as a result (not because they'd spend too much, but because they'd intervene in markets too much). The fact they still seem hesistant to acknowledge that a good chunk of Venezuala's problems are not simply due to oil prices and American imperialism but also top-down socialist policies regarding prices and supply is further evidence.
If Blair came along tomorrow and said "i'll leave the private sector doing it's thing, I'll add regulations where they're needed and provide greater welfare services and investment in schools and hospitals", I'd vote for him. It's worth noting that this
is what he said in 1997, and then he won three elections, chiefly
because people like me would vote for him. (The irony of the Tories being on the verge of announcing a bill cap isn't lost on me, and I'm not thrilled about that.)
