Edit: I ranted about publicly operated trains in Sweden on a post regarding US. Sorry for that. Since I spent 10 minutes ranting on the subject, I will keep the rest of the rant...
The only subway in Sweden that I am aware of is operated by some company from Hong Kong. Or was that last week and we have now someone else?
The "free market" muppets have had free reins for 30 years, and they are still claiming that an invisible hand will turn everything great.
In reality, the invisible hand seems to be picking cookies out of our jar filled with tax money, while trains are falling apart, women are getting unnecessary gynecological surgeries since doctors get a bonus out of the publicly funded invoice (one even inexplicably got sterilized against her will), and some entrepreneurs in the refugee-industry are making millions by keeping refugees in sub par barracks for 200 USD per day.
Many schools are privatized, and the only reason that is not a regarded as total disaster is that it they are a nice break from the schools run by the local municipalities.
(To be fair, a lot of the privately operated hospitals seems to be doing a great job and delivers good services.)
There is nothing inherently wrong with privately operated schools, hospitals, etc, but when turning away from a system where it was primarily seen as an obligation to take care of the ill and poor, and educate our children, it's very hard to set the economic incentives correctly.
Even if the system and the incentives are not gamed, the effects are often not what you want on the macro level, as each transaction is optimized on the micro level.
The only subway in Sweden that I am aware of is operated by some company from Hong Kong. Or was that last week and we have now someone else?
The "free market" muppets have had free reins for 30 years, and they are still claiming that an invisible hand will turn everything great.
In reality, the invisible hand seems to be picking cookies out of our jar filled with tax money, while trains are falling apart, women are getting unnecessary gynecological surgeries since doctors get a bonus out of the publicly funded invoice (one even inexplicably got sterilized against her will), and some entrepreneurs in the refugee-industry are making millions by keeping refugees in sub par barracks for 200 USD per day.
Many schools are privatized, and the only reason that is not a regarded as total disaster is that it they are a nice break from the schools run by the local municipalities.
(To be fair, a lot of the privately operated hospitals seems to be doing a great job and delivers good services.)
There is nothing inherently wrong with privately operated schools, hospitals, etc, but when turning away from a system where it was primarily seen as an obligation to take care of the ill and poor, and educate our children, it's very hard to set the economic incentives correctly.
Even if the system and the incentives are not gamed, the effects are often not what you want on the macro level, as each transaction is optimized on the micro level.