There’s actually a pretty simple criterion for what kind of business/industry should be nationalized: The good or service it provides is something the government believes should be guaranteed to people as a human right, not tied to a profit motive.
People have a human right to healthcare, electricity, and access to the internet, so those should be nationalized. People don’t have a human right to McDonald’s hamburgers, so that doesn’t need to be nationalized. Sometimes there are grey areas, like everyone has a right to shelter, but not necessarily to a luxury condo. So there’s room for some public housing as well as some private development.
Separate from that, competition should be improved by breaking up companies when they get too big. Countries used to do this a lot. Teddy Roosevelt did it all the time. It’s called trust busting. A company like Bell or Loblaws gets told they need to sell off their holdings until their balance sheet is below a certain size. It also goes hand in hand with actually enforcing laws which punish anticompetitive behaviour like price-fixing.
I will limit my scope to utility companies as that the industry I work in.
Crown corporations should own distribution and access assets. Underground ducts, Data cables, mobile towers, power cables and poles, water pipes and plants, sewerage pipes and plants and such.
For profit companies should be able to interconnect to that infrastructure at a regulated public listed wholesale price for supply and consumption. They should act as a value added reseller. This will lower the barrier to entry for new companies as they are on the same footing as existing companies.
As an example, say PowerPro Pty want into the power market, they buy at the regulated consumption amount and sell for whatever markup they think they can get away with. If they want to expand into power generation, well they know the regulated wholesale price for providing to the grid, they can do their cost analysis. But now they want to get I to the water business so they start bundling power and water plans to customers.
Allowing competition is what makes the market competitive 😉 That being said, what makes you desire crown corporations?
It’s good to have companies that do not solely view profit as the goal.
It’s much more difficult for the costumer to improve the company without buying shares.
Crown corporations have shown to benefit the public by serving everyone in the province, lowering costs for costumers, keeping the profits local, forcing the market to be more competitive and listening to the government that the people vote in.
I also support cooperatives as every member gets the same say.
I think it’s important not just for the consumers benefit but also the employees working in that industry. If it’s purely a profit motive then you get things like poor wages and working conditions where the employer can use “competition” as an excuse to keep wages low and reduce overhead by not prioritizing things like safety and environmental sustainability. When people have the option of working for a crown corporation that does prioritize safety, sustainability, and good work environments then private industry has to be able to offer comparable compensation and work environments to the crown corporation. The crown corp has an inherent advantage of being able to operate in a profit neutral manner, while the private industry has to be able to actually do something better than the crown corp to be competitive.
It’s good to have companies that do not solely view profit as the goal.
Agreed! Though, I personally am hesitant to use the term “company” — I’m not sure exactly how you are defining it in this context. Perhaps “organization” would be better?
It’s much more difficult for the costumer to improve the company without buying shares.
Even then, it’s a bit of a stretch. Not to mention the bias that it sets by requiring capital to have a voice.
Crown corporations have shown to benefit the public by serving everyone in the province, lowering costs for costumers, keeping the profits local, forcing the market to be more competitive and listening to the government that the people vote in.
It depends on exactly how it is done. For example, I would argue that the way insurance in British Columbia is set up with ICBC is an absolute moronic disaster. I am also very hesitant to have taxpayer money spent on something that may well be a sinkhole for money. I think Canada Post is done well: any profits that it creates go straight to the Treasury Board, it takes no government subsidies — even pensions are not taxpayer funded, it directly, and fairly, competes with the rest of the market. Canada Post is an example of how it should be done. ICBC is an example of how it should not.
I also support cooperatives as every member gets the same say.
Cooperatives have enormous potential, imo. They seem to be vastly underutilized, which I don’t comprehend. I think they could be a solid consideration to combat intrinsic monopolies.
