The German mail rail and track operator (Deutsche Bahn) isn't private but 100% state owned (and control sits with the federal government). They wanted to privatize it a couple of decades ago but abandoned it. There is still some hybridization between supposedly it being a business and also a public service left in the law, though.
The Deutsche Bahn AG is in fact a private Aktiengesellschaft(which is to say a stock company) with the german gov't owning 100% of the shares. I'd very much argue that it is run mostly like a private enterprise and only occasionally compelled by the government to act like a public service.
I would say Deutsche Bahn has managed to combine the disadvantages of public services with the disadvantages of private companies into one coherently terrible package.
Yes, but doesn't change that it is 100% state owned and controlled with a mixed mandate (business/public service - see art 87e GG). No reason to absolve the owner and the associated politics from their responsibilities.
The legal form doesn't determine whether something is state owned or private.
I presume running a national rail system is somewhat different from a railway for a single city. How good are the national rail systems in these countries?
They still don't make money off of being rail systems, they make money off of real-estate developments.
So, sure, you can have a rail system self-fund as long as you let it build whatever the fuck it wants at stations and funnel all the profits back into the train line.
No, it's not. It's bureacracy, and it exists in every big organisation, private or public. I'd actually suggest that public sector bodies are often worse for this.
There is still a meaningful difference. Businesses usually need to have some profit even if minimum so they will run leaner for the same output because of efficiency.
I agree that there are many big businesses bureaucracies but they tend to be in areas closely linked to the state/government because of heavy regulation: banks and insurance for example.
They tend to survive despite their terrible efficiency because it is way too costly to enter their business for a small actor. Any of their real competitors is already big enough that the bureaucracy is already well established...
Being a bus driver used to be a decent job for semi-retired construction workers, and such.
But then privatization hit, and over the last 20 years, there is no niceness left. They're even trained to disregard customers, and penalized otherwise.
It's insanely inhumane.
And the causal effect is very clear, there can be no doubt about it.
It's not the bus driver's fault.
The more focused a company is (the more reliant it is on its core service) the more accountable it can be. I'd argue many companies are if anything more accountable than the government. It doesn't have to be true, but I'd argue it often is.
The German mail rail and track operator (Deutsche Bahn) isn't private but 100% state owned (and control sits with the federal government). They wanted to privatize it a couple of decades ago but abandoned it. There is still some hybridization between supposedly it being a business and also a public service left in the law, though.
The Deutsche Bahn AG is in fact a private Aktiengesellschaft(which is to say a stock company) with the german gov't owning 100% of the shares. I'd very much argue that it is run mostly like a private enterprise and only occasionally compelled by the government to act like a public service.
I would say Deutsche Bahn has managed to combine the disadvantages of public services with the disadvantages of private companies into one coherently terrible package.
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Yes, but doesn't change that it is 100% state owned and controlled with a mixed mandate (business/public service - see art 87e GG). No reason to absolve the owner and the associated politics from their responsibilities.
The legal form doesn't determine whether something is state owned or private.
It's still the government running the company if they own all the shares. So what's your point?
The actual root is even widely acknowledged: DB has been underfunded for a long time.
It’s an AG, why should it be funded?
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You sure the ~600 companies that the Deutsche Bahn is made up of can be compared to one state-owned entity?
All rolls up into one 100% owner and having a lot of subsidiaries isn't unusual.
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Given how good the rail systems are in several Asian cities despite/thanks to being private, you might want to reconsider that opinion.
I presume running a national rail system is somewhat different from a railway for a single city. How good are the national rail systems in these countries?
Japan’s is the greatest in the world, for one.
They still don't make money off of being rail systems, they make money off of real-estate developments.
So, sure, you can have a rail system self-fund as long as you let it build whatever the fuck it wants at stations and funnel all the profits back into the train line.
No, it's not. It's bureacracy, and it exists in every big organisation, private or public. I'd actually suggest that public sector bodies are often worse for this.
They are only worse because they are bigger. If the private replacement organization gets as big, they get the same problems.
There is still a meaningful difference. Businesses usually need to have some profit even if minimum so they will run leaner for the same output because of efficiency.
I agree that there are many big businesses bureaucracies but they tend to be in areas closely linked to the state/government because of heavy regulation: banks and insurance for example. They tend to survive despite their terrible efficiency because it is way too costly to enter their business for a small actor. Any of their real competitors is already big enough that the bureaucracy is already well established...
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Exactly.
Being a bus driver used to be a decent job for semi-retired construction workers, and such.
But then privatization hit, and over the last 20 years, there is no niceness left. They're even trained to disregard customers, and penalized otherwise. It's insanely inhumane.
And the causal effect is very clear, there can be no doubt about it. It's not the bus driver's fault.
> the root of all that? Privatization
Honesty, it's German politics doing precisely this that's part of the problem: flippant diagnoses too broadly applied from afar.
Really?
The more focused a company is (the more reliant it is on its core service) the more accountable it can be. I'd argue many companies are if anything more accountable than the government. It doesn't have to be true, but I'd argue it often is.
Communism is the answer!