freediver wrote on Jun 8
th, 2022 at 9:57am:
Why wouldn't electricity producers face competition?
Because they are likely to be monopolies, like the Adelaide Electricity Company which Playford nationalized in 1946 because the company was a monopolistic profit-maximising, price gouger.
Quote:Can you prove that the cost has increased? Note, this is not the same as the price.
Er....we have a
cost of living emergency, courtesy of your
survival of the fittest neoliberal "invisible hand" market orthodoxy.
Quote:Are you suggesting we decide whether to privatise an industry by looking at what happens to price after it is privatised?
No.
[Note: you - being a self admitted ideological fraud, see post #24..."FTW"....ignored my reply addressing your question above; you merely take replies of different people and lump them into one post].
To answer your question, we look at issues like natural monopolies versus market efficiency, in the delivery of essential services.
And by the way, we need mixed economies (public and private) in housing, to ensure everyone is housed, as was achieved by Menzies' "Public Housing Department", and is the case in Singapore
As for food, given the vagaries of energy markets and input costs for farmers, food costs for low income groups may need to be subsidized by the government.