Mexico’s 120 million citizens will begin to enjoy free, universal access to healthcare from next year, following a decree by socialist president Claudia Sheinbaum.
Any public service only works when there’s no privatization or outsourcing.
Public services, by definition, run at a loss; it’s not possible to profit from them monetarily. All benefits are intangible and derived from their social impact.
More innovation, more wealth production, higher productivity, less crime, better quality of life…
The moment you start privatizing, they stop working, as the only ways to increase profits from a public service are by lowering salaries and giving worse service.
When a public utility or something is sold off, then yes, as soon as the privatization happens the service has to get shittier.
But, I don’t think it’s true that the moment there’s a private alternative the public version stops working. I think it’s often just that the public version starts to decay because it doesn’t get the investment it needs.
For example, if you sell the postal service to a private company, it’s going to get either more expensive, or not work as well, or both.
But, if you allow a private parcel delivery service to compete with the post office, for a while you can have both working fairly well. The private service might offer much faster delivery that you can track, while the post office offers slower delivery for a much lower price. For a while the two services can coexist, and people can choose which one they want based on their needs. But, over time you’ll get underinvestment in the public postal option. People will demand that it be run as a business and won’t take into account that it acts as a public service and does things that are unprofitable but good for society.
Any public service only works when there’s no privatization or outsourcing.
Public services, by definition, run at a loss; it’s not possible to profit from them monetarily. All benefits are intangible and derived from their social impact.
More innovation, more wealth production, higher productivity, less crime, better quality of life…
The moment you start privatizing, they stop working, as the only ways to increase profits from a public service are by lowering salaries and giving worse service.
When a public utility or something is sold off, then yes, as soon as the privatization happens the service has to get shittier.
But, I don’t think it’s true that the moment there’s a private alternative the public version stops working. I think it’s often just that the public version starts to decay because it doesn’t get the investment it needs.
For example, if you sell the postal service to a private company, it’s going to get either more expensive, or not work as well, or both.
But, if you allow a private parcel delivery service to compete with the post office, for a while you can have both working fairly well. The private service might offer much faster delivery that you can track, while the post office offers slower delivery for a much lower price. For a while the two services can coexist, and people can choose which one they want based on their needs. But, over time you’ll get underinvestment in the public postal option. People will demand that it be run as a business and won’t take into account that it acts as a public service and does things that are unprofitable but good for society.