Privatisation is the result of capitalists looking at everything and asking themselves “how could someone profit from this”?
Most privatized assets are already very profitable - the rich wouldn’t be trying to take it if it wasn’t valuable. Balance sheet aside, public assets profit society as a whole.
I would say privatisation is the rich asking how fewer people could profit this.
This isn’t about assets though - it’s about government services. Things that aren’t designed to be profitable, that naturally will cost money to operate while not generally making money. By privatising these, they are now entities that have to make a profit, and that generally happens by extracting taxpayer money, as well as cutting cost, by reducing staff, service levels, equipment et al. That doesn’t make it more efficient - just more painful to use for clients. $9.5bn per year? Someone’s laughing all the way to the bank.
Most privatized assets are already very profitable - the rich wouldn’t be trying to take it if it wasn’t valuable. Balance sheet aside, public assets profit society as a whole.
I would say privatisation is the rich asking how fewer people could profit this.
This isn’t about assets though - it’s about government services. Things that aren’t designed to be profitable, that naturally will cost money to operate while not generally making money. By privatising these, they are now entities that have to make a profit, and that generally happens by extracting taxpayer money, as well as cutting cost, by reducing staff, service levels, equipment et al. That doesn’t make it more efficient - just more painful to use for clients. $9.5bn per year? Someone’s laughing all the way to the bank.