Another apologist for the "capitalism is [without exception] good for you" brigade. It isn't, and never will be.

Alan says "[s]urely nobody thinks the economy has not prospered mightily over the past decade and few would deny a role for privatisation and deregulation in this process."

There was an interesting article in last Friday's Fin Review that analyzed the new-minted wealth Alan speaks of, and where it has been spent. I haven't the article to hand, but I recall noticing that the majority of this additional spending capacity went on housing, health and education - i.e., simply keeping up with the basics of living.

Roads. I'm now paying between $80 and $100 a month for the privilege of driving on roads/and crossing bridges that used to cost me less than a tenth of this figure. That is because the government in its wisdom has allowed private enterprise to dip into my pocket in the name of capitalism, simply to save themselves the bother of building roads.

Telstra. Taxpayers' money built the network over decades, now they sell our assets to a bunch of overpaid do-nothings and pretend its a good deal.

If we follow the UK, rail will be next. Nothing to do with "privatization creates efficiency" - there is nothing wrong with our railways that a good dose of proper management couldn't fix - it is the wanton destruction of the assets that we taxpayers have built up, so that a small band of capitalists can wallow in a trough of our money.

The fundamental, underlying problem in all this is that we have been led by the nose by successive governments, all of whom have a single aim (to be re-elected so that they may continue to be paid by us for ever), and who roll over to have their tummy tickled by any fat cat brandishing a wad of cash and saying "get with it, guys, privatization's the go. Don't be stick-in-the-muds, the electorate will love you for it - its capitalism, democracy, your patriotic duty."

Give us back our infrastructure!

To the barricades!!

Alan, semantic twaddle.

State owned assets and infrastucture operated in the proper way, would bring profits to the people and relax the burden of taxation.

The path you ascribe to puts the payed for assets of the people into the hands of a small minority, meaning that the pittance they pay for the amount the people have put in, will always give them a profit and a continuing loss to us.

Tollways, increased energy charges, bigger bank fee's, lower productivity from the beaurucracy, higher taxes, lower services, catastrophic health system, illiterate education system, collapsing superanuation schemes, lower work benefits and monopolic control.

No need to go on, to the barricades we should go, because if we stick with the fantasy that your ilk envisage, we are all doomed to a monumental collapse of our society and then chaos.

Just a quickie. Alchemist wrote -

"State owned assets and infrastucture operated in the proper way, would bring profits to the people and relax the burden of taxation."

"... operated in the proper way ..." Research I did in 1990 showed that the productivity of Australia's government-owned infrastructure was typically about 40-45 per cent of the industrialised country average. It was not customer-focussed, and was characterised by inefficient manning levels and practices, loss-making capital expenditure and "gold-plating" - providing conditions or equipment levels far in excess of what was required. Only governments can maintain such wasteful activities - businesses faced with competition must operate efficiently or lose market share and ultimately go bust - they have to respond to customers to survive and prosper. In my extensive experience working within government, state governments - which are responsible for most infrastructure - are rarely driven by considerations of public benefit but direct infrastructure spending to help their mates/address problem constituencies etc with little or no regard for public benefit, efficiency and effectiveness. Much government infrastructure spending actually reduces wealth and future incomes because returns are either negative or well below opportunity cost (the return available on alternative uses of the resources). As Alan says, there has been unprecedented growth in productivity and incomes - including for the poorest in our society - (and in government spending) as a result of the reforms undertaken since 1983. Where results are poor, it is generally because governments have ignored good advice. For example, at least 15 years ago most economists across communications issues advocated splitting Telecom/Telstra into an infrastructure provider (which might or might not be government-owned) and a service provider, privatised and exposed to competition.

Faustino, you are simply underlining my point.

"It was not customer-focussed, and was characterised by inefficient manning levels and practices, loss-making capital expenditure and "gold-plating" - providing conditions or equipment levels far in excess of what was required."

None of these has anything to do with "government" per se, it is simply the result of poor management.

As someone said, private businesses do have to respond to customers or go bust. Well over 50 percent of small businesses in a year (it maybe as high as 80 percent) do go bust. But does that mean we should abolish small business per se because of obvious inefficiencies? No, and the same goes for publicly-run enterprises. I said before that STA buses in metropolitan Sydney is more efficient and delivers better services than private operators. Not only that, STA has had to pick up services when companies like Westbus go broke. And that leads me to another major inefficiency of private business. Not only do they do broke regularly, the taxpayer often has to foot the bill. Sometimes it is better to have only publicly-run enterprises in the first place in some industries - passenger transport and electricity are just two examples.

I am not for publicly-run companies in all industries. There is no need for them in retail or agribusiness. But when it comes to essential services I believe there is a role and I'm tired of this reflexive "government bad" ideology coming from some quarters.

And speaking of efficiencies, was efficient to give the outgoing Commonwealth Bank chief such a huge payout? That money could have been put back into services.

Pericles, government-owned enterprises operated the way they did BECAUSE they were government-owned and faced no competition. The main incentives for those running and working in GTEs are to keep the pollies happy, keep your head down and don't rock the boat. That pretty much rules out innovation, identifying and addressing problems and customer focus. I know from bitter experience the fate of those who seek higher standards in the public interest. It's hard to believe how poorly-run governments and GTEs are unless you've been a well-informed insider. The lack of interest in facts, evidence, theory and good practice in other jurisdictions is almost total.