I may not have made my point clearly enough Faustino.

You argue that it is the magic of "competition" that creates efficiency. My point is that any business simply needs an attention to normal management tasks - identifying demand, creating solutions, allocating and managing resources, responding to change etc. etc. in order to become and remain efficient.

The fact that you accurately describe what actually is allowed to happen - "keep the pollies happy, keep your head down and don't rock the boat" - in most cases, does not detract from my argument. The point I am trying to make is that there are other solutions apart from selling the citizenry's assets to commercial enterprise. Management discipline instead of political laissez-faire.

The problem that underpins it all is that the entire system of turning public assets - paid for by generations of taxes - into profit for corporations, is open to corrruption.

Government has no business being in business. Hawke & Keating had the right idea when they started the big government sell-offs and I'm glad to see these sell-offs continuing. At least when you can buy shares in a company (or have your super fund buy them on your behalf) there's some real, genuine public ownership.

Most governments can't even get their trains to run on time - why would anyone think they can run utility companies any better? Government owned enterprises are nothing more than political footballs or weapons. Capitalism is not the answer? Well government ownership of the means of production hasn't exactly been a roaring success.

If at first you don't succeed.

"Most governments can't even get their trains to run on time - why would anyone think they can run utility companies any better?"

That is because they appoint poor managers, allow political posturing to come between the service provision and its clients, confuse making a noise with being useful... being typical politicians, in fact.

My point is that there is fundamentally no difference in the tasks that managers need to perform on a daily basis in order to make a business, or a service, function efficiently. The fact that this does not happen in a politically-driven environment does not invalidate the basic argument. Precisely the same things - train drivers have to drive trains, electricity generators need maintenance, buses need to be scheduled - are essential, regardless of ownership.

One thing that does change with private ownership is that the concept of a public service disappears entirely, and is replaced by the profit motive.

My aged mother in the UK has just seen her bus service - the one that takes her into the nearest town - axed, because there simply aren't enough paying passengers. As she herself says, "there's only ever a couple of us oldies use it". This is the difference between "public transport" and "user pays".

It is ultimately a matter of what we want as a society. Do we actually want public services that are available to all, or do we want a series of commercial enterprises that work for those most able to pay, and benefits only shareholders. It looks as though the profit motive is winning at the moment, but to me that's sad, rather than something to crow about.

Pericles point is a good one because it illustrates how private enterprises can be more efficient than public ones because they can exclude groups of customers through high charges or other means. For instance, private schools can exclude certain students (and maintain good HSC scores) whereas public schools must take all who apply to enrol. Public hospitals have waiting lists which make them look inefficient. But private hospitals are simply too expensive so there are no waiting lists. Is this real efficiency in the wider scheme of things?

On the subject of electricity, it would interesting to see statistics showing how many people die because they can't afford adequate heating. My guess is that deaths are generally higher in countries which have privatised electricity.

Pericles says that governments perform poorly running business “because they appoint poor managers, allow political posturing to come between the service provision and its clients, confuse making a noise with being useful... being typical politicians, in fact.”
Well what’s your point? Of course the jobs are the same if something is privately or publicly owned but you yourself admit that governments aren’t up to the job because they are politically motivated. The governments role is to provide services where private enterprise cannot – whether because of capital expense or insufficient profit. Public transport is probably one of these areas; power and telecommunication services are not. Governments had to take on these responsibilities initially simply because private enterprise could not fund the infrastructure. This is no longer the case. Get out of the way and let that which has taken us from the Stone Age to the Information Age run the show; that being the profit motive.

Apart from the pursuit of profit, (which some people seem to regard as being in bad-taste), private enterprise is also motivated by a sense of professionalism, competition, and a need to please the consumer from a hip-pocket and service point of view. None of these are motivations for public entities. The government has the luxury of shifting blame, the luxury of time to “look into the matter” or appoint useless committees so they appear to be taking action, all the while just ignoring problems and hoping everyone will forget.

If governments are worried that private enterprise will not provide services to the poor or to remote communities then they should do what we pay them to do. Legislate responsibly. Some people really fail to grasp the fact that the more government involves itself with business and the lives of the people, the worse the lives of the people become.

Bozzie, surely you jest.

"Get out of the way and let that which has taken us from the Stone Age to the Information Age run the show; that being the profit motive"

Human ingenuity does not suddenly get switched on when a couple of dollar bills are thrust under its nose. The "profit motive", as you so tweely redefine "greed", comes into the picture quite late in the day - probably about the time of the industrial revolution, I would guess. Before then, duty, honour, charity and loyalty were the most prized characteristics of the ruling classes.

The problem with "the profit motive" is that it becomes, in and of itself, a goal or an objective. It used to be simply a means to ensure business continuity, but I defy you to justify to me why each one of our big four banks needs to gouge a billion dollars a quarter from its clients in return for its services. What could possibly happen that would demand that level of financial cushion in order for it to continue to survive?

How can you - apart from applauding the company's ability to dance around monopoly laws - justify a software company charging its customers ten times the cost of production and distribution of its product? And a pretty shoddy product at that?

Building a profitable business is patently a Good Thing. As a business owner myself I am fully aware of the need to make a return on investment. However I am also sure that maximizing profit at the expense of everything else is utterly destructive.

As far as public services are concerned, you seem to want your cake and eat it too.

"The governments role is to provide services where private enterprise cannot"

Oh really? From their actions, they seem to believe that nothing is beyond the powers of the private sector. And the mantra of "user pays" will ultimately ensure that an increasingly sizeable portion of society will be excluded from the business plan. Once profit is your only measure, it will happen.