alt Hacker NewsEvidence? Isn't the state the expression of the people's will? That's the theory of democracy, isn't it?
Also, any evidence or reason to believe that an extraction-based capitalist model is more aligned with customer interests (where the customer is the thing value is extracted from, and where corporate leadership salaries are directly tied to how much they can grift from the customers) than a government where the incentive is to get the maximum number of happy fliers to vote for you?
Replies
“citizens”, “customers” and “politicians” are three different groups. The government might want to use the airline as tax revenue, artificially increasing prices on customers to support non-customers.
Or the government may want to give their airline unfair advantages, which would decrease real competition and create a brittle industry. Or the government might want to strangle their own company, in order to declare that it is “bad and dumb” in order to manufacture popular support to privatize the public company.
> Isn't the state the expression of the people's will?
Just recently HN discussed the „ban anonymity on the internet“ initiatives of various governments and who was behind it because nobody wants that. Certainly not the citizens.
I can give you an example based on two failed national airlines I experienced for years: Italy's Alitalia and Hungary's Malév.
Customers hated them. They were top examples of when public management fails. They were expensive for the customers and costed the tax payers billions to be kept alive, and basically everyone rejoiced when they were let go (Alitalia being reborn as ITA Airways and effectively operated by Lufthansa, Malev just disappeared).
The problem with state run enterprises is that the accountability to voters is very removed. You elect parliament and government which chooses some administrator at random times which chooses some managers etc..
It's not impossible to do well (many state run companies are fine!) but it's hardly a guarantee.