And that’s a political position. Which for the record I don’t wholly disagree with. In that my politics suggests that running a hotel should be a) more about making money therefore b) a private sector activity and running a railway might be a) less about making money per se and therefore b) might sit better in the public sector.
The boundary between public and private enterprise is pretty ragged. Unless the state is going to go down a wholly vertically integrated nationalised model, at some point it is going to bump up against some interaction with the private sector. In which case the state then becomes in the business of acting as a counter-party for a private business. If the railways were wholly owned and operated by that the state and they were only buying manufactured equipment from the private sector this might be fairly straightforward. However, the state have gotten themselves involved in some form of revenue sharing arrangement here. Having gotten themselves involved in the business of private sector provision of railways they appear not to have realised the implications.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2012-10-08 11:22 am (UTC)The boundary between public and private enterprise is pretty ragged. Unless the state is going to go down a wholly vertically integrated nationalised model, at some point it is going to bump up against some interaction with the private sector. In which case the state then becomes in the business of acting as a counter-party for a private business. If the railways were wholly owned and operated by that the state and they were only buying manufactured equipment from the private sector this might be fairly straightforward. However, the state have gotten themselves involved in some form of revenue sharing arrangement here. Having gotten themselves involved in the business of private sector provision of railways they appear not to have realised the implications.