Is it always good to privatize stuff? Should everything be privatized? What are the advantages and disadvantages?

Is it always good to privatize stuff? Should everything be privatized? What are the advantages and disadvantages?
What are the positive sides of protectionist policies? Giving tax cuts to local businesses or/and placing tariffs on incoming goods?
Why not simply stop protecting everyone and let the market wreck the party that isnt competitive(not taking sides simply asking a question)?
What are the downsides of private competition, please elaborate as im in a long term argument with another co worker and i wanna have some arguments when we meet again.

>inb4 ancapcucks and communistcucks hijack the thread
Actual answer is that every good should be privatized unless it is non-rival and non-excludable. If not you'll have vast negative externalities. If fire departments are privatized then inner cities or poor rural areas won't be able to pool the money together to afford it and if a fire starts it could be a real problem, spreading to other neighborhoods and buildings, starting wildfires, and causing millions of dollars in damage as well as many deaths.

Unfortunately your post essentially says "should be privatized because i think so".

Typical Veeky Forums not even providing any arguments.

Privatizing goods will lower prices and improve quality with the exception of those non-excludable, non-rival goods you fucking retard

In general privatization leads to efficiency which in general is good. This is obvious when realizing that private businesses need to be efficient tovl survive. It doesn't matter what the intentions are if you waste all your resources.

That being said the cost of not providing certain commodities can be greater than what the marker can account for. For example if people lack food that leads to large amounts of instabity and damages to people and property in the long run. Private Bussinesses don't usually calculate cost such as that into their expenses. So it really has to be judged case by case to be as accurate as possible.

There are also moral arguments saying that certain things are inhumane and the public must protect the individual.

Natural monopolies such as the roads should be public, as should natural resources such as water and mineral mining. I'd also nationalise the banking system but that's subject to some debate.

I see a lot of superficial responses here.
How about the waste that happens when you got 10 companies researching and developing what is essentially the same product with minor differences?
How about the waste of a society that requires each product of a certain type to be advertised?
You got 20 smartphone companies and each needs to do its research, produce its products and advertise them...
And of course, most smartphones are essentially the same within several rough price ranges.
And can nobody give any reasons why a country would want to say, encourage its own farmers with subsidies and all sorts of tax cuts or write offs?

cont
How about talking about the whole economic system of a country? I see nobody referencing this.
Surely a country with natural resources located in the middle east needs to address its economics in a different way than switzerland or the US.
How about the impact of privatization on economic disparity?
I expected more of Veeky Forums
Not to say im against privatization but the above points need to at least be addressed in some way before stating "Privatizing goods will lower prices and improve quality with the exception of those non-excludable, non-rival goods you fucking retard".

The extreme competition is what fuels efficient research and development. If Microsoft never had any competition Bill Gates could literally jerk off in his office all day and we'd still have windows 2000.

The rich arab gulf countries have plenty of inequality. The royal natives don't have to work while the immigrants don't see much of that money. It's pretty Fascist but obviously it's insensitive to criticize shitskins or something

>In general privatization leads to efficiency which in general is good. This is obvious when realizing that private businesses need to be efficient tovl survive. It doesn't matter what the intentions are if you waste all your resources.
In general privatization also leads to those services being shut down and not surviving.

>How about the waste that happens when you got 10 companies researching and developing what is essentially the same product with minor differences?
Offset by competition. If there's 10 companies, that may be because that seems to be the optimal firm size regarding economies of scale. Not much R&D for commodity goods except ways to bring the prices down.

If you're talking about high tech stuff where they are seeking exclusive rights though a patent monopoly and redundant R&D, yes it's somewhat wasteful. The competition at least serves as a check against extreme tunnel vision.

>How about the waste of a society that requires each product of a certain type to be advertised?
Pretty wasteful

>You got 20 smartphone companies and each needs to do its research, produce its products and advertise them...
Competition drives innovation in this sense. R&D per unit isn't that high.

>And of course, most smartphones are essentially the same within several rough price ranges.

>And can nobody give any reasons why a country would want to say, encourage its own farmers with subsidies and all sorts of tax cuts or write offs?
Corn subsidies are retarded. I don't want to be flippant, but the only point of corn subsidies is corporate lobbying and funneling pseudo-welfare/workfare into poor rural states.

Adam Smith on landlords

>I didn't actually read his arguments therefore they don't exist

>we'd still have windows 2000.
the world would be a better place desu

and all the nerds would still be running open source shareware linux

>Is it always good to privatize stuff? Should everything be privatized?
No

>What are the advantages and disadvantages?
Muh property and all that entails

>What are the positive sides of protectionist policies? Giving tax cuts to local businesses or/and placing tariffs on incoming goods?
Only on infant industries during their development, not long term perpetual subsidization.

>Why not simply stop protecting everyone and let the market wreck the party that isnt competitive(not taking sides simply asking a question)?
Because they'll wreck the consumer.

>What are the downsides of private competition
Competition often times creates needless redundancy and leads to the destruction of value instead of the creation of value. Not all forms of competition are good. It's only when firms compete to do the most good (produce goods, provide utility) for the least cost is it good.

Infant industry argument is incredibly weak. Foreign Direct Investors with advantages like capital and large economies of scale and can prop up those industries and hire the local populace.

>The extreme competition is what fuels efficient research and development. If Microsoft never had any competition Bill Gates could literally jerk off in his office all day and we'd still have windows 2000.

If you compare how much Linux has advanced in the past 15 years vs. how much Windows has advanced, Microsoft starts looking pretty damn inefficient considering how much money they have to throw into the development of their OS.

>Is it always good to privatize stuff?
No. While the general trend may be that privatization is good, there are certain areas where market failures mean that it's better to have the government manage that sector - usually things like emergency services or certain aspects of healthcare. When done right, it encourages competition and innovation. However, in areas where privatization isn't as effective, the market can fail, hurting the consumer more than the government could ever manage. It's especially bad with local monoplies in things like the telecom industry.

>What are the positive sides of protectionist policies?
Protectionist policies and similar targeted taxes tend to be done in the strategic interest of the country. The idea is to make some kind of strategically necessary but naturally uneconomical industry viable so that the country is less dependent on other countries for its survival or economic well-being. In America, the best examples are farming - most farms in the US wouldn't be viable without subsidies - and the defense industy - it's common practice to cycle contracts around so the "Big 3" keep afloat.

The real problem is that state control over even small sectors of the economy is very difficult to do right, and the wider the scope of regulation, the harder it becomes to implement well. Just as decentralized governments tend to be better at reacting to the needs of the locals, decentralizing economies through privatization allows for an economy that better reacts to market changes. Unfortunately, that theory doesn't hold 100% of the time, so the government has to intervene in certain sectors to prevent market failures or prop up unviable but important markets.

>large economies of scale
Have you considered that they just have a competitive advantage and you should trade with them? You're assuming your ideal economy with subsidized factory workers is the ideal state of your national economy.

Case by case basis.
Some you can and and should and others you can but shouldn't.
Also you can have the gov compete with private entities as well.

>open source
disgusting communism

>natural resources such as water and mineral mining.

With the exception of water (even that is pushed to be privatized in developing nations with the typical results expected) you do know nationalizing your minerals will get you killed?

Bitch all you like, but if "functional" is your primary concern, closed source software doesn't even come close to being as good. Shit, you can't even remotely manage a Windows server without some ugly hacks.

Also, it's not communism. You can sell or profit from free(libre) software all you like, which is how Red Hat became a billion dollar company.

>what is open source development.
We dont need microsoft, we have linux you dummy. If windows didnt exist there would be several distros that would supply an easy to use linux.

samfagging is pathetic son.

>implying that's what red hat does
>RED hat
gommie pls

Sounds like you're just mad because you're emotionally invested in using inferior products.

I was an ancap for awhile. I think over time I've learned that everything is a balance. I tend to believe that less regulation is good, but that some of it provides for the best possible society.

AAAAAYYY you study economics too! Wow I thought actual economic students were a rare species on Veeky Forums.

It's not the privatization so much as the decentralization.

More competitive markets tend to keep prices and as a result inflation down which maximizes consumers utility or spending power and also are generally better for workers as competitive markets offer higher wages than state owned industries as they're usually the Monopsany of the market (The only employer).

However, essential services such as policing, health care and fire fighters should at all times be kept under the public sector no matter what the retarded ancaps say. You privitze those markets then you pretty much just give those services for the rich to keep as the poor won't be able to get enough funding for them and just end up creating ghettos around the city.

Going off on the fire department example: Even for a local privatized department you would still have a free-rider problem. What happens if my house burns down because I didn't pay for McDonald's Fire Department(tm) and the fire spreads to burn down a hospital next door? Should the fire department still put my fire out for free? How would they determine if the fire would spread? Would I be charged with murder for simply not paying for one of the private fire department's fees? So many questions need to be addressed because of the externalities

Bakabt being privatized wasn't good.

A private fire department would look more like the one in ancient Rome where they'd demand a stupendous fee to put out a fire and you'd probably accept it either way cause you don't have a choice.

However, an ancap would argue that the invisible hand would guide the most price competitive dick head with a bucket to the fire scene.

Do you have reading comprehension issues? You must have a huge ideological bias if that's how you interpreted it.

The benefit mostly comes from decentralization and independent accountability, not the fact that it is privately owned for profit. Private ownership just tends fulfill those criteria.

Privatization is correlated with decentralization, and centralization with nationalization. If you studied economics, you find the self regulation or markets comes from competition, and the issues with centralization exist in the private sector as well.

Furthermore, it's clear that you've only taken babby's first neoliberal apologist economics because you fail to notice the flaw in your own argument. You're implying local means there's one firm per locale, which is centralization under a single authority in that locale. Decentralization implies there would be multiple competing firms with overlapping territories.

I'm not even an ancap nor do I believe in the privatization of public services, but stop patting yourself on your own fucking back for getting a B+ in econ 101.

Lol Anyone can take free software and profit form it inn so many ways, maintenance, consultation, modification. Even if the product is free the services people pay for make up for it.

It is in the nature of any organization to serve the interests of those who rule it, in the case of private firms, this is the people who make a profit from their continued profitability. In the case of governments, this is either the political bodies that rule over the institutions, and by extention (at least in well-functioning democracies) the people. In examples where the inefficiencies (or over-efficiencies) of privatization will have an extreme negative consequence on the livelihoods of people, such as water supplies, energy networks and other sorts of infrastructure, it should be nationalized. In the case of more "luxury-oriented" goods such as consumer electronics the constant stride towards having the best product benefits the consumer more than a national body providing the service to an extent of functionality, and should therefore be privatized.