UK announces first publicly owned electricity company since the 1990s

[gagzus 25,712]

 

[27monster27 16,190]

Finally something happy to read.

[PartySick 174,949]

I know capitalists are terrified of things like this but I never understood why public necessities, like electricity, weren't publicly owned, publicly funded, and publicly regulated via representatives that the public elects.

[SlowLoris 1,238]

2 hours ago, PartySick said:

I know capitalists are terrified of things like this but I never understood why public necessities, like electricity, weren't publicly owned, publicly funded, and publicly regulated via representatives that the public elects.

Many used to be... It's just decades of neoliberal policies that have eroded that away.  

[gagzus 25,712]

7 hours ago, PartySick said:

I know capitalists are terrified of things like this but I never understood why public necessities, like electricity, weren't publicly owned, publicly funded, and publicly regulated via representatives that the public elects.

Privatisation happened a lot in the UK in the 80s because our then-government argued that state-run monopolies lacked competition and therefore did not have as much value as private-ownership companies. It also at the time helped us reduce taxation in the country.

The only good “privatisation” we got was the Housing Act 1990 which allowed people who lived in council houses (state owned houses) has the right to buy them for themselves and many did.

It was also used to dismantle Trade Union power which was massively high in the 80s, especially after the coal mining sector in the North was shut down. By privatising sections of public owned monopolies unions could no longer destabilise the government through industry-wide strikes. Instead you could only do it on a company by company basis. For example instead of every electrician in the country going on strike, now it went company by company.

We have had SOME publicly owned energy companies since the 90s but they aren’t as big or widely used as the bigger private companies. You’d be hard pressed to find a British household that doesn’t use one of the privatised companies, which is why we constantly advertise “switch over” economy because of consumer choice and competitive pricing. Someone in the same street as you could pay £100 more or less than you a year just by having a different company and different usage of energy per day.

And of course, corporate greed has increased over the years greatly, when privatisation started happening in the UK the economy was suffering and it provided temporary relief through the likes of tax cuts. But once many sectors became private, they became autonomous. 

An example of how greedy and vile corporations are; last year during school holidays in the summer many companies were told to remove VAT from child places/ticketing etc to make it more affordable for parents to do things with their kids. So they did. But to compensate they temporarily upped their base prices to the price it was with VAT included, making no difference because it was company discretion. Then once it stopped, they lowered their prices again but they stayed the same because of VAT anyway.

Edited 3 hours ago by gagzus