Spare me all the piety over privatisation

The expanse of three lanes stretched ahead of us. We were outside Marseille and had the good fortune to be on a largely empty French toll road. Machines collected fares automatically depending on the distance travelled. For this seamless operation, we have a private company, Vinci Autoroutes, to thank.

Not far east, in Genoa, a rival motorway operator called Autostrade is counting the cost of its failure to maintain a major bridge properly. The bridge collapse cost the lives of 43 people and prompted calls for the company’s nationalisation.

Whenever a major service fails, the temptation to leap on a big, punishing “solution”, like nationalisation or privatisation, seems to be irresistible in much of Europe. In Britain, this disease is out of control thanks to Corbynism.

Take the example of Birmingham Prison, recently put into special measures after inspectors found it awash with blood, vomit, drugs and sleeping guards. The prison was operated by G4S, so it naturally triggered a round of furious denunciations of privatisation from Labour and its allies. Few thought it odd that there was little soul-searching over a similarly catastrophic situation uncovered at Liverpool Prison earlier this year. This prison, you see, was state-run, but naturally the culprit could not be state ownership. It was, of course, austerity.

This stupid political ding-dong makes it hard to debate service failures sensibly. Studies into privatisation since the Eighties have found that it sometimes delivers on its promises and sometimes doesn’t. In some industries and countries, state ownership has led to under-investment and over-inflated pay. In others, private ownership has led to sky-high fares and diffused accountability. Wholesale nationalisations or privatisations are rarely “solutions” in their own right.

Similarly, the approach to service provision on continental Europe is

Smooth ride: a privately run toll road on the continent

neither as efficient nor as socialist as the British Left would like us to believe. Most European health and pension systems are based on a contributory, insurance model. In France, energy companies have a large state ownership component, but many of its motorways are private toll roads. In Sweden, private companies are allowed to operate schools for profit. This patchwork of models is infinitely interesting. Unfortunately, rather than doing the difficult work of understanding them, Britain is stuck in a Marxist rut, screaming about ownership of the means of production. It’s very boring.