@VeteranAdventureHobo
the idea of privatizing things that are necessary to live
@Spaghetto
I think the opposite; the state can't be trusted to manage utilities responsibly,
Personally, I'm on the side that States should manage utilities. I have three reasons why:
1) Economic Efficiency * : To quote Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations, who's normally used as the guru of the "Free Market", the law, borders & military and public goods should be the domain of a government. I hope the first two are obvious why it's the case, and the third is because the intent of public goods is to be a service, not to generate profit. Trying to generate profit from them actually impoverishes society with rent-seeking behaviour.
The claim that privatizing will improve efficiency has fallen on it's head multiple times in practice.
In my experience UK's cross-country rail lines are terrible compared to Germany's, France's and Italy's (and to not blame the UK too much, I'd like to point out that London's metro and London in general is cleaner and more efficient than Paris).
Also, funny thing is that the groups that own much of the UK's rail-lines are those from EU countries, which includes a majority of the French & Germans, which goes to my second point.
2) Security: COVID & the war in Ukraine should be good enough examples for why it's smart to not depend on private entities for essential or even important services, especially that of other countries. Funny thing about companies, they don't have to come from your own country.
In my experience, those who are for corporatism and privatization of public goods tend to change their tune very quickly when it's the Chinese who are intent on buying it up.
3)
Corporate ethics:
> it's much harder to get dead people to pay for products.
If they're thinking long-term, which they rarely do.
It's the next-quarter, short-term cost-cutting like with East Palestine or just affecting people who won't be part of their customer base like with Minamata Syndrome (a factory dumped mercury into water, poisoning an nearby fishing village) and every single other disaster of this type disproves that. Companies don't account for externalities of their operation.
Your example of Kashmir fits more for countries whose democracy is failing or who are already autocratic (like once again, Russia), and if that's your concern than government management of public goods is a tool, like having a strong bureaucracy or a competent military & police force.
A quasi-feudal oligarchic mess like Russia can still exist without autarky.
The Main causes? We'll, that's one subject which everyone is arguing about here.