Even in markets with competition, competition from the public sector is an excellent way of exerting market discipline on dysfunctional markets.
If you compare the average quality of housing in, for example, Singapore (where 90% of housing is public) and the UK it's like night and day. UK private landlords are among the laziest and most entitled in the entire world, the land use efficiency is terrible and the building quality is abysmal. Thames water wasn't the only victim of the cult of privatization.
Alas, the one UK politician that tried to fix this was treated like the a cross between the antichrist and a terrorist by the UK media oligarchs and that was enough to prevent him from fixing anything.
If anything the NHS is probably in the crosshairs of the investor cult.
If you compare the average quality of housing in, for example, Singapore (where 90% of housing is public) and the UK it's like night and day. UK private landlords are among the laziest and most entitled in the entire world, the land use efficiency is terrible and the building quality is abysmal. Thames water wasn't the only victim of the cult of privatization.
Alas, the one UK politician that tried to fix this was treated like the a cross between the antichrist and a terrorist by the UK media oligarchs and that was enough to prevent him from fixing anything.
If anything the NHS is probably in the crosshairs of the investor cult.