State owned monopolies

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State owned monopolies were an essay subject in this years gymnasium exams in Finland and I tought it would be nice to hear if these are internationally common.

The point with these monopolies as I see it is to control the usage of products and services which may be considered harmful to the society and the economy in private hands and gives the state a bigger power in regulating the prices of the given products and services. Plus they bring in a good deal of money to the state.

In Finland we have two major state owned monopolies, the first one is in charge of selling alcohol and will probably remain a monopoly since other European states use the same system too (well atleast Sweden ).

The second monopoly handles betting and lottery. Now some international betting companies have claimed the betting monopoly to be illegal because the Finnish law won't let them in the Finnish markets. So now they've complained about this to the EU courts and I'm pretty sure that EU decides to abolish the Finnish monopoly (if our government will allow it ofcourse) and allow competition in the betting business.

So does your country have any state owned monopolies? If so what kind of monopolies do you have? I would also like to hear what do you think about the system of having the state control some products and services. Finally I would like to hear your oppinion about should Finland be allowed to keep its monopoly in betting services.

 

We have a state-owned betting service monopoly here in Poland as well. I don't really think it desperately needs to be state-owned, but betting companies should be controlled. At any rate, if the monopoly is to exist at all, it by no means should be privately owned. Privately owned monopolies are a big no-no. Unfortunately, the was copyrights are handled helps emulate the effect of a private monopoly.

Edit: Mail is a monopoly here, too. Some more or less private looking company does some kind of deliveries, but that would be it. Basically, it's a state-owned company. I think they would allow competitors in the market, if they met some requirements. Like it was with phones. Municipal transport is not really legally exclusive, but it's a de facto monopoly practically everywhere. They probably also hold some monopoly on some precious metal related things.

[ September 30, 2004, 18:02: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

I'm pretty bad at keeping up with who actually owns what in Britain, but I'm fairly sure the previous Tory government managed to sell off just about everything that had a monopoly (Except the ones Labour have managed to do since, like Air Traffic Control and the London Underground)

 

We have the betting monopoly to and we (the Danish state) are also being dragged in court by the same betting companies

Mail (snail mail) is also monopolized in Denmark, well at least letters are, there are some package delivery services but they are very small, so most packages go true PostDanmark.

Luckily we don't have the weird State owned Alcohol you Fins and Swedes have ....maybe that's why so many Swede come to Denmark to buy cheap alcohol.

 

I can't think of any state-owned monopolies in the U.S. - not the mail, not betting services, not alcohol. In fact the only case I can think of where monopolies are even tolerated (and this isn't state it's private) is in the case of utility companies. In some areas there is only one entity to provide you with electrical power, so essentially, it's them or no electricity. In these instances they are very tightly regulated by the government to prevent price gouging.

 

In Sweden:

Lottery, gambling and the sorts.

Alcohol.


Now, here's something to think about. Socialism(in some degree) creates Goverment Monopolies, or capitalism who creates Civil Monopolies. Which one is the best?

 

Ah, garbage recollection. One of my favourite voting issues. It's handeld in the way, that different companies offer their services and solutions to the community council and we decide then, which offer we like best.

Then there are the federal train services. Regional transportation is a communal issue. And sadly, I miss I moved somewhere where the city decided to privatize the local transportation. So I have to deal with a whole lot of crap and incompetence. I long for the state owned reliably bus services from where I lived earlier.

A somewhat related issue are companies that are owned by they state and operate on the free market. As state owned companies usually are highly effective and competitive where I live, they serve as gold-donkeys for the Canton or Community.

I think strict regulation of alcohol are in Western Europe only found on the British Isles, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. Must be a protestant control your neighbour thing. And monopolies in connection with heavy taxation only Sweden, Finland and Norway. That's why touritsts of that region have the reputation to be constantly drunk as soon they go south. I even think that the observable inability of people from the British Isles to deal with alcohol is a result of the way their goverment patronises them. As soon they're somewhere where's no bell ringing, they're left on their own devices and need about a half-year to learn to know when they get their fill, without the bell they're conditioned to obey.

 

Denmark? I never thought as our Alcohol to be restricted, a bit over taxed, but restricted. Until 4-5 years ago everybody could buy alcohol and I mean everybody, even children, now you have to be 16, but still I wouldn't call that strict regulation
And that was only because all statistic showed that the Danish youth was those who drank most Alcohol in eu, Go us

A Bit off topic, I know

 

@dmc

I forgot about the lotteries. When they said "betting" I was thinking along the lines of casinos, which are definitely privately owned.

I remember in my childhood of cable being a licensed monopoly but I thought that went the way of the dodo. About 10 years or so ago, the FCC started allowing competition between cable companies. I live in the Baltimore area, and I have my choice of three - although I get DirecTV, so I actually don't use any of them. It is entirely possible though that in some areas (like small towns) they still only have one option for cable.

Sewage removal is generally handled by some level of government, so that has to be added to the list. Garbage collection can be done by private companies however, so I certainly wouldn't consider that absolute.

Also, and this just occurred to me - I think my parents told me that they are now allowing competition in utility services as well. They now have a choice of one of two electricity providers.

Bottom line: with the exception of sewage and state-sponsored lotteries, monopolies of any type in the U.S. are not the norm.

 

There is this funny law that prohibits selling alcohol during weekends, particularly on sunday, through normal retailers, i.e. the desperately needed bottles to carry with for the beach. I'm not known to be tolerant when foreign laws in foreign countries interfere with my scheduled plans. Alcohol is supposed to be available at any time at any place. Everything else is unacceptable regulation. Not to mention queing at the end of this rows of Swedish and Norweagian dudes, buying their monthly supply.

I know that Danemark is in this way very different from the two neighbours in the north. (Hm, propably because you, like the Dutch, are Germans ) But still don't compare to rest of Europe in availabilty.

If that was so. The problem with publicly held firms, in contrast to "really" privatley owned Incorporations, is that the allegation of "property" is nothing but a joke. That's why there is so much inefficiency, mismanagement and in the worst case, cheating happening in those. Without the ability to actually exert property, like being able to influence decision and control the balance sheet, this "property" is no property. And most systems of revisions have failed in a lot of countries. Until this question is solved, I tend to think that the omnipresent principle is, that inefficiency is an unavoidable function of size. The bigger, the worse.

[ September 30, 2004, 20:23: Message edited by: Iago ]

 

We only have mail as a government monopoly in New Zealand. It used to be the rail-system too but that went belly up. In fact a private company bought ALL the railroad tracks in New Zealand off the government for $1NZ (about 50 US cents). That's alot of metal.