people think of nationalization as more radical, more dangerous, than regulation, but for deeply regulated industries that may be misguided. 1/
like nationalization, regulation usurps control. but often clumsily. pervasive regulation blurs lines of accountability, public actors point fingers at private "owners", and vice versa. 2/
obviously it depends on the nature and pervasiveness of the regulation. for industries in which private actors are numerous and diverse in how they behave, where regulation imposes just shared limits and requirements, this is argument doesn't hold. think restaurants. 3/
but for industries where regulation very strongly shapes private action, in ways that are pretty homogenous across not-so-many, not-so-different actors, explicit public control may be preferable, because it would be *less* dangerous, there would be clearer accountability. 4/
think utilities, big finance, and perhaps soon, big tech. 5/
if u dislike this, perhaps it's worth trying to figure out how to restructure these industries to be less like "natural monopolies", more like restaurants: ecosystems of diverse, competitive, not especially powerful entities, for which we can afford to eschew public control. /fin
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