Is privatisation dead?

There is an excellent article by Richard Wachman and Tim Webb in this morning's Guardian, which asks whether the idea of privatisation is now dead. I have abridged it as it's quite long but you can read the full piece from the link at the bottom.

Have we reached the end of the line for privatisation?
First it was the banks, now the government is taking over a key rail service. But it may not be enough to reverse the process begun by Thatcher.

Nationalisation used to be a dirty word, but now it's back in vogue. The government's move last week to nationalise the east coast rail franchise comes in the wake of the state's takeover of parts of the UK banking system, all of which has raised fundamental questions about the success of market-driven capitalism. That may seem strange given that over the past quarter of a century, it has been a one-way street with the transfer of assets from the public to private sector, a process that was the centrepiece of Margaret Thatcher's governments in the 1980s. For years, no one questioned the prevailing orthodoxy that the running of companies was best left to the market and that managers would perform better if they were answerable to shareholders rather than civil servants.

...

But since the collapse of the banking system and the state rescue of capitalism itself by government and central banks, the wind is blowing from a different direction. That doesn't mean that British industry is about to undergo wholesale nationalisation, but many believe that the pendulum has swung too far the other way. Blind faith in global market forces over three decades is viewed as just as short-sighted and dangerous (more so, it seems) as over-dependence on the discredited socialist ideologies that played out in the 1970s. No one should be under any illusion that the world has changed a great deal since Margaret Thatcher left Downing Street 20 years ago. Nationalisation, raising taxes and Keynesian economics are back in fashion. And many of the virtues that she claimed for the market place have been shattered by the greed and stupidity of bankers, and the short-sightedness of politicians on both sides of the divide.

Source: The Guardian 05 July 2009