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How exactly do European countries like the Nordic ones and others decide on how much of their economies should be run by the government vs how much should be in private hands?
Like Norway:
Quote:
The industrial sector is mainly under private ownership, but the state is the largest owner of some of Norway’s largest corporations, such as Statoil and Norsk Hydro. Statoil (the Norwegian state-owned oil company) occupies a dominant position in Norway’s subsea oil industry, as well as in the petro-chemical, oil refining and oil marketing industries.
Agriculture and fisheries are in private hands, apart from the approximately ten per cent of productive forestry land owned by the state.
Smaller countries generally, have a need to have more basic things like utilities etc, at least initially set up by government, because the capital costs involved make it difficult for private companies to get bank financing. A lot of national airlines were founded this way. Once up and running successfully they are often sold to the private sector.
How exactly do European countries like the Nordic ones and others decide on how much of their economies should be run by the government vs how much should be in private hands?
Like Norway:
That's an easy question to answer, as apart from a few strategic areas or companies everything is in private hands. Some companies have a minimum requirement of state ownership by law to ensure that it doesn't fall into the 'wrong' hands. There are some few state monopolies, but except these 99% of the economy is running with the fuel of private enterprise.
With Norway having a state owned oil industry how have they avoided the corruption issues that we've seen with other countries that operate state owned oil like in Mexico and some African countries?
With Norway having a state owned oil industry how have they avoided the corruption issues that we've seen with other countries that operate state owned oil like in Mexico and some African countries?
Well, first and foremost: proper oversight of how the revenues are used.
This document gives you a pretty good overview of the basics of their system. You might google specifics, if you are interested in it:
With Norway having a state owned oil industry how have they avoided the corruption issues that we've seen with other countries that operate state owned oil like in Mexico and some African countries?
The oil industry is only partly owned by the government.
Statoil (Global Fortune top 100 company): 67% state ownership
Norsk Hydro: 34.26% state ownership
Aker Solutions: 30% state ownership
I saw a lot of state-owned stuff become privately-owned. In France when I was a kid the postal service was state-owned, it was cheap and efficient, and the postman was always the same guy we knew (his daughter was in our school and we'd see him often).
In the 90s they started selling it to make it cheaper and even more efficient, but generally the service is worse (the delivery people are never the same persons, so they always confuse street addresses, more often than not my parents end up with the neighbours' mail and vice-versa), and the prices have gone up exponentially (which is also related to the general international context).
I'm certainly not saying everything should be state-owned, definitely not, but some things maybe should remained state-owned if they work well.
I actually listed the Finnish state-owned companies just a while ago when it came up in another thread, let me paste them here as well.
100% of equity required by the state:
Alko - state alcohol monopoly (this is socialism)
Arctia Shipping - ice breaker fleet
CSC - computing, data processing, university research
Finavia - airport air and ground services and management
Finnpilot - maritime pilot education
Finnvera - financing institution, banking, investment (making money for the state using capitalism)
Finrail - rail network management
Hansel - procurement
HAUS - education of government management
Leijona Catering - military food supply
Meritaito - management of maritime shipping lanes
Motiva - electric grid management
Posti - national postal service
Solidium - state investment (making money for the state using capitalism)
Suomen Erillisverkot - essential telecommunications
Suomen Lauttaliikenne - ferry infrastructure
Suomen Teollisuussijoitus - state industrial investment (making money for the state using capitalism)
Suomen Viljava - grain management and storage
Tapio - state forest management and industry
VTT - state technological research
VR - state railways monopoly (this is socialism)
Veikkaus - state gambling monopoly (this is socialism)
Yleisradio - state public broadcasting (thank goodness for this)
Well, those are them. Most are essential corporations for the state to function also in a time of crisis, and except Alko, VR and Veikkaus are playing by the rules of capitalism.
There are some companies who require a 50.1% state ownership, mostly because of the reasons above:
Boreal Kasvinjalostus - plant refining
Finnair - airline service (BTW the oldest airline company in the world)
Fortum - energy and refining
Kemijoki - energy
Neste - oil refining
Patria - military equipment
Suomen Rahapaja - national mint (producing also € of small countries like Estonia and Ireland, but also producing all Swedish Crown coins !!!)
TYR Finnfund - investment banking
Tietokarhu - IRS software
Vapo - forestry
All these work as normal companies, just like in Norway.
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