A little lesson for those who would nationalise everything

As we're being told many people - more so the young and inexperienced of course - are in favour of nationalising near everything. We've even seen one claim that the banking system is a natural monopoly and therefore should be nationalised.

We who are rich in maturity could, as we all are of course, carry on reminding people of how bad things were when nationalisation was rife. Sadly, none of those Marinas and Allegros have survived long enough to be usable as present day examples of the horrors that were.

So, instead, how things work out elsewhere:

Also, there are widespread objections among consumers against LPG cylinder price.

They said they have to pay different prices for a same product of a company in different areas.

A 12.5kg cylinder sells at Tk950 in Dhaka, while it is priced between Tk1,100 and Tk1,200 in Rajshahi, Khulna and Barisal.

On the other hand, a cylinder of state-run LP Gas Ltd sells at Tk800, though it is priced at Tk700. This type of cylinders, however, is not available in markets due to a supply shortage.

This is not an aberration. In Venezuela they insist that the government make food nice and cheap. There is no food in Venezuela. Housing was nice and cheap in the Soviet bloc - there was a serious shortage of housing for the 70 years of the Union's existence. Bangladesh has both government and privately supplied LPG. The government stuff isn't available.

Nationalisation and the political control of prices - along with that absence of the profit motive - will mean that everything is nice and cheap and you can't have any because of a supply shortage. As it did, so it will.