Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit
nicoburns | on: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
> but what’s the solution?

I strongly suspect it's a variant on capitalism that:

1. Recognises that some industries (utilities, healthcare, etc) are not well suited to market provision and are state funded. i.e. the sort social provisions that many of the nordic countries have.

2. Recognises that extreme wealth inequalities invalidate the key principle that capitalist economics is premised on (that the market value of a good or service closely approximates it's societal value) and therefore imposes much stronger progressive taxes on very high earners to effective cap how much wealth a single individual can control.

> early stage capitalism (lack of regulation and all)

High tax rates (90% in some cases) and all

loading story #42764043
TheCapeGreek | parent
Point 1 tends to fall apart when the government can't control its own coffers and after a few decades of mismanagement decides that privatisation is the main way to reduce their debt burden. So I think this one ebbs and flows over time generally.

See South Africa for an example. Power production is slowly opening up to market forces as an alleviation to the extreme mismanagement and corruption of the last 2-3 decades.

On the other hand, there are also some alternatives, like "devolution" of state services to the provincial or municipal level. The local Cape Town government is busy trying to gain control over the city's train lines from the government org that owns them, to provide better service.

nicoburns | root | parent
There's no substitute for competence and integrity, but private entities are just as capable of being inept and corrupt. Look at companies like Enron or Comcast.