Margaret Thatcher, whose premiership defined the political and economic consensus of modern Britain, has often been erroneously credited with the statement, “the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” In fact, it would be truer to say that the problem with neoliberalism is you eventually run out of a state to strip.
Thames Water has recently won a high court bid for a £3 billion loan, further entrenching its already massive debt and further demonstrating the absurdity of our privatised water system. England and Wales are the only countries in the world to fully privatise our water and sewage systems, and there is good reason why no one else has dared copy us. There is no good reason to invite the “logic of the free market” to a monopoly. It is nonsensical to suggest that a private company motivated by a profit incentive would do a better job than a government department.
Defenders of privatisation often argue that the competition and profit incentive found within a free market system provides a better service for users, but there is no free market to be found with private water companies; England and Wales are divvied up between them, so competition is impossible.
Contrary to the idea that private companies are better equipped at running things than the state, Thames Water and other water companies have shown the myopic nature of privatisation; shareholder dividends are prioritised over water security and the financial saliency of the company, with total dividends paid since 1989 reaching £83.7bn. These companies are putting profits before people, and we are paying for it – not just in our rising costs and the pumping of raw sewage into our waterways, but also through chronic underinvestment that has left us ill-prepared for the future and our changing climate.
It is clear that Thames Water is far more concerned with the paying of dividends to shareholders than it is to providing a service that is affordable, sustainable, and functional. This is a state of affairs that is continually deteriorating and must not be allowed to continue. Nationalisation is needed, the sooner the better.
“Whistling Duck in Water” by Charles Patrick Ewing is licensed under CC BY 2.0.