Electricity, gas, telecommunications, water and the Internet are four that leap immediately to mind.
Quite frankly, I can't think of a worse idea than to do exactly what you describe above. By making it so that governent is the only provider of the utilities you list above, you ensure only that those utilities will become poorer in quality, more expensive, and less reliable. I absolutely shudder at the idea of having to rely on an agency like the Massachuetts Fuel Oil Department to provide my heating oil in the winter . . . such a department would be filled to the gills with nothing but politically-appointed hacks with no vested interest at all in providing a good service and/or product at a good price. Because these hacks know that no matter what kind of job they do, good or bad, they get paid, and they aren't going to get fired because they're connected.
> By making it so that governent is the only provider of the utilities you list above, you ensure only that those utilities will become poorer in quality, more expensive, and less reliable.
Oddly enough, this hasn’t been the case in NZ, particularly with water.
Watercare is a company with a monopoly on the provision of water, wastewater and stormwater services to the Auckland region. It is 100% owned by the cities that make up the Auckland region: it is, essentially, a local government service.
Our potable water in Auckland is the finest in the world: it has won awards. It is very, very pure, it tastes nice, and it comes out of your tap for a ridiculously cheap price.
Only a poseur in Auckland buys bottled water: it is processed to a quality standard that is much, much lower than what comes freely from the tap. Most folks don’t know that, but it is so.
In an environment where there is no competition — but there *is* considerable political pressure to keep the population happy — Watercare have nothing to strive for except to provide the very, very best water services that they can. And so they do: their political masters make sure of that.
Sure, it is possible that private enterprise might be able to provide water cheaper. But making profit is about taking risks, and one of those risks in the provision of water would inevitably be trying to ascertain the minimum quality standard that would still pass muster, matched against the maximum amount that could be reasonably charged for this minimalist water — because that would be what drove the profit curve.
Without that profit incentive, Watercare focuses instead on providing the best available for our rates dollar. We like it like that.