So, why is the right so keen on privatisation anyway? After all, we already own these assets. Through the government, each and every New Zealander has a 4.4 millionth (roughly) share in the ownership of our state assets. We all benefit from them, through lower taxes and better schools and hospitals. The only way that that share can be increased is at the expense of our fellow New Zealanders. The only way I can benefit more is by stealing from someone else.
And that is privatisation in a nutshell: the few stealing from the many. Something we all own is stolen from us, and distributed to a tiny clique of rich pricks and wealthy foreigners. They gain, we lose.
If this happened in a place like Tonga, or Saudi Arabia, or Nigeria, we'd have no illusions that it was theft, the action of a self-interested kleptocratic government. So why do we tolerate it here?
