ELI5: why do governments insist on making public utilities private?

I don't want to get into a fight here but I'll just point out some things that you didn't mention.

Infrastructure

It's because people don't want to pay into the funds that support the infrastructure. If anything, this makes a case for government intervention but it's mostly the fact that this public good is not being funded because it isn't doing well, and it doesn't get funded because people think the money is being wasted, and so on.

military inefficiency

military is an inherently public good (unless you think it's a good idea for the military to be unaccountable for the public good), so this means that it is the fault of the designers, not inherently.

congress, FBI

This is not a result of government handling but the cause of all the problems.

public v private schools

There are some schools that are private, cheap, and do not teach anything. There are also schools that are private, expensive, and do not teach anything. Since schools are not federal entities they are not managed by the "government." Rather they are funded by the government.

Overall I think you're mixing up cause vs effect. The reason everything is so bad is because the government refuses to fix it, not because it is inherently bad.

/r/explainlikeimfive Thread Parent