This last weekend, I had an interesting conversation with a (state-oriented) leftist friend. We disagree about a lot of things. The thing we agreed on this weekend, oddly enough, was why we were talking with the lights off. The lights were off at my home (for the second multi-day stretch in about five months) because of … “privatization.”

As a libertarian, I believe that electricity (and all other commodities, services, utilities, etc.) should be provided by and purchased through the free market. As a (state-oriented) leftist, my friend believes that electricity (and at least some other commodities, services, utilities, etc.) should be provided by, and purchased through, government.

We agree that trying to split it down the middle brings out the worst of both worlds. In the case of the “privatized” situation with in my area — in which a privately owned, for-profit enterprise enjoys a government-enforced monopoly on the provision of electricity — this has twice in 2006 expressed itself in multi-day dangerous (for some, fatal) blackouts.

This week, I’d like symposium participants to discuss that phenomenon … why and how it occurs … and also to propose better ways to move currently “publicly administered” functions into the private sector without such side effects. I’ll describe my own situation in more detail in comments.