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like i said in the post above you, there's little doubt that states allocate resources according to the priorities that are in place at the time. in more democratic-to-democratic socialist contexts (as over against the nationalist authoritarian states that you mention for the most part, dressed up with an arbitrary reference to india) those priorities are responsive to pressure from both within (representatives) and without (organized interest groups). private systems aren't. private systems are FAR more authoritarian. there's no recourse.
but then again we're talking about public/private distinctions in the context of yet another system that would not exist had it not been for quite massive and sustained state involvements. telecommunications? computing? the internet (arpanet anyone?)...
so no, you're not making a general statement of fact: you're making a poorly constructed argument based on arbitrarily assembled information that you're trying to fob off as a general proposition about the nature of the modern state in general.
i think the general point you're trying to argue is absurd.
[[btw don't get me wrong here politically---i'm not so far from a council communist in my heart of hearts--but this is a historical matter and there's little point in allowing us to indulge the quirk of contemporary american neo-fascism of allowing one's political viewpoint to become the main empirical center of statements about the world that's outside one's head.]]
and even back in the law-of-the-jungle capitalism days of the 19th century, it was understood---including by people who were otherwise all about private profits--that water was a **public** good par excellence and that access to it was a basic human right.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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