We shouldn’t have electricity markets. It’s an abomination. Think about it, Amy. There can’t be an electricity market, to the extent that in your apartment, in your studio, there is one single wire coming out of the wall carrying electricity. There can’t be a market. It’s an actual monopoly. The only way we could have had a market would be if we had 50 different wires, each belonging to a different company, and we could choose which one we connect our appliances to. But, of course, that would be completely crazy, because we would have 50 grids running through every suburb, through every city, through the land. That would be so inefficient, it would be ridiculous.
So, what we have is not really markets. We have the state that steps in and pretends that it is a market, simulates a market, creating a kind of semblance of competition between producers of electricity and a semblance of competition between, supposedly, retailers of electricity, people who — companies that buy electricity wholesale and then sell it to you individually. But all that is a state creation. It’s, you know, a libertarian’s, right-winger’s nightmare, if you want. It’s a market — it’s a fake market created by the state.
— source democracynow.org | Sep 13, 2022
