Some ideas/direction sought on a piece on privatization I'm working on...

[saras]

16. Define "efficiency". Demonstrate a connection between "efficiency" and human happiness.

Who gives a flying fuck if it's "efficient"? What efficient means is that you have stripped from an action any possibility of serving multiple conflicting social goals, but set everything else aside in the name of one numerically abstract goal.

Privatized water has always given worse cost-benefit ratios.

For me, the most "efficient" product
1. causes zero net environmental damage, as environmental repair is impracticably expensive
2. consumes the fewest renewable resources and least energy for the human happiness provided
3. lasts as long as possible
4. doesn't require expensive recycling processes
5. is priced fairly for providing the above

but currently economics ignore all these values and measure something else entirely - which is the "efficiency" of the product's existence in the market providing profit for the the collector of the profit, regardless of whether the product is harmful to the environment and its customers or not.