Public Ownership of Natural Monopolies

Some things work better in public hands, because there's no real competition possible for them anyway. Power grids. Rail lines. The core information and data networks everything else runs on. These are natural monopolies. A market can't discipline a monopoly. It can only be extracted from by one.

Owning these things publicly isn't about doing away with private business. Private companies can still build the equipment, run the innovation, and compete on top of the shared foundation. What shouldn't be handed over is the foundation itself.