Competition is possible, it just is rarely worth it. NYC subways worked fairly well as a competitive system until the city started passing maximum price laws (which in turn meant they couldn't maintain the system and eventually the city took it over). However the competition meant redundant service to the dense areas as each built there, at the expense of less dense areas that should have got service. It also meant that where lines did cross each other (a complex task even in 3d) they generally didn't built transfers even though a single system would have.

The claim competition is not possible is therefor false. We can debate if we want it, but it is incorrect to claim it cannot work.

Competition in rail does exist in the UK and privatization turned around the network's fortunes. The ridership graph is very clear:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatisation_of_British_Rail#...

Traffic dropped a lot in the Great Depression but stabilized immediately after, and remained stable right up until nationalization in 1948 at which point the network entered a period of continuous decline, eventually falling to a level of ridership last seen in 1865. That is a staggering failure.

The moment the railways were privatized ridership starts going up again, despite the privatization not being complete and being unable to roll back the huge damage done under the decades of state ownership (before nationalization the railway companies were entirely self sufficient, which they no longer are).

So to argue that privatization makes "no sense" you have to ignore the fact that when privately managed usage of the railways goes up and when run by the state it goes down. If the goal of the railway is to be used, then it does make sense.

Thus my comment about competition regulation.

If "food" were a singular universally used product, and units of food were totally interchangeable I'd say that food should be treated like a utility. Instead there's a lot of different types of food from ultra-processed crap that's sat on a shelf for years to whole/fresh foods and everything from the skill of the manufacturer/baker/chef to the quality of the ingredients used will result in massive differences in the food and its costs.

That isn't really the case with water and power (or even internet access). Water is water. Electricity is Electricity. There's no artisanal organic Electricity made from the finest ingredients that powers your stuff any better. You either have a safe, functioning product or it isn't. Everyone needs the exact same stuff, it makes sense for the government to supply it. Not everyone needs, or even wants, the same foods.

Not normally considered infrastructure.

Food distribution networks might be infrastructure, but POS stores aren't, generally. Drinking water supplies are infrastructure; drinking fountains aren't.

Food production is largely nationalised due to heavy subsidies provided to farmers. Different countries have different policies here, but in my country of Australia it meets the definition of a nationalised industry by everything but name.

Food distribution as not, and again in my country we are having constant investigations into monopolistic anti consumer behaviour by the large supermarkets.

they sell water, too!