The Netherlands: Going Private

Leave it to the Dutch to be different. While industry is being nationalized from Italy to Indonesia, The Netherlands has decided to move in just the opposite direction. Before the Dutch Parliament this week is a bill that will make a private company out of the government-held Dutch State Mines, a $300 million organization. The move, which would be equivalent in the U.S. to sending the Tennessee Valley Authority off on its own, is supported by all political parties except the inconsequential Communists. The reason is that the Dutch understand what nationalizers do not: in today's highly complex industrial world,...