There is an old marxist saying that that only thing the bourgeoisie nationalises is the national debt - ie enterprises that are bankrupt and useless in their existing from for the purposes of accumulation of capital.
Is is actually a quote from Marx or Engels?
About the London Underground Blair and the Labour government are intent on raising capital for modernisation by means of a "partnership" between the state company and private finance. This is being used in the health service and in education as the "private finance intitiative".
It is a different concept from wholesale privatisation. Similarly the government looks as if after the Paddington crash it will bring the railway system under much more social control, but this too is different from re-nationalisation.
Perhaps it is more of what the Swedish business representative called the "networked economy".
Exactly where surplus value goes in such an economy, and how exploitation occurs, I suspect is pretty mysterious.
Chris Burford
London