Yeah, publicly owned power isn’t all up-sides. In my state the government owns the power company, and for a long time we’ve had the most expensive power in the Country. That only changed when the invasion of Ukraine caused gas prices to skyrocket (because my state extracts huge amounts of gas, and the government gets it at a fixed price).
> The post office system is socialist, so are functions like public roads, and fire and police services.
I’d argue that having the government provide a service isn’t enough to call something socialist. In “The Wealth of Nations”, Adam Smith said that in a free-market economy, the governments role was to provide defence, law and order, and public works (eg. roads and education). If we’re using Marx’s definitions for communism, then surely we have to use Smith’s definitions for Capitalism.