Privatization mostly only works with the government serving as a backstop for when private companies eff up. That's not real "privatization" -- it's privatizing the gains and socializing the losses. When the government maintains operational control, at least the public gets both the benefits and the losses.
And I can say from experience that private companies are just as rife with inefficiencies as public companies. You think CEOs want to take over services provided by the government just because they have some weird fetish for increasing efficiency? Or is it because they see the opportunity to pad bills and get rich and leave the risk of downside to the government.
That being said, it's simply idiotic to speak in absolutes. There are certain companies in certain sectors that can do a better job than the government at running things. Even in those sectors, there are companies that are eff ups and won't do a better job. And there are certain sectors where the government will almost always do a better job, such as monopolistic utilities -- e.g., a private water company with a monopoly on the pipes supplying water to your town has almost no incententive to give the town clean water if it is cheaper to just let the equipment turn to crap, whereas a government doing that job has to answer to the townspeople.
