The flowchart shows privatized JR assumed 40% of debt. I don't think "small fraction" is the right description. By the way, the flowchart was the plan, but it didn't go according to the plan. Land sales never happened for complicated reasons.
I think you are moving the goalpost. Yes, privatization itself can be distasteful. But Shinkansen was privatized, not handed out. JR paid for the privilege, and it was fair price (at least it was market price). With the benefit of hindsight, it can be argued it should have been more, but JR took real risk. Money printing wasn't the foregone conclusion.
I agree JNR could have been normalized without privatization, and probably should have. On the other hand, I don't think it was about paying public servants. Normalization of JR was mostly about making obvious but unpopular decisions, and that's in fact one thing the private does better than the democratically accountable public.
Alright, that's a totally fair argument. And like I said, JR works well now. There are perhaps arguments around the edges about opportunity costs, but there is now a healthy structure in place (at least it seems to be so from the outside). And there are trains that work!
Hard to argue that the overall results are bad.
(I do think that "paying a fair price" is not a great argument when you are the central government and can print your currency, but Japan is not the US or Russia and it was the 1960s...)
I think you are moving the goalpost. Yes, privatization itself can be distasteful. But Shinkansen was privatized, not handed out. JR paid for the privilege, and it was fair price (at least it was market price). With the benefit of hindsight, it can be argued it should have been more, but JR took real risk. Money printing wasn't the foregone conclusion.
I agree JNR could have been normalized without privatization, and probably should have. On the other hand, I don't think it was about paying public servants. Normalization of JR was mostly about making obvious but unpopular decisions, and that's in fact one thing the private does better than the democratically accountable public.