
Henry George, in his 1891 Populist plank, included a well crafted plank that included a definition of where the distinction between a public set of goods and services can be managed by the "market," Left up to individual initiative, and where it shouldn't. The distinction rests on the question of "where free competition becomes impossible," and his examples; "telegraph, railroads, water and gas supplies", today would include all telecomms, internet, electrical power, etc... are as valid today as in his time (1890s). And they hing on the term "free competition."