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Nothing inherently more efficient about private companies over public ones. Private companies have all sorts of inefficiencies that public organizations don't

Nothing inherently more efficient about private companies over public ones. Private companies have all sorts of inefficiencies that public organizations don't have, like profit and other requirements. You can send mail across the country via USPS for $.50. Or, you could pay $8 to send it privately via UPS or FedEx.

nordsieck 9y ago
> You can send mail across the country via USPS for $.50. Or, you could pay $8 to send it privately via UPS or FedEx. This is literally the worst example you could use. USPS has a legally enforced monopoly on first class mail.
- CalChris 9y ago
  Usually monopolies enable higher prices rather than lower ones.
  - cwyers 9y ago
    It's a different service. USPS has a monopoly on letter mail. FedEx is allowed to ship documents but only as an express delivery (the USPS service that is as fast as FedEx at document delivery costs roughly the same).
icelancer 9y ago
>>Nothing inherently more efficient about private companies over public ones. >>You can send mail across the country via USPS USPS has to service everywhere. This is usually the case with all publicly funded "companies." This is inherently inefficient. It is more fair, but that's not the argument. Private companies are absolutely inherently more efficient.
- bildung 9y ago
  Effiency is about archiving a goal with the least amunt of resources, not about setting the goal. The USPS has the goal of delivering mail to everyone and is obviously pretty efficient at that.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  Private companies are absolutely more efficient if you discount externalities. Of course, externalities are the entire rationale for having public services.
- ACow_Adonis 9y ago
  Except for in cases of monopolies, externalities, societal + shared goods and utilities. There are good arguments for at least several of those cases apply to uber in even a simple analysis: uber use creates pollution, traffic is less safe and causes accidents + deaths, uses more fuel, and few markets charge vehicles for road use by the meter/use. There are high barriers to entry and sunk costs to infrastructure to competing because if you do not like the road between two points, you cant just open up a rail on top of it that traverses the same route, and attempts to do so lead to massive inefficiencies due to the duplication in the relatively expensive infrastructure costs externalities (imagine the cost of trying to lay two simultaneous water networks, for example). Additionally, while uber may be more efficient in some routes, given population densities and given infrastructure and desired travel routes and given transport network patronage, uber trip cost/benefits don't scale. The marginal cost/benefit of you taking an uber trip rather than catching the train is not the same as the cost/benefit or qualities of taking uber if everyone whom the train was transporting was attempting to take uber.
- acranox 9y ago
  That’s kind of the point of public services. They have to service everyone equally. If that makes them inefficient, so be it. It makes them more fair. The efficiencies of the private companies you speak of also disenfranchise portions of the population. If we privatize schools, poor kids wouldn’t get an education, because their parents couldn’t afford it. As a society, we’ve decided that isn’t fair, so education is a public service. And that analogy can be applied to a lot of services. Sometimes some of us have to give up a little quality so that others can have anything at all. That’s my 2cents. Edit: I don’t think I had enough coffee before I wrote all that, because I didn’t read the above comment well enough. Part of what I wanted to say is that efficiency doesn’t have to be about how well it serves an individual. It can be measured by how well it serves a population. Which then factors in fairness. We can’t measure the efficiency of a road based on how many cars can drive on it, whe what matters is how many people can move on it. (Buses and bikes allow for higher throughput.) The mail system can’t really be considered efficient if only some people can use it. It may get one letter from point a to b fast, but the systems effciency depends on serving everyone.
- ryan-koch 9y ago
  I'm not sure how a larger service requirement plays into the efficiency of completing that action. The question in this case isn't about that, but instead whether or not a public entity or a private entity tasked with the same service surface is inherently more efficient. That said, I don't know the answer to this question offhand.

nordsieck 9y ago

> You can send mail across the country via USPS for $.50. Or, you could pay $8 to send it privately via UPS or FedEx. This is literally the worst example you could use. USPS has a legally enforced monopoly on first class mail.

CalChris 9y ago
Usually monopolies enable higher prices rather than lower ones.
- cwyers 9y ago
  It's a different service. USPS has a monopoly on letter mail. FedEx is allowed to ship documents but only as an express delivery (the USPS service that is as fast as FedEx at document delivery costs roughly the same).

icelancer 9y ago

>>Nothing inherently more efficient about private companies over public ones. >>You can send mail across the country via USPS USPS has to service everywhere. This is usually the case with all publicly funded "companies." This is inherently inefficient. It is more fair, but that's not the argument. Private companies are absolutely inherently more efficient.

bildung 9y ago
Effiency is about archiving a goal with the least amunt of resources, not about setting the goal. The USPS has the goal of delivering mail to everyone and is obviously pretty efficient at that.
dragonwriter 9y ago
Private companies are absolutely more efficient if you discount externalities. Of course, externalities are the entire rationale for having public services.
ACow_Adonis 9y ago
Except for in cases of monopolies, externalities, societal + shared goods and utilities. There are good arguments for at least several of those cases apply to uber in even a simple analysis: uber use creates pollution, traffic is less safe and causes accidents + deaths, uses more fuel, and few markets charge vehicles for road use by the meter/use. There are high barriers to entry and sunk costs to infrastructure to competing because if you do not like the road between two points, you cant just open up a rail on top of it that traverses the same route, and attempts to do so lead to massive inefficiencies due to the duplication in the relatively expensive infrastructure costs externalities (imagine the cost of trying to lay two simultaneous water networks, for example). Additionally, while uber may be more efficient in some routes, given population densities and given infrastructure and desired travel routes and given transport network patronage, uber trip cost/benefits don't scale. The marginal cost/benefit of you taking an uber trip rather than catching the train is not the same as the cost/benefit or qualities of taking uber if everyone whom the train was transporting was attempting to take uber.
acranox 9y ago
That’s kind of the point of public services. They have to service everyone equally. If that makes them inefficient, so be it. It makes them more fair. The efficiencies of the private companies you speak of also disenfranchise portions of the population. If we privatize schools, poor kids wouldn’t get an education, because their parents couldn’t afford it. As a society, we’ve decided that isn’t fair, so education is a public service. And that analogy can be applied to a lot of services. Sometimes some of us have to give up a little quality so that others can have anything at all. That’s my 2cents. Edit: I don’t think I had enough coffee before I wrote all that, because I didn’t read the above comment well enough. Part of what I wanted to say is that efficiency doesn’t have to be about how well it serves an individual. It can be measured by how well it serves a population. Which then factors in fairness. We can’t measure the efficiency of a road based on how many cars can drive on it, whe what matters is how many people can move on it. (Buses and bikes allow for higher throughput.) The mail system can’t really be considered efficient if only some people can use it. It may get one letter from point a to b fast, but the systems effciency depends on serving everyone.
ryan-koch 9y ago
I'm not sure how a larger service requirement plays into the efficiency of completing that action. The question in this case isn't about that, but instead whether or not a public entity or a private entity tasked with the same service surface is inherently more efficient. That said, I don't know the answer to this question offhand.