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It seems a ridiculous opinion to say privatize everything, but I've seen more and more politicians in the US who support that, or at least that's what I hear wh

by Vraxx 8y ago

It seems a ridiculous opinion to say privatize everything, but I've seen more and more politicians in the US who support that, or at least that's what I hear when they talk about privatizing education, healthcare, and even the FAA. I agree that, as you point out, some government services are terrible for certain groups of people (poor and minorities), but I don't think that's an argument for privatization because at least we try to pretend we hold the government to those standards. Nobody pretends that we do or even can hold corporations to any sort of standards. Sometimes there's regulation to help with that, but it's fought kicking and screaming the whole way from the regulated industry and is followed by constant lobbying to repeal or relax said regulation.

baddox 8y ago
> but I've seen more and more politicians in the US who support that, or at least that's what I hear when they talk about privatizing education, healthcare, and even the FAA. We're still losing the distinction between privatizing more things and privatizing everything. I'm not aware of any federal-level US politicians who want to privatize, say, the military. > but I don't think that's an argument for privatization because at least we try to pretend we hold the government to those standards. Personally, I'm not interested in the standards we pretend to hold the government accountable to. I'm interested in actual outcomes. If privatizing some service can vastly improve outcomes, then great, if government can do it, then great. Sure, there's the high school social studies explanation that governments are accountable to the people while corporations aren't, but in reality I think that varies vastly from one sector of society to another. Sometimes government accountability to the voting population seems to work, but sometimes it fails miserably. Sometimes corporate accountability from the market seems to work, but sometimes it fails miserably.
- Vraxx 8y ago
  >We're still losing the distinction between privatizing more things and privatizing everything. I'm not aware of any federal-level US politicians who want to privatize, say, the military. That's because we've already privatized the profitable bits of the military in the Defense Industry. There's a phrase I've heard that goes something like "Privatize the profits and socialize the losses". Human life loss is extremely expensive, especially for a private industry, so it doesn't surprise me one bit we haven't privatized that aspect of it. >Personally, I'm not interested in the standards we pretend to hold the government accountable to. I'm interested in actual outcomes. If privatizing some service can vastly improve outcomes, then great, if government can do it, then great. I agree with this somewhat, but the reason I mentioned it is because corporate accountability is only effective at keeping leadership accountable to profits not to morals and profits don't care one bit about whats right or wrong. When a company does something wrong most people say "they are a company, only idiots expect them to do the right thing, they did this because it is profitable", at least with a government we haven't given up all hope that that organization can do the right thing because it is the right thing. The fallback on profits serves as an excuse to not even need to pretend to do the right thing that at least the government is held to. Though you are correct that the accountability there varies and is dependent on the population, but I still argue it's better than hoping profits will suddenly start doing the moral thing.
  - baddox 8y ago
    > corporate accountability is only effective at keeping leadership accountable to profits not to morals and profits don't care one bit about whats right or wrong. Absolutely, and political accountability is only effective at keeping elected officials accountable to elections, not to morals. And that's only the aspects of government that are even supposedly accountable to the electorate (a huge amount of government is not).
    - Vraxx 8y ago
      Yeah, that's a fair point. This gets at why I think that we should separate money and elections as much as possible. Ideally if the only people who want to run are people who believe in their solutions to public problems, then elected officials can actually argue about the problem. I don't see that happening when money helps politicians get elected and corporations have plenty of money to spend on campaigns in "exchange" for favorable legislation (it's not a direct exchange obviously since that's illegal, but it's pretty close). My point in all of this is that the government is far from perfect, but I prefer it to corporations when profit and citizen's interests diverge (healthcare is a prime example).
Shivetya 8y ago
Well the equivalent of the FAA has been privatized in many other countries to great success; Canada is a success story there. Education in this country has improved how since the origination of the DOE during Carter's term? Seriously? Look at the most expensive issues that affect America and you will find the government interfering at all stages of that industry, whether it is health care, higher education, lower education, and more. How bad has the VA been and for how long. Do you think a privately run system would not have been fined to death over that? One reason to privatize some of these services is because we can hold them accountable where we get the brush off by government sectors. Corporations are fined all the time and made to adhere to regulations the government excepts itself from. The simple fact is, we can find fault in every implementation however government is the least likely to be changed. It doesn't actually report to anyone while at the same time supposedly reporting to everyone.
- jmcqk6 8y ago
  >Do you think a privately run system would not have been fined to death over that? Yes. We have a big problem with accountability in this country, especially when profits are involved. The issue is not private vs. public. The issue is we sacrifice everything in order to make a buck.

by Vraxx 8y ago

baddox 8y ago

> but I've seen more and more politicians in the US who support that, or at least that's what I hear when they talk about privatizing education, healthcare, and even the FAA. We're still losing the distinction between privatizing more things and privatizing everything. I'm not aware of any federal-level US politicians who want to privatize, say, the military. > but I don't think that's an argument for privatization because at least we try to pretend we hold the government to those standards. Personally, I'm not interested in the standards we pretend to hold the government accountable to. I'm interested in actual outcomes. If privatizing some service can vastly improve outcomes, then great, if government can do it, then great. Sure, there's the high school social studies explanation that governments are accountable to the people while corporations aren't, but in reality I think that varies vastly from one sector of society to another. Sometimes government accountability to the voting population seems to work, but sometimes it fails miserably. Sometimes corporate accountability from the market seems to work, but sometimes it fails miserably.

Vraxx 8y ago
>We're still losing the distinction between privatizing more things and privatizing everything. I'm not aware of any federal-level US politicians who want to privatize, say, the military. That's because we've already privatized the profitable bits of the military in the Defense Industry. There's a phrase I've heard that goes something like "Privatize the profits and socialize the losses". Human life loss is extremely expensive, especially for a private industry, so it doesn't surprise me one bit we haven't privatized that aspect of it. >Personally, I'm not interested in the standards we pretend to hold the government accountable to. I'm interested in actual outcomes. If privatizing some service can vastly improve outcomes, then great, if government can do it, then great. I agree with this somewhat, but the reason I mentioned it is because corporate accountability is only effective at keeping leadership accountable to profits not to morals and profits don't care one bit about whats right or wrong. When a company does something wrong most people say "they are a company, only idiots expect them to do the right thing, they did this because it is profitable", at least with a government we haven't given up all hope that that organization can do the right thing because it is the right thing. The fallback on profits serves as an excuse to not even need to pretend to do the right thing that at least the government is held to. Though you are correct that the accountability there varies and is dependent on the population, but I still argue it's better than hoping profits will suddenly start doing the moral thing.
- baddox 8y ago
  > corporate accountability is only effective at keeping leadership accountable to profits not to morals and profits don't care one bit about whats right or wrong. Absolutely, and political accountability is only effective at keeping elected officials accountable to elections, not to morals. And that's only the aspects of government that are even supposedly accountable to the electorate (a huge amount of government is not).
  - Vraxx 8y ago
    Yeah, that's a fair point. This gets at why I think that we should separate money and elections as much as possible. Ideally if the only people who want to run are people who believe in their solutions to public problems, then elected officials can actually argue about the problem. I don't see that happening when money helps politicians get elected and corporations have plenty of money to spend on campaigns in "exchange" for favorable legislation (it's not a direct exchange obviously since that's illegal, but it's pretty close). My point in all of this is that the government is far from perfect, but I prefer it to corporations when profit and citizen's interests diverge (healthcare is a prime example).

Shivetya 8y ago

Well the equivalent of the FAA has been privatized in many other countries to great success; Canada is a success story there. Education in this country has improved how since the origination of the DOE during Carter's term? Seriously? Look at the most expensive issues that affect America and you will find the government interfering at all stages of that industry, whether it is health care, higher education, lower education, and more. How bad has the VA been and for how long. Do you think a privately run system would not have been fined to death over that? One reason to privatize some of these services is because we can hold them accountable where we get the brush off by government sectors. Corporations are fined all the time and made to adhere to regulations the government excepts itself from. The simple fact is, we can find fault in every implementation however government is the least likely to be changed. It doesn't actually report to anyone while at the same time supposedly reporting to everyone.

jmcqk6 8y ago
>Do you think a privately run system would not have been fined to death over that? Yes. We have a big problem with accountability in this country, especially when profits are involved. The issue is not private vs. public. The issue is we sacrifice everything in order to make a buck.