5 ms·

Have you ever worked in government?

ACow_Adonis 8y ago
I've worked in both. And i've got an economics education :P My experience tells me entity-scale is the main variable that determines efficient use of resources (all other things being equal), rather than private/public sector divide. Which makes sense if you think about it: once you get away from small groups and sole individuals being able to give all things their attention, a private company has to effectively re-implement a form of government to operate internally.
- michaelt 8y ago
  The main variable that determines efficient use of resources all other things being equal, you say?
- kodablah 8y ago
  > entity-scale is the main variable [...] Which makes sense if you think about it While it may arguably be the main variable, and definitely the main variable within a sector, it shouldn't be used to discount the importance of goals/motivations/incentives. Although there are plenty of examples to the contrary in either direction, I think most also with experience would agree there is more waste and less accountability on one side compared to the other.
  - ACow_Adonis 8y ago
    Incentives, culture, mechanics, motivations, personalities, beliefs, scope, competition: all of those things play additional parts. And there's good governance and strategy and bad governance and strategy that applies at all those institutions at all levels and size. I can't really agree with the "more waste and less accountability on one side compared to the other", but that's primarily because the terms/measurements are so poorly defined and they differ so much country to country, state to state and with subject matter, and as I said, I believe that as institutions grow/mature, private industry must implement government anyway. I guess what i'd rail against most is the idea that its the private/public idea itself that plays the significant part in efficiency and productivity: the idea that subsidising private industry, public-private partnerships, or privatising certain public roles or firms/industries somehow magically, by itself, makes things "more efficient". If i were to reflect back on my own career, of the three top efficient organizations, two were medium-sized government departments, and the third was a small team non-profit of about 5 on a small government funding arrangement. Worst three were all private industry: big corp, big consultancy, little firm (although, admittedly, funded by government). Private industry had a huge problem with people being motivated by profits, rather than doing the job: hence directly incentivizing a seeking of inefficiency if not in a fully competitive market (which in the real world, is most markets these days, and certainly most markets with players of any scale). There's a couple of throw-away populist lines I could give about the secret of efficiency I've observed, but i'll chose three: motivation/incentives, devolve responsibility down to the person best able to make the decision, and preference hands off and less work over more (which, to me, is almost the secret success of efficient free-market economies, the ability to just step back and use organic structures to just let things happen).
- Gibbon1 8y ago
  I worked mostly tiny engineering companies and only for two large companies. Though my dad worked for defense contractors and government his whole career. The comment about size is spot on. Two things going on. Management at scale means trying to get 10,000 monkey's pointed mostly in the same direction[1]. There are huge governance issues with that. Private public does not matter[2]. Large organizations without these controls will eventually lose coherence and flame out. However that mass has a quality of it it's own is in play. 10,000 monkeys can manage extremely large 'streams' of effort and punch way above the weight of the sum of all monkeys. In spite of the lack of efficiency. [1] If you wonder why management isn't interested in your shiny new idea and wants you to to get back to work, that's why. [2] If anything your local government is more interested in your complaints than say the cable company.
dev_dull 8y ago
Or simply walked into the DMV.
- yongjik 8y ago
  1. Say "government is inefficient" and refuse to allocate resource to fix it. 2. Be angry that government is inefficient. 3. Goto step 1. Have you been to (the equivalent of) DMV in other countries?
  - BenderV 8y ago
    Have you been to France?
    - BenderV 8y ago
      Government spending > 50% of GDP. Is it efficient?
      - kerkeslager 8y ago
        That depends what benefits you get from it. Efficiency is a fraction: cost over benefit. You can't just whine about cost and use the word "efficiency". That's cost, not efficiency, and you're completely ignoring the entire point of money in the first place: to be spent to achieve benefit.
    - icantdrive55 8y ago
      Don't forget free healthcare, education, work/privacy laws that put most countries to shame, decent homless shelters. They live longer. They are happier on every metric compare to Americans. I never berate France, once I realized just how terrible we do things here. (Up, or down vote me; I think I'm shadowbanned? And yes--to lazy to check myself.)
  - aetherson 8y ago
    This seems weird, if we're talking about the same definition of efficiency, which I would say is the resources, denominated in money, needed to produce a given result. So let's say that the government produces one driver's license per $100, and I'm angry that it costs that much. Your proposal is that I will be happy if I instead spend $120 per license?

I've worked in both. And i've got an economics education :P My experience tells me entity-scale is the main variable that determines efficient use of resources (all other things being equal), rather than private/public sector divide. Which makes sense if you think about it: once you get away from small groups and sole individuals being able to give all things their attention, a private company has to effectively re-implement a form of government to operate internally.

michaelt 8y ago
The main variable that determines efficient use of resources all other things being equal, you say?
kodablah 8y ago
> entity-scale is the main variable [...] Which makes sense if you think about it While it may arguably be the main variable, and definitely the main variable within a sector, it shouldn't be used to discount the importance of goals/motivations/incentives. Although there are plenty of examples to the contrary in either direction, I think most also with experience would agree there is more waste and less accountability on one side compared to the other.
- ACow_Adonis 8y ago
  Incentives, culture, mechanics, motivations, personalities, beliefs, scope, competition: all of those things play additional parts. And there's good governance and strategy and bad governance and strategy that applies at all those institutions at all levels and size. I can't really agree with the "more waste and less accountability on one side compared to the other", but that's primarily because the terms/measurements are so poorly defined and they differ so much country to country, state to state and with subject matter, and as I said, I believe that as institutions grow/mature, private industry must implement government anyway. I guess what i'd rail against most is the idea that its the private/public idea itself that plays the significant part in efficiency and productivity: the idea that subsidising private industry, public-private partnerships, or privatising certain public roles or firms/industries somehow magically, by itself, makes things "more efficient". If i were to reflect back on my own career, of the three top efficient organizations, two were medium-sized government departments, and the third was a small team non-profit of about 5 on a small government funding arrangement. Worst three were all private industry: big corp, big consultancy, little firm (although, admittedly, funded by government). Private industry had a huge problem with people being motivated by profits, rather than doing the job: hence directly incentivizing a seeking of inefficiency if not in a fully competitive market (which in the real world, is most markets these days, and certainly most markets with players of any scale). There's a couple of throw-away populist lines I could give about the secret of efficiency I've observed, but i'll chose three: motivation/incentives, devolve responsibility down to the person best able to make the decision, and preference hands off and less work over more (which, to me, is almost the secret success of efficient free-market economies, the ability to just step back and use organic structures to just let things happen).
Gibbon1 8y ago
I worked mostly tiny engineering companies and only for two large companies. Though my dad worked for defense contractors and government his whole career. The comment about size is spot on. Two things going on. Management at scale means trying to get 10,000 monkey's pointed mostly in the same direction[1]. There are huge governance issues with that. Private public does not matter[2]. Large organizations without these controls will eventually lose coherence and flame out. However that mass has a quality of it it's own is in play. 10,000 monkeys can manage extremely large 'streams' of effort and punch way above the weight of the sum of all monkeys. In spite of the lack of efficiency. [1] If you wonder why management isn't interested in your shiny new idea and wants you to to get back to work, that's why. [2] If anything your local government is more interested in your complaints than say the cable company.

dev_dull 8y ago

Or simply walked into the DMV.

yongjik 8y ago
1. Say "government is inefficient" and refuse to allocate resource to fix it. 2. Be angry that government is inefficient. 3. Goto step 1. Have you been to (the equivalent of) DMV in other countries?
- BenderV 8y ago
  Have you been to France?
  - BenderV 8y ago
    Government spending > 50% of GDP. Is it efficient?
    - kerkeslager 8y ago
      That depends what benefits you get from it. Efficiency is a fraction: cost over benefit. You can't just whine about cost and use the word "efficiency". That's cost, not efficiency, and you're completely ignoring the entire point of money in the first place: to be spent to achieve benefit.
  - icantdrive55 8y ago
    Don't forget free healthcare, education, work/privacy laws that put most countries to shame, decent homless shelters. They live longer. They are happier on every metric compare to Americans. I never berate France, once I realized just how terrible we do things here. (Up, or down vote me; I think I'm shadowbanned? And yes--to lazy to check myself.)
- aetherson 8y ago
  This seems weird, if we're talking about the same definition of efficiency, which I would say is the resources, denominated in money, needed to produce a given result. So let's say that the government produces one driver's license per $100, and I'm angry that it costs that much. Your proposal is that I will be happy if I instead spend $120 per license?