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"Running the government like a business" has always been a completely meaningless idea. Kevin Williamson does a better job of explaining this than I could, and
by everdrive 7y ago
"Running the government like a business" has always been a completely meaningless idea. Kevin Williamson does a better job of explaining this than I could, and I recommend you check out his essay:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/government-run-like-business-superstitition-best-left-behind/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/government-run-like-b...
A few highlights:
"Businesses measure their success in profit. Governments don’t. Businesses offer products and services in exchange for money in voluntary transactions. Governments don’t. Businesses that fail go bankrupt and are disbanded (except for politically sensitive banks, automobile companies, steel producers, farmers . . .) while failed governments keep right on misgoverning in the city and state of New York, in Illinois, in New Jersey, in California, in Connecticut, in the District of Columbia, in Austin, and abroad. Businesses have customers. Governments don’t. Those who profess their desire to “run government like a business” most often mean that they seek to achieve a higher degree of administrative excellence and bureaucratic accountability than Americans are used to seeing from their governments. But that isn’t running government like a business — that’s running government like . . . Swiss government."
"Americans do not care much for bureaucracy, to the extent that the word bureaucracy itself functions as a pejorative. But an excellent bureaucracy is a wonder to behold. It was a first-rate bureaucracy that put a man on the moon and brought him back safely. Dwight Eisenhower was one of the outstanding bureaucrats of his generation, a man who did a long and dreary apprenticeship as an administrative functionary before being anointed “supreme commander.” Bureaucracy matters in the business world, too: Administrative excellence and not technological innovation is what distinguishes Amazon from its would-be competitors, whereas dealing with your health-insurance company or your mobile-phone provider is in most cases a lot like a trip to the department of motor vehicles."
- tracker1 7y agoThank you for this... stated much better than I ever could as well. I also find the corporate protectionist policies and spending combined with a lack of requirements for domestic production and sourcing are a pretty big problem, especially in certain sectors (medical supplies, etc).