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There's no question that a private corporation can be more reactive and well run than a government. ...but the reason we have government is for accountability.
by koheripbal 6y ago
There's no question that a private corporation can be more reactive and well run than a government.
...but the reason we have government is for accountability.
I can't vote for a new national search engine, or a new smartphone maker, so when we all have complaints about their abuse of power, we are SoL.
- baggy_trough 6y agoFrom my point of view, government is far less accountable than a typical private corporation. Voting is occasional and highly manipulatable. The same people shuffle around different posts. It can compel revenue through pointing guns at people and locking them up in cages. It's not like a business that has to meet payroll to survive by attracting customers. That's accountability.
- bhupy 6y agoIn addition to this, voting means that you're participating in the same polity as people that might have completely different interests from you. Sometimes the majority is wrong (as has often been the case in history). In a democracy, there is no recourse for the minority. With the private sector, the minority in theory has the option to break away. Don't get me wrong, democracy is great, but it is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
- chillacy 6y agoAs a sibling comment pointed out there are different forms of accountability. Voting and protesting are forms we're familiar with in the US and Europe, but there are other ways too. In Singapore, you can more easily submit written feedback to the government, I've heard that things like potholes actually get fixed faster this route than in the US where you might have to string some activism to put pressure on the city.