5 ms·

I mean, "government can't run services well" is probably overly simplistic and incorrect. But what if we replaced it with the following: "an extremely politici

by bhupy 6y ago

I mean, "government can't run services well" is probably overly simplistic and incorrect. But what if we replaced it with the following: "an extremely politicized government can't run services well". Is that a controversial statement? And if it isn't, doesn't that suggest that you don't want an extremely polarized/politicized government running extremely critical infrastructure? > The private corporations will quickly increase prices while reducing services. This is fairly simplistic, as we know that not to be the case for the vast majority of private services we use today. Yes, there exists conditions where this is true (monopolies), but it's true less often than the above statement that "politicized government can't run services well".

Hokusai 6y ago
> The private corporations will quickly increase prices while reducing services. > This is fairly simplistic It is a simple view that summarizes really well what happens when public services are privatized. There is more nuance to it, but the main effects are "de-investment", "increase in price", "reduction of service". > "politicized government can't run services well". I understand your statement as "a polarizing/corrupt government" as I guess that all governments are politicized, it is in their job title.
- bhupy 6y ago
  > It is a simple view that summarizes really well what happens when public services are privatized. There is more nuance to it, but the main effects are "de-investment", "increase in price", "reduction of service". It's simplistic because "increase in price" and "reduction of service" have not been observed to happen in private sector services today. If you look at the vast majority of goods & services across the board, prices have decreased over time, and service has improved dramatically. This is because the pricing system and competition act as a downward pressure on price and an upward pressure on service quality. This is obviously not always the case (eg. monopolies), but it is the case for the vast majority of goods & services. Food, clothing, transportation, information technology, electronics, appliances — have all gotten cheaper over time (even relative to inflation), have seen an increase in investment over time, and an increase in quality over time. Another concrete example: NASA's planned SLS moon mission is a bit of a disaster — way over budget and way behind schedule. Because the boosters aren't reusable, each launch is expected to cost $1B (with a B) dollars — EACH launch! Meanwhile SpaceX's target cost-per-launch is $50M. Central planning almost never yields the optimum allocation of resources (there are certainly exceptions), whereas the decentralized pricing system almost always does (there are certainly exceptions). While it's simplistic to say that "government doesn't run services well", it's just as simplistic to suggest that "privatization results in price increases and service decreases". > I understand your statement as "a polarizing/corrupt government" as I guess that all governments are politicized, it is in their job title. Correct, which suggests that "government can't run services well" will always be true, for as long as governments are polarized/corrupt. Democracy doesn't yield the best results when you're participating in that democracy with people who violently disagree with you. Governments can be good at running things if everyone agrees on how it should be run, and even then there's no guarantee because central planning usually doesn't yield optimum resource allocation, due to the economic calculation problem.
rsynnott 6y ago
> And if it isn't, doesn't that suggest that you don't want an extremely polarized/politicized government running extremely critical infrastructure? One could also modify the system of government, moving away from executive appointees and towards committee appointments and a professional civil service.
- bhupy 6y ago
  Executive appointees are not unilateral, they have to be approved by the legislature. And setting aside appointments, you also have politicized budget appropriations, i.e. how can you be certain that the government will adequately fund an agency if there exists a large enough contingent devoted to gutting it? Either you're suggesting creating an agency whose appointments have no accountability from the legislature, or whose budget has no accountability from the legislature. If that's not what you're suggesting, then the core problem is not the system of government itself, it's the polity, the people who are actually voting for that government. You can't have an effective government if half the governed don't want to be a part of that government with you.
cromwellian 6y ago
The postal service predates the US government and has been running since 1775 (Benjamin Franklin first postmaster general). It was cash-flow positive until it was sabotaged by Republicans, who banned it from raising prices above inflation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Accountability_and_Enhancement_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Accountability_and_Enha...) while simultaneously requiring it to spend $54 billion to prefund pension benefits for the next 50 years. So if you want to know why they're having monetary problems, look no further. >"an extremely politicized government can't run services well" The Republicans normally make this a truism by sabotaging government programs. With the exception of the military, everything else gets squeezed and forced to justify their budget requests, but hardly anyone ever says "you want to raise the DoD budget by $100 billion? HOW ARE WE GONNA PAY FOR THAT?" Notice how if you propose $75 billion for tuition free college, GOP spokespeople are all over the media raising questions about funding mechanisms. The USPS has been a reliable actor for 245 years. Its infrastructure, like electricity, or roads, and should not be subject to "we should run this like a for profit business" concerns.
- bhupy 6y ago
  > The Republicans normally make this a truism by sabotaging government programs Yes, but you have to contend with the reality that you are participating in the same government as they are. It's like constantly insisting on sharing a pool with a kid that constantly insists on peeing in it, with no real way to kick that kid out. It's a byproduct of the polity in which we are participating, and as long as a democratically elected government consists of people who don't agree with you (read: polarized / corrupt), the services they run will have problems, as we are seeing. > The USPS has been a reliable actor for 245 years. Its infrastructure, like electricity, or roads, and should not be subject to "we should run this like a for profit business" concerns. Just because the USPS has been reliable in the past, doesn't mean that it's structurally set up to be reliable forever. It could also just mean that we weren't as polarized about how the USPS should function in the past, and we are now. As long as that continues to be the case, the USPS will be a sub-optimal agency. In contrast, how many goods & services provided by the private sector have this problem? If a corporation is self-sabotaging, it will die, and be replaced by another corporation. That doesn't appear to be the case with a polarized government. Also, the allergic reaction to privatization / profits strikes me as just as (if not more) reactionary than the right-wing allergic reaction to public services. The private sector is involved in reliably providing us with critical goods & services like food, clothing, furniture, housing (in markets without onerous zoning), transportation, information technology, e-mail, cloud computing, electronics, etc etc etc. All of those things gotten cheaper over time (even relative to inflation), have seen an increase in investment over time, and an increase in quality over time. The profit motive is just the incentive for people to provide goods & services for others, as efficiently as possible. It's not a silver bullet, as monopolies can lead to rent seeking, but to suggest that the private sector is always and unquestionably "bad" is not a serious opinion worth engaging with. Importantly, the public sector is also not a silver bullet, as we are seeing. Also, privatized postal services aren't novel either. Singapore's postal service, SingPost, is a publicly traded company. The UK's postal service, Royal Mail, is a publicly traded limited company. Germany's postal service, Deutsche Post AG, is a publicly traded company. Japan's postal service, Japan Post, is a publicly traded company. Your issue is that you participate in a government where your fellow citizens are voting to sabotage the public services. From where I sit, the private sector strikes me as strictly better than a self-sabotaging public sector that's governed by Republican politicians every 4-8 years. Either we continue to swim in a pee-filled pool, or we figure out another swimming arrangement.

by bhupy 6y ago

Hokusai 6y ago

> The private corporations will quickly increase prices while reducing services. > This is fairly simplistic It is a simple view that summarizes really well what happens when public services are privatized. There is more nuance to it, but the main effects are "de-investment", "increase in price", "reduction of service". > "politicized government can't run services well". I understand your statement as "a polarizing/corrupt government" as I guess that all governments are politicized, it is in their job title.

bhupy 6y ago
> It is a simple view that summarizes really well what happens when public services are privatized. There is more nuance to it, but the main effects are "de-investment", "increase in price", "reduction of service". It's simplistic because "increase in price" and "reduction of service" have not been observed to happen in private sector services today. If you look at the vast majority of goods & services across the board, prices have decreased over time, and service has improved dramatically. This is because the pricing system and competition act as a downward pressure on price and an upward pressure on service quality. This is obviously not always the case (eg. monopolies), but it is the case for the vast majority of goods & services. Food, clothing, transportation, information technology, electronics, appliances — have all gotten cheaper over time (even relative to inflation), have seen an increase in investment over time, and an increase in quality over time. Another concrete example: NASA's planned SLS moon mission is a bit of a disaster — way over budget and way behind schedule. Because the boosters aren't reusable, each launch is expected to cost $1B (with a B) dollars — EACH launch! Meanwhile SpaceX's target cost-per-launch is $50M. Central planning almost never yields the optimum allocation of resources (there are certainly exceptions), whereas the decentralized pricing system almost always does (there are certainly exceptions). While it's simplistic to say that "government doesn't run services well", it's just as simplistic to suggest that "privatization results in price increases and service decreases". > I understand your statement as "a polarizing/corrupt government" as I guess that all governments are politicized, it is in their job title. Correct, which suggests that "government can't run services well" will always be true, for as long as governments are polarized/corrupt. Democracy doesn't yield the best results when you're participating in that democracy with people who violently disagree with you. Governments can be good at running things if everyone agrees on how it should be run, and even then there's no guarantee because central planning usually doesn't yield optimum resource allocation, due to the economic calculation problem.

rsynnott 6y ago

> And if it isn't, doesn't that suggest that you don't want an extremely polarized/politicized government running extremely critical infrastructure? One could also modify the system of government, moving away from executive appointees and towards committee appointments and a professional civil service.

bhupy 6y ago
Executive appointees are not unilateral, they have to be approved by the legislature. And setting aside appointments, you also have politicized budget appropriations, i.e. how can you be certain that the government will adequately fund an agency if there exists a large enough contingent devoted to gutting it? Either you're suggesting creating an agency whose appointments have no accountability from the legislature, or whose budget has no accountability from the legislature. If that's not what you're suggesting, then the core problem is not the system of government itself, it's the polity, the people who are actually voting for that government. You can't have an effective government if half the governed don't want to be a part of that government with you.

cromwellian 6y ago

The postal service predates the US government and has been running since 1775 (Benjamin Franklin first postmaster general). It was cash-flow positive until it was sabotaged by Republicans, who banned it from raising prices above inflation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Accountability_and_Enhancement_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Accountability_and_Enha...) while simultaneously requiring it to spend $54 billion to prefund pension benefits for the next 50 years. So if you want to know why they're having monetary problems, look no further. >"an extremely politicized government can't run services well" The Republicans normally make this a truism by sabotaging government programs. With the exception of the military, everything else gets squeezed and forced to justify their budget requests, but hardly anyone ever says "you want to raise the DoD budget by $100 billion? HOW ARE WE GONNA PAY FOR THAT?" Notice how if you propose $75 billion for tuition free college, GOP spokespeople are all over the media raising questions about funding mechanisms. The USPS has been a reliable actor for 245 years. Its infrastructure, like electricity, or roads, and should not be subject to "we should run this like a for profit business" concerns.

bhupy 6y ago
> The Republicans normally make this a truism by sabotaging government programs Yes, but you have to contend with the reality that you are participating in the same government as they are. It's like constantly insisting on sharing a pool with a kid that constantly insists on peeing in it, with no real way to kick that kid out. It's a byproduct of the polity in which we are participating, and as long as a democratically elected government consists of people who don't agree with you (read: polarized / corrupt), the services they run will have problems, as we are seeing. > The USPS has been a reliable actor for 245 years. Its infrastructure, like electricity, or roads, and should not be subject to "we should run this like a for profit business" concerns. Just because the USPS has been reliable in the past, doesn't mean that it's structurally set up to be reliable forever. It could also just mean that we weren't as polarized about how the USPS should function in the past, and we are now. As long as that continues to be the case, the USPS will be a sub-optimal agency. In contrast, how many goods & services provided by the private sector have this problem? If a corporation is self-sabotaging, it will die, and be replaced by another corporation. That doesn't appear to be the case with a polarized government. Also, the allergic reaction to privatization / profits strikes me as just as (if not more) reactionary than the right-wing allergic reaction to public services. The private sector is involved in reliably providing us with critical goods & services like food, clothing, furniture, housing (in markets without onerous zoning), transportation, information technology, e-mail, cloud computing, electronics, etc etc etc. All of those things gotten cheaper over time (even relative to inflation), have seen an increase in investment over time, and an increase in quality over time. The profit motive is just the incentive for people to provide goods & services for others, as efficiently as possible. It's not a silver bullet, as monopolies can lead to rent seeking, but to suggest that the private sector is always and unquestionably "bad" is not a serious opinion worth engaging with. Importantly, the public sector is also not a silver bullet, as we are seeing. Also, privatized postal services aren't novel either. Singapore's postal service, SingPost, is a publicly traded company. The UK's postal service, Royal Mail, is a publicly traded limited company. Germany's postal service, Deutsche Post AG, is a publicly traded company. Japan's postal service, Japan Post, is a publicly traded company. Your issue is that you participate in a government where your fellow citizens are voting to sabotage the public services. From where I sit, the private sector strikes me as strictly better than a self-sabotaging public sector that's governed by Republican politicians every 4-8 years. Either we continue to swim in a pee-filled pool, or we figure out another swimming arrangement.