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because the machine not driven by checks and balances enforced by investors. I grew up in a socialist country and this type of stuff was the default and not s

because the machine not driven by checks and balances enforced by investors. I grew up in a socialist country and this type of stuff was the default and not something newsworthy at all. Everyone did it. All the dads in my residential unit would go sign the attendance sheet and come back home by 11 am and have rest of the day to themselves to garden, grow food, take a nap, play cards ect. How do proponents of govt run services and production units address this core flaw. I've asked many people but have never gotten a good response.

tankenmate 6y ago
Incompetence is incompetence, regardless of its source. And re: the investors, don't governments issue bonds? i.e. all governments that issue bonds have investors.
- dmos62 6y ago
  I'd go further and say everyone owns bonds in the common good. Private organizations don't have a monopoly on interdependence, or public ones on incompetence.
mavhc 6y ago
When running a government department there's no way to become more powerful except by getting more people. If you run your department efficiently you don't get to expand and take over other markets, instead you'd lose employees under your command and get a smaller budget, the incentives are wrong
- andrew_v4 6y ago
  This is spot on. I have worked as a consultant doing reviews of a handful of diverse government departments, and leadership's priorities were always identical: justify headcount increases. Every one will have a presentation about the changing nature of their work, new legislation, the decline in staff vs some past golden age etc etc that shows they need more people. As you say, its 100% a function of the incentives. This is a general flaw with "command" economies where resources are based on who can argue for them best as opposed to demand for the outputs. There is a lot that can be done in terms of SLAs for operational departments and discretion to the operational side on how money gets spent, to try and come closer to a market driven system, but there is no political will for it.
  - bombcar 6y ago
    See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law#Formula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law#Formula for an example of this.
- RobertoG 6y ago
  I can only assume that you guys have not worked for big private companies. What you are saying is typical of almost any big organization, public or private.
  - djbebs 6y ago
    The only difference is that in companies the people being harmed are the owners of the company, and they are the ones with the power to do something about it, either by firing the CEO, or divesting of the c9mpany and investing in its rivals. In government we all get harmed, and the only way to exit the situation is by abandoning ones homeland.
    - RobertoG 6y ago
      I suppose that's true for some countries, but in most countries you can do something about it, even if it takes a lot of work. You can vote different, join transparency organizations and so on. Small stock owners have not more power than voters, even less in some cases.
      - dominotw 6y ago
        > You can vote different Why would someone vote the same if system is clearly corrupt. Wouldn't this imply that this guy wouldn't have gotten away had people voted "different". Its peoples fault for indirectly voting for this? > Small stock owners have not more power than voters, even less in some cases. I usually simply sell the stocks of company that i no longer believe in. Thats how i vote. What do you mean by have no power. Its not mandatory for me to own certain stocks like it is mandatory for some ppl to go to a govt hospital.
        RobertoG 6y ago
        ">>Why would someone vote the same if system is clearly corrupt." Because the system is not "clearly corrupt", it's just a human organization and it's always going to be some corruption and inefficiency (public or private). You just have to strive to improve it. ">>What do you mean by have no power. Its not mandatory for me to own certain stocks like it is mandatory for some ppl to go to a govt hospital. " In your analogy, selling stocks is basically leaving the country, that's something that you can do also normally, but probably is better to try to improve it. I believe, that big stockholders practice something called activist investment, where they push for changes. I don't think there is any country in the world where is mandatory to go to the hospital, but there is some where not hospital is available to part of the population.
andrepd 6y ago
You misidentify the problem. You grew up in an authoritarian country. Authoritarian capitalist countries do exist and are also rife with corruption and cronyism and inefficiencies. A democracy provides those "checks and balances", in a better way than opaque and undemocratic "investors".
- dominotw 6y ago
  > A democracy provides those "checks and balances" Italy is a democracy. What explains this particular case ?
toss1 6y ago
It is large organizations, not govt vs corps/investors. See Bullshit Work [1] and empire building [2]. They exist in any large org, since the typical incentives for management to advance are to grow a larger headcount under their 'management'. Of course this is a similar level to measure progress of designing and building an airplane by how much it weighs. But the fact that this management rule is fundamentally stupid does not prevent executives or politicians from using it because it is easier to measure heads and payroll than actual productivity. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire-building https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire-building
- pizza234 6y ago
  Large organizations can fail though, so there is an upper limit to inefficiency; governments can't, so the limit to inefficiency (and corruption) is virtually non-existing.
  - toss1 6y ago
    Nonsense, governments fail all the time Moreover, in functioning democracies, turnover happens frequently, and there are checks and balances that help keep it in line, including a free press which just loves to expose waste and inefficiency whenever it can. Also notice that the events in TFA occurred in the area of Italy that is roughly the birthplace of their organized crime syndicates. This is the kind of thing that happens when governments become dysfunctional, and are captured by authoritarians and/or criminals, not a normally functioning democratic government. Also note that it is a particularly egregious and spectacular example and makes news, not the ordinary everyday operations.
    - pizza234 6y ago
      > Also notice that the events in TFA occurred in the area of Italy that is roughly the birthplace of their organized crime syndicates. The country subject of the article - Italy - is extremely inefficient (I don't doubt that there is worse, of course). Absenteism is relatively tolerated; it's not correct that it's a product of organized crime. Sadly, it's a very simple phenomenon of a system without the checks and balances yo mention. I've observed it first hand, and the absenteist was even open about it - they were actually bragging about it (I'm not joking). I remember another employee waiting to be transferred to another (specific) city, so that he could "do nothing all the day". > Moreover, in functioning democracies, turnover happens frequently > This is the kind of thing that happens when governments become dysfunctional, and are captured by authoritarians and/or criminals, not a normally functioning democratic government. Italy can still be classified as a democracy nonetheless, and it's not going to fail because of inefficiency and corruption. A company as efficient as the Italian's administration would not survive in a free market, without any doubt.
RobertoG 6y ago
>>"How do proponents of govt run services and production units address this core flaw. I've asked many people but have never gotten a good response. " You are assuming two things that are not true. First, that this always happen in public services. That's false. Second that this kind of thing doesn't happen in private companies. That's false too. For instance, I have worked in a big private company where some very well payed executives (a lot better payed than the guy in this article) dedicated all their time and effort to office politics. In my personal opinion, in some cases, it would have be better for the company if they just stayed home. How do you address this? Like everything in society: you create a system of check and balances and work hard to keep them in place.
- lliamander 6y ago
  I my experience working for both government organizations and large private ones, the problem is noticeably worse and more pervasive in the government.
  - goatinaboat 6y ago
    the problem is noticeably worse and more pervasive in the government The hard limit on it in a private company is it going bust but there is no such constraint in the public sector
    - RobertoG 6y ago
      I have asked myself about this calculation sometimes. If a lot of private companies go bust, we compare governments that not go bust with the surviving companies. In terms of resources wasted, how the inefficient of public services would fare against the resources spend in all the companies, not only the surviving ones? It's something I have never read about, I don't know if some work has been done on this.
- granshaw 6y ago
  I don’t think we should be lumping those not showing up to work at ALL together with those who do participate but in a harmful, egocentric (whatever) way One is still arguably fulfilling their responsibilities under their employment contract, the other is very blatantly not
f00zz 6y ago
That kind of behavior is also pretty much the default in the public sector in the third world country where I live. No wonder everyone's dream down here is to have a job in the public sector.
retzkek 6y ago
> How do proponents of govt run services and production units address this core flaw They'd probably first challenge your premise that it is a flaw. A key tenet of socialism is that all are taken care of, including the lazy and incompetent (and their children). Giving such people bullshit jobs to keep them involved in the system, without overly encouraging their lazyness or allowing them to overly disrupt the system, seems like a feature, not a bug. > have rest of the day to themselves to garden, grow food Honestly people gardening and growing their own food sounds like a positive for society, more so than sitting in a cubicle pushing papers or pixels of dubious value.
joncrane 6y ago
This sounds like universal basic income but with more steps....

tankenmate 6y ago

Incompetence is incompetence, regardless of its source. And re: the investors, don't governments issue bonds? i.e. all governments that issue bonds have investors.

dmos62 6y ago
I'd go further and say everyone owns bonds in the common good. Private organizations don't have a monopoly on interdependence, or public ones on incompetence.

mavhc 6y ago

When running a government department there's no way to become more powerful except by getting more people. If you run your department efficiently you don't get to expand and take over other markets, instead you'd lose employees under your command and get a smaller budget, the incentives are wrong

andrew_v4 6y ago
This is spot on. I have worked as a consultant doing reviews of a handful of diverse government departments, and leadership's priorities were always identical: justify headcount increases. Every one will have a presentation about the changing nature of their work, new legislation, the decline in staff vs some past golden age etc etc that shows they need more people. As you say, its 100% a function of the incentives. This is a general flaw with "command" economies where resources are based on who can argue for them best as opposed to demand for the outputs. There is a lot that can be done in terms of SLAs for operational departments and discretion to the operational side on how money gets spent, to try and come closer to a market driven system, but there is no political will for it.
- bombcar 6y ago
  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law#Formula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law#Formula for an example of this.
RobertoG 6y ago
I can only assume that you guys have not worked for big private companies. What you are saying is typical of almost any big organization, public or private.
- djbebs 6y ago
  The only difference is that in companies the people being harmed are the owners of the company, and they are the ones with the power to do something about it, either by firing the CEO, or divesting of the c9mpany and investing in its rivals. In government we all get harmed, and the only way to exit the situation is by abandoning ones homeland.
  - RobertoG 6y ago
    I suppose that's true for some countries, but in most countries you can do something about it, even if it takes a lot of work. You can vote different, join transparency organizations and so on. Small stock owners have not more power than voters, even less in some cases.
    - dominotw 6y ago
      > You can vote different Why would someone vote the same if system is clearly corrupt. Wouldn't this imply that this guy wouldn't have gotten away had people voted "different". Its peoples fault for indirectly voting for this? > Small stock owners have not more power than voters, even less in some cases. I usually simply sell the stocks of company that i no longer believe in. Thats how i vote. What do you mean by have no power. Its not mandatory for me to own certain stocks like it is mandatory for some ppl to go to a govt hospital.
      - RobertoG 6y ago
        ">>Why would someone vote the same if system is clearly corrupt." Because the system is not "clearly corrupt", it's just a human organization and it's always going to be some corruption and inefficiency (public or private). You just have to strive to improve it. ">>What do you mean by have no power. Its not mandatory for me to own certain stocks like it is mandatory for some ppl to go to a govt hospital. " In your analogy, selling stocks is basically leaving the country, that's something that you can do also normally, but probably is better to try to improve it. I believe, that big stockholders practice something called activist investment, where they push for changes. I don't think there is any country in the world where is mandatory to go to the hospital, but there is some where not hospital is available to part of the population.

andrepd 6y ago

You misidentify the problem. You grew up in an authoritarian country. Authoritarian capitalist countries do exist and are also rife with corruption and cronyism and inefficiencies. A democracy provides those "checks and balances", in a better way than opaque and undemocratic "investors".

dominotw 6y ago
> A democracy provides those "checks and balances" Italy is a democracy. What explains this particular case ?

toss1 6y ago

It is large organizations, not govt vs corps/investors. See Bullshit Work [1] and empire building [2]. They exist in any large org, since the typical incentives for management to advance are to grow a larger headcount under their 'management'. Of course this is a similar level to measure progress of designing and building an airplane by how much it weighs. But the fact that this management rule is fundamentally stupid does not prevent executives or politicians from using it because it is easier to measure heads and payroll than actual productivity. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire-building https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire-building

pizza234 6y ago
Large organizations can fail though, so there is an upper limit to inefficiency; governments can't, so the limit to inefficiency (and corruption) is virtually non-existing.
- toss1 6y ago
  Nonsense, governments fail all the time Moreover, in functioning democracies, turnover happens frequently, and there are checks and balances that help keep it in line, including a free press which just loves to expose waste and inefficiency whenever it can. Also notice that the events in TFA occurred in the area of Italy that is roughly the birthplace of their organized crime syndicates. This is the kind of thing that happens when governments become dysfunctional, and are captured by authoritarians and/or criminals, not a normally functioning democratic government. Also note that it is a particularly egregious and spectacular example and makes news, not the ordinary everyday operations.
  - pizza234 6y ago
    > Also notice that the events in TFA occurred in the area of Italy that is roughly the birthplace of their organized crime syndicates. The country subject of the article - Italy - is extremely inefficient (I don't doubt that there is worse, of course). Absenteism is relatively tolerated; it's not correct that it's a product of organized crime. Sadly, it's a very simple phenomenon of a system without the checks and balances yo mention. I've observed it first hand, and the absenteist was even open about it - they were actually bragging about it (I'm not joking). I remember another employee waiting to be transferred to another (specific) city, so that he could "do nothing all the day". > Moreover, in functioning democracies, turnover happens frequently > This is the kind of thing that happens when governments become dysfunctional, and are captured by authoritarians and/or criminals, not a normally functioning democratic government. Italy can still be classified as a democracy nonetheless, and it's not going to fail because of inefficiency and corruption. A company as efficient as the Italian's administration would not survive in a free market, without any doubt.

RobertoG 6y ago

>>"How do proponents of govt run services and production units address this core flaw. I've asked many people but have never gotten a good response. " You are assuming two things that are not true. First, that this always happen in public services. That's false. Second that this kind of thing doesn't happen in private companies. That's false too. For instance, I have worked in a big private company where some very well payed executives (a lot better payed than the guy in this article) dedicated all their time and effort to office politics. In my personal opinion, in some cases, it would have be better for the company if they just stayed home. How do you address this? Like everything in society: you create a system of check and balances and work hard to keep them in place.

lliamander 6y ago
I my experience working for both government organizations and large private ones, the problem is noticeably worse and more pervasive in the government.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  the problem is noticeably worse and more pervasive in the government The hard limit on it in a private company is it going bust but there is no such constraint in the public sector
  - RobertoG 6y ago
    I have asked myself about this calculation sometimes. If a lot of private companies go bust, we compare governments that not go bust with the surviving companies. In terms of resources wasted, how the inefficient of public services would fare against the resources spend in all the companies, not only the surviving ones? It's something I have never read about, I don't know if some work has been done on this.
granshaw 6y ago
I don’t think we should be lumping those not showing up to work at ALL together with those who do participate but in a harmful, egocentric (whatever) way One is still arguably fulfilling their responsibilities under their employment contract, the other is very blatantly not

f00zz 6y ago

That kind of behavior is also pretty much the default in the public sector in the third world country where I live. No wonder everyone's dream down here is to have a job in the public sector.

retzkek 6y ago

> How do proponents of govt run services and production units address this core flaw They'd probably first challenge your premise that it is a flaw. A key tenet of socialism is that all are taken care of, including the lazy and incompetent (and their children). Giving such people bullshit jobs to keep them involved in the system, without overly encouraging their lazyness or allowing them to overly disrupt the system, seems like a feature, not a bug. > have rest of the day to themselves to garden, grow food Honestly people gardening and growing their own food sounds like a positive for society, more so than sitting in a cubicle pushing papers or pixels of dubious value.

joncrane 6y ago

This sounds like universal basic income but with more steps....