> It's not, as some people allege, that the government is particularly bad at things; the government is roughly as competent as any large corporation when it co

> It's not, as some people allege, that the government is particularly bad at things; the government is roughly as competent as any large corporation when it comes down to task execution. I've consulted both to private sector corps and the government, and the fundamental challenges are largely the same. Yes, government compensation structures (heavy on pensions) do tend to attract people in different phases of their careers and lives than, say, equity-heavy packages at a startup. But there's not much evidence linking this to performance. I generally agree with the overall gist that large organizations are basically incapable of achieving excellent results. However, having worked as an employee for both large corps and government, I see two or three attributes that cut against government being effective. 1. Private industry is mission oriented whereas government is process-oriented. Government bureaucracies value adherence to process above all, regardless of what they create or impede. It's all process all the way down. Even when large, ossified firms make process a centerpiece of management, they still ultimately are attempting to pursue a mission. 2. The government's culture is homogenous and based on a mythos about "serving something bigger than yourself," whereas each firm in industry tends to have some more concrete aspirational statement. 3. Government always has many more people on the critical path who can seriously impede work, because they're hard to get rid of or move out of the way, whereas private companies would have no problem firing such people. On the whole, I think even the largest monopoly firms would tend to be at least a few degrees more efficient than government just for missional focus and the ability to remove bad performers. If a competitive firm were to be as (in)efficient as government, it would die. However, communication, internal politics and management are major challenges for any organization at scale. It really is a difference of degrees, not orders of magnitude.