6 ms·

Why do we outsource arms development to private companies to begin with? Why introduce a profit motive into an essential government function?

pierat 3y ago
Cause the government won't let the government have enough employees to work for government. Instead We pay 2x the cost of an employee as a contractor, and the company keeps half.
callalex 3y ago
It’s very profitable for the shareholders.
winrid 3y ago
Going back on this basically admits capitalism isn't efficient enough :)
whalesalad 3y ago
That’s the way it always has been done. We’ve never had a national industry for this. To undo what has been done is virtually impossible.
somenameforme 3y ago
The simple answer is probably profit, as cynical as it sounds. Not only is a ton of congress literally invested in defense companies [1], including the people overseeing said companies - but the defense companies also directly fund the election campaigns of politicians. [2] Every bomb made, every missile dropped, and every artillery shell launched just makes everybody richer and gets those election coffers stocked even fuller. Alongside the above 2 metrics, I'd also add that a lot of the graft is not directly tracked. For instance play ball with the defense industry while in office, and one can look forward to fatly compensated lobbying or advisory positions after leaving office. Similar to how presidents who play ball with banks/wallstreet get to go get paid $500k/speech for say-nothing 30 minute chats. There's a reason congress has never seen a war it didn't like. [1] - https://www.businessinsider.com/congress-members-are-trading-defense-stocks-while-shaping-military-policy-2021-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/congress-members-are-trading... [2] - https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?Ind=D https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?Ind=D
dilyevsky 3y ago
Soviets did that. The results of this amazing system you can observe on r/combatfootage almost daily now. I'm also curious what makes weapons research and production an "essential government function"? Couldn't the same be said about food, technology and bunch of other things?
- p_l 3y ago
  Russian losses today are not really related to soviet production practices. To quote some US officers - "Soviet equipment works well - in Ukrainian hands". Something something maintenance and logistics are king, even if artillery is the queen.
  - dilyevsky 3y ago
    > To quote some US officers - "Soviet equipment works well - in Ukrainian hands". US officials say a lot of things... I'm much more inclined to believe actual VSU fighters who say it's better.
- pxmpxm 3y ago
  Under appreciated comment.
- solardev 3y ago
  Yeah, the Soviet system didn't work out too well, did it? Though I wonder how much of that was due to central planning vs rampant corruption, of which we're getting more and more of these days too. > I'm also curious what makes weapons research and production an "essential government function"? Couldn't the same be said about food, technology and bunch of other things? Sure. There's a lot of stuff I wish we would nationalize, personally: basically everything that could reasonably be considered an essential, from healthcare to education to food to broadband, leaving aside things like video games, luxury cars, jewelry, blah blah. What is or isn't an "essential" is a necessarily moving target, evolving with society. However, I also have zero faith in Washington to execute anything remotely like that. Canada, maybe, or one of the Asian or Nordic governments...
  - 3y ago
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
Governments have a problem where they get captured by special interests. If you have a lot of government employees, they vote for politicians who give them more money or benefits or refuse to make them redundant even if something changes and what they do is no longer necessary. This means that if you're buying something like trucks, it's generally better for the government to buy ordinary trucks from the market than to operate a public sector auto manufacturing industry that would become bloated and inefficient because it captures the government and isn't subject to competitive pressure. Even if the trucks are critical to some government function. This works fine as long as the bidding process is open to anyone, because then the government just buys cars from carmakers and uniforms from tailors and you ideally don't end up with a voting block of government-exclusive tailors insisting that they need to be able to retire at age 55 with full benefits. Private tailors who insisted on that to a private contractor would be refused because the contractor couldn't give them that while submitting a competitive bid for the government contract. The problem comes when the government starts making it harder to bid on a government contract, because then the only bidders become companies that specialize in government contracting. At which point the contractors are just government employees by proxy -- they have no private customers, they only work for the government -- so then the government just gets captured again. What should be happening is that the government puts out bids to design a tank, anyone can submit one, and the winner gets paid for the rights to the design. Then the government takes the design and put out bids to build each of the parts for the tank and gets bids from all of the companies that normally make water pumps and hydraulics for cars and homes and construction equipment. Then they take bids to assemble those parts into a tank. Then they take bids to do maintenance on the tanks. Anyone can bid who is qualified, and because the contracts are each small and as generic as possible, lots of ordinary businesses are qualified. But instead they put out a single contract to do all of that, end up with a concentrated market of companies who specialize in government contracting, and you lose the benefit of market competition because you no longer have any.
- solardev 3y ago
  That's an excellent and even-handed take on a complex topic. Thanks for your thoughtfulness!
- 3y ago

pierat 3y ago

Cause the government won't let the government have enough employees to work for government. Instead We pay 2x the cost of an employee as a contractor, and the company keeps half.

callalex 3y ago

It’s very profitable for the shareholders.

winrid 3y ago

Going back on this basically admits capitalism isn't efficient enough :)

whalesalad 3y ago

That’s the way it always has been done. We’ve never had a national industry for this. To undo what has been done is virtually impossible.

somenameforme 3y ago

The simple answer is probably profit, as cynical as it sounds. Not only is a ton of congress literally invested in defense companies [1], including the people overseeing said companies - but the defense companies also directly fund the election campaigns of politicians. [2] Every bomb made, every missile dropped, and every artillery shell launched just makes everybody richer and gets those election coffers stocked even fuller. Alongside the above 2 metrics, I'd also add that a lot of the graft is not directly tracked. For instance play ball with the defense industry while in office, and one can look forward to fatly compensated lobbying or advisory positions after leaving office. Similar to how presidents who play ball with banks/wallstreet get to go get paid $500k/speech for say-nothing 30 minute chats. There's a reason congress has never seen a war it didn't like. [1] - https://www.businessinsider.com/congress-members-are-trading-defense-stocks-while-shaping-military-policy-2021-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/congress-members-are-trading... [2] - https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?Ind=D https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?Ind=D

dilyevsky 3y ago

Soviets did that. The results of this amazing system you can observe on r/combatfootage almost daily now. I'm also curious what makes weapons research and production an "essential government function"? Couldn't the same be said about food, technology and bunch of other things?

p_l 3y ago
Russian losses today are not really related to soviet production practices. To quote some US officers - "Soviet equipment works well - in Ukrainian hands". Something something maintenance and logistics are king, even if artillery is the queen.
- dilyevsky 3y ago
  > To quote some US officers - "Soviet equipment works well - in Ukrainian hands". US officials say a lot of things... I'm much more inclined to believe actual VSU fighters who say it's better.
pxmpxm 3y ago
Under appreciated comment.
solardev 3y ago
Yeah, the Soviet system didn't work out too well, did it? Though I wonder how much of that was due to central planning vs rampant corruption, of which we're getting more and more of these days too. > I'm also curious what makes weapons research and production an "essential government function"? Couldn't the same be said about food, technology and bunch of other things? Sure. There's a lot of stuff I wish we would nationalize, personally: basically everything that could reasonably be considered an essential, from healthcare to education to food to broadband, leaving aside things like video games, luxury cars, jewelry, blah blah. What is or isn't an "essential" is a necessarily moving target, evolving with society. However, I also have zero faith in Washington to execute anything remotely like that. Canada, maybe, or one of the Asian or Nordic governments...
- 3y ago

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

Governments have a problem where they get captured by special interests. If you have a lot of government employees, they vote for politicians who give them more money or benefits or refuse to make them redundant even if something changes and what they do is no longer necessary. This means that if you're buying something like trucks, it's generally better for the government to buy ordinary trucks from the market than to operate a public sector auto manufacturing industry that would become bloated and inefficient because it captures the government and isn't subject to competitive pressure. Even if the trucks are critical to some government function. This works fine as long as the bidding process is open to anyone, because then the government just buys cars from carmakers and uniforms from tailors and you ideally don't end up with a voting block of government-exclusive tailors insisting that they need to be able to retire at age 55 with full benefits. Private tailors who insisted on that to a private contractor would be refused because the contractor couldn't give them that while submitting a competitive bid for the government contract. The problem comes when the government starts making it harder to bid on a government contract, because then the only bidders become companies that specialize in government contracting. At which point the contractors are just government employees by proxy -- they have no private customers, they only work for the government -- so then the government just gets captured again. What should be happening is that the government puts out bids to design a tank, anyone can submit one, and the winner gets paid for the rights to the design. Then the government takes the design and put out bids to build each of the parts for the tank and gets bids from all of the companies that normally make water pumps and hydraulics for cars and homes and construction equipment. Then they take bids to assemble those parts into a tank. Then they take bids to do maintenance on the tanks. Anyone can bid who is qualified, and because the contracts are each small and as generic as possible, lots of ordinary businesses are qualified. But instead they put out a single contract to do all of that, end up with a concentrated market of companies who specialize in government contracting, and you lose the benefit of market competition because you no longer have any.

solardev 3y ago
That's an excellent and even-handed take on a complex topic. Thanks for your thoughtfulness!
3y ago