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Government employees do not work for the nebulous collective will of the population. They work for the government, which is a structured entity.

• nemothekid 3y ago
  This distinction is meaningless. The motivations of the "structured entity" is defined by the nebulous collective will of the population. If the elected members of the "structured entity" feel as though the best course of action is for those employees not work, then they don't have to work. I don't know why the needs to Tesla should have higher weight than those of electorate. If PostNord was a private, shareholder owned company, sure those shareholders may value revenue over social cohesion.
  • wyager 3y ago
    > This distinction is meaningless. Only if you subscribe to the most naive grade-school model of democracy. A government isn't actually the will of the people made manifest; it's an organization made up of people, processes, and constraints. Just like a corporation isn't actually the will of the shareholders made manifest. > The motivations of the "structured entity" is defined by the nebulous collective will of the population. Once again, this is an absurdly naive view of how governments function. There is a voting mechanism in place which usually does a sort of OK job of keeping the government's behavior in line with the population's preferences, but this breaks down all the time and even in equilibrium doesn't work very well. I suggest reading Bueno de Mesquita's _The Logic of Political Survival_ if you're interested in developing a realistic model for how government behavior emerges.