> How is this possible? Profit, by definition, inefficient Profit offloads risk from taxpayers by attracting private investment, rather than state investment.

> How is this possible? Profit, by definition, inefficient Profit offloads risk from taxpayers by attracting private investment, rather than state investment. This means investors can lose all their money and taxpayers are totally insulated. Profit also means bad ideas are discarded. The space shuttle costing $1.5bn per flight in 2010 dollars[0] must surely at least give you some inkling that profit is not the only inefficiency, and definitely isn't the biggest one. People won't make a profit on things that are just boring and everything's been sufficiently worked out. This will be a race to the bottom regardless of whether something is privately owned or publically owned. However we want people to be able to be successful on things that benefit us and have a decent chance of going wrong. Otherwise you just lumber everyone with debt that needs paying back via taxes over a couple of generations, or you never try at all. [0] https://www.space.com/11358-nasa-space-shuttle-program-cost-30-years.html https://www.space.com/11358-nasa-space-shuttle-program-cost-...