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The reason bureaucracies seem efficient is that they must be able to (1) complete the mission reliably over long periods of time, in the face of (2) staff churn

The reason bureaucracies seem efficient is that they must be able to (1) complete the mission reliably over long periods of time, in the face of (2) staff churn and loss, without (3) collapsing the first time a critical mass of experts leaves the org. This means you have to sacrifice systems that rely on the enthusiasm of "10x experts" in favor of systems that can reliably recruit talent (at GS salaries.) And this is before you get to the mountains of political crap placed on an org by elected leaders. It is incredibly challenging to create orgs that reliably stay on-mission over many years.

fallingknife 1y ago
Companies manage to handle all 3 of those things without the inefficiently (or at least a lot less of it). As for the terrible salaries and mountains of political crap, that's the real issue here. But these are changeable and shouldn't just be accepted as inevitable as is so often done by defenders of government bureaucracy.
- drabbiticus 1y ago
  > Companies manage to handle all 3 of those things without the inefficiently (or at least a lot less of it). Do they? The first two results on Google for "government vs private efficiency" are https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/publications/GCPSE_Efficiency.pdf https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/publicati... and https://www.epsu.org/article/public-and-private-sector-efficiency https://www.epsu.org/article/public-and-private-sector-effic..., which both suggest that it is a myth that companies are inherently more efficient than government. It's also worth mentioning that governments and companies inherently must operate differently. Governments are not set up to recoup investment; in fact, proponents of small government (as opposed to no government) generally recognize that the role of government is to assist in preventing "tragedy of the commons" by funding initiatives and programs that fundamentally do not make sense for a single market player to address. I.e. government helps when there isn't a good path for a single market player to see a good/reliable economic and market-competitive return from their investment.
  - fallingknife 1y ago
    > The report examines evidence from nine sectors - electricity, health, waste management and water, prisons, buses, ports and airports, railways and telecom,. Yeah, if you examine only utilities and monopolies they are not more efficient than the government. That's not a surprise because they don't face competition and are heavily politically controlled.
    - drabbiticus 1y ago
      Do you have evidence suggesting a clear discrepancy in efficiency in other sectors?
      - fallingknife 1y ago
        Only every single interaction with the government I have ever had and the experience of everyone I know who works in industries where they have to deal with the government on a regular basis.
        drabbiticus 1y ago
        If lived experience is the only bar of evidence you will consider, there are plenty of stories of fraud, corruption and anti-competitive behavior in industry that have hurt real people. Insurance (duh), devs who get shafted by Apple store policies or other entities without recourse to a human, outright scams and spam i.e. cryptodumps, every major game release that seems to either get delayed or released with show-stopping bugs, etc EDIT: s/accept/consider
        wredcoll 1y ago
        I think once you join the workforce and are employed you'll start seeing some company inefficiencies.
        fallingknife 1y ago
        I see it every day and it doesn't come close to the insanity of government
- mcphage 1y ago
  > Companies manage to handle all 3 of those things without the inefficiently (or at least a lot less of it). Have you… never worked for a large company? They’re incredibly inefficient! And also, the staff cost a whole lot more.
- thunderfork 1y ago
  A profound number of companies fail every year and cease to exist, which is probably more inefficient (and also not an outcome that many would consider acceptable in a government context.) Of the ones that survive[1], some may be more efficient, but whether they remain efficient, effective and extant in the long term is not a given. [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
- ted_dunning 1y ago
  Can you tell me which companies have run very, very large financial systems in the US for the last 250 years?
anonymars 1y ago
Efficiency and resiliency are generally at opposite ends of a spectrum. COVID supply chain disruptions demonstrated that in spades

fallingknife 1y ago

Companies manage to handle all 3 of those things without the inefficiently (or at least a lot less of it). As for the terrible salaries and mountains of political crap, that's the real issue here. But these are changeable and shouldn't just be accepted as inevitable as is so often done by defenders of government bureaucracy.

drabbiticus 1y ago
> Companies manage to handle all 3 of those things without the inefficiently (or at least a lot less of it). Do they? The first two results on Google for "government vs private efficiency" are https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/publications/GCPSE_Efficiency.pdf https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/publicati... and https://www.epsu.org/article/public-and-private-sector-efficiency https://www.epsu.org/article/public-and-private-sector-effic..., which both suggest that it is a myth that companies are inherently more efficient than government. It's also worth mentioning that governments and companies inherently must operate differently. Governments are not set up to recoup investment; in fact, proponents of small government (as opposed to no government) generally recognize that the role of government is to assist in preventing "tragedy of the commons" by funding initiatives and programs that fundamentally do not make sense for a single market player to address. I.e. government helps when there isn't a good path for a single market player to see a good/reliable economic and market-competitive return from their investment.
- fallingknife 1y ago
  > The report examines evidence from nine sectors - electricity, health, waste management and water, prisons, buses, ports and airports, railways and telecom,. Yeah, if you examine only utilities and monopolies they are not more efficient than the government. That's not a surprise because they don't face competition and are heavily politically controlled.
  - drabbiticus 1y ago
    Do you have evidence suggesting a clear discrepancy in efficiency in other sectors?
    - fallingknife 1y ago
      Only every single interaction with the government I have ever had and the experience of everyone I know who works in industries where they have to deal with the government on a regular basis.
      - drabbiticus 1y ago
        If lived experience is the only bar of evidence you will consider, there are plenty of stories of fraud, corruption and anti-competitive behavior in industry that have hurt real people. Insurance (duh), devs who get shafted by Apple store policies or other entities without recourse to a human, outright scams and spam i.e. cryptodumps, every major game release that seems to either get delayed or released with show-stopping bugs, etc EDIT: s/accept/consider
      - wredcoll 1y ago
        I think once you join the workforce and are employed you'll start seeing some company inefficiencies.
        fallingknife 1y ago
        I see it every day and it doesn't come close to the insanity of government
mcphage 1y ago
> Companies manage to handle all 3 of those things without the inefficiently (or at least a lot less of it). Have you… never worked for a large company? They’re incredibly inefficient! And also, the staff cost a whole lot more.
thunderfork 1y ago
A profound number of companies fail every year and cease to exist, which is probably more inefficient (and also not an outcome that many would consider acceptable in a government context.) Of the ones that survive[1], some may be more efficient, but whether they remain efficient, effective and extant in the long term is not a given. [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
ted_dunning 1y ago
Can you tell me which companies have run very, very large financial systems in the US for the last 250 years?

anonymars 1y ago

Efficiency and resiliency are generally at opposite ends of a spectrum. COVID supply chain disruptions demonstrated that in spades