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This here should trigger a red flag when you hear anyone say "The government should be run like a business". Businesses kill themselves all the time from the l
by pixl97 1y ago
This here should trigger a red flag when you hear anyone say "The government should be run like a business".
Businesses kill themselves all the time from the loss of institutional knowledge. We see stuff like "government spends X a year paying people Y to build almost no product Z". Instead, we're paying people Y to be ready to build Z when something goes terribly wrong like war.
- charcircuit 1y agoWhen they say run like a business that doesn't mean that it should be done like a reckless business. Plenty of businesses invest into things like disaster recovery or insurance which they may never need.
- selectodude 1y agoRunning like a business means providing services to profitable customers. This is, surprisingly, the exact opposite of what government is supposed to be doing. The USPS would be plenty profitable if it didn’t have to maintain the infrastructure to deliver a letter from Honolulu to Barrow for 50 cents. Medicare? Not the best business model. Roads? Forget it.
- charcircuit 1y ago>means providing services to profitable customers So Uber wasn't a business for its first 14 years? There are more objectives a business can have than maximize immediate profit. There are other metrics it can try and move.
- stackskipton 1y agoUber was a Business trying to gain a market share in hopes to cement itself as competitor or even become monopoly. It's also clear Uber was building massive ride hailing network so when self-driving cars became a thing, out with human drivers, in with computer drivers. Obviously, that didn't happen. Government does not really have that. All their businesses have 100% market share so to run it profitable, they would have to stop doing unprofitable thing. Like providing healthcare to poor people or delivering from Hawaii to some rural area.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- marcosdumay 1y agoNope. When people say governments should run like a business, they always mean the most reckless version of business you can think of. It's even the only interpretation of that phrase that makes sense, because if you take the optimizing into large risks interpretation away, there's no other way those two can act in similar ways.
- tengbretson 1y agoI don't disagree with your larger point, but specifically in the scenario you outlined, the highly skilled, highly capable people that actually can produce product Z will not be satisfied with that kind of arrangement. All you will have is a daycare for bureaucracy barnacles.
- coredog64 1y agoThere are fixes for this: When I was at the Boeing ASL (pre MDD merger), there were plans to have a group that regularly created a "paper airplane" every two years based on market conditions and product line gaps. If the economy could support a launch, great, you've got a head start. If the economy is down, well, at least you've got the institutional capability to design airplanes. It wasn't a particularly huge cost, and before Harry Stonechisler took over there was money for that type of work within a profitable BCAG.