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In the US at least, we've been brainwashed to think that government, by definition, must be bloated, corrupt and inefficient. Believing this axiom, people vote

In the US at least, we've been brainwashed to think that government, by definition, must be bloated, corrupt and inefficient. Believing this axiom, people vote to hand over every possible service to private enterprise. Now we are in a situation where a handful of unelected business men have more power over our lives than the elected government.

brcmthrowaway 2mo ago
There's a certain school of economics that achieved this brainwashing. I forget the name, but it's the one of Milton Friedman. But the trouble is, weren't they right during the Cold War?
- yoyohello13 2mo ago
  > weren't they right during the Cold War? Very possible they were right. Hell, I'd agree it's true of the US gov today. If the message was "the government is currently bloated and corrupt, let's fix that" that's great. Today though the message is "government is inherently bloated and corrupt by it's very nature, and therefore unfixable, let's burn it all down" which is not true and actively harmful to democracy.
- TheOtherHobbes 2mo ago
  No, the Chicago monetarists and neoliberals have never been right. Their dogma, and that entire school, is literally the creation of the banker class who got together after WWII because they didn't want to see Western civilisation degenerate into (the horror...) social democracy. They're the source of all of decades of nonsense about "small government" and "inefficiency" and "rational markets." They pretended to be liberal, and they were fervently anti-communist. But they've always been primarily about the protection and promotion of private monopoly and aristocratic privilege. And influences like von Mises were more than fascist-adjacent. See the Mont Pelerin Society for a partial history.
  - slopinthebag 2mo ago
    Yea the economic ideology that seems most correct is the Austrian school.
    - aiisjustanif 2mo ago
      I think it’s important to highlight they were correct in identifying problems but the solutions were flawed. The book “Wither Socialism?” Explains it well. [1]: https://archive.org/details/whithersocialism0000stig_i9j5/page/n6/mode/1up https://archive.org/details/whithersocialism0000stig_i9j5/pa...
Avicebron 2mo ago
We've let the government get bloated, inefficient and corrupt by allowing private enterprise to have an outsized effect on it. Private enterprise can hire people to live next to DC and spend every waking minute pushing their agenda on politicians. Private enterprise can funnel huge amounts of money into campaigns for their preferred candidates. It only benefits the corporations when we have ancient, technically illiterate politicians jockeying their favorite hobbyhorse policies while throwing up their hands at how "the other side" is blocking them. It's a designed deadlock.
- sharts 2mo ago
  To some degree CIA also infiltrates private orgs to manipulate from inside out. It’s like a private-public partnership /s
SpicyLemonZest 2mo ago
I don’t really understand this perspective? I’m not a small government guy, I think the government ought to play an important role in providing a good regulatory framework and a strong social net. But if someone’s going to have direct power over my life, I’d much prefer a business owner or boss I can freely choose in principle rather than a government official who may not view me as part of their winning coalition.
- yoyohello13 2mo ago
  We seem to be quickly approaching, if we are not already there, a point where you can no longer choose to simply not associate with the billionaires anymore. They have such extreme access to resources and power they essentially control the direction of society whether we want them to or not.
- quantified 2mo ago
  How do you ever choose your boss at work? Never. Oh, by quitting that job and getting another? That's called "moving" when applied to politics. Which is super unattractive in much of regular life, unless you don't need people.
  - slopinthebag 2mo ago
    Getting a new job is completely different from denouncing your citizenship and moving to a different country. Oh also there are no territories without government so you can’t even do that.
    - jhbadger 2mo ago
      You certainly don't need to "denounce your citizenship" to move to another country and work there - I strongly recommend that everybody live at least for a few years in another country for school or a job. Even if you end up settling back in your home country as I did, the experience is incredibly valuable as it teaches you how arbitrary so many of the customs you grew up with are.
  - 2mo ago
mnmnmn 2mo ago
[dead]
slopinthebag 2mo ago
We believe it because it’s true. I think it’s actually way more common for people to have your opinion that governments are not bloated or inefficient as a general rule. And you always criticize the private industry and not the government when it’s the government who has this power in the first place. That’s like over feeding your cat and then blaming the cat.
- yoyohello13 2mo ago
  Honestly, at this point both the government and private enterprise are fucking me so vigorously I don’t know who to hate more.
wdr1 2mo ago
> In the US at least, we've been brainwashed to think that government, by definition, must be bloated, corrupt and inefficient. I don't know that I've been brainwashed, but living most of my life in Chicago & Los Angeles, I've seen a lot of bloat, corruption, & massive inefficiency. Many of friends lost their homes in the Palisades & Altadena fires. If it weren't tragic, it would be laughable the challenges they've faced in rebuilding. Several have kids about to enter high school. A dilemma they face is should they both building a house for their teenage children or assume they'll be off to college -- knowing it could be 3+ years until they're have a permanent home again. In Chicago, I watched the mayor sell of all the parking meters for a fraction of their value. In Los Angeles, I'm watching them struggle to complete the people mover at LAX, a project years later & billions over budget. This doesn't make me anti-government. I see the need for it & I want it work well. But comments like this make me frustrated that people would rather close their eyes & try to gaslight people, rather than acknowledge the problems & talk about how we fix them. I feel our country is split between one side that doesn't want the government to do anything, even when it works, and another side that wants the government to do everything, even when it fails. It's not clear to me where someone in the middle goes.
- yoyohello13 2mo ago
  I never said government should be in charge of everything or claimed our current government to be perfect. I’m pointing out the prevailing ideology (especially among HN and the rich) that government is incapable of being efficient so we don’t even try. Then we hand over critical services to private enterprise with no checks and balances. Our current ideology is so skewed toward “gov bad” that the first step toward moderation is acknowledging that it’s possible for government to do things well in the first place.
- dinfinity 2mo ago
  > I've seen a lot of bloat, corruption, & massive inefficiency [in government]. To what extent is this due to the public nature of the organisations and to what extent is it just the size of them? Are private organisations of similar sizes free from such bloat, corruption and inefficiency? I feel like people often give "businesses" a pass on this. Government projects that are over budget, especially IT-related ones are widely and publicly bemoaned, but this isn't that much different from such projects in private enterprises (although the moaning remains more within the company itself).
chermi 2mo ago
That's not brainwashing, that's lived experience.
xg15 2mo ago
I'm amazed the Ayn Rand books are still part of US school curricula. The world view those books promote is straight-up that the only people in society that count are a few Genius Individuals, the rest is dead weight and leeches. (but everyone is fine with it because they could be one of those Genius Individuals, who knows...) But sure, socialist ideology is pure evil...
ozozozd 2mo ago
Step 1: Start giving contracts to buddies that will become part of your oligarchy and start making them rich with government funds. Step 2: Start hiring their crew members to government positions to later aid them in acquiring licenses for industries they want to monopolize. Step 3: Pass some regulation that your buddies can easily comply with but nearly impossible for everyone else to comply with. Result is a bloated government that spends a ton of money to seemingly achieve nothing, except serve your oligarchy. Now blame the poor and welfare state. So you can keep more of the taxes. Deregulate so your buddies who are now running monopolies can spend less. Give more contracts to new buddies to share the spoils from aforementioned taxes you kept more of. So on, so forth. Oh, remember to keep telling the public about communism and how big governments are bloated and point at the one you designed as evidence that it’s inevitable.

brcmthrowaway 2mo ago

There's a certain school of economics that achieved this brainwashing. I forget the name, but it's the one of Milton Friedman. But the trouble is, weren't they right during the Cold War?

yoyohello13 2mo ago
> weren't they right during the Cold War? Very possible they were right. Hell, I'd agree it's true of the US gov today. If the message was "the government is currently bloated and corrupt, let's fix that" that's great. Today though the message is "government is inherently bloated and corrupt by it's very nature, and therefore unfixable, let's burn it all down" which is not true and actively harmful to democracy.
TheOtherHobbes 2mo ago
No, the Chicago monetarists and neoliberals have never been right. Their dogma, and that entire school, is literally the creation of the banker class who got together after WWII because they didn't want to see Western civilisation degenerate into (the horror...) social democracy. They're the source of all of decades of nonsense about "small government" and "inefficiency" and "rational markets." They pretended to be liberal, and they were fervently anti-communist. But they've always been primarily about the protection and promotion of private monopoly and aristocratic privilege. And influences like von Mises were more than fascist-adjacent. See the Mont Pelerin Society for a partial history.
- slopinthebag 2mo ago
  Yea the economic ideology that seems most correct is the Austrian school.
  - aiisjustanif 2mo ago
    I think it’s important to highlight they were correct in identifying problems but the solutions were flawed. The book “Wither Socialism?” Explains it well. [1]: https://archive.org/details/whithersocialism0000stig_i9j5/page/n6/mode/1up https://archive.org/details/whithersocialism0000stig_i9j5/pa...

Avicebron 2mo ago

We've let the government get bloated, inefficient and corrupt by allowing private enterprise to have an outsized effect on it. Private enterprise can hire people to live next to DC and spend every waking minute pushing their agenda on politicians. Private enterprise can funnel huge amounts of money into campaigns for their preferred candidates. It only benefits the corporations when we have ancient, technically illiterate politicians jockeying their favorite hobbyhorse policies while throwing up their hands at how "the other side" is blocking them. It's a designed deadlock.

sharts 2mo ago
To some degree CIA also infiltrates private orgs to manipulate from inside out. It’s like a private-public partnership /s

SpicyLemonZest 2mo ago

I don’t really understand this perspective? I’m not a small government guy, I think the government ought to play an important role in providing a good regulatory framework and a strong social net. But if someone’s going to have direct power over my life, I’d much prefer a business owner or boss I can freely choose in principle rather than a government official who may not view me as part of their winning coalition.

yoyohello13 2mo ago
We seem to be quickly approaching, if we are not already there, a point where you can no longer choose to simply not associate with the billionaires anymore. They have such extreme access to resources and power they essentially control the direction of society whether we want them to or not.
quantified 2mo ago
How do you ever choose your boss at work? Never. Oh, by quitting that job and getting another? That's called "moving" when applied to politics. Which is super unattractive in much of regular life, unless you don't need people.
- slopinthebag 2mo ago
  Getting a new job is completely different from denouncing your citizenship and moving to a different country. Oh also there are no territories without government so you can’t even do that.
  - jhbadger 2mo ago
    You certainly don't need to "denounce your citizenship" to move to another country and work there - I strongly recommend that everybody live at least for a few years in another country for school or a job. Even if you end up settling back in your home country as I did, the experience is incredibly valuable as it teaches you how arbitrary so many of the customs you grew up with are.
- 2mo ago

mnmnmn 2mo ago

[dead]

slopinthebag 2mo ago

We believe it because it’s true. I think it’s actually way more common for people to have your opinion that governments are not bloated or inefficient as a general rule. And you always criticize the private industry and not the government when it’s the government who has this power in the first place. That’s like over feeding your cat and then blaming the cat.

yoyohello13 2mo ago
Honestly, at this point both the government and private enterprise are fucking me so vigorously I don’t know who to hate more.

wdr1 2mo ago

> In the US at least, we've been brainwashed to think that government, by definition, must be bloated, corrupt and inefficient. I don't know that I've been brainwashed, but living most of my life in Chicago & Los Angeles, I've seen a lot of bloat, corruption, & massive inefficiency. Many of friends lost their homes in the Palisades & Altadena fires. If it weren't tragic, it would be laughable the challenges they've faced in rebuilding. Several have kids about to enter high school. A dilemma they face is should they both building a house for their teenage children or assume they'll be off to college -- knowing it could be 3+ years until they're have a permanent home again. In Chicago, I watched the mayor sell of all the parking meters for a fraction of their value. In Los Angeles, I'm watching them struggle to complete the people mover at LAX, a project years later & billions over budget. This doesn't make me anti-government. I see the need for it & I want it work well. But comments like this make me frustrated that people would rather close their eyes & try to gaslight people, rather than acknowledge the problems & talk about how we fix them. I feel our country is split between one side that doesn't want the government to do anything, even when it works, and another side that wants the government to do everything, even when it fails. It's not clear to me where someone in the middle goes.

yoyohello13 2mo ago
I never said government should be in charge of everything or claimed our current government to be perfect. I’m pointing out the prevailing ideology (especially among HN and the rich) that government is incapable of being efficient so we don’t even try. Then we hand over critical services to private enterprise with no checks and balances. Our current ideology is so skewed toward “gov bad” that the first step toward moderation is acknowledging that it’s possible for government to do things well in the first place.
dinfinity 2mo ago
> I've seen a lot of bloat, corruption, & massive inefficiency [in government]. To what extent is this due to the public nature of the organisations and to what extent is it just the size of them? Are private organisations of similar sizes free from such bloat, corruption and inefficiency? I feel like people often give "businesses" a pass on this. Government projects that are over budget, especially IT-related ones are widely and publicly bemoaned, but this isn't that much different from such projects in private enterprises (although the moaning remains more within the company itself).

chermi 2mo ago

That's not brainwashing, that's lived experience.

xg15 2mo ago

I'm amazed the Ayn Rand books are still part of US school curricula. The world view those books promote is straight-up that the only people in society that count are a few Genius Individuals, the rest is dead weight and leeches. (but everyone is fine with it because they could be one of those Genius Individuals, who knows...) But sure, socialist ideology is pure evil...

ozozozd 2mo ago

Step 1: Start giving contracts to buddies that will become part of your oligarchy and start making them rich with government funds. Step 2: Start hiring their crew members to government positions to later aid them in acquiring licenses for industries they want to monopolize. Step 3: Pass some regulation that your buddies can easily comply with but nearly impossible for everyone else to comply with. Result is a bloated government that spends a ton of money to seemingly achieve nothing, except serve your oligarchy. Now blame the poor and welfare state. So you can keep more of the taxes. Deregulate so your buddies who are now running monopolies can spend less. Give more contracts to new buddies to share the spoils from aforementioned taxes you kept more of. So on, so forth. Oh, remember to keep telling the public about communism and how big governments are bloated and point at the one you designed as evidence that it’s inevitable.